Land Academy Show: Recent Episodes
Steven Butala & Jill DeWit
When you find yourself working with a not-so-good real estate agent, you must do everything in your power to put an end to the listing agreement right away. Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit share various approaches to escaping such a partnership that has gone off the rails. Learn what it takes to part amicably with your agent, as well as some tips on avoiding this situation as much as possible and addressing conflicts as soon as they arise.
Do texting and emailing yield interesting results in real estate? Steven Jack Butala and Jill K DeWit have tried these approaches, and in this episode, they reveal whether these are worth doing in your land business. They compare texting and emailing to direct mail, how to comply with existing solicitation laws, and the impact of sending personalized follow-up messages.
Due diligence should be your responsibility because no one will care about your investment like you do. In this episode, Steven Jack Butala and Jill K DeWit discuss why doing your own due diligence is a must rather than relying on outsourcing the task. They explore how hands-on due diligence empowers you with a deeper understanding of potential properties and keeps you in control of every detail. Steven and Jill also offer practical advice on when outsourcing can be useful for certain tasks, while still keeping you at the helm of your investment strategy.
Steven Jack Butala and Jill K DeWit discuss Case Study 5, which features a young, outgoing Californian who generates six digits flipping land in a single county. They offer him valuable advice on how to successfully buy small houses and land even while going nonstop with his grind.
Meet a remarkable first-generation European couple who left their homeland to pursue their dreams in the competitive real estate market. Overcoming language barriers, cultural differences, and industry complexities, they built a successful land flipping business that sustains their family and creates lasting wealth. Their captivating journey is one of perseverance, resilience, and the power of believing in yourself. Join Steven Jack Butala and Jill K DeWit as they share the inspiring fourth Case Study of the series and learn valuable lessons about succeeding in foreign markets and adapting to new challenges in land investing.
Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit dive into an inspiring case study featuring a former Global Pharmaceutical Brand Manager who made a bold career shift into land investment. Through hard work, dedication, and smart strategies, she has achieved remarkable success, even retiring her husband along the way. Jill and Steven explore how this determined investor navigated the transition from corporate life to building a thriving business in land buying and selling. Tune in to hear practical insights and a unique story of transforming one’s life and career.
Join Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit in this episode of The Land Academy Show as they dive into case study number two, featuring a Canadian couple who flips over five properties each month. They explore the strategies that have fueled this couple’s impressive success, examining their determination and adaptability in the property market. Discover the lessons learned from their experiences and how they navigate challenges, all while sharing insights that can inspire and inform your property-flipping endeavors.
Who knew a social media expert could flip land into a million-dollar empire? In this episode, hosts Steven Jack Butala and Jill K DeWit dive into the inspiring journey of a Land Academy Pro member who transformed her marketing background into a booming land-flipping business. From managing complex financing deals to pivoting to high-cash sales, hear how she leveraged her digital expertise to scale her investment success. Join us as we discuss her fearless approach, knack for problem-solving, and the relentless drive that made her a land-flipping millionaire.
Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit discuss the right way to capitalize on the ever-present real estate industry and its cultural changes. Tune in as they emphasize the strategic way to change with the times and the power of flexibility to ensure the longevity of your business.
Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit continue their discussion about the five phases of building your real estate empire. In this fourth episode of their five-part series, they discuss how to institutionalize the operations portion of your business.
Expand or die—it's that simple. In this episode, Steven Jack Butala and Jill K DeWit tackle one of the most pivotal steps in growing your real estate business: expanding beyond land deals into other real estate types. They dive into the importance of diversification and break down how the systems you've already built for land deals can easily be adapted to new markets. If you’ve nailed the basics and want to take your real estate empire to the next level, this episode is packed with actionable insights on leveraging what you know to scale your business and achieve lasting success.
Jack Butala and Jill DeWit dive into the exciting phase of land automation, where they explore how to put your land business on autopilot. Whether you're just getting started or looking to streamline your processes, this episode offers valuable insights into scaling your operations efficiently. Learn how to optimize each phase of your business, delegate tasks, and keep your land deals running smoothly without constant hands-on involvement. Join the conversation and discover how to take your real estate empire to the next level!
The first step towards building a thriving land business empire is nailing down the basics. Join Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit for a week-long journey into the five phases of building your land business empire! In Monday's episode, they tackle the crucial first step: nailing down the basics. Jack covers the technical aspects, while Jill brings her creative flair to the conversation about making impactful real estate deals. Discover how to establish your brand, automate your operations, and navigate industry shifts, all while gaining practical insights to propel your success in the land business. Don’t miss this engaging series designed to inspire and inform your real estate ambitions!
In this episode, Jack and Jill dive into the final phase of the land investment journey: land selling. From setting up the perfect listing to working with local agents, you'll learn key strategies to ensure a smooth and profitable sale. Whether you're an experienced investor or just starting out, Jack and Jill share their expertise on maximizing your success in the land market. Tune in to discover how you can simplify the land selling process and close your next deal with confidence.
In this episode, we dive into the exciting world of land purchase and what it takes to acquire a property successfully. Jack and Jill guide you through the key steps in the land-buying process, from evaluating deals to securing the best opportunities. Whether you're a seasoned land investor or just starting, you'll learn valuable tips and insights to help you make smarter land investments. Join us as we explore how to navigate the complexities of buying property and set yourself up for a profitable transaction.
Creating a land deal where there was none starts with a simple phone call. In episode 2046, Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit delve into the fascinating process of creating a land deal where there initially seemed to be none, sharing their expert strategies for reaching out to sellers. This involves sending out mailers, effectively answering phone calls from interested sellers, and negotiating deals quickly. Additionally, they introduce their upcoming Career Path 10 program, designed for ambitious investors looking to elevate their game. Join them for insights on transforming potential into profit in the land investment space!
Mastering the art of pricing and sending your land mailer is essential for maximizing your real estate investment returns. In this episode of our five-part series, Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit dive into the essential strategies for pricing and sending your land mailer to engage landowners and unlock real estate opportunities. Building on Monday’s discussion about setting land acquisition criteria, this episode delves into the intricacies of crafting a compelling mailer. They also tackle common misconceptions about the process, highlighting the value of experience and strategic planning. Join Jack and Jill as they break down these essential steps and pave the way for successful land deals.
How do you buy great land deals without guessing? In this episode, we take you through the entire process of buying and reselling a piece of land, focusing on setting your acquisition criteria and finding the best places to send your mailers. Hosts Steven Jack Butala and Jill K DeWit dive into how to use data—not guesses—to locate profitable areas and create a solid plan for land investment. From dealing with unexpected challenges, like natural disasters, to setting realistic financial goals, this episode is packed with expert tips on how to succeed in land acquisition. Whether you're just starting or ready to scale, this episode will give you the framework to build a profitable land business.
In this episode of the Land Academy Show, Steven Jack Butala and Jill K DeWit dive deep into the essentials of land acquisitions. They discuss the "8 A's" framework, focusing on the importance of being "Alive, Abundant, and Afraid" when evaluating potential land deals. Whether you're new to land investing or looking to refine your acquisition strategy, this episode will guide you through critical factors for success. Tune in to learn how to make smarter decisions in your land business and avoid common pitfalls.
Attributes are key to making informed land investment decisions. Join Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit on this episode of the Land Academy show as they delve into the essential attributes for successful land investing within the 8 A's framework. They discuss how identifying and leveraging these unique qualities can significantly increase your chances of success in the land business. As they discuss their unique approach to evaluating properties, you'll learn how to leverage key attributes to stand out in the market and make informed investments. Don't miss this captivating discussion that has the potential to revolutionize your investing strategy and propel you to new heights of achievement.
Is bigger really better when it comes to land investing? In this episode, Steven Jack Butala and Jill K DeWit break down the importance of acreage—one of the eight A’s in their proven due diligence process. They dive into why larger parcels of land can offer unique opportunities for profit, how to ensure you’re getting the right acreage, and what to look for when evaluating potential deals. Whether it’s 5 or 10 acres, they explain how acreage influences value and marketability. Tune in to learn how to spot opportunities in land size and make informed decisions for your land business.
Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit continue their discussion about the eight A’s of due diligence in a land business, this time talking about access and adjacent. They explain the difference between physical and legal access, the concept of adjacent properties in land acquisition, and all of the legalities in between you have to know about.
How do you know if a land deal is truly affordable? In this episode, Steven Jack Butala and Jill K DeWit dive deep into the concept of "Affordable" as one of the eight As of due diligence. They share how these eight As, developed through years of experience, can help you evaluate and determine whether a property is worth buying. This time, they focus specifically on the "Affordable" aspect—how to assess if a deal makes financial sense and how to negotiate the best price. They also discuss why having a solid acquisition criteria template is key to removing emotion from your investment decisions and making confident, data-driven choices. Tune in to gain insights that will help you make smart, profitable land deals
Steven Jack Butala and Jill K DeWit dive deep into one of the most crucial aspects of land deals: land access. Whether you're buying property with no physical access or looking to add value to a parcel of land by establishing access, this episode offers valuable insights. Jack and Jill break down the steps to secure land access, the impact on property value, and common challenges you might face. Tune in to discover how to approach land access issues confidently and strategically.
Does adding water and sewer always increase a land's value? In this episode, Steven Jack Butala and Jill K DeWit tackle the common question of whether utilities like water and sewer really add value to a land acquisition. They discuss the scenarios where utilities make a difference and when they’re just not worth the fuss. From rural land with no infrastructure to prime plots with full hookups, Jack and Jill share how to evaluate utility presence without letting it overshadow the bigger picture. Learn how to avoid getting caught in the "utility trap" and make smart, profit-focused decisions for your land deals.
Is buy-and-hold a good land investing tactic? Why not resell it as fast as possible? Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit explain how holding properties and letting them simmer can deliver way more value to your land business. They share how they categorize properties into three buckets and how the buy-and-hold strategy compares to the fix-and-flip approach.
Flipping mobile homes can add incredible value to your land business. In this episode, Steven Jack Butala and Jill K DeWit reveal how buying and flipping mobile homes can be a powerful addition to your land investment strategy. They discuss the pros and cons of mobile home deals, how they differ from vacant land, and the specific steps needed to make these deals profitable. With insights from their own experiences and a touch of humor, they guide you through everything from pricing mobile homes to understanding the unique market dynamics. Tune in to discover why adding mobile homes to your portfolio could be the key to maximizing your profits.
In this episode of The Land Academy Show, Steven Jack Butala and Jill K DeWit discuss the topic of adding value to a land deal by minor splitting or subdividing land. They define minor splitting and subdivision, and explain the processes involved in each. Steven and Jill also share their personal experiences with minor splitting, and offer advice to listeners who are considering this strategy. They emphasize that minor splitting can be a profitable way to add value to land, but it is important to do your research and understand the risks involved before getting started.
In episode 2033, Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit explore the power of partnership funding for land and house-flipping deals. We'll recap why using a money partner, rather than taking on debt, can be a game-changer and share key insights from this week’s episodes. You'll also learn the step-by-step process from purchase to sale, the differences between land and house funding, and how partnership deals can boost your profits. Plus, we answer a listener question about buying property through an LLC, offering tips to avoid legal pitfalls. Tune in for practical advice and strategies to succeed in real estate!
When it comes to funding flip deals, the choice between land and houses can significantly impact your investment journey. In episode 2032, Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit break down the key differences between funding land and house flip deals. Discover which strategy aligns better with your financial goals and risk tolerance. From the cash-intensive nature of house flips to the potential for big bucks with land deals, this episode offers practical advice for making smart investment choices. Join them for an informative dive into successful funding strategies for your next flip deal!
Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit have handled hundreds of land funding deals. Now, they are ready to reveal their secrets. In this episode, they offer a step-by-step guide on how they do these deals, providing an easy-to-emulate roadmap to huge real estate investing wins.
How can land deal funding help you make money without spending a single penny? In this episode, Steven Jack Butala and Jill K DeWit reveal how to build wealth by leveraging other people’s money (OPM). Learn the top strategies for funding land and house flips without using your own capital, avoid common pitfalls, and maximize your profits through smart partnerships. Whether you’re new to real estate or an experienced investor, this episode walks you through the exact steps to scale your business, grow your bank account, and achieve financial freedom through effective land deal funding.
Why take on debt when you can partner up and fund your next big land deal? In this episode, Steven Jack Butala and Jill K DeWit dive into the critical choice between using a partner to fund your land or house flips versus taking on debt. With their decades of experience, they break down the benefits of partnering for fast, hassle-free funding and explain why debt may not be the best route in the world of real estate. Whether you’re a seasoned investor or just getting started, learn how the right partnership can propel your deals and profits forward.
In this episode, Steven Jack Butala and Jill K DeWit dive into the crucial steps of getting a land deal under contract in just two days. If you're navigating land investments, time is of the essence, and this episode walks you through the process of securing deals quickly and efficiently. Jack and Jill discuss the psychology behind closing deals, key strategies for success, and common pitfalls to avoid. Whether you're new to land investing or experienced in the field, this episode offers practical advice to help you stay ahead in the competitive real estate market.
How often does land purchase price renegotiation happen? Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit answer this question by sharing their own negotiation tactics, especially some they have conceptualized and developed themselves.
In this episode, hosts Steven Jack Butala and Jill K DeWit dive into the powerful red green yellow test, a method they developed for determining the best places to send direct mail for real estate deals. This technique has become a key part of Land Academy’s success and has been widely adopted by others in the industry. Learn how the red green yellow test works, why it’s so effective, and how you can use it to make smarter, data-driven decisions when sending out your next batch of mail.
Experience the power of consistent land deal flow with the Land Academy system. In episode 2025, Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit dive into the Land Academy system and reveal how it can automate your land investing success. Learn how the Land Academy system can streamline your investing process, from identifying promising properties to closing deals with ease. Discover the power of direct mail campaigns, negotiation strategies, and the Land Academy’s exclusive red, green, and yellow system. Tune in to learn how to simplify your land investment journey and maximize your opportunities!
In today’s fast-paced world, having a strong phone presence is essential for building relationships, conveying confidence, and achieving your goals. In Episode 2024, Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit dive deep into the art of phone presence in real estate negotiations. They discuss why how you communicate over the phone can significantly influence negotiations and client relationships. Through role-playing and answering listener questions, they demonstrate the impact of effective phone communication on closing deals and building lasting relationships. Tune in to discover how mastering this skill can transform your real estate transactions and skyrocket your success.
In this episode, Steven Jack Butala and Jill K. DeWit discuss the importance of choosing the right real estate markets for investment in 2024. They break down the steps they take when choosing where to buy, highlighting data-driven approaches to ensure profitable results. Whether you're considering land, homes, or commercial properties, understanding the dynamics of real estate markets is key to success. Tune in to learn how they evaluate different areas and what factors matter most when making investment decisions. This episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to navigate the real estate landscape confidently.
From proof of concept to building a legacy, every land investor’s journey is unique. In this episode, Steven Jack Butala and Jill K DeWit walk us through the stages of being a Land Academy member, filled with humorous banter and practical insights. Whether you’re just getting started or scaling to advanced deals, they break down the life cycle of land investing—from sending your first mailers to creating a system that sustains your real estate lifestyle. With questions from listeners about data pulling and mailing strategies, this episode is packed with tips to help you succeed at any phase of your land investment career. Tune in for an entertaining and informative ride!
In this episode, Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit dive into the concept of the real estate breakpoint—an essential strategy for finding the sweet spot in pricing within any market. Discover how understanding the pricing breakpoint can help you make smarter investment decisions, whether you're dealing with houses, land, or other property types. This episode offers insights and tips to help you navigate the complexities of real estate pricing and leverage this knowledge to your advantage. Tune in as Steven and Jill share their expertise on how to identify and capitalize on breakpoints in your target markets.
In today’s competitive real estate market, standing out requires more than just good pricing. In this episode of The Land Academy Show, Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit tackle the topic of creating irresistible real estate deals. They explore the essential components that make a real estate deal stand out, including strategic pricing, unique attributes, and the importance of location. They emphasize the importance of understanding the market, conducting thorough research, and having clear acquisition criteria to identify and acquire these lucrative deals. This episode provides valuable insights on how to generate and capitalize on profitable opportunities in the market.
In this episode, Steven Jack Butala and Jill K DeWit delve into how to adjust your land business for the evolving real estate environment in 2024 and 2025. As seasoned experts who have weathered multiple economic downturns, they share key strategies for adapting to market shifts, ensuring your business remains profitable and resilient. Tune in to discover the adjustments you need to make now to thrive in a changing landscape.
Sending the right blind offer to the right landowner can be the game-changer that unlocks incredible opportunities. In this episode, Steven Jack Butala and Jill K DeWit dive into the strategies behind crafting blind offers that deliver results. They break down the three different types, share insights from their extensive experience, and discuss what really works in today's competitive market. Whether you're new to the business or a seasoned pro, this episode is packed with actionable advice on how to refine your mailer tactics and close more deals. Tune in to discover the subtle art of making offers that land.
In this episode of “The Land Academy Show,” hosts Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit reveal their proven strategies for surviving a recession in the real estate market. They share their personal experiences of navigating tough economic times without a property acquisition pipeline, offering practical advice and key takeaways to prepare you and your land flipping business for economic downturns. Don’t miss these valuable insights that can guide you in making informed decisions during challenging times. Tune in now to learn how to thrive in any market condition!
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Listen to the podcast hereSurviving A Real Estate Recession Without An Acquisition Pipeline (LA 2017)This is episode number 2,016. We are talking about when Jill and I were poor. This is our story of getting caught in the real estate recession without a property acquisition pipeline and a lot more. This was not that long ago.
Do you know what’s interesting? I never worried. I don’t know if that’s nature or nurture. I don’t think you have that same feeling.
I really want to cover that topic because it’s important for people. The recession is here, and it’s going to get much worse from a real estate standpoint way before it gets better. In the next three years, we’re going to go through this.
It’s going to be interesting.
There are a lot of things you can do before it gets bad. I want you to learn from my mistakes. That’s my point.
Surviving a recession isn't just about having money; it's about strategic thinking and making the right moves before it gets worse.
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That’s why you’re here.
Answering A Land Academy Community QuestionEach week on the show, we answer a question from our Land Academy Member Discord forum. We take a deep dive into a land-related topic by popular request from our Land Academy community. Let’s take one question.
Jenny wrote, “I talked to a seller about a piece of land that I want to sell from my offer price of $11,752. It’s 2.65 acres with a house, a chicken coop, and a workshop on it. There’s no septic, though or any kind of sewage. In the area, it’s about $20,000 per acre without anything on it in the state of Pennsylvania. It’s right off of a main road.
I asked why they were selling it, and they said they couldn’t keep it anymore and that the kids didn’t want it. They need the cash fast. They sounded emotional. No back taxes, etc., so I’m sending someone out there to take a look at it and take a lot of pictures. I’m also pinching myself a little bit. I’m wondering what I’m missing. I flipped derelict houses before, but they said this is in livable condition. At this price, I don’t see how I can go wrong. Is this the model working? My question to the group is, what could go wrong here? How can I lose?”
Nothing.
That’s it.
Land Academy is working for you or you’re making it work for you. It’s interesting. Let’s tap into a topic. I have the same kind of doom and gloom reaction, “What am I missing here? Everything worked. I followed what I was supposed to do in Land Academy. I worked through the education. I reached out to people in Discord as you’re doing, and it worked. I must be missing something.” Jill would be jumping up and down, saying, “Let’s get this thing closed.”
That’s right. I’d be like, “Done deal. Let’s go.”
She’d be like, “Let’s get on to the next one.” That’s my advice to you here. You’re not missing a thing. It’s all the regular stuff. Make sure you get an inspection before you close. It sounds like you’ve done flipped house deals before. Make sure it meets with your approval. There’s going to be some stuff in there. I’m sure you’re not going to renegotiate the price. You’re probably going to sell this for $50,000, $60,000, $80,000, or $100,000.
Challenges With Imperfect PropertiesDo you know what’s interesting about this? This taps into people seeing a less-than-perfect structure, whether it’s a falling down mobile home or a house that’s old or it’s not hooked up to anything. It’s like, “We have running water, but we don’t have this.” Sometimes, people see those as problems. That could be what’s going on in the seller’s mind. It’s not a perfectly beautiful model tree piece of land. It’s got the structure on it.
In reality, we both know that it’s all positive. If it was rural, vacant, stupid, with nothing on it, not even mode, it’s worth $20,000 an acre, and you’re getting a two-and-a-half acres kind of thing with a structure on it. The big picture is when you get to these situations and you’re concerned about what condition this is in, you’re doing everything right, Jenny. Sit back and say, “If it was vacant land, would I still buy it for $11,000?” If the answer is yes, you power through. No matter what, anything on it is a little asset. I don’t care if it’s a falling down shed or a couple of rusty parked cars there. Somebody’s going to want them.
I agree.
Were you going to add a little something to this? Is that what you’re doing?
What I’m doing is looking up the name of the person who wrote this because I’m not sure it was Jenny.
I’m sorry.
My bad. I apologize.
We’re calling you Jenny. We’re sorry we didn’t have time to find the exact name. It’s all good.
Here’s the thing. What Jill and I are famous for in our personal lives is complicating things and overtalking things with each other. It doesn’t happen in business for some reason because we’re like, “Let’s buy it or not,” and, “Let’s get it done.” Don’t overthink it. I would personally get this thing under contract. Go through the motions of buying the piece of property and reselling it, which sounds like it’s going to happen fast. Especially in this economic environment, this is cheap housing. This is affordable housing. I would sit down with myself, figure out what I did right, and try to duplicate it. You did it right. Maybe you seek out properties with structures on them instead of faking land.
What was the percentage? Was there a percentage of improvement that snuck into your mailer that you didn’t know about? Look how you won.
I’d take a look around Pennsylvania, the Midwest, or whatever and see if there are a lot of properties like this. Maybe the assessor knows that there are improvements or they don’t know. Maybe it’s showing up in the data, but it’s not. Dig in and duplicate it. This topic is about when Jill and I were poor. It’s our story of getting caught in a real estate recession without a property acquisition pipeline.
I’m going to say two things. Number one, this is not cool.
This topic?
Yeah. The topic is not cool, but it’s real. I want to make a point, too. That’s one of the things about us and about Land Academy and why you’re here. We are not brand new. I’ve not done my first 100 deals, but I’ve been at it for a year and a half, and I’m the best. You’ve been at this for 30 years and me 15. When we’re talking about when we were poor, we’re talking about the darkest one because we have both been through recessions. I’ve been through a major one in this recession. You have more under your belt. That’s the whole point. I hope this is why you’re tuning in. You want to be ready. You don’t want to be stuck in a pickle. We’re going to talk about all the different things. I know you have a whole speech here. To be stuck with a bunch of property that you’re financing is the last thing you want. Go right ahead.
In the beginning, in the early ‘90s, I casually bought and sold real estate in different types of forms, whether it be houses or commercial property. I started selling land a little bit later in the ‘90s and realized, “This is it.” We made tens of millions of dollars from the late ‘90s to around 2007 and 2008. This was before I met Jill.
Everything was going great. We were the lead seller on eBay. It was about the only place that we sold property because it was so efficient. We would post a 30-day auction. It would sell. We would double or triple our money. My whole life was focused on being a land acquisition expert for that decade, and we were great at it. In fact, I’m sure we were the best in the business. We were invited to meet the executives of eBay on more than one occasion in Washington, DC.
You were making them rich. You had auctions closing hourly. Back then, I don’t think it was a percentage. It was a flat fee back then in closing costs. You were helping make them rich, which is nothing to sneeze at you. I want to brag for a second.
The name of this episode is not We Were Cool. It’s We Were Poor.
I want to talk about the peak and the valley. You’re getting to the valley. The peak was pretty high. You had auctions closing. You were doubling and tripling more of your money on these things. It was a machine. We didn’t have eBay issues back then. Everybody was all excited, I’m sure. Go ahead.
Single Point Of Failure In Sales ChannelsI lived on a yacht in San Diego. I was very successful financially. It was a machine. We had no real competition. What we had was a serious single point of failure, and that single point of failure was our sales channel, which was eBay. This recession started to happen in 2007. The same things that were happening were happening in early 2007. Houses started to foreclose based on what we’ll call irresponsible lending. We’ll leave it at that.
All kinds of things happened. Ultimately, banks started foreclosing. It was serious based on those irresponsible mortgages they were lending on and backing. It didn’t affect us. I had the greatest false sense of security ever. We sailed through 2007. 2006 was our best year. 2007 was almost our best year.
2008 rolled around and I was beating my chest sometimes and saying, “From all the terrible things that are happening in the real estate industry, we’re immune. I figured it out. Nobody else has ever purchased land, sold it on eBay, and auctioned it off like that at breakneck speed. I’m going to go through this.” That’s not what happened.
What happened is the recession got so bad that people didn’t have any extra money to purchase what I realize are unnecessary assets. When you buy a piece of land, it’s not necessary. It’s a luxury. It’s some kind of thing. You’re buying it to build a house in the future, as an investment to resell, or leasing. It caught up, people stopped bidding and buying real estate altogether. For whatever reason, Jill and I met each other around this time. I don’t know why. I still think about this.
It is funny.
I was defeated. I had no commercial debt. I had no debt associated with the business and a ton of land with no debt.
Those were all paid for.
I had multiple houses, a yacht, and two office buildings. All of those had responsible-type loans, but we couldn’t service them anymore. We had a huge payroll. We had a lot of people working for us managing these auctions. It imploded on itself and I had to manage all of that. There were a couple of times when I thought I might have to file personal bankruptcy. We were poor. That was it.
It was dark.
Enters Jill and says, “Look at all these assets that you have.” I couldn’t see the forest through the trees there. I thought my life was over. We sat down after we got to know each other for a while. It was probably a year or maybe it was close to it. Either way, it doesn’t matter. We worked out how to liquidate these assets through Jill’s sales talent.
She got out my Rolodex or my whole contact list of people who were in the business and were still trying to make it on eBay. None of them were doing it well. She started negotiating deals to sell this property that we had so that we could breathe and live and it worked. What we ended up doing was changing the process of how we sold property, not how we bought it. That has always worked.
Buying real estate the way that we buy it works in the worst of times and the best of times. You have to change how you’re selling property and the types of real estate you’re buying and selling based on the economy. I’ll get to that in a second. Together, we looked at these lists of asset types that we had and she liquidated them. Some of them were at a loss. I didn’t care.
Can I jump in here and give my recollection?
Sure. You tell yours.
Let me tell my recollection here first. You were not happy. Let’s say that. You were busy with other things and keeping personal wheels on the bus. My recollection is you had this whole extra computer that you sat me down and logged me into. You built this whole system of acquisition, engineering, and sales into this computer system. It was beautiful what you designed. You said what was almost a, “Knock yourself out.” It was like, “Here’s what I did in the past. Here’s what worked. This is what good photos look like.” You gave me all the framework and the instructions and then walked away because you were mad, and I don’t blame you.
It was certainly not at you.
It was like, “Let’s see if anything happens.” There were hundreds of properties in there that you had written off. You were like, “That’s over. That ship has sailed. The county is going to get them back. Who cares?” I was off-putting things together, figuring it out, making postings, and selling things. I was calling people, talking to them, and working out deals.
I remember you coming to me after a month or two or something. We had a separate little bank account. I was putting all the money in a separate little bank account under your direction. I’m sure you thought there’d be $100 in there, but you came along and you were like, “How’s it going?” There was a lot more than $100 in there. You were like, “What happened?”
I remember this.
Learning To Follow A Proven SystemI remember saying, “I did exactly what you told me to do.” That’s all that I did. That’s one of the things that still stands the test of time, too, with Land Academy. Forget what you think. Forget what you know. Forget what your gut is telling you. Put your head down. Follow his steps. I did, and guess what? It paid off. It worked. It was great. I was really good.
For whatever reason, in life, I don’t necessarily always follow all your directions. I will follow all your directions and still do the things you are an expert on. This is one of the things that you know very well, how to buy and sell land. I did what you said and it worked out great. Maybe you bought something you wanted to sell for $10,000 and we were selling it for $6,000. It wasn’t a big deal. We were still keeping food on the table.
That’s a great example.
We were moving things forward. That’s what happened. I don’t remember having any big losses. I remember not making as much money as we hoped we did, but who cared? They were all paid for a few years ago. It didn’t matter. We sold them, and we never had to go through some of the drastic measures that you were preparing for.
Here’s what happened. That was the low point. Jill has described the low point. She helped us crawl out of the cash crunch hole. What was happening in the economic environment back then is very similar, if not almost exact, to what’s happening now in 2024. Back then, people were encouraged to sign what were called subprime mortgages. It was a variable-rate mortgage that had a low introductory rate. It was below prime. Thus, the subprime name. It pretty quickly caught up to whatever the prime rate was. It was variable.
It never planned out, so it was easy to sign these loans. It was easy to get people to sign these loans because their payments were so low. They were below regular interest rates. Guess what? They’re called adjustable-rate mortgages. 3:1 and 5:1. They are fixed. All the laws changed because of what they called predatory lending back then. It doesn’t matter what it was. What it’s called is variable rate mortgages, which are 3:1 and 5:1. You have a locked-in rate.
We have had amazing interest rates over the last several years. For 3 years, you have a 3% mortgage, and then it catches up to the rate of 7% or 8%. 3:1 and 5:1. That happens in 3 years or 5 years. If you signed a mortgage back a few years, your mortgage is going to double. This is going to happen again. Do I think there’s going to be massive foreclosures across the board? No. That’s what there was back then.
What we did is she got our cash balance up to where it should be. We bought and sold a few houses. We renovated them and made some dough. The last one that we did, we moved into it, so then we didn’t have any debt. We had no debt personally at all. I renegotiated everything and liquidated the assets with the lenders. I was working on that and she was working on generating cash.
At the point where she generated the cash and I got rid of these other loans, the office building loans and things like that, we started to buy foreclosed houses for $40,000 and $60,000 and sold them for $60,000 to $80,000 to $100,000. Those houses are worth $300,000 now. They were worth $200,000 or $300,000 before we started this. We knew these assets. This is the exact same thing that’s about to happen over the next 2 to 3 years. We made very good money doing this, and we will again.
Jill and I wrote House Academy. Go to HouseAcademy.com. It’s about how to buy these houses using data. You can go there and check it all out. The land is last. It’s not the first. The land is the last in line to see the horror. We bought tons of land way below. People were foreclosing on houses. They didn’t care if they had land. If you send them an offer and say, “I’d like to buy your land for $5,000,” and it’s worth $180,000, they’re going to sign it.
They’re like, “Get it out of here.”
They might be filing personal bankruptcy at that time, signing the offer, and saying, “Can you pay in cash?” We were poor and we dug ourselves out of it. Fortunately for me, I met Jill. She brought something to the table that nobody in my life had, including me.
I want to talk about the big takeaways here on how you can really prepare yourself. Number one, pay cash for stuff. What are the things that we did that saved us? One, they were all paid for assets. We had no loans on anything. It’s certainly not personal.
You don’t want debt. You don’t want institutional debt. If you have institutional debt, you have about 12 to 24 months to get rid of it. If you don’t have a fixed-rate mortgage, attempt to solve that somehow. Take a look at your mortgage, read it, and see if it’s going to change. Plan for that day. There’s a day. In one month, your mortgage will be a couple grand and the next month, it’s going to be $4,000. Please find out when that is. You can do all kinds of stuff with your bank or with a different lender by refinancing interest-only refinancing or whatever. What else are the big takeaways?
I’m trying to think here. You wrote an email. This is something to think about. I’m going to end it on this one about that email title that you had. We paid cash. You have to be flexible and roll with things. If I had to pick 3 things, 1 is everything was paid for. Two, we cut our expenses down to be very reasonable. I don’t care if you’re living in a townhouse or whatever it is.
In tough times, remember: Pay cash, cut expenses, and stockpile. Flexibility and preparation are key.
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Have everything paid for. Knock it off with what you think you need to have. You don’t. The third thing is to get your cash together and be ready to buy some stuff. That’s what we were doing, too. We weren’t taking this money and putting it into something stupid. We’re slowly and methodically building up more inventory to be in a better position for the next time.
Impact Of Layoffs And W-2 Job SecurityTest yourself. Test the things in your life for a single point of failure. If you have a lot of customer concentration in any business, make those changes. Assume that you’re going to lose that customer. As much as I hate to say this, another great example of a single point of failure is a W-2 job.
That’s true.
You get laid off.
What are you going to do?
You need to plan for that. You need to not be shocked like the rest of the world when they get laid off. The economic outlook for W-2 positions is dire.
Do you remember the number of people who were in Land Academy pre-COVID? There were a number of people I could think of. I could rattle off their names too. They were people who did really well and came to Land Academy for whatever reason. It was probably because they didn’t want the W-2. It was pr-COVID. They were in Land Academy learning how to do this. They were like, “This is great. I have all these options. I have more options now.” COVID came and they got laid off. They were saying, “Thank goodness I had this. You guys taught me how to keep food on the table.” The same thing still applies.
A single point of failure can sink your business. Diversify your sales channels and customer base.
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Think about who’s in your life and whether or not they can handle that professionally and socially. I had people in my life when everything hit the fan that we were not compatible. It’s not in their makeup to manage negative cashflow and tragedy. For whatever reason, Jill’s hardwired to change gears at any given time and repair stuff or completely be like, “Let’s try something new.”
Thank you. I want to give you some credit too, because one of the things about you, and this will help everybody too, is you come up with amazing ideas. You’re really good at building out a business plan and putting in really good, solid numbers to see if it would work. We then do it and implement it. You were great at that.
For basic numbers purposes, we had to entirely and completely restart our lives, Jill and I together, in 2010. We did all these deals. All those statistics are true, but the fact is we had nothing in 2010.
We have a big staff to manage all the Land Academy parts, but there was a time when we were the staff. We were a staff of two.
I say to our staff all the time, “I’ve had every single one of these jobs and I failed at every single one of them. That’s why you guys are here because you do it better than I do.” That’s true.
This is good. This has been a great conversation. My ending on this was about what you have to look forward to. You’ve heard what we’ve been through. We’ve given you our experience, tips, and things that we learned along the way so that you can watch, prepare, and make these changes. There’s a silver lining when this happens. You titled an email to some investors that we work with. What was the exact title?
Fortunes are made during economic downturns. Some of the greatest fortunes ever were made out of necessity. You need to eat. It’s like, “That thing I’ve been thinking about doing for fifteen years, this is the time I’m going to do it and I have to make it work.” We had to make that work, and we did.
Great fortunes are made during economic downturns. Be ready to seize opportunities when they arise.
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Be thinking about what you can do. Think ahead. What other property type or what else is on the horizon? What partner could you bring in? Bring in that money guy.
That’s why you’re part of the Land Academy. There are tons of people in this group, Jill and I included, that have a lot of money.
I want to place it.
We are waiting for this to start to really tank where there are amazing real estate deals out there. Our checkbook is way open for that stuff. Please incorporate buying and selling other property types, specifically freestanding houses and predetermined markets, and add them to buying and selling land when you go through this. That wasn’t inspirational enough. Do you have something other than that that’s inspirational enough?
Importance Of Partner CommunicationI was thinking about how important it is to be a united front. That’s it. This happens in the good times and the bad times. You have to be a united front. It’s so important. You need to pause and have those discussions. As you’re heading into stuff, you need to have temperature checks while you’re in the middle of it.
On the way out of it, make sure you’re coming back out of it and you have some positive stuff happening that you’re on the same page with what you’re going to do going forward and how you’re going to spend it or reinvest whatever’s going to happen. Not being on the same page will sink the ship right there, too, because one of you is rowing one way and one is rowing the other. It’s never going to work. That was a critical thing for us.
We still have regular partner meetings. We still call them that. We make sure what we’re doing and our goals are the same. He’s never going to send out a mailer and I’m going to be surprised by it. I know what’s going on. If we’re pivoting to a new property type, a new acquisition type, or something, I’m going to know because I’m going to be ready for it and vice versa. When things come in and I’m dumping a lot of money on something, I’m not going to surprise him. There are going to be meetings. We will talk about it. That’s my inspirational thing. Do whatever you have to do to make that other person feel comfortable and understood, and they will rally with you.
It's crucial to have regular partner meetings to ensure you're on the same page and united in your goals.
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We got cut down to our knees in 2009 and ‘10. The result of that for me personally was I told myself several times during that time while that was happening, “If I ever get out of this, I’m going to do stuff differently.” It’s 14 or 15 years later and we have seen the result of me making those changes. One of the things is to stockpile cash and never have any debt ever unless it really makes sense from a locked-in perspective. You’re spending 20% down on a $10 million asset. You write a $2 million check and the $10 million asset’s worth $20 million because you knew it was.
I put this question in here for a reason. It’s because it’s very pertinent to this topic. This guy sent out a bunch of mail. He got somebody to sign it, sent it back, and said, “We don’t want the asset anymore. Neither does my family. We’ll take $11,000,” for what’ll probably end up being maybe $60,000 to $80,000. Those are the kinds of deals that Jill and I do.
If we did all the deals that we knew we could make a 20% return on, we would have way more money than we have, but that’s not what we do. We only do surefire deals. That’s one of the results of going through that recession. We were stockpiling on every deal. A certain percentage of the money that we make goes away. This is happening. We’ve stockpiled a bunch of money because of that. We are actively, because of this recession, buying and selling houses, mobile homes, and things like that.
All the stuff we talk about in Land Academy, and we will in a little while on our member call. It’s not that that wasn’t informational enough, but do you have any of the little nuggets that you want to share with us?
This was a ton of nuggets. What other nuggets?
I didn’t know if you had any other little informational things you wanted to share.
That was it. Stockpile cash. That’s my inspiration for this episode.
My informational thing is don’t spend it.
Stockpiling Cash And Minimizing DebtDon’t take on any debt. Do you need a yacht? No. I don’t need a yacht, so we don’t have a yacht. We have a souped-up van. Join us again for another interesting episode. You are not alone in your real estate ambition. We are information.
Also, inspiration.
To buy undervalued property.
Important Links House Academy*
In this insightful episode, “How to Get Your First Land Flipping Deal in 30 Days,” they offer a deep dive into the competitive landscape of the land industry with an in-depth analysis of the numbers and break down a realistic timeline for closing your first deal flipping land. Don’t miss these actionable tips and essential information to jumpstart your land investing journey.
Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit have been teaching their land flipping methodologies since 2015 when they founded Land Academy. Having completed over 16,000 transactions (and counting!) since the 90s, they bring a wealth of experience to their educational land investing platform and share that knowledge each week on “The Land Academy Show” podcast.
Transcript: N/A
https://youtu.be/U4R7-a2ZvXQ
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
In today’s episode, Market Changes Demand We Expand Our Land Business To Flipping Houses, Jack and Jill discuss why the current housing market trends make it the perfect time to expand their land business into buying and reselling houses. They emphasize the importance of using data to identify areas with excess demand for houses and a supply that has caught up with it. They also address questions from their Land Academy community, including whether to do a self-close or a title escrow close for a land purchase, and the importance of using a separate mailing address and phone line for business purposes. Tune in to get valuable insights and tips on ensuring your land investments are successful.
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
Steven Jack Butala here.
Jill Dewitt:
And I’m Jill Dewitt, and this is the Land Academy show.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s sort of the House Academy show today.
Jill Dewitt:
Oh really, why?
Steven Jack Butala:
If you don’t know this, we have a website just like Land Academy, a company just like Land Academy, called House Academy.
Jill Dewitt:
I knew that.
Steven Jack Butala:
For years it has not been feasible to buy and sell houses. Well, that’s what it’s all about today.
Jill Dewitt:
It has been feasible, but now, because there’s people that have been successfully doing it in our groups, so I don’t want to pooh-pooh anybody that’s doing it. They’re like, what are you talking about? What they’re probably saying is, “Stop sharing this.”
Steven Jack Butala:
It hasn’t been feasible enough.
Jill Dewitt:
There we go.
Steven Jack Butala:
To meet Jill and I’s standards where you can get rich off of it.
Jill Dewitt:
That’s it.
Steven Jack Butala:
We probably could do a deal here and there.
Jill Dewitt:
Right, exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s not how we roll. This is episode number 2015, and today we are talking about why the housing market demands that we expand our land businesses into buying and reselling houses. I didn’t just wake up today and think, we should start buying and selling houses.
Jill Dewitt:
I’m bored.
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t have thoughts like that.
Jill Dewitt:
This just seems like a good idea.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m looking at the data, as I do every single week, and share it with the Land Academy community, and the data is now for sure telling us that there’s excess, there’s an incredible demand for houses still, and there’s now a supply that has caught up with it and it’s time to start buying houses again for us.
Jill Dewitt:
What’s interesting is, well, I’ll save my questions for the show because I actually have some questions on this topic for you. Go ahead.
Steven Jack Butala:
Each week on the show we answer a question from our Land Academy member Discord forum, and we take a deep dive into land related topics by popular request from our Land Academy community. Let’s take a couple of questions today.
Jill Dewitt:
Cool. Jenny … Oh, by the way, in case you couldn’t notice, we are still coming to you from the RV, so on the road for quite a few months actually this summer. So the background may change. Right there over my shoulder, that little window, that view’s going to change, but this shouldn’t change.
Steven Jack Butala:
And our attitude will change for sure.
Jill Dewitt:
Oh, definitely.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill’s will.
Jill Dewitt:
Yeah, exactly. I’ll get angrier.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s usually my job.
Jill Dewitt:
Oh, that’s true. Your job is angrier. I just get loopy, like what, I’m supposed to do what? Okay, so back to the questions. Jenny in our group wrote, “I have a newbie question for everyone. I have a purchase agreement in place to buy my first parcel of land this weekend. Yay. My sellers are in a situation where they need the cash as quickly as I can make it happen. It’s a vacant land parcel that an end user will most likely put a mobile home on. Power’s at the street. Well, septic of course will need to get done. All normal stuff. Given all these details, and if there’s anything else I need to consider, will it be okay for me to do a self close following the steps from Jill, or would there be a reason to make this a title escrow close instead? Buying for 18K.”
Jill Dewitt:
Do you want to go first or-
Steven Jack Butala:
Yes. A lot of people had comments, and I believe in the general consensus of those comments and they are as follows. Having a baby’s not really a cash crunch situation. This is not my words. These are the words of other Land Academy members.
Jill Dewitt:
Did they say that?
Steven Jack Butala:
In Discord. Oh, yeah.
Jill Dewitt:
Where’s there a baby involved?
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, somebody’s having a baby.
Jill Dewitt:
Oh, is that why it’s in there?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. Oh, this is why they need the money.
Jill Dewitt:
That got cut out of the question.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s not them. They’re having their first grandchild, so they’re probably freaking out. Yeah, it did get cut off.
Jill Dewitt:
Oh, okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
And number two, you know somebody’s going to put a mobile home on this. They’re going to need title insurance. So I would close with title insurance, like we do with most transactions, a vast, vast, vast majority of transactions, and I would try to find a residential or an escrow agent that can do it quickly and effectively.
Jill Dewitt:
My turn now. I’m with Jenny, you do have options. You could buy it really fast and get title insurance on the sell side. There’s nothing wrong with that. Make sure you have those people in the loop because they may be needing to sign some documents, blah, blah, blah, when you do the title insurance on the sell side. Have we done this? Heck yeah.
Jill Dewitt:
And then on the flip side is, too, the big picture is it shouldn’t take that long anyway because we’re not in COVID. There’s actually an abundance of agents. There’s so much of abundance and time right now with title agents, speaking from experience, that they have all the time in the world to analyze your deal and even try to save you from some things. So I’m kind of like just close it like we talked about kind of thing. So that’s another show. But you should be very capable and able to make five phone calls and find a good agent in your area that can do this inside of two weeks-
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, geez.
Jill Dewitt:
… period-
Steven Jack Butala:
A week.
Jill Dewitt:
Because you’re all cash with title insurance.
Steven Jack Butala:
And there’s probably not a loan. There’s no loan on the property, so that takes out a lot of time and energy.
Jill Dewitt:
They’re probably worried because they’re thinking, you know what, they’re thinking of their house experience where, gosh, it was 30 and 45 days to close because I had to provide all these documents. I had to provide letters that I paid off that credit card. I had to provide this. That’s kind of a normal situation for people. So to them, when you say, “I can get it done a week from Friday,” they’re going to be like, “Oh, okay, that’s perfect.”
Steven Jack Butala:
So for the rest of you, if you’re brand new, or for any of you who are saying what the heck are these two talking about now, there’s two ways to close a real estate deal. The one that everybody knows about, Sally Smith, the residential real estate agent, gets a listing. You sell the property, you sign your name 3000 times. Sally Smith, who does not actually know how to close a real estate deal, sends it to escrow agent John Smith, and John Smith does all the work.
Steven Jack Butala:
And from there, again, a bunch of stuff to sign, disclosures, all kinds of things, and they manage the money for you. So if you were to buy this for cash, you would be buying it for $18,000. You would put it in escrow. The escrow agent would set up a closing statement where the money goes and the whole thing, and that’s how Jill and I sell property and that’s how we buy it 99% of the time.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you go way back into our podcast, that’s not how we did it in the beginning. A lot of years ago, 10, 15 years ago, that was exactly not what we did. So that’s way number one, the way that everybody knows.
Steven Jack Butala:
Number two is just like selling a car without a dealer. You have a title in your hand and the buyer of your car has a fistful of money. He gives you the money, you sign over the title to the car. Some states you need a notary, some you don’t. I take the money, I give you the title, and the title gets recorded and it’s done. Same thing with real estate, and that’s what a self close is. I’m oversimplifying, but it’s really important to know. Everybody needs to know you don’t need a real estate agent to close a real estate deal.
Jill Dewitt:
Thank you. All right, next question. Steven wrote, “Any issues with using my home address for mail? Should I pick up a post box office instead? I do not plan on moving in the foreseeable future. Also, is it recommended to get a second phone line? Any option on using a virtual phone line like RingCentral versus a second dedicated phone line?”
Jill Dewitt:
I have a lot to say about this and I’m sure you do, too.
Steven Jack Butala:
I do. You go first. You’ll probably cover all of it actually.
Jill Dewitt:
That would be nice. Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think you and I are-
Jill Dewitt:
You don’t need mom and dad weighing in on this, so that’s why I held back on the last one. I let dad take that one. We’re going to let mom take this one. So you know what, Steven? What if you hit it big, or just who knows? Life happens. You might move. You never know.
Jill Dewitt:
So one reason is I want you to get a post office box or some kind of a virtual mailbox, something like that, that will never change, because 10 years from now, 15 years from now, hey, this one, I’ve been doing this for 15 years, he’s been doing it for 30. Thank goodness we still have the same mailbox address because people do write letters and still reach out to us from now I can say decades ago. It’s crazy, but it’s true, and I want to get those letters because I might want that property now, whatever it is. So I do want you to do that. The flip side of that, too, is like I don’t really want anybody showing up on your door. Not that they would.
Steven Jack Butala:
Sure they will. Eventually they will.
Jill Dewitt:
But what if somebody’s not happy about something? I don’t know. They have something to say about it. You definitely don’t want your own personal stuff. You don’t want a package on fire on your doorstep.
Steven Jack Butala:
Mom’s softening this topic. Do not use your home address.
Jill Dewitt:
Well, that’s what I’m saying.
Jill Dewitt:
Okay, then number two on the phone number, same thing. I can’t be sure I’m going to have my same phone number forever, but I can keep my phone and I want to keep it separate too. There’s a couple different reasons. A, I don’t want people to have my own cell number. I need to be able to differentiate if it’s a work call or it’s my friends calling me. B, I need to flip this number around sometimes. I need a phone number that I purchase and I own. I might buy it from [inaudible 00:09:43] or something like that and then port the number into my phone system, and that’s the best way because what if I’m not taking the calls this week? I’m doing so great, I’m so busy. I have Pat Live take the phone calls and I can just route the phone number to Pat Live. I can route the phone number to my new assistant five years from now.
Jill Dewitt:
And again, the main point is they might reach out to you six months or six years after that mailer goes out and there’s a good chance you’re going to want that property. At least you want the option to look at it and go, “You know what? I did so well in that area and boy, I wouldn’t mind doing a couple more. I’ve got the whole team in place.” You need to get those calls. So that’s why you want to do that.
Steven Jack Butala:
The relative cost for all this stuff is so small.
Jill Dewitt:
Cheap.
Steven Jack Butala:
And geez, maybe 30 minutes.
Jill Dewitt:
A hundred bucks a month, if that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Both of these things set up. In 1995, I got a mailbox in midtown Scottsdale and we still to this day have that same mailbox. We have moved, we’ve lived in three different states. We’ve probably moved 12 to 15 times, and that mailbox is the same.
Steven Jack Butala:
I had a home phone number and a fax number. That’s how long ago this was. That is still in use within our companies today, that we still use it for certain stuff because I was fortunate enough because we owned it and then we forward it and the whole thing. So you want to leave open a lot of options. Millions and millions of letters, hopefully if your career goes well, you’re going to send out millions of letters like Jill and I do, and you’re going to get calls 10 years later.
Jill Dewitt:
Here’s your nomad tip of the day. If you want to have a lifestyle like us, doing deals from wherever you choose to be, whether it’s in this country, in an RV, whether it’s on the back of a boat, whether you’re in the Caribbean, wherever you are dreaming up, spending a month in Paris, I don’t care, you could even do mailbox place to mailbox place.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what we do.
Jill Dewitt:
That’s an interesting thought. Exactly. So we have, like Jack just said, from 1995, our same whatever address, guess what they do? Bundle it up, send it to us wherever we are. It’s the greatest thing.
Steven Jack Butala:
We have our home mailbox and our professional company’s mailbox in the same place and we don’t get mail anywhere else.
Jill Dewitt:
We don’t get mail at home. Everything at the mail at home is all the junk mail that I feel bad that people are wasting money on because it gets stacked up and then I recycle it all.
Steven Jack Butala:
And the people that run the mailbox place, I think we’ve been through three owners there, pack up our stuff and send it to us probably once a month, whatever’s in there.
Jill Dewitt:
Yep. Okay. Today-
Steven Jack Butala:
The bigger, deeper question is, Steven, we address all this stuff in the program, and I have to ask myself, I guess I have to ask it out loud myself, why would you veer from what we teach?
Jill Dewitt:
Well, maybe he hasn’t got to that part of the program yet. That happens a lot. I’ve noticed that. I had some dear sweet woman recently and I went back and I looked and I’m like, tell me how much, she’s like, and she stopped watching at that crucial point. I’m like, “You turned off the thing.”
Steven Jack Butala:
What happened? What’s the story there? Tell us the story. I want to hear this story.
Jill Dewitt:
It’s all right. She turned it off at that crucial moment where you go on to talk about, “And here’s what could happen and here’s why you test this and here’s how you do this,” and stuff. It was data related, and I’m like, “You’ve got to watch this stuff.” Not only do you have to watch it, watch it a couple times because every time you’re going to pick up on something different.
Steven Jack Butala:
When are you guys going to get to the topic?
Jill Dewitt:
I know. Can we talk about it?
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s topic, why the housing market demands that we expand our land business into buying and reselling houses. Jill and I have a lot of experience buying and selling houses. We’ve done many deals. That saved us around 2009, 2010, long before we had Land Academy, where we just, if you’re old enough to remember, we had the largest real estate recession in the history of our country, with the exception of 1929. So it was a tough time. We had a ton of real estate. Jill and I owned a bunch of land free and clear, as we always do, and we couldn’t sell it. Nobody was buying land.
Steven Jack Butala:
And certainly nothing like that’s going to happen this time, but it is showing the sign. And back then we saved ourselves by buying houses and selling them. We were buying houses from banks for 40 to $60,000 that are now three and $400,000. And we were reselling them back then for 80 to 120 really successfully. And that was only because the market was conducive to that situation. That’s it.
Steven Jack Butala:
And so yeah, we bought and sold houses after that, and all throughout my career, I’ve always been buying and selling houses and so was Jill. She cut her teeth on that actually. I cut my teeth on land and we got together and did a bunch of house deals, and at that time it wasn’t our favorite thing because we were cleaning them up too much, but they were always profitable.
Steven Jack Butala:
So there’s some circumstances that are lending themselves in the market that are starting down that path of repeating what happened in 2009, only a lot less acute. And so I’ll go through what those circumstances are and why we’re going to start and already have started out. We’ve got a house [inaudible 00:15:06] hitting here in about less than a week. All right, here’s number one.
Jill Dewitt:
To my phone.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you remember-
Jill Dewitt:
I’m taking those calls right myself, at least the first wave.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you remember back then, what caused that financial breakdown that trickled up and down into the housing and real estate community was credit. It was lack of credit, which was really catalyzed in my opinion by predatory lending. We have weird, weird crazy lending practices with reverse mortgages and all kinds of stuff.
Steven Jack Butala:
And fortunately, and I don’t say this too often, but fortunately, and I think it was required back then, the federal government stepped in and made some changes for the better I think. Now what we’re experiencing is COVID. So COVID happened and we all thought that it was going to destroy the economy and it didn’t. It had the opposite, direct opposite effect to real estate. So if you look at any graph, you can see COVID happened, the world shut down, and nobody was buying or selling property at all.
Steven Jack Butala:
And the next January came, I guess it was around 2021, everybody started buying property. It was time to buy mountain houses and second homes and all of that, and it was mixed up with the three percent. We were having two and three percent mortgage rates. There was a massive house buying binge that was happening. Well, little did I even know back then most of the deals that were happening for residential properties were adjustable rate mortgages. So you were locked in for a certain amount of time and then after time passes, it adjusts to actual interest rates.
Steven Jack Butala:
So from a lender’s perspective, you have to say or think, well, how can you lose actually? They’re kind of betting on the fact that they’ll go up, and they are. Interest rates have gone up. They were two to three percent back then. They’re around seven percent now. Six to seven, maybe seven plus. So all those interest rate mortgages that were locked in at three percent, two and three percent, are going to go up two or three percent. They’re literally going to double. That was 2021. This is 2024. Three years later.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you had a 3/1 adjustable rate mortgage, an ARM, it’s adjusting right now. And the direct result of that is a lot more houses are going on the market. And here’s why. If your mortgage is 12 to $1,500, which is the national average a month, and it goes from three to six percent or seven percent, that $1,200 mortgage is now $2,500. A very substantial number of people can’t handle that financially, and understandably so. Your mortgage is doubling and your salary and the revenue that you have in your household is the same. So significant. Way more than half of the people that are experiencing this can’t handle it.
Steven Jack Butala:
What’s the first thing they do? They call their sister-in-law real estate agent and put the house on the market. And that is why we’re seeing tons of inventory on the market. And people are celebrating. I read an article today that was published by the National Association of Realtors. Jill and I are going to talk about it on the call, on our Thursday webinar, a closed call for Land Academy members and House Academy members, and they said there’s reason for celebration. And I stopped before I even, I stopped right after I’d read the title. I didn’t even get into the article. Why are we celebrating? There’s more inventory on the market.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, that industry sees that, number one, real estate agents, now they have more stuff to sell. That’s really what they mean. And I’m not even going to tell you what I really think about that. The real positive in it is that people who could not get into the housing market as an owner are now having a better shot at that. There’s more inventory. It’s driving the prices down, very slightly and slowly, but it is driving the prices down because it’s bringing supply and demand in sync again, instead of just having all this crazy demand and not enough supply. So that’s what’s happening and it will continue. And then 5/1 mortgages are going to kick in, too, between now and two years from now. So that rate from 50 to 60% who can’t handle it, it’s going to go even higher.
Steven Jack Butala:
Demand in the real world, in a regular situation, it would be great because that regular amount of demand would kind of equal out, like I said. But geez, this generation is the largest generation in the world. There are two generations at work here, the Generation X, and I’m sorry, the millennials and then the next one after that, I think it’s called Generation A or something like that. I don’t know. I don’t remember. Together they are 140 million people. The baby boomers are only 70 million. It’s twice as large as the baby boomer generation, which is our parents, Jill and I’s parents. If you’re about our age, that’s the case also.
Jill Dewitt:
What is our age?
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m not going to say that.
Jill Dewitt:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
That was a trick.
Jill Dewitt:
Yeah, thank you. Good one.
Steven Jack Butala:
If there’s a woman in your life, don’t answer stuff like that.
Jill Dewitt:
You’re on your toes.
Steven Jack Butala:
Please know not to answer anything like that.
Jill Dewitt:
There you go. How much do I weigh? Good one.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s how interested Jill is in this topic.
Jill Dewitt:
You got this.
Steven Jack Butala:
So now you’ve got this massive demand. You’ve got real high interest rates because the feds are trying to keep us in check from an inflation standpoint. And you’ve got all these mortgages coming due. So you’ve got tons of property on the market and tons of demand. All right, so how do we make money on this? What you have is a heck of a lot of activity, tons of activity happening.
Steven Jack Butala:
What you need to do is start trolling around on realtor.com or Redfin or Zillow, like we teach in Land Academy and House Academy, and find the markets where properties, lots and lots and lots of properties are being listed and lots of properties are being purchased. And then within that market you are going to find the break point. I talk about all this stuff in House Academy in great detail.
Steven Jack Butala:
And you’ll find that at about the top of the bell curve-ish, let’s just say there’s tons and tons of properties listed for between 325,000 and 375,000. There’s very few properties between 100 and 200, 250, and very few properties in the five to $600,000 range. The break point is somewhere at the top of the bell curve, and it smacks you in the face because when you click on pending properties, properties that are under contract, and you click on sold properties, the values will smack you in the face. They will be somewhere around that 350 mark.
Steven Jack Butala:
So you send out a mailer, you figure out how to buy property below that break point. When you have all this activity and tons of properties are hitting the market, some people get your offer, they get your letter, they get your offer in the mail, and they say to themselves, “There’s 14 houses for sale on my block right now. Every time I drive to work, I see the signs. I’m going to call this guy back. He wants to buy for 250. I think I’m going to sell it to him if he wants it that bad.”
Steven Jack Butala:
If this works, Jill and I have done it in two market downturns. So I would urge you, if you’re listening to this because you’re buying and selling land, or you want to, I would urge you to expand into this space or at least explore it.
Jill Dewitt:
Do you want to share anything at all about, and you can say no.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, good. No.
Jill Dewitt:
Okay. No, I was just going to say we all understand and agree and appreciate your insight and your research. That was wonderful. Beautiful presentation about why it all makes sense and what numbers and where you should be looking at and trolling and that kind of thing. There’s a couple questions that I’d just like to throw in there and see if you want to talk about, am I cash or am I financing these?
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, geez. So that’s a great question. Boy, nothing will make you run out of money faster than buying a house and reselling it. If you’re buying for 300 and selling for 400, two or three deals and you’re a million bucks extended. For most of us, that’s a lot of money.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s the same situation. The people in our group, the people in the Land Academy group, are dying to apply money to what you’re about to do. Your job is to find properties that are below that break point in that market. That’s the money. And one message on Discord as a Land Academy or House Academy member, you will find the money you need. Jill and I will give you the money.
Jill Dewitt:
What about it needs a carpet, and the roof kind of stinks, and boy, that carport should be a garage. What do I do about that stuff?
Steven Jack Butala:
So it’s obviously that I left out all the HGTV topics that apply to buying and reselling a house. And the fact is, I could care less about that stuff. I only care about it if it will dramatically stop you from reselling the house. And so nobody wants to buy a super huge piece of garbage. Nobody. And it doesn’t show well and it stinks and it doesn’t pass code and the whole thing.
Jill Dewitt:
Except for a flipper.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yes.
Jill Dewitt:
They do want that. If you do too much to it, you’re going to scare all the flippers.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s got to make financial sense. You need to walk in, you need to be the kind of person that can apply common sense and say, “I know I can easily sell a property like this for $350,000. The guy accepted my offer at 250. There’s a lot of stuff wrong with it. I think I’m going to go back and probably re-offer 210 just because I think there’s a lot of [inaudible 00:25:24].” You’re going to get an inspection anyway. The inspection’s going to tell you what’s wrong.
Jill Dewitt:
The point I’m trying to make here is in its current condition, the whole goal is you’re trying to find an asset where, what were your numbers? Anywhere from 20 to a hundred. There we go. You’re trying to find a sweet spot, I’m going to argue even more than $20,000. I’m going to say 50 to a hundred thousand. You’re trying to find an asset that’s marked, that’s priced 50 to a hundred thousand dollars below what it’s worth in its current position. And because it’s convenience, you’re finding it before there’s an agent involved, there’s no commissions, all that good stuff. It’s convenience between you and the seller. They can walk away and have a check, and it’s going to be cash and no one’s going to make them redo the roof or clean out the garage. Those kind of things.
Jill Dewitt:
And then the point of it is, too, you’re selling it in its current condition. And well, I know we’ll talk more about that because that’s the whole Land Academy, House Academy model. I’m not going in there and making it beautiful. Again, buying it for 250, let’s just say buying it for 250. In its current condition, it’s worth 310, 320. But some flipper can come along and make it beautiful and now it’s worth 400. That’s the goal.
Steven Jack Butala:
Or 450. That’s what those outliers are.
Jill Dewitt:
That’s what you’re doing. You’re selling to them and let them do that work. You don’t have a construction company.
Steven Jack Butala:
Listen, you do not want to become a contractor here.
Jill Dewitt:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
You do not. This is not, it’s called House Academy. It’s not called House Renovations.
Jill Dewitt:
True. Or HGTV.
Steven Jack Butala:
We do not renovate houses. The most we’ve ever done with any level of success is paint and carpet, and maybe light fixtures in certain cases, if they really need to be replaced.
Jill Dewitt:
That was only because I was doing the end user. You know what it was? We bought one that was a little too nice and that’s all it needed. And none of the investors wanted to touch it. I’m like, well, I guess we’re going to sell it then, we’re going to sell it to the end user. Guess what happened? Then we made even more money. So that’s the worst thing that can happen if it’s in that good of shape. So good stuff.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is all math.
Jill Dewitt:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s all buying properties that are like kind, analyzing sold values, active values, reducing it down to a price per square foot, and doing the math. It’s not about window treatments. If you are really interested in buying and selling houses so that you can express yourself artistically, this is absolutely the wrong show for you and the wrong program.
Jill Dewitt:
We’re here to make money.
Steven Jack Butala:
Through data, through the use of data.
Jill Dewitt:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s it.
Jill Dewitt:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
So yeah, something to share today.
Jill Dewitt:
I was thinking about, in light of this environment, I’m talking to my team and talking about people coming into Land Academy, and it’s so interesting the shift that we’re seeing of the very accomplished corporate people coming to us right now due to little, I don’t know if little or big, I don’t know what the right word is, but shifts in the job market. And I just want to talk about it for a minute and make everybody feel really good about this.
Jill Dewitt:
Again, our group is small, and when you really think about the number of people out there doing what we do, it may sound like a lot of noise, but the number of people really actually doing it and doing it well and actually getting mail in out there to people, it’s not that big. So I want you to feel good.
Jill Dewitt:
And then to make you feel even better, what I wanted you to know is you could have some very conservative goals in Land Academy, screw it all up, and still have no trouble putting food on the table. So let me just, that’s my whole thing.
Steven Jack Butala:
Good point.
Jill Dewitt:
We talk big numbers all the time. That’s just who we are. We’re wired to do that, and it’s fun. But realistically, if you can’t live on $10,000 a month, we could, then we’ve got some problems. Think about it. If the world all goes sideways and you had $10,000 a month, could you live on that? Yeah, you could.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, geez.
Jill Dewitt:
And you know what? If you can’t, we need to talk because then you’re paying too much. You bought your house for too much, you need to reel it back in. You shouldn’t be driving that car and you shouldn’t be going to Hawaii right now.
Jill Dewitt:
So you can do it. Those are not crazy numbers. And then within Land Academy, boy, if you just did a couple deals a month, like I said, your goal is to do three, four deals a month and you want to make 10 grand a deal, super small, conservative numbers, you screw them all up. Guess what? Now you make 10 to $20,000 a month and you’re going to be just fine. That’s my point today.
Steven Jack Butala:
Use this how you’d like to use it. That’s the whole point here. You can scale it.
Jill Dewitt:
That’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
Scale it how you want.
Jill Dewitt:
Well, because I talked to people recently, just in this last, you know, a couple of weeks ago we did this big workshop. It was five days, ended up being six. We went over the next week because we did a whole big Q&A day, workshop, really helping people understand what we are, what we do. And I broke it out into five days. Jack joined me. It was a whole lot of fun.
Jill Dewitt:
And I talked to people, and there was an interesting gentleman who was very successful. He said, “You guys scared me with sending out this much mail.” I said, “Well, hold on a moment.” Because you know what’s funny? He’s like, “I don’t want to do that much. I don’t need that much money. I don’t want to do that much.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Really?
Jill Dewitt:
Yeah, it was really kind of funny. And I’m like, “I can’t remember hearing that before, but okay.” It was really interesting and it made me take a step back and just realize, we’re not going to push you to send out a hundred thousand units of mail a month, uh-uh, but I am going to push you or at least help you and show you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Guide you.
Jill Dewitt:
Guide you with how much mail you need to send to hit whatever your personal goals are. That’s it.
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t want that much money, Jill. I’m good.
Jill Dewitt:
It was so funny. He’s like, “Yeah, you guys turned me off on sending that much mail.” I’m like, “I don’t think anyone’s ever said that to me.” I’m like, “This is the funniest thing, but I get it. Okay.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Somebody else said that to me. One other person in my entire career said that, “That’s too much. I don’t want to do that.”
Jill Dewitt:
I’m like, “Well, you don’t want to make that much money.” “I don’t want to do that.” I’m like-
Steven Jack Butala:
By the way, we don’t physically stuff envelopes here.
Jill Dewitt:
No, that’s true too. So I guess that’s all I wanted to make sure you know. Whatever your goals are, well, we just introduced personal coaching, by the way. It’s starting this summer. I’m so excited. And that’s one of the main things that I’m really going to get with all the coaches, and we’re going to really sit with you to help you. You may not even know what your goals are. We’ll help you set your goals if you don’t know.
Jill Dewitt:
We’ll go through the equity planner with you step by step by step until you feel so good about like, yeah, I can do that. All right, 20 hours a week and that much mail a month. Okay, yeah. To hit those numbers so you feel good about whatever it is for you, and whatever number is magic to you, we’re going to help you hit it. So that’s my point today. Thank you. What do you have to share?
Steven Jack Butala:
If this stuff’s intriguing, by the way, I failed to mention, go to either landacademy.com or houseacademy.com. I think if you want to become a guest on our Thursday call-
Jill Dewitt:
You could do that.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think you go to service at Land Academy.
Jill Dewitt:
Support.
Steven Jack Butala:
Or support.
Jill Dewitt:
Support@landacademy.com. Send them an email if you want to be a guest on our Thursday member call and see and hear more about some of the deals that we’re all doing.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s your opportunity as a member or not to ask any questions you want.
Jill Dewitt:
Totally. All right. What do you have to share with us today, Jack?
Steven Jack Butala:
My inspiration slash information segment is a direct segue from the actual topic. You have to adjust to the market. It’s imperative. We have had people in the past who’ve now since, I’m happy to report, gotten over this, but they are one track minded people in the distant past that say, “I’ve been mailing urban Dallas and I’ve been buying infill lots for two years straight. And this most recent time, it doesn’t seem to be working as well. And I guess it’s over.” It’s never over, never, ever over in real estate. You just have to adjust to it.
Jill Dewitt:
Could you imagine? Well, Texas is done. Mark that off the list. Everything’s bought and nobody’s moving. No, everybody’s settled. Yeah, that’s it. Texas is over. That would be really funny.
Steven Jack Butala:
If our government one day wakes up and says, “Yeah, it turns out we own everything. We’re the government and we own it all, and you’re just our guests here,” which could happen, that would probably end it. But short of that, I think-
Jill Dewitt:
Hello.
Steven Jack Butala:
Join us next Wednesday for another interesting episode. You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill Dewitt:
We are Jack and Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
Information.
Jill Dewitt:
And inspiration.
Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
https://youtu.be/4c_npqEgTJs
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
In this episode, 3 Reasons Why Lack of Access Kills Land Deals, Jack Butala and Jill DeWit from Land Academy dive into the critical issue of property access and its impact on land deals. Discover the top 3 reasons why lack of access can make or break a deal, and learn from their decades of experience in the land business. Tune in to get valuable insights and tips on ensuring your land investments are successful.
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
Steven Jack Butala here.
Jill Dewitt:
And I’m Jill Dewitt, and this is the Land Academy show.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s sort of the House Academy show today.
Jill Dewitt:
Oh really, why?
Steven Jack Butala:
If you don’t know this, we have a website just like Land Academy, a company just like Land Academy, called House Academy.
Jill Dewitt:
I knew that.
Steven Jack Butala:
For years it has not been feasible to buy and sell houses. Well, that’s what it’s all about today.
Jill Dewitt:
It has been feasible, but now, because there’s people that have been successfully doing it in our groups, so I don’t want to pooh-pooh anybody that’s doing it. They’re like, what are you talking about? What they’re probably saying is, “Stop sharing this.”
Steven Jack Butala:
It hasn’t been feasible enough.
Jill Dewitt:
There we go.
Steven Jack Butala:
To meet Jill and I’s standards where you can get rich off of it.
Jill Dewitt:
That’s it.
Steven Jack Butala:
We probably could do a deal here and there.
Jill Dewitt:
Right, exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s not how we roll. This is episode number 2015, and today we are talking about why the housing market demands that we expand our land businesses into buying and reselling houses. I didn’t just wake up today and think, we should start buying and selling houses.
Jill Dewitt:
I’m bored.
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t have thoughts like that.
Jill Dewitt:
This just seems like a good idea.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m looking at the data, as I do every single week, and share it with the Land Academy community, and the data is now for sure telling us that there’s excess, there’s an incredible demand for houses still, and there’s now a supply that has caught up with it and it’s time to start buying houses again for us.
Jill Dewitt:
What’s interesting is, well, I’ll save my questions for the show because I actually have some questions on this topic for you. Go ahead.
Steven Jack Butala:
Each week on the show we answer a question from our Land Academy member Discord forum, and we take a deep dive into land related topics by popular request from our Land Academy community. Let’s take a couple of questions today.
Jill Dewitt:
Cool. Jenny … Oh, by the way, in case you couldn’t notice, we are still coming to you from the RV, so on the road for quite a few months actually this summer. So the background may change. Right there over my shoulder, that little window, that view’s going to change, but this shouldn’t change.
Steven Jack Butala:
And our attitude will change for sure.
Jill Dewitt:
Oh, definitely.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill’s will.
Jill Dewitt:
Yeah, exactly. I’ll get angrier.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s usually my job.
Jill Dewitt:
Oh, that’s true. Your job is angrier. I just get loopy, like what, I’m supposed to do what? Okay, so back to the questions. Jenny in our group wrote, “I have a newbie question for everyone. I have a purchase agreement in place to buy my first parcel of land this weekend. Yay. My sellers are in a situation where they need the cash as quickly as I can make it happen. It’s a vacant land parcel that an end user will most likely put a mobile home on. Power’s at the street. Well, septic of course will need to get done. All normal stuff. Given all these details, and if there’s anything else I need to consider, will it be okay for me to do a self close following the steps from Jill, or would there be a reason to make this a title escrow close instead? Buying for 18K.”
Do you want to go first or-
Steven Jack Butala:
Yes. A lot of people had comments, and I believe in the general consensus of those comments and they are as follows. Having a baby’s not really a cash crunch situation. This is not my words. These are the words of other Land Academy members.
Jill Dewitt:
Did they say that?
Steven Jack Butala:
In Discord. Oh, yeah.
Jill Dewitt:
Where’s there a baby involved?
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, somebody’s having a baby.
Jill Dewitt:
Oh, is that why it’s in there?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. Oh, this is why they need the money.
Jill Dewitt:
That got cut out of the question.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s not them. They’re having their first grandchild, so they’re probably freaking out. Yeah, it did get cut off.
Jill Dewitt:
Oh, okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
And number two, you know somebody’s going to put a mobile home on this. They’re going to need title insurance. So I would close with title insurance, like we do with most transactions, a vast, vast, vast majority of transactions, and I would try to find a residential or an escrow agent that can do it quickly and effectively.
Jill Dewitt:
My turn now. I’m with Jenny, you do have options. You could buy it really fast and get title insurance on the sell side. There’s nothing wrong with that. Make sure you have those people in the loop because they may be needing to sign some documents, blah, blah, blah, when you do the title insurance on the sell side. Have we done this? Heck yeah.
And then on the flip side is, too, the big picture is it shouldn’t take that long anyway because we’re not in COVID. There’s actually an abundance of agents. There’s so much of abundance and time right now with title agents, speaking from experience, that they have all the time in the world to analyze your deal and even try to save you from some things. So I’m kind of like just close it like we talked about kind of thing. So that’s another show. But you should be very capable and able to make five phone calls and find a good agent in your area that can do this inside of two weeks-
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, geez.
Jill Dewitt:
… period-
Steven Jack Butala:
A week.
Jill Dewitt:
Because you’re all cash with title insurance.
Steven Jack Butala:
And there’s probably not a loan. There’s no loan on the property, so that takes out a lot of time and energy.
Jill Dewitt:
They’re probably worried because they’re thinking, you know what, they’re thinking of their house experience where, gosh, it was 30 and 45 days to close because I had to provide all these documents. I had to provide letters that I paid off that credit card. I had to provide this. That’s kind of a normal situation for people. So to them, when you say, “I can get it done a week from Friday,” they’re going to be like, “Oh, okay, that’s perfect.”
Steven Jack Butala:
So for the rest of you, if you’re brand new, or for any of you who are saying what the heck are these two talking about now, there’s two ways to close a real estate deal. The one that everybody knows about, Sally Smith, the residential real estate agent, gets a listing. You sell the property, you sign your name 3000 times. Sally Smith, who does not actually know how to close a real estate deal, sends it to escrow agent John Smith, and John Smith does all the work.
And from there, again, a bunch of stuff to sign, disclosures, all kinds of things, and they manage the money for you. So if you were to buy this for cash, you would be buying it for $18,000. You would put it in escrow. The escrow agent would set up a closing statement where the money goes and the whole thing, and that’s how Jill and I sell property and that’s how we buy it 99% of the time.
If you go way back into our podcast, that’s not how we did it in the beginning. A lot of years ago, 10, 15 years ago, that was exactly not what we did. So that’s way number one, the way that everybody knows.
Number two is just like selling a car without a dealer. You have a title in your hand and the buyer of your car has a fistful of money. He gives you the money, you sign over the title to the car. Some states you need a notary, some you don’t. I take the money, I give you the title, and the title gets recorded and it’s done. Same thing with real estate, and that’s what a self close is. I’m oversimplifying, but it’s really important to know. Everybody needs to know you don’t need a real estate agent to close a real estate deal.
Jill Dewitt:
Thank you. All right, next question. Steven wrote, “Any issues with using my home address for mail? Should I pick up a post box office instead? I do not plan on moving in the foreseeable future. Also, is it recommended to get a second phone line? Any option on using a virtual phone line like RingCentral versus a second dedicated phone line?”
I have a lot to say about this and I’m sure you do, too.
Steven Jack Butala:
I do. You go first. You’ll probably cover all of it actually.
Jill Dewitt:
That would be nice. Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think you and I are-
Jill Dewitt:
You don’t need mom and dad weighing in on this, so that’s why I held back on the last one. I let dad take that one. We’re going to let mom take this one. So you know what, Steven? What if you hit it big, or just who knows? Life happens. You might move. You never know.
So one reason is I want you to get a post office box or some kind of a virtual mailbox, something like that, that will never change, because 10 years from now, 15 years from now, hey, this one, I’ve been doing this for 15 years, he’s been doing it for 30. Thank goodness we still have the same mailbox address because people do write letters and still reach out to us from now I can say decades ago. It’s crazy, but it’s true, and I want to get those letters because I might want that property now, whatever it is. So I do want you to do that. The flip side of that, too, is like I don’t really want anybody showing up on your door. Not that they would.
Steven Jack Butala:
Sure they will. Eventually they will.
Jill Dewitt:
But what if somebody’s not happy about something? I don’t know. They have something to say about it. You definitely don’t want your own personal stuff. You don’t want a package on fire on your doorstep.
Steven Jack Butala:
Mom’s softening this topic. Do not use your home address.
Jill Dewitt:
Well, that’s what I’m saying.
Okay, then number two on the phone number, same thing. I can’t be sure I’m going to have my same phone number forever, but I can keep my phone and I want to keep it separate too. There’s a couple different reasons. A, I don’t want people to have my own cell number. I need to be able to differentiate if it’s a work call or it’s my friends calling me. B, I need to flip this number around sometimes. I need a phone number that I purchase and I own. I might buy it from [inaudible 00:09:43] or something like that and then port the number into my phone system, and that’s the best way because what if I’m not taking the calls this week? I’m doing so great, I’m so busy. I have Pat Live take the phone calls and I can just route the phone number to Pat Live. I can route the phone number to my new assistant five years from now.
And again, the main point is they might reach out to you six months or six years after that mailer goes out and there’s a good chance you’re going to want that property. At least you want the option to look at it and go, “You know what? I did so well in that area and boy, I wouldn’t mind doing a couple more. I’ve got the whole team in place.” You need to get those calls. So that’s why you want to do that.
Steven Jack Butala:
The relative cost for all this stuff is so small.
Jill Dewitt:
Cheap.
Steven Jack Butala:
And geez, maybe 30 minutes.
Jill Dewitt:
A hundred bucks a month, if that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Both of these things set up. In 1995, I got a mailbox in midtown Scottsdale and we still to this day have that same mailbox. We have moved, we’ve lived in three different states. We’ve probably moved 12 to 15 times, and that mailbox is the same.
I had a home phone number and a fax number. That’s how long ago this was. That is still in use within our companies today, that we still use it for certain stuff because I was fortunate enough because we owned it and then we forward it and the whole thing. So you want to leave open a lot of options. Millions and millions of letters, hopefully if your career goes well, you’re going to send out millions of letters like Jill and I do, and you’re going to get calls 10 years later.
Jill Dewitt:
Here’s your nomad tip of the day. If you want to have a lifestyle like us, doing deals from wherever you choose to be, whether it’s in this country, in an RV, whether it’s on the back of a boat, whether you’re in the Caribbean, wherever you are dreaming up, spending a month in Paris, I don’t care, you could even do mailbox place to mailbox place.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what we do.
Jill Dewitt:
That’s an interesting thought. Exactly. So we have, like Jack just said, from 1995, our same whatever address, guess what they do? Bundle it up, send it to us wherever we are. It’s the greatest thing.
Steven Jack Butala:
We have our home mailbox and our professional company’s mailbox in the same place and we don’t get mail anywhere else.
Jill Dewitt:
We don’t get mail at home. Everything at the mail at home is all the junk mail that I feel bad that people are wasting money on because it gets stacked up and then I recycle it all.
Steven Jack Butala:
And the people that run the mailbox place, I think we’ve been through three owners there, pack up our stuff and send it to us probably once a month, whatever’s in there.
Jill Dewitt:
Yep. Okay. Today-
Steven Jack Butala:
The bigger, deeper question is, Steven, we address all this stuff in the program, and I have to ask myself, I guess I have to ask it out loud myself, why would you veer from what we teach?
Jill Dewitt:
Well, maybe he hasn’t got to that part of the program yet. That happens a lot. I’ve noticed that. I had some dear sweet woman recently and I went back and I looked and I’m like, tell me how much, she’s like, and she stopped watching at that crucial point. I’m like, “You turned off the thing.”
Steven Jack Butala:
What happened? What’s the story there? Tell us the story. I want to hear this story.
Jill Dewitt:
It’s all right. She turned it off at that crucial moment where you go on to talk about, “And here’s what could happen and here’s why you test this and here’s how you do this,” and stuff. It was data related, and I’m like, “You’ve got to watch this stuff.” Not only do you have to watch it, watch it a couple times because every time you’re going to pick up on something different.
Steven Jack Butala:
When are you guys going to get to the topic?
Jill Dewitt:
I know. Can we talk about it?
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s topic, why the housing market demands that we expand our land business into buying and reselling houses. Jill and I have a lot of experience buying and selling houses. We’ve done many deals. That saved us around 2009, 2010, long before we had Land Academy, where we just, if you’re old enough to remember, we had the largest real estate recession in the history of our country, with the exception of 1929. So it was a tough time. We had a ton of real estate. Jill and I owned a bunch of land free and clear, as we always do, and we couldn’t sell it. Nobody was buying land.
And certainly nothing like that’s going to happen this time, but it is showing the sign. And back then we saved ourselves by buying houses and selling them. We were buying houses from banks for 40 to $60,000 that are now three and $400,000. And we were reselling them back then for 80 to 120 really successfully. And that was only because the market was conducive to that situation. That’s it.
And so yeah, we bought and sold houses after that, and all throughout my career, I’ve always been buying and selling houses and so was Jill. She cut her teeth on that actually. I cut my teeth on land and we got together and did a bunch of house deals, and at that time it wasn’t our favorite thing because we were cleaning them up too much, but they were always profitable.
So there’s some circumstances that are lending themselves in the market that are starting down that path of repeating what happened in 2009, only a lot less acute. And so I’ll go through what those circumstances are and why we’re going to start and already have started out. We’ve got a house [inaudible 00:15:06] hitting here in about less than a week. All right, here’s number one.
Jill Dewitt:
To my phone.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you remember-
Jill Dewitt:
I’m taking those calls right myself, at least the first wave.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you remember back then, what caused that financial breakdown that trickled up and down into the housing and real estate community was credit. It was lack of credit, which was really catalyzed in my opinion by predatory lending. We have weird, weird crazy lending practices with reverse mortgages and all kinds of stuff.
And fortunately, and I don’t say this too often, but fortunately, and I think it was required back then, the federal government stepped in and made some changes for the better I think. Now what we’re experiencing is COVID. So COVID happened and we all thought that it was going to destroy the economy and it didn’t. It had the opposite, direct opposite effect to real estate. So if you look at any graph, you can see COVID happened, the world shut down, and nobody was buying or selling property at all.
And the next January came, I guess it was around 2021, everybody started buying property. It was time to buy mountain houses and second homes and all of that, and it was mixed up with the three percent. We were having two and three percent mortgage rates. There was a massive house buying binge that was happening. Well, little did I even know back then most of the deals that were happening for residential properties were adjustable rate mortgages. So you were locked in for a certain amount of time and then after time passes, it adjusts to actual interest rates.
So from a lender’s perspective, you have to say or think, well, how can you lose actually? They’re kind of betting on the fact that they’ll go up, and they are. Interest rates have gone up. They were two to three percent back then. They’re around seven percent now. Six to seven, maybe seven plus. So all those interest rate mortgages that were locked in at three percent, two and three percent, are going to go up two or three percent. They’re literally going to double. That was 2021. This is 2024. Three years later.
If you had a 3/1 adjustable rate mortgage, an ARM, it’s adjusting right now. And the direct result of that is a lot more houses are going on the market. And here’s why. If your mortgage is 12 to $1,500, which is the national average a month, and it goes from three to six percent or seven percent, that $1,200 mortgage is now $2,500. A very substantial number of people can’t handle that financially, and understandably so. Your mortgage is doubling and your salary and the revenue that you have in your household is the same. So significant. Way more than half of the people that are experiencing this can’t handle it.
What’s the first thing they do? They call their sister-in-law real estate agent and put the house on the market. And that is why we’re seeing tons of inventory on the market. And people are celebrating. I read an article today that was published by the National Association of Realtors. Jill and I are going to talk about it on the call, on our Thursday webinar, a closed call for Land Academy members and House Academy members, and they said there’s reason for celebration. And I stopped before I even, I stopped right after I’d read the title. I didn’t even get into the article. Why are we celebrating? There’s more inventory on the market.
Well, that industry sees that, number one, real estate agents, now they have more stuff to sell. That’s really what they mean. And I’m not even going to tell you what I really think about that. The real positive in it is that people who could not get into the housing market as an owner are now having a better shot at that. There’s more inventory. It’s driving the prices down, very slightly and slowly, but it is driving the prices down because it’s bringing supply and demand in sync again, instead of just having all this crazy demand and not enough supply. So that’s what’s happening and it will continue. And then 5/1 mortgages are going to kick in, too, between now and two years from now. So that rate from 50 to 60% who can’t handle it, it’s going to go even higher.
Demand in the real world, in a regular situation, it would be great because that regular amount of demand would kind of equal out, like I said. But geez, this generation is the largest generation in the world. There are two generations at work here, the Generation X, and I’m sorry, the millennials and then the next one after that, I think it’s called Generation A or something like that. I don’t know. I don’t remember. Together they are 140 million people. The baby boomers are only 70 million. It’s twice as large as the baby boomer generation, which is our parents, Jill and I’s parents. If you’re about our age, that’s the case also.
Jill Dewitt:
What is our age?
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m not going to say that.
Jill Dewitt:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
That was a trick.
Jill Dewitt:
Yeah, thank you. Good one.
Steven Jack Butala:
If there’s a woman in your life, don’t answer stuff like that.
Jill Dewitt:
You’re on your toes.
Steven Jack Butala:
Please know not to answer anything like that.
Jill Dewitt:
There you go. How much do I weigh? Good one.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s how interested Jill is in this topic.
Jill Dewitt:
You got this.
Steven Jack Butala:
So now you’ve got this massive demand. You’ve got real high interest rates because the feds are trying to keep us in check from an inflation standpoint. And you’ve got all these mortgages coming due. So you’ve got tons of property on the market and tons of demand. All right, so how do we make money on this? What you have is a heck of a lot of activity, tons of activity happening.
What you need to do is start trolling around on realtor.com or Redfin or Zillow, like we teach in Land Academy and House Academy, and find the markets where properties, lots and lots and lots of properties are being listed and lots of properties are being purchased. And then within that market you are going to find the break point. I talk about all this stuff in House Academy in great detail.
And you’ll find that at about the top of the bell curve-ish, let’s just say there’s tons and tons of properties listed for between 325,000 and 375,000. There’s very few properties between 100 and 200, 250, and very few properties in the five to $600,000 range. The break point is somewhere at the top of the bell curve, and it smacks you in the face because when you click on pending properties, properties that are under contract, and you click on sold properties, the values will smack you in the face. They will be somewhere around that 350 mark.
So you send out a mailer, you figure out how to buy property below that break point. When you have all this activity and tons of properties are hitting the market, some people get your offer, they get your letter, they get your offer in the mail, and they say to themselves, “There’s 14 houses for sale on my block right now. Every time I drive to work, I see the signs. I’m going to call this guy back. He wants to buy for 250. I think I’m going to sell it to him if he wants it that bad.”
If this works, Jill and I have done it in two market downturns. So I would urge you, if you’re listening to this because you’re buying and selling land, or you want to, I would urge you to expand into this space or at least explore it.
Jill Dewitt:
Do you want to share anything at all about, and you can say no.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, good. No.
Jill Dewitt:
Okay. No, I was just going to say we all understand and agree and appreciate your insight and your research. That was wonderful. Beautiful presentation about why it all makes sense and what numbers and where you should be looking at and trolling and that kind of thing. There’s a couple questions that I’d just like to throw in there and see if you want to talk about, am I cash or am I financing these?
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, geez. So that’s a great question. Boy, nothing will make you run out of money faster than buying a house and reselling it. If you’re buying for 300 and selling for 400, two or three deals and you’re a million bucks extended. For most of us, that’s a lot of money.
It’s the same situation. The people in our group, the people in the Land Academy group, are dying to apply money to what you’re about to do. Your job is to find properties that are below that break point in that market. That’s the money. And one message on Discord as a Land Academy or House Academy member, you will find the money you need. Jill and I will give you the money.
Jill Dewitt:
What about it needs a carpet, and the roof kind of stinks, and boy, that carport should be a garage. What do I do about that stuff?
Steven Jack Butala:
So it’s obviously that I left out all the HGTV topics that apply to buying and reselling a house. And the fact is, I could care less about that stuff. I only care about it if it will dramatically stop you from reselling the house. And so nobody wants to buy a super huge piece of garbage. Nobody. And it doesn’t show well and it stinks and it doesn’t pass code and the whole thing.
Jill Dewitt:
Except for a flipper.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yes.
Jill Dewitt:
They do want that. If you do too much to it, you’re going to scare all the flippers.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s got to make financial sense. You need to walk in, you need to be the kind of person that can apply common sense and say, “I know I can easily sell a property like this for $350,000. The guy accepted my offer at 250. There’s a lot of stuff wrong with it. I think I’m going to go back and probably re-offer 210 just because I think there’s a lot of [inaudible 00:25:24].” You’re going to get an inspection anyway. The inspection’s going to tell you what’s wrong.
Jill Dewitt:
The point I’m trying to make here is in its current condition, the whole goal is you’re trying to find an asset where, what were your numbers? Anywhere from 20 to a hundred. There we go. You’re trying to find a sweet spot, I’m going to argue even more than $20,000. I’m going to say 50 to a hundred thousand. You’re trying to find an asset that’s marked, that’s priced 50 to a hundred thousand dollars below what it’s worth in its current position. And because it’s convenience, you’re finding it before there’s an agent involved, there’s no commissions, all that good stuff. It’s convenience between you and the seller. They can walk away and have a check, and it’s going to be cash and no one’s going to make them redo the roof or clean out the garage. Those kind of things.
And then the point of it is, too, you’re selling it in its current condition. And well, I know we’ll talk more about that because that’s the whole Land Academy, House Academy model. I’m not going in there and making it beautiful. Again, buying it for 250, let’s just say buying it for 250. In its current condition, it’s worth 310, 320. But some flipper can come along and make it beautiful and now it’s worth 400. That’s the goal.
Steven Jack Butala:
Or 450. That’s what those outliers are.
Jill Dewitt:
That’s what you’re doing. You’re selling to them and let them do that work. You don’t have a construction company.
Steven Jack Butala:
Listen, you do not want to become a contractor here.
Jill Dewitt:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
You do not. This is not, it’s called House Academy. It’s not called House Renovations.
Jill Dewitt:
True. Or HGTV.
Steven Jack Butala:
We do not renovate houses. The most we’ve ever done with any level of success is paint and carpet, and maybe light fixtures in certain cases, if they really need to be replaced.
Jill Dewitt:
That was only because I was doing the end user. You know what it was? We bought one that was a little too nice and that’s all it needed. And none of the investors wanted to touch it. I’m like, well, I guess we’re going to sell it then, we’re going to sell it to the end user. Guess what happened? Then we made even more money. So that’s the worst thing that can happen if it’s in that good of shape. So good stuff.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is all math.
Jill Dewitt:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s all buying properties that are like kind, analyzing sold values, active values, reducing it down to a price per square foot, and doing the math. It’s not about window treatments. If you are really interested in buying and selling houses so that you can express yourself artistically, this is absolutely the wrong show for you and the wrong program.
Jill Dewitt:
We’re here to make money.
Steven Jack Butala:
Through data, through the use of data.
Jill Dewitt:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s it.
Jill Dewitt:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
So yeah, something to share today.
Jill Dewitt:
I was thinking about, in light of this environment, I’m talking to my team and talking about people coming into Land Academy, and it’s so interesting the shift that we’re seeing of the very accomplished corporate people coming to us right now due to little, I don’t know if little or big, I don’t know what the right word is, but shifts in the job market. And I just want to talk about it for a minute and make everybody feel really good about this.
Again, our group is small, and when you really think about the number of people out there doing what we do, it may sound like a lot of noise, but the number of people really actually doing it and doing it well and actually getting mail in out there to people, it’s not that big. So I want you to feel good.
And then to make you feel even better, what I wanted you to know is you could have some very conservative goals in Land Academy, screw it all up, and still have no trouble putting food on the table. So let me just, that’s my whole thing.
Steven Jack Butala:
Good point.
Jill Dewitt:
We talk big numbers all the time. That’s just who we are. We’re wired to do that, and it’s fun. But realistically, if you can’t live on $10,000 a month, we could, then we’ve got some problems. Think about it. If the world all goes sideways and you had $10,000 a month, could you live on that? Yeah, you could.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, geez.
Jill Dewitt:
And you know what? If you can’t, we need to talk because then you’re paying too much. You bought your house for too much, you need to reel it back in. You shouldn’t be driving that car and you shouldn’t be going to Hawaii right now.
So you can do it. Those are not crazy numbers. And then within Land Academy, boy, if you just did a couple deals a month, like I said, your goal is to do three, four deals a month and you want to make 10 grand a deal, super small, conservative numbers, you screw them all up. Guess what? Now you make 10 to $20,000 a month and you’re going to be just fine. That’s my point today.
Steven Jack Butala:
Use this how you’d like to use it. That’s the whole point here. You can scale it.
Jill Dewitt:
That’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
Scale it how you want.
Jill Dewitt:
Well, because I talked to people recently, just in this last, you know, a couple of weeks ago we did this big workshop. It was five days, ended up being six. We went over the next week because we did a whole big Q&A day, workshop, really helping people understand what we are, what we do. And I broke it out into five days. Jack joined me. It was a whole lot of fun.
And I talked to people, and there was an interesting gentleman who was very successful. He said, “You guys scared me with sending out this much mail.” I said, “Well, hold on a moment.” Because you know what’s funny? He’s like, “I don’t want to do that much. I don’t need that much money. I don’t want to do that much.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Really?
Jill Dewitt:
Yeah, it was really kind of funny. And I’m like, “I can’t remember hearing that before, but okay.” It was really interesting and it made me take a step back and just realize, we’re not going to push you to send out a hundred thousand units of mail a month, uh-uh, but I am going to push you or at least help you and show you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Guide you.
Jill Dewitt:
Guide you with how much mail you need to send to hit whatever your personal goals are. That’s it.
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t want that much money, Jill. I’m good.
Jill Dewitt:
It was so funny. He’s like, “Yeah, you guys turned me off on sending that much mail.” I’m like, “I don’t think anyone’s ever said that to me.” I’m like, “This is the funniest thing, but I get it. Okay.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Somebody else said that to me. One other person in my entire career said that, “That’s too much. I don’t want to do that.”
Jill Dewitt:
I’m like, “Well, you don’t want to make that much money.” “I don’t want to do that.” I’m like-
Steven Jack Butala:
By the way, we don’t physically stuff envelopes here.
Jill Dewitt:
No, that’s true too. So I guess that’s all I wanted to make sure you know. Whatever your goals are, well, we just introduced personal coaching, by the way. It’s starting this summer. I’m so excited. And that’s one of the main things that I’m really going to get with all the coaches, and we’re going to really sit with you to help you. You may not even know what your goals are. We’ll help you set your goals if you don’t know.
We’ll go through the equity planner with you step by step by step until you feel so good about like, yeah, I can do that. All right, 20 hours a week and that much mail a month. Okay, yeah. To hit those numbers so you feel good about whatever it is for you, and whatever number is magic to you, we’re going to help you hit it. So that’s my point today. Thank you. What do you have to share?
Steven Jack Butala:
If this stuff’s intriguing, by the way, I failed to mention, go to either landacademy.com or houseacademy.com. I think if you want to become a guest on our Thursday call-
Jill Dewitt:
You could do that.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think you go to service at Land Academy.
Jill Dewitt:
Support.
Steven Jack Butala:
Or support.
Jill Dewitt:
Support@landacademy.com. Send them an email if you want to be a guest on our Thursday member call and see and hear more about some of the deals that we’re all doing.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s your opportunity as a member or not to ask any questions you want.
Jill Dewitt:
Totally. All right. What do you have to share with us today, Jack?
Steven Jack Butala:
My inspiration slash information segment is a direct segue from the actual topic. You have to adjust to the market. It’s imperative. We have had people in the past who’ve now since, I’m happy to report, gotten over this, but they are one track minded people in the distant past that say, “I’ve been mailing urban Dallas and I’ve been buying infill lots for two years straight. And this most recent time, it doesn’t seem to be working as well. And I guess it’s over.” It’s never over, never, ever over in real estate. You just have to adjust to it.
Jill Dewitt:
Could you imagine? Well, Texas is done. Mark that off the list. Everything’s bought and nobody’s moving. No, everybody’s settled. Yeah, that’s it. Texas is over. That would be really funny.
Steven Jack Butala:
If our government one day wakes up and says, “Yeah, it turns out we own everything. We’re the government and we own it all, and you’re just our guests here,” which could happen, that would probably end it. But short of that, I think-
Jill Dewitt:
Hello.
Steven Jack Butala:
Join us next Wednesday for another interesting episode. You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill Dewitt:
We are Jack and Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
Information.
Jill Dewitt:
And inspiration.
Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
Jill Dewitt:
That was crazy.
https://youtu.be/5HCIsakDn-Y
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Join us for an insightful interview with Josiah Ronco, $3 Million Dollars In 1 Year – Land Academy Success Story, an accomplished entrepreneur who achieved an impressive milestone last year. In this episode, Josiah shares his journey from overcoming early challenges to implementing effective strategies that drove his business to success.
Transcript: N/A
https://youtu.be/SIudCmnay3A
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Welcome to the Land Academy Show with Jack Butala and Jill DeWit! In this episode, we dive into a hot topic that’s on everyone’s mind: 3 Ways to Deal with Competition in Your Land Business. Whether you’re new to the field or an experienced land investor, competition is a reality we all face. Today, we discuss three key strategies to help you stay ahead and thrive in a competitive market.
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
Steven Jack Butala here.
Jill K DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit and this is the Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is episode number 2,012, and today we’re talking about three ways to deal with competition in your land business. Oh my gosh, is this a hot topic, Jack? I-
Jill K DeWit:
What? Wait, wait, there’s competition?
Steven Jack Butala:
For three years straight-
Jill K DeWit:
What?
Steven Jack Butala:
All I did was mailed Metro Dallas for infill lots. I did 20 deals a month. I just did it again last month and it … I only got 10 deals. I only got two deals. It didn’t work at all. Why? I want it to go back the way that it was.
Jill K DeWit:
What do I do?
Steven Jack Butala:
You know what Land Academy member, so do I. I want to go back to 1994.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh my goodness. Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Total timeout. Hold on a moment, let’s think about this for a second, we’re getting a little sidebar here. If you could go back to any year in your life what year would it be and why?
Steven Jack Butala:
You know what? From my soul.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m writing mine down.
Steven Jack Butala:
I would not go back.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, that’s too bad. Hold on a minute.
Steven Jack Butala:
What’s your year? She’s going to say 1985.
Jill K DeWit:
No, 1990.
Steven Jack Butala:
Really? 1990? What would you do different?
Jill K DeWit:
I didn’t have a care in the world.
Steven Jack Butala:
You know what? Neither did I. 1990-
Jill K DeWit:
1990.
Steven Jack Butala:
I was absolutely freaked out about … This is what ManPlan’s about. If you don’t know about ManPlan please go to manplan.com. I’m filming it and writing it right now. You’re a man you need a plan. Men make plans. I think women want to have not a care in the world.
Jill K DeWit:
Let me tell you where I was in 1990. Let me paint this picture. I moved in to a three-bedroom apartment on the beach with four flight attendants. We had the best parties. People would fly in to come to our parties. It was awesome. I loved it. I miss those days.
Steven Jack Butala:
And there’s no period in my life starting from when I was about 14 years old that I’ve suffered from a lack of a good time. I’m not talking about that.
Jill K DeWit:
Well true.
Steven Jack Butala:
Including yesterday.
Jill K DeWit:
But I didn’t have care in the world. I made great money, I had no problem paying my bills, everything, and I could go to any concert I wanted-
Steven Jack Butala:
So what happened?
Jill K DeWit:
And that was it.
Steven Jack Butala:
What happened? What changed?
Jill K DeWit:
I got transferred.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is way more fun than talking about land.
Jill K DeWit:
This is very good actually. Well, it was American Airlines and they closed the LA office and they moved me to Arizona. And so I-
Steven Jack Butala:
And that triggered-
Jill K DeWit:
And then I thought, well, why not do something different? Why not leave California? This could be a good thing. Changes is good, right? Go where the job is. And they’re like “Okay, let’s go to a new state.” And Arizona was always and still is very, very good to us. Now fast-forward. Then what happened? Then I got to Arizona and I got bored and that’s a whole nother story.
Steven Jack Butala:
Keep going.
Jill K DeWit:
And then I made some bad decisions.
Steven Jack Butala:
Okay. Now we get to the bottom of it. The stage was set for bad, boring, boring …
Jill K DeWit:
Bored.
Steven Jack Butala:
Boredom driven bad decisions.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s it.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s a show.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s it. So anyway.
Steven Jack Butala:
Kind of bored maybe I should get married. I’m bored maybe I should have a baby.
Jill K DeWit:
Maybe we should buy a house.
Steven Jack Butala:
Nope, nope, nope. Let’s get some debt.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, that’s a great idea.
Steven Jack Butala:
Sprinkle some debt.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, let’s get-
Steven Jack Butala:
Sprinkle some debt on a bad relationship-
Jill K DeWit:
Let’s get a great car-
Steven Jack Butala:
And a couple-
Jill K DeWit:
That holds a couple car seats.
Steven Jack Butala:
A couple of babies.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s a good idea.
Steven Jack Butala:
A minivan. Get a white minivan.
Jill K DeWit:
It was not white. I’ve never had a white-
Steven Jack Butala:
Sprinkle some debt on a bad marriage and a couple of babies in a white minivan and she said … She picks out, well, it wasn’t white.
Jill K DeWit:
There you go. Now you know. I have not nor will I ever have a white car. Go ahead.
Steven Jack Butala:
Two periods like that in my life and I got out of them really fast.
Jill K DeWit:
Got it.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m glad I did.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, all right.
Steven Jack Butala:
And you did too.
Jill K DeWit:
I got out of it.
Steven Jack Butala:
You got out of that.
Jill K DeWit:
I wouldn’t say fast.
Steven Jack Butala:
Your fate.
Jill K DeWit:
You know what’s funny? There’s times in my life like right now where I’m like “Oh.” Our staff is like “What happened?” Let’s rip the band-aid off we’re running around crazy people getting stuff done. It’s because I get to the end. I’m like okay, we’re trying to be calm and trying to do this right. And then I’m like nope, over. All right, back to the show. Sorry.
Steven Jack Butala:
Each week on the show we answer a question, in this case, two questions, from our Land Academy member Discord forum. And we take a deep dive into land-related topics by popular request from our Land Academy community. And today’s topic is three ways to deal with competition because it is the topic, not only within our group but all over the internet. What are we going to do?
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m not the only one sending a mailer to Dallas right now, there’s two other people doing it. What do I do?
Jill K DeWit:
I’m just looking ahead. Are they two separate questions?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
Do you want me to pause in between?
Steven Jack Butala:
Very separate, yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. So Jen wrote, “When evaluating a property that has come back from a mailer as a possible acquisition, do you send a realtor out to look at the property to give a listing price opinion while still negotiation with the seller or wait until it’s under contract? I have a property that’s anomaly in its area and hard to comp. The seller counted my offer so I was hoping to get an opinion from a local realtor. I thought about contacting Whitetail because I found a Whitetail guy with other similar properties” … This is great.
Steven Jack Butala:
Good. This is great.
Jill K DeWit:
“In the area.”
Steven Jack Butala:
You’re on point. Good job, Jen.
Jill K DeWit:
“But I don’t know if I should contact him before I’ve assigned PA with the seller. Please advise, thank you.” Can I go first?
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, yeah. First and final on this.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, okay. I would not have any trouble with this. It’s when you send out an offer and the person says, “No, I’m not good enough,” and now you just have no number. You’re just nebulous trying to go well, I don’t even know what to come back with, I need to bring in-
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s not a deal yet.
Jill K DeWit:
I need to bring in some help. That I wouldn’t do yet. You need to get a number. But this said you have the seller that countered a number so now you have a number. So let’s just pretend, Jen, you sent it out for $15,000, right, and you were feeling good about that. You’re like anything can go anyway. I know at 15,000 this is just going to be great, and they counted at 25. And now you’re going okay, now I really got to think about it. I’m having trouble. I knew at 15 I could make it work no matter what, but at 25 now I’m not so sure my number’s going to work, maybe I need to bring in somebody else. I would have no trouble doing all of this. This kind of a verbal thing with a seller I personally feel … I feel good with.
I’m not going to say, “Will you sign it, send it to me, and then I’ll really get serious about it.” No, they gave you a serious number back and I would be fine. It sounds like you found somebody good, you found a … I’ve worked with several agents from Whitetail Properties and I think they’re great. I would have no trouble calling them. Don’t give him all those details. Don’t say, “I just got a verbal” or anything like that. But calling him and letting him go look at it and giving you an opinion, I would be totally fine with that at this point
Steven Jack Butala:
I would say, “I’ve got a property under contract,” don’t say for how much. “This is it, what do you think you can sell it for?”
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t even say that. I don’t even say under contract. I’m just like “Hey, I just got this in and I’m trying to figure out what to do with it, what would you sell it for?” Be real vague. Hello Blake. Okay. Then Blake wrote, “Has anyone who is on a consistent mail schedule noticed a dip in calls the past few weeks? I’m wondering if I messed up by mailer or if it’s a seasonal lull with people traveling for the summer.”
Steven Jack Butala:
This is my friend is why we wrote this topic. Not your question specifically, but many, many, many others with the same sentiment. What’s going on? I sent a mailer out and it doesn’t … It’s not performing the way that I want to. To which I answer, and my short answer is … And Jill and I are going to get into the topic here in one second. Welcome to the business. Welcome to any business. There’s ups, there’s downs, there’s great months, there’s bad months, there’s mediocre months, and when you average it all out, hopefully, there’s a little bit of money left over.
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what this is.
Jill K DeWit:
I have to say, sometimes though I do have to agree, there are weird things … Think about you, Blake. I mean, just to be honest, Blake, you’re a Land Academy member because I know you got … This came out of Discord so I know that you’re in there. Just to back up a minute. Let me think for a second. There’s weeks that you are busy. I watch it with our … With Land Academy members. The week the kids are out of school or a holiday, sometimes there’s a lull on people that show up for the activities, and the group calls, and things like that. Sometimes there is a little bit of a dip like that. If it lasts for six weeks then we got to look at it. But if it’s a week here and there and you can go yeah, kids just got out of school, I … They’re going to call me. There’s an expiration date on it. But there are other things going on that you’re going to talk about today too I know.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s do this real quick.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s topic, three ways to deal with competition in your land business. When I was a kid and a young professional … I grew up in an industrial environment. My friend’s parents were somehow … Well, it was in Detroit so it was almost always tied to, in some way, the automotive industry including my own parents. My dad had a small accounting practice and my mom had her own psychology clinic-type business. And then my friend’s parents had metal stamping plants and all … But anyway. Everybody was tied to the automotive industry. And I remember hanging out with these older people, at the time, and some of them would pour themselves a Scotch on the weekend and kick their feet up on the desk or wherever we were and they would just have a big smile on their face. Kind of had this aura of it’s just over, I make a bunch of money now. I’ve got this house and my family and I’m happy and I’ve got a big smile on my face and a Scotch in my hand.
And I took that very incorrectly to mean yeah, this guy’s arrived. He’s done it, it’s all good, nothing to worry about. That doesn’t exist. Your business is a messy but somewhat controllable disaster just like my business is and it will always be that way. That guy was kicking up his feet, I realize now, because he’s trying to get drunk to forget about what happened that week in his own business, and putting a smile on his face. There is no arrival. There’s no point where you say, “Nan, I’ve arrived.”
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t have to do anything now.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’ve got the right vice president, the right CEO, I don’t have to do anything now. I don’t know I just-
Jill K DeWit:
I’m just going to go off and watch the bank balance, watch the money roll in.
Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s a new address, this is where you send all their money.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, exactly. Oh, and by the way, I expect that same year-over-year 5% growth. Thanks-
Steven Jack Butala:
No, a month over month-
Jill K DeWit:
See you later.
Steven Jack Butala:
5% growth.
Jill K DeWit:
There you go.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s 50 or 60% a year.
Jill K DeWit:
There we go. I expect that to continue without me.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s just not how this works.
Jill K DeWit:
You guys got this, right?
Steven Jack Butala:
It doesn’t work like that, not because of you and something wrong that you’re doing. What ends up happening is, invariably somebody younger, and faster, and smarter is going to come up behind you, take a look at what you’re doing, and figure out a better way to do it. That is a given, number one.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
Number one and the three deals away with … Three ways to deal with competition is this. Except that everything is constantly changing. Change is constant. Your supplier is going to cut you off, there’s … Orders are going to go down for some specific part because it’s cheaper to get in China. In our case-
Jill K DeWit:
Good point.
Steven Jack Butala:
You passed the red-green-yellow test, you’ve been smashing urban Dallas for infill lots for two years straight. Somebody figured it out, not maybe because they were following you around like they follow us around, but just because there’s just … People found out. The red-green-yellow test got out there. Or there’s other people in this environment, which is really serious actually … Other people in this environment that are way less qualified than Jill that are instructing people to send mail like that overpriced. Without getting into-
Jill K DeWit:
Noise.
Steven Jack Butala:
A lot of the details, you have to accept and embrace that everything’s constantly going to change.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s it. Or you will not survive. You got to get new customers sell side, you have to find new sellers in a different way, you have to reach them in a more creative way.
Jill K DeWit:
[inaudible 00:13:16].
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill and I just recorded, I don’t know when it’ll air, an interview with a four-year long member, his name’s Josiah Rocco, and he has … He doesn’t know this but he has completely and totally accepted change. He has chosen to deal with that change by ruling his market which is one of the number threes here. And so he’s just the best person in the market to sell your land to for a bunch of reasons and it … Not just price.
Jill K DeWit:
This is good stuff.
Steven Jack Butala:
Number two is what I just said, get to know between one and four areas like the back of your hand so you can start to brand yourself there. Jill has done that in the markets that we’re in. We’re in about four consistent markets. We’re always trying to get new markets, but we always go back to those original four. Jill’s starting to brand herself as a person that buys land in the area and is great to deal with and work with with real estate agents, and escrow agents, and everything.
Jill K DeWit:
They’ll give you properties-
Steven Jack Butala:
It might be in-
Jill K DeWit:
They’ll send me properties. I’m like “Why don’t you do this?” So they’re like, “Nah, it’s not my thing.” I’m like “Okay.”
Steven Jack Butala:
What ends up happening there too is it makes your … It builds your confidence. At some point, and it’ll probably take at least two years of consistently mailing maybe 10,000 units a month, what’ll end up happening is you’ll get some property back, you’ll review it, and you will within seconds say, “I would love to buy this property but not at this price. I love this block but not this block.” It goes down to the block sometimes.
Jill K DeWit:
You’ll know it that well. And not only that you have your team, it just makes it so easy. Susie at ABC title is on speed dial with you and you just … Now maybe you just text her and say, “Here it comes, here’s the information. Open escrow let’s” … It’s just so fast she doesn’t need to ask you everything over again. It goes faster, and it might even be cheaper by the way.
Steven Jack Butala:
Build this critical mass too because you’re … Now you’ve got all tens and tens of thousands of mailers out in circulation all over the place. Let’s call it a state, one state. You could do it state-wise, you could do it county, or zip code. There’s one guy we had in our group for a long time and he was just in one subdivision in Texas and that’s it. And he was buying and selling properties, that was his whole career.
Jill K DeWit:
Isn’t that funny? Well, think about that. Let’s just back up. Everybody goes like “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.” Well, what if you do one deal a month, and you make sure that one deal a month nets you 25 grand? I’m good with that. So you’re doing 12 a year. Now you can see like oh, okay, I can see, especially in some metro big city, how you could do one deal a month in a pretty consolidated area and do just great.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s $300,000 of net. It doesn’t take a calculator. You just have to consistently send out mail and deal with it.
Jill K DeWit:
No, I have you, I don’t need a calculator.
Steven Jack Butala:
When you say that-
Jill K DeWit:
Thanks to doing the math.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think that’s a compliment but it’s okay.
Jill K DeWit:
Some days it is some days it isn’t, you decide.
Steven Jack Butala:
Number three.
Jill K DeWit:
Just kidding, haha.
Steven Jack Butala:
Number three, and this is imperative this is ManPlan stuff. Number three is imperative. You need to remove your emotion based on your bank balance or whether or not you had a good month or a bad month. You need to buy into this business and enjoy it. You need to enjoy land, and looking at land, and analyzing it. If you are joining Land Academy, or any group for that matter, or going into anything and you’re testing the concept … I hate this business of testing. I’m going to send out a test mailer of 200 and see what happens.
Jill K DeWit:
Wait, wait, are we on number three? I’m still trying to slow down. I’m trying to slow this down. Can we circle back around or should I slow it down?
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s not only three, that’s the kicker. There’s going to be a few more.
Jill K DeWit:
All right. I want to just make sure that we’re really talking about these so I’m going to ask you to come back around in a minute. So sorry to interrupt you, please continue on your number three.
Steven Jack Butala:
You need to remove your emotion. If you’ve got some type of figurative gun to your head about getting a deal done this month because you need to make payroll. In the long run, that type of stressed environment’s not going to work. That’s not what this is for. You need to make sure that you have no bills or that your bills are so … You have a W-2 job that … Where you can find time in your life to start a company which is what this is. This is not what everybody else on the internet calls it, geez, passive income, and a side gig, and there’s all these cute little names for it. The fact is you are starting an empire and it needs capital, it needs your attention and time, and it needs you to be … Believe in it. You are the leader, you’re the CEO of it. You need to really grab the thing by the horns and give it what it deserves. Feed it so that it becomes something that you can … That you want and you’re hitting your goals.
Being emotional about having a bad month, you got to barrel through that because you believe in the product, you believe in the concept and the business, and you believe in the group that you’re in, hopefully it’s Land Academy because other people are doing it, they’ve already proven it for you. And you believe in yourself. I think this is the biggest one. The biggest issue with competition is not the competition itself it’s your ability to roll with the changes and your belief in yourself that you can do that and come out of it okay. God, how many times have you and I said, “Wow, the market changed. Geez, what are we going to do?”
Jill K DeWit:
We don’t, isn’t that funny?
Steven Jack Butala:
How are we going to do that? I can’t count the number of times.
Jill K DeWit:
This is perfect because I want to circle back through since we have lots of time. I want to circle back through. I love your list of three here, and I want to talk about them a little bit more with my thoughts on it. So your first one is … Okay, again, we’re dealing with competition, three ways to deal with it. One is you just have to accept it. Totally get it. Like you said, “How many times did we go well, it’s changed, it’s over, it’s done.” We don’t give up, we don’t we just find a new place kind of thing. And that’s part of it for me. You have to stay on track, and stay committed, and pivot.
You brought up some really, really good points in the beginning here about, no matter what business you have someone’s going to get it cheaper. You could have been the widget king of fill-in-the-blank for two decades and now all of a sudden here comes the new guy. It’s going to happen. Think about Coca‑Cola, Pepsi, think about all the energy drinks, think about everything, there’s always a first guy and then there’s 10 after him, always. And then the question is who stays the course? Who lasts? Who rolls with the punches?
That’s the thing too about change, you have to change and adapt. If you say, “Well, it’s always worked this way why would I change it? If it ain’t broke don’t fix it” whatever your mindset is. If you don’t change and listen to your customers and what they want you’re going to … They’re going to move on without you. I really like that. Change and accepting that is huge. I was thinking too, how many times we’ve pivoted and changed? How many credit card companies that we’ve gone through back in the day? They didn’t understand our business and they would shut us down. I’m like “I got to be able to accept money.” That was one of the hardest things. People are trying give me money and I can’t take their money, I got to figure something out here. And we got creative.
There were many times that we just did weird stuff too. It hasn’t happened in probably a decade now, but people would send me checks. I’d have money orders and things like that we had to do just to … Because people really wanted the property and we got creative with them. Then I love your, gosh, dig into an area that you know that … Better than anybody else. And building your team. That’s so huge. Like you mentioned, a lot of it is how fast you can make decisions now because how well you know the area and what’s coming. You know where the Walmart’s going in and you know where this is … And you know the good side of the tracks and the not good side of the tracks. That’s still a thing.
And it does build confidence because you really know what you’re doing. And also for me it’s ease, it’s money. My life is easier. I’m getting cheaper things done with my same escrow agent. They cut me all these deals because I have three I’m throwing in escrow a month. And we don’t have to talk that much. I know how she rolls she knows how I roll. We get these things done kind of thing. And then your third one, this is good, just taking yourself I guess out of this. You call it remove your emotion or your bank balance.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s great, take yourself out of it.
Jill K DeWit:
This is bigger than you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well said.
Jill K DeWit:
This is bigger than you and it is not personal.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s right.
Jill K DeWit:
Being co-founder of a sweet little land company for going on … We’re nine years now and we’re going to be 10 next summer. Boy, if I thought everybody was out to get me I wouldn’t be here right now. I know that we’ve helped a lot of careers in a lot of different ways get off the ground. And I can’t take it personal, and I have to just trust that we’re doing the right thing. And I know we are, I know we are because we’re all doing great. I have one last little thing I’d like to add to this is … We talked about it a little bit on the career path alumni call with the noise out there. And you know what we all agreed on? No one’s listening to the noise, we’re ignoring it. Well, especially Jack has weathered three real estate storms-
Steven Jack Butala:
Three.
Jill K DeWit:
We’ll just say-
Steven Jack Butala:
One was a depression, yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
In his career.
Steven Jack Butala:
But a lot of little ones that I somewhat caused.
Jill K DeWit:
Guess what? It works out. If you can stick with it like we’re talking about, don’t take it personal, find your niche, accept the change, and roll with it … Don’t have a big ego and expect to do the same numbers you did last month, so what? Add up the year, divide it by 12 you know you did fine. And you stay the course, it’s going to work itself out. I hate seeing people not make it-
Steven Jack Butala:
Me too.
Jill K DeWit:
But there’s a lot of people that won’t make it. There’s a lot of people right now that are … That’s part of what’s going on I think too, there’s a lot of noise out there. People are like “Oh, this is a” … “This land thing.” We’ve talked about this too. I can’t remember the last time I had to explain that you could make money selling land. But when we started Land Academy I was constantly … No one believed me. Not one person would believe that you could make money on land.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s right.
Jill K DeWit:
They’re like “You’re stupid.”
Steven Jack Butala:
For five years.
Jill K DeWit:
“Jill, you’re wrong.”
Steven Jack Butala:
For the five years it was like that.
Jill K DeWit:
“Oh, you must do something to it, you’re not telling me the truth.” I’m like “No, really, I’m not doing anything to it.” They didn’t believe me. Now that’s over, everybody understands that. But there’s people that are still … What’s the word I’m looking for?
Steven Jack Butala:
Let me paraphrase.
Jill K DeWit:
Education, and knowledge, and experience or tenacity to hang with it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill and I have never said this is easy. If you go out on the internet and look at-
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, that’s great.
Steven Jack Butala:
Anybody who thinks they can teach this are … And is teaching it and offering some type of product, the underlying message that they’re sending is that this is an easy, fast way to make money.
Jill K DeWit:
There’s a lot of moving parts.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is a business and you can build an empire. We just talked to Josiah, again, I don’t know when that’s going to air. This is his fourth year in the business. Last year top lined three million and this year expects to do seven or eight million, and he’s very humble about it. And he said, “Yep, we did everything wrong. I made a mistake over here, this happened over here.” And then he revealed really what motivates him and why he’s got to that level. So it’s really worth listening to. He’s in this. He’s in it full-time, he’s got full-time people, and he’s managing cash flow and has the same concerns that all of us do and he addresses them one by one and overcomes them. And how he overcomes them and addresses them this month will be different next month.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, there’s going to be a whole new set of issues.
Steven Jack Butala:
And it’ll be different the month after that.
Jill K DeWit:
What we’re dealing with this year in 2024 is going to be so different in 2025.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, for sure.
Jill K DeWit:
And think about what we got through since 2020. There’s many of you in Land Academy, you’ve been with us way before COVID, we all got through it. If anything, it was a woo. We all thought it was going to sink the ship and then it turned out the opposite effect. That’s a thing too, you don’t know what you think is going to happen the outcome might be the opposite. So stay the course and learn to roll with it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s what you have that we never had, and most people don’t have, camaraderie.
Jill K DeWit:
I was going to say us.
Steven Jack Butala:
You have a group. You have a group of people. When you have one of those days or one of those months, you can reach out on Discord or reach out to the people that maybe you went through Career Path with and say, “Are you having this situation?”
Jill K DeWit:
That’s good.
Steven Jack Butala:
And there’s a very good chance that they’re going to say, “Oh, yeah, I had that last year. Last year in July the same thing happened to me, this is what I did.”
Jill K DeWit:
Or how about last week?
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, no. I’ll give you a great example. Early on in this business around two … Around January 15th … I mean, December 15th, everything just stopped. Every single time for years I said, “Well, I guess my career’s over. My career in buying and selling land’s over, I wonder what I’m going to do next year over because it’s over. The phone’s not ringing, I can’t send any mail out.” Until I met Jill and she said, “What the hell is wrong with you? It’s Christmas, the kids are out of school.” I didn’t ever think to think in terms of school and children going to school. Kids are out of school, everybody’s off the internet, nobody cares about their land. And January-
Jill K DeWit:
Give it a minute.
Steven Jack Butala:
January 15th all this pent-up oh my God stuff’s going to happen-
Jill K DeWit:
And the bills come in.
Steven Jack Butala:
Where everybody’s life returns. And that’s exactly what happened. When I look back on it that’s what happened every single year. That’s my camaraderie. My first person to really vent and throw … Bounce stuff off of was Jill. Now we have Land Academy. Jill and I are doing a product right now, personally, where we’re sending out a bunch of mail and we are seeking funding. We’re not the funders, we’re usually the funders. Seeking funding so we can do more deals and have what I call … I call it the Limitless capital plan where we could do 50 deals instead of 10 because we’re using some other … A partner.
Jill K DeWit:
It sounds like a commercial. It feels like Capital One, limitless capital. We could have a Land Academy credit card. Oh.
Steven Jack Butala:
I thought about that. Stuff’s going to happen. I thought about that a while ago.
Jill K DeWit:
That would be really cool. I love that. Good stuff, thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill, you have something to share.
Jill K DeWit:
I do. Jack’s toggling for me. Here’s what’s really cool within our group, we’re just talking about the community. This is a perfect little segue to what goes on in Land Academy. Talk about a niche within a niche within a niche. We have a Land Academy Ladies group. And then to take it even smaller of a niche. Some of the sweet gals in the Land Academy Ladies group decided to start their own book club. They held their first book club in June. I, unfortunately, was tied up with you trying to take down a real estate deal on a Sunday, of course, Sunday afternoon. This is all true, I wasn’t playing hooky. And I wasn’t there at the book club meeting. They held it.
And I went back later and looked at their notes from the presentation and I … It was all about a book that I grew up with. Well, I don’t know if I should say a book. It was all around my life growing up. If you’ve been listening to us for a while you know that my dad was a coach at Dale Carnegie. Boy Jack just has … When he met me he just embraced that with open arms, not. And he gets a little tired of it but that’s just how I roll around. But you know what? I actually have veered away, right? I have veered away a little bit from some of the original Dale Carnegie things.
My point in bringing all this up is, this not about the group, and the ladies, and how awesome they are and that they did this, but it was just thinking about … I went back and looked at the notes from the call and it made me go back and reintroduce myself to some of the thinkings there. And gosh, it’s so powerful. And at the end of the day, this is really a lot of the way I get deals done. The way that you talk to people, the way you approach things, the way you don’t complain about things. The way you try to give honest and sincere appreciation. And the way you try to inspire people by being genuinely interested in what they have to say. I do this all the time with sellers, that’s how I get them, smiling.
I haven’t talked about this in a while, but a couple years ago we did these intensive workshops. It was right after COVID and I did a whole thing about winning over these sellers. That was one of my thing. Gosh, before you pick up that phone you better have a smile on your face. If you don’t think that matters I’m telling you it does. They know if you’re smiling or not on the other end of the phone. Gosh. Using their name. Really listening and taking in what they have to say, making them feel important. Does all this make sense? Well, yeah duh. Boy, if I was talking to a seller and I had this attitude, yeah, Jill, it probably would work. That’s why I’m bringing it up. This is a lot of where it comes from. Be friendly. Try to get them saying yes. Those are little things that I’m trying to pick out. Be sympathetic. Whatever’s going on in their life … I’ll end it on that. These sellers are calling you because of a situation.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is my takeaway is-
Jill K DeWit:
And you need to be sympathetic about whatever it is they’re dealing with. Whoever passed on, who … Whatever financial situation’s going on, being sympathetic is great.
Steven Jack Butala:
What Jill’s saying is, get yourself prepped and in the mood quickly when the phone rings to provide the best type of meet them from where they’re coming as a seller so you can do a deal.
Jill K DeWit:
That works. What do you have to share with us today? I know you have something good that you wanted to talk about.
Steven Jack Butala:
Like most of the topics here, I’ve made this mistake in the past and really learned from it, learned that I was wrong. You can’t cynical your way into wealth. You can’t sit around … And especially this day and age where there’s just so many … So much negative stuff out there, politics and bifurcation. I don’t know if it’s me or … But I’ve met more people recently in the last couple of years that … Especially young people that just say, “My way’s better and I’m not going to learn anything. I don’t have any questions for you, I don’t know.” And these are people that truly have done nothing with their lives. That’s not coming from, look at this over here what I created. You should be asking me questions. It’s not that. So you can’t cynical your way into wealth. You’re alienating people, you’re making yourself angry. It’s the exact opposite of what Jill was saying. Get yourself in a happy place before you talk to a seller and they’re going … It’ll come off that way.
What you can do is you can camaraderie your way into wealth. That’s what Land Academy is, that’s why we created it. To create an environment for people that … Where we can do partnership deals with, whether it’s fund them money or have other people fund us money. If we had a couple of deals come in Northern New York, let’s say, there’s several people in our group that I would call and … I’m not a specialist, specialist in Northern New York at all. And if they came back, “The deals look pretty good, what did I miss?” I would utilize the people in our group. I would camaraderie my way into doing a deal and not sitting there saying-
Jill K DeWit:
Helping each other.
Steven Jack Butala:
“Oh, New York, who wants to live in New York?” Remember that? People used to say that all the time. Who wants to live way out there? Why would you ever buy land out there? Cynicism is just not appropriate in this environment-
Jill K DeWit:
No, it’s funny.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s not going to get you wealthy.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s a good one. You know what’s another phrase … Saying that I haven’t heard in a long time? What was it? A junk lot.
Steven Jack Butala:
Junk land.
Jill K DeWit:
Junk land. Oh, junk land way out there. I haven’t heard that in a long time. That’s kind of funny. That used to be a thing, yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Join us next Wednesday for another interesting episode, you are not alone in your real estate ambition. We are Jack and Jill, information-
Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration-
Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property. See you next week.
https://youtu.be/es3vowwSDs0
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Join Steven Jack Butala and Jill K DeWit on this week’s episode of “The Land Academy Show” as they dive into the realities of working with your spouse in the land business. They share personal anecdotes, practical tips, and the highs and lows of their journey together. From managing multi-property deals to balancing strengths and weaknesses, Jack and Jill offer valuable insights for any couple considering a business partnership. They highlight the importance of clear communication, mutual support, and the ability to navigate challenges together. Whether you’re already in business with your partner or just thinking about it, this episode provides a candid look at what it takes to succeed as a team in the land business.
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit, and this is the Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is episode number 2,011, and today Jill and I are talking about the truth about working with your spouse in the land business. In case you don’t know, it’s not all peaches and cream.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, there may be something-
Steven Jack Butala:
Just like this show.
Jill K DeWit:
I got to write one more thing down. Excuse me, I have another note now, just kidding.
Steven Jack Butala:
On a personal note, I love this topic. I think it’s going to be a blast. I think there’s probably a lot of stuff that Jill’s got to say. There’s a few things I need to say.
Jill K DeWit:
And in the safety of this environment with you on the other end, we can’t get in trouble.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s exactly right. Well, we can only get in a certain amount of trouble.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
We can’t get in any nasty [inaudible 00:00:56]-
Jill K DeWit:
Major trouble, because when the camera’s off, so are the gloves.
Steven Jack Butala:
Hey, it’s hockey season by the way, I’m taking those gloves off.
Jill K DeWit:
Yes, all right. Hey, before we get started, I have a big announcement. For the first time ever, we’ve never done anything like this. We are going to do a live, open to the public workshop the week of June 17th. I’m looking for the exact dates here. So, June 17th through the 21st, and it’s not like the same thing is going to be repeated. It’s going to be building on each other every day. So, we’re going to start with equity planner and goal setting and all that stuff.
It’s kind of everything we do in Land Academy, but I wanted to really take a step back and have an open workshop for anyone. So, if you’re really thinking about doing this, you do not want to miss it. So watch your email, if you’re not in my email loop, you should be. Download our free eBook, that’ll get you in there. Or just send a note to my team like, “Hey, what’s going on June 17th? I need to be involved,” to support@landacademy.com. So, what’s going to happen is it’s going to be one hour a day, Monday through Friday that week, sometimes with Jack, and sometimes just me, and it’s going to be 9:00 AM Pacific time to 12:00 PM Eastern Time, and again, just for an hour each day and it’s really going to give you-
Steven Jack Butala:
You will learn tons.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh my gosh, a really good insight to what’s going on more than just reading the eBook and getting on the Thursday call.
Steven Jack Butala:
How to buy and sell land.
Jill K DeWit:
Totally. We’re going to really do as much as a deep dive as we can in an hour, but you’re going to walk away knowing whether this is a good fit for you or not. I guarantee it.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’ve been doing this for 30 years. We’ve done more than 16,000 deals, Jill’s been doing it for more than 15 years, so we know what we’re talking about, and we’re not at this age afraid to share the actual real story.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
Not the fluff, not just what’s possible, but here’s how to do it.
Jill K DeWit:
We have nine years of Land Academy. We got people that have been with us nine years, so we have a lot to share.
Steven Jack Butala:
Each week on the show, we answer a question from our Land Academy member Discord forum, and we take a deep dive into land related topics by popular request from our Land Academy community. I read a couple of reviews of our show recently and one reviewer said, it just made me out loud crack up, “Yeah, this show is fine. The highlights are actually just the questions. So, if you can just listen to the question and not really listen to the other stuff that they said…”
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, that’s hilarious. Just tune in for the first five, 10 minutes, and then you’re done?
Steven Jack Butala:
By the way, it was the most meaningful comment. There’s all kinds of comments about everything on the internet, but that was like… I just want to hear the questions. We’re going to do two questions today.
Jill K DeWit:
All right, so I’m going to read one, and you’re going to answer, and then there’s a second one. We’re going to flip-flop. So all right, here’s our first question. Greg wrote, “Good morning. For infill lots, when we’re doing the red, yellow, green test for houses, are we only looking at new construction or all houses? Also, should we use the red, yellow, green test for lots once we determine our favorable zip codes from houses? How much do both lots and houses are they test for a reason or is it doing too much work?” I’m sorry, “Would doing both lots and houses be a test for a reason or is that just too much work?”
Steven Jack Butala:
So, I’m going to simplify Greg’s question, because I’m pretty sure I know what he’s asking.
Jill K DeWit:
Cool.
Steven Jack Butala:
Do you test lots or do you test houses or do you test both? This is what you do. You test for everything that is reported and make sure it’s apples to apples. So, you have a zip code, you test, just like we teach in the program, there’s three or four or it could be as many as eight statistics that you judge a zip code on whether or not it’s viable for you to send out mail. You’re using data to make a decision about sending out offers. He’s asking, what do you include in that data? And the answer is you include in that data apples to apples for every single zip code, the stuff that’s provided by the data source.
So, now it doesn’t really matter if it’s just land, if houses are thrown in there, as long as each of the zip codes are apples to apples comparison, you’re going to know whether or not there’s enough activity, the right kind of activity in that zip code to warrant you sending mail, and that’s the answer. For houses, it’s the same. For land, it’s the same. A lot of people don’t know that we have a program called House Academy, and I go over this in great detail in the House Academy program. In fact, if you go to houseacademy.com, check it all out. It’s very pertinent to what’s happening now from a demographic standpoint or from a… Geez, from a… Help me here.
Jill K DeWit:
I’ll let you flounder.
Steven Jack Butala:
Why?
Jill K DeWit:
It’s kind of funny. No, I’m just joking. You know what’s funny about that? I recorded earlier today a podcast that’s going to air in a couple weeks with a longtime, eight-year member, her name is Bei Zhang, and she’s like, “Oh, we are still happily doing houses, too.” She’s like, “We just closed on one on Monday.” I said, “what are you doing? Are you going to keep it or rent it?” She goes, I think I might keep this one.” Keep it or flip it, it’s all done the Land Academy way, which is we don’t remodel, just buy it, right? “Are you going to keep it? Are you going to sell it?” She’s like, “I think we’re going to keep this one.” I’m like, “Good for you.” She’s like, “I’m putting more things in more buckets.”
Steven Jack Butala:
We’re doing a house mailer right now, too. Anyway, in these current economic times, it’s very valuable to start to consider buying and selling houses. Most of the members that we have, have had or have for a long time, nine-plus years like Bei, they do both and so do we.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
Chris asks, this is question number two, “I’ve been working with a seller who wants to do a deal in a very strange manner. I think she’s pretty old. We are communicating via email only. At first, it seemed like she didn’t want to use a title company at all. However, now she’s saying that she’s okay closing with the title company, but she wants an earnest money deposit to be sent to her directly, rather than through the title company, so she can hold the properties for me.” I don’t know what that means.
“I’m concerned that there’s a bunch of title work necessary to close the deal, as at least one of the properties was transferred on a quitclaim deed. By the way, this is a package of six properties. The margins are likely decent. I am not completely sure as three or four of the properties are not mapped and the county does not have a survey on file, so I would have to get a survey done to determine where the properties are. One of the properties should be able to sell for like 40 to 45,000, and the other one for about between seven and 10,000. One is an odd-shaped parcel that doesn’t have much use. The unmapped parcels are a toss up. I think they’re worth a couple of thousand dollars each at least if they have decent attributes, maybe more, like 10 to $15,000 each. She wants 32,000.” If I do real quick math on my head, it’s 45 plus 10, that’s 55, plus 30.
Jill K DeWit:
Buy for 32, sell for 70?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
I know what I think.
Steven Jack Butala:
Go ahead.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, here’s my first thoughts on this one. Here’s an interesting side note, based on this information and what I know about the seller, and hard to find them, and the survey work and stuff, I kind of think I know what state it is.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think it’s Oklahoma.
Jill K DeWit:
I know you do that. That’s what I wrote down right there. All right, well, how scary is that? That’s why you’re here.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s why you work with your spouse sometimes.
Jill K DeWit:
Holy Moly. Boy, those Landing Academy people know their stuff. We just read this question, they know what state it is. Yep, okay. That’s how long we’ve been doing this and how spread out we are in the country. So, that’s a side note, but you know what? I’m not going to play those games. I got to tell you right now, if it was buy for 10 and sell for 70, now I’ll jump through hoops for her, but I’m worried that the time this is going to take, and the cost, and the energy, and I’m very sorry, but I personally would not wire or send somebody money for them to hold it for me…
That’s what I think he means. “Well, if you give me $5,000 right now, son, I won’t sell them to anybody else, too, and I promise when you’re ready to close, we’ll all be here.” Mm-mm, I wouldn’t do that. So, that’s not how… It goes into I do it the normal way, because no one’s going to play those games, too, kind of thing. She either wants to sell or she doesn’t. So, I think there’s two things going on here. She probably wants to sell, I do believe that, but I do think that there’s some hesitation in her and trusting you. I hate to say it, but that’s what I suspect, because I don’t have these issues. Maybe there’s more phone calls, maybe there’s something else, and I really wanted you to make sure, gosh, before you go down this path, is it worth your time?
Steven Jack Butala:
So, I’m filming ManPlan right now, manplan.com, which I’ll be releasing in September as an informal… It doesn’t matter, and one of the things that I really preach about in gaining wealth, I don’t care if it’s through land or houses, or metal stamping, or convenience stores, whatever you are doing, you have to do it within reason, within your acquisition criteria. So I can tell you right now, this does not fit our acquisition criteria.
And that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t fit yours, it doesn’t fit it from a how much money you can potentially make, which I think is really best case, maybe 40,000 bucks or B, how much a pain in the ass it is, and so we’re just past it. Jill and I have done 16,000 deals. We’re past these kinds of deals. I’m not saying if you’re new to this, because I actually think you are, or newer, Chris, that you shouldn’t consider it, but this is just a lot of time and energy and I believe it’s easier to send out more mail, pick the best ones that come back from the actual mail that you’re sending out, and just do the deal.
Jill K DeWit:
And you know where they are.
Steven Jack Butala:
Makes sure it fits your criteria.
Jill K DeWit:
The numbers, there’s no guessing.
Steven Jack Butala:
You have all the answers.
Jill K DeWit:
You know what’s funny? You can’t even get a real opinion on this, because you don’t know where they are.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s right.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s the thing. It’s not like you can call like, “Okay, I’m going to go to a local expert and get their opinion.” Nobody knows where they are. I used to entertain that. We used to entertain that. Only when I would buy a big bundle, say we’re buying 30 or 50 properties for somebody in this state, in this situation, and there were just a couple, two or three that we couldn’t find them, that I entertained because those were gravy anyway. If I could find them, great. If I couldn’t, I didn’t care. All the other 27 properties that I’d bought from this person, I knew where they were, paid for the whole thing, so that’s how I rolled.
Steven Jack Butala:
Any time Jill and I have ever done a multi-APN deal, 20, 30, 40, 50 properties, I’ve done them as high as, geez, 1,000. We made millions of dollars on it, and there were always amazing properties in that group, and properties that we just let them go back to the taxing authority, because maybe we couldn’t find them, maybe we don’t care.
Jill K DeWit:
Maybe it was a cemetery, maybe because-
Steven Jack Butala:
True story.
Jill K DeWit:
When people are offloading bundles of property, there’s going to be some junk in there that they’re like, “Just get it out of here. Clean out my garage, I want to put my car here.”
Steven Jack Butala:
So, my answer to this and he goes on. The question gets really long, but he’s like, “What should I do? What’s the worst thing that can happen? I pay the 3,000 bucks and I lose it, because she just goes dark?” Yeah, I guess that is the worst thing that could happen, or it could all go as planned and you get stuck with some property that you don’t know where it is. Now, you’ve got to do surveys to find it. My big fear with this deal is that the taxing authority, either the county has some crazy hoops for you to jump through, because now you own properties that weren’t… Why doesn’t she know where they are?
Jill K DeWit:
I know.
Steven Jack Butala:
They weren’t subdivided correctly, that’s why.
Jill K DeWit:
And there’s a quitclaim deed did he say on this one?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, somebody isolated, they created an APN at the taxing authority several years ago probably, created an APN for a property based on a legal description, and it’s not on their books. So, it’s not the end of the world. You can work through this. Wouldn’t it be easier to do another 30,000 unit mailer, pick four properties out of there that you’re going to make 100 grand on? I think so.
Jill K DeWit:
Chris, don’t date this seller. I have six red flags right now.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh my God, Jill, you’re right.
Jill K DeWit:
She wants money up front. She’s like, “I don’t even know where they are.” Some of them were transferred funky with a quitclaim deed. Mm-mm, Chris, if I were your sister, I’d say move on. Call another seller. Call another girl.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s more fish the sea.
Jill K DeWit:
Yep.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s topic, the truth about working with your spouse in the land business or any business. Jill, give us the highlights of working with me.
Jill K DeWit:
Where do I start? Well, here’s a beautiful thought… I actually don’t know where to start.
Steven Jack Butala:
I do.
Jill K DeWit:
You want real highlights?
Steven Jack Butala:
No, I’ll start if you want.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay, please go ahead. You have a plan.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill is amazing on the phone.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, yeah, you’re great at data. All right, okay, I can jump in then, too.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, do you want me to start or not, because-
Jill K DeWit:
No.
Steven Jack Butala:
… I saved it right there.
Jill K DeWit:
You did save me. Now I want to take it back over.
Steven Jack Butala:
Okay.
Jill K DeWit:
All right, the highlights of working with you-
Steven Jack Butala:
See that flexibility with working with your spouse-
Jill K DeWit:
There you go.
Steven Jack Butala:
… In front of a camera?
Jill K DeWit:
That’s what we’re talking about. Highlights of working with you, you definitely fill in the gaps on the things that I’m not good at, and part of it is luck and… No, I’m serious. No, part of it is that luck that we got together that I to have a different talent. I have different talents and you have different talents.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh yeah, that’s for sure. Pure luck actually.
Jill K DeWit:
So, that’s what I mean. So, that’s really great. I don’t have to explain what I’m doing every day. You understand what’s going on. My team is your team. Now, I’m ready to hand the torch back.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’ll save you as we go here. I know how this is going to go.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, great.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill’s amazing on the phone. We have very separate talents, but here’s the thing that if you want to know in less than 30 seconds whether or not you’re supposed to be working with your spouse or maybe supposed to be with her at all, ask her this, what is your long-term goal? And this is not gender-specific. If you’re a woman listening to this, ask your man, or vice versa, what is your long-term goal? When you look out as far as you can see, based on your age or whether you have kids or not, or everything that’s going on, what your jobs are, what’s that look like way out there?
What’s your house look like? Where do you live? How much money do you have in the bank? Where are the kids going to school? And on and on and on, and then sit quietly and listen to the answer. Don’t steer them. If they answer the same way that you… Because answer the question first for yourself before you answer it, if they basically have the same answer, then you have hope that you can work together. So, Jill and I have very different talents. I’m a data person and all the decisions I make are data-driven. She’s all social, social on the phone, she’s got innate corporate sales in her fiber. That’s what she is.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s what I did for years.
Steven Jack Butala:
She didn’t make that up. I didn’t make this data thing up. We both got stuck with it, I think at birth, for better or for worse, and it’s not an opposites attract thing, because I think Jill and I are very similar. We are very technical, both of us, when it comes to just approaching anything.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
But I did ask her that a long time ago, and she described to me almost to my vision what I wanted. In fact, she improved my long-term vision on it in a bunch of areas, not so much with accumulated equity, but how we got there, and how we got there through real estate, believe it or not. I was doing this 15 years before she and I met. So, I thought I had it licked really successfully, crazy successfully. Then, we joined forces and it was times 10. So, ask your partner that stuff, and this next part, in my opinion, is not just spouse specific, but with any business partner. Two people who are salespeople are not going to be good business partners. One accountant and one salesperson are probably going to do really well together.
Jill K DeWit:
Yin and yang is the best.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
So, I actually have four points.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, good. You had some time to write some stuff down?
Jill K DeWit:
I did, while you were talking, I tuned you out, and I thought of my own things.
Steven Jack Butala:
Tuning your partner out is an incredible attribute.
Jill K DeWit:
Actually, that is an attribute. I need to write that down. So, you just covered the first one. I’m giving you credit for the first one, which is sitting down and making sure you have the same goals. Like, “Okay, we’re going to start this land company together. Is everybody all in?” If someone’s like, “I don’t know, land is kind of stupid,” you shouldn’t convince your spouse/partner about this business, because that’s number one will sink the ship right there. So, once you have the goals out of the way, then the second part is you got to divide up your day-to-day operation, your day-to-day responsibility. Who’s on the phone? Who’s doing the data? Who’s doing the trolling? And our recommendation is more division the better. You should not be sitting down together to troll. Could you imagine if we did that?
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh my God.
Jill K DeWit:
How about, “Hey, Jack, I noticed you’re running the red, yellow, green test for those zip codes. Do you mind if I sit down and weigh in?” I’m going to tell you-
Steven Jack Butala:
That would be so bad.
Jill K DeWit:
And every time you mark something as green, I’m going to go, “No, I think that’s yellow.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Could you imagine if you got off the phone with a seller and I said, “I don’t think you handled that too well.”
Jill K DeWit:
You could have got more.
Steven Jack Butala:
In fact, I listened to your whole conversation and I made notes and I would… Let’s sit down.
Jill K DeWit:
Here’s what I think you should do?
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s going to take a couple hours to go over these notes and I want to critique your performance. That would be it.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly, and even if, okay, we both help with this, we’ve gone down that path. So in the beginning when I stepped in, there were times in Jack’s career, he did every role, every single last one. So, he would just sometimes just jump in like, “I know how to do this, I can talk to these people,” and he would undo some of the work that I did. So, you have to divide it up, stay out of that person’s lane, and what if we divide it up? Does that mean rock, paper, scissors? We don’t want to stick one with all the crappy jobs. You want to first, I would say sit down and write down all the 20 things that are part of your world, your day-to-day operations. Together, pick and choose what A, you know each person’s good at, each individual’s good at and they want to do. Let’s start with that. Can I finish?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
What they’re good at? And then there’s going to be some stuff at the bottom. I promise you there’s going to be three or five things that nobody wants to do, but you work out some agreement like, “All right, I’ll take this, because I know I’m better at it, if you take these two things,” done. That’s how you get everything done. And then like I said, you stay out of each person’s lane. You’ve committed… Write it down, we have had so many contracts over the years. You know what’s funny? I can’t remember the last time we’ve had a contract.
Steven Jack Butala:
No, that’s right.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s been a couple years now.
Steven Jack Butala:
Things go sideways and we read a contract.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m telling you though, the first 15 years, or the first five years I should say of us doing-
Steven Jack Butala:
We didn’t know any of this.
Jill K DeWit:
… Deals together, we wrote so many contracts and signed them and taped them everywhere just to remind the other person, “You’re in my lane,” kind of thing. Like, “Oh, you’re right, got it.” So, that’s not wrong, that’s okay. My third thing is, so we got the goals was one, two was… Gosh, dividing the day-to-day responsibilities, and C is now you got to support each other. What if one day’s harder? What if he’s really… God, he’s struggling on something and I pivoted all my sales, I’m not doing any sales myself. I’m just managing a bunch of brokers, so my day’s easier, but boy, his part’s still harder. And wow, I’m seeing him… Whatever area we’re going into is having a hard time getting the data and getting enough data and maybe there’s just some extra things he’s got to do, something like that.
Support the other person, and I don’t mean sit down with him and go, “Gee, show me what you’re doing. Let me help you.” Mm-mm, support him another way, it’s like, “What’s going on and how can I help you?” Well, you know what? I’m hungry. I could use a sandwich.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, it’s as simple as that.
Jill K DeWit:
I use that a lot, because it’s really real and we do that for each other all the time. You made me a salad today.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
Honestly, you did this exact thing for me today. We are here in the RV and I’m working on household things, seriously, around the RV, while I recorded a podcast by myself today. You’re working on a presentation for today, and at that moment you were done and I was still knee-deep in a bunch of things. And you’re like, “How about if I make you a salad?” I’m like, “God, that’s great. I appreciate that.” So, little things like that, supporting the person, maybe it’s with the kids, running errands. Who knows? Ask them or surprise them, depending on the person, but that’s really important. My final point is… Do you want to talk more about the positives, and I’ll leave my final one?
Steven Jack Butala:
Here, I’m going to take this back to the original point and we ask that person, what does it look like when you look way out there? Because I’ve asked people this in the past where I’ve had relationships with them and they will say something like, “What the hell are you talking about? Are you kidding me? What does our house look like? We’re going to live here forever.” I don’t want anything to change there. As far as work goes, oh, I’m just going to have this job that I have right now. I like it. I like my boss and I like the people that I work with, and I hope that it just… And then at the end of it, what they have said in the past is, “Why are you thinking that far ahead anyway?” This only works, these things that Jill’s telling you works between Jill and I, because we have real estate and our soul.
When we got here, we’ve been here for a week. We’re going to be here for several more weeks. She said while we were driving here in the RV, “What do you want to do when we get there first?” Because we’re in a place where there’s a lot of stuff to do. It’s a hiking mecca, hiking, biking, we have a motorcycle with us. There’s a lot of fun stuff I want to do. And I said, “Well, there’s these 14 pieces of property that I’ve been tracking on the internet that I would love to go look at.” And she said, “Me too.” So, you have a lot of hope when… And the person that Jill interviewed for the podcast that she’s talking about today works with her husband and it’s the same situation. They just have real estate in their soul, and so that’s pretty unusual and the odds are stacked against you that you can work with your spouse.
The odds are stacked against you that you’re going to be with your spouse forever. I’m not joking about this. This is tough. These are tough odds to beat. You got to have a lot of stuff going for you before anybody even opens their mouth in the first sentence, “Should we do this together?” So, I’m not trying to be negative. I’m just saying avoid a lot of problems and really just be honest with everybody. You want to buy and sell some land? Yeah, not really. I’d rather just be in this job.
Jill K DeWit:
Makes sense.
Steven Jack Butala:
“I’m just doing it for you.” That’s the last thing you want your spouse to ever say to you. “Yeah, for the last two months I’ve just been doing this for you. I’m not interested in doing this at all.” Maybe you could have told me that day one.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s funny, I can think of a handful of Land Academy members that are here, because they bought this for their wives like, “Yeah, that’d be something for my wife to do on the side and now I’m doing it.” Well, yeah, because they weren’t interested. They didn’t come up with it, it wasn’t their idea, and they may never get interested about it, and that’s okay. As long as they’re interested that you’re interested, that’s what counts. Since you started to talk about it, I have a couple things I want to [inaudible 00:26:07] and we’re doing the truth, because we don’t know how not to.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s true.
Jill K DeWit:
Poor Greg’s like, “Thanks, you guys kind of…” Was it Greg or Chris? No, Chris.
Steven Jack Butala:
Chris.
Jill K DeWit:
Poor Chris like, “Thanks, she kind of chewed me up and spit me out on my idea.”
Steven Jack Butala:
You really didn’t.
Jill K DeWit:
I didn’t mean to, no.
Steven Jack Butala:
We have a Land Academy Pro member who eats these kinds of deals up. This is her specialty. It’s take these wonky… No ones ever going to do this deal unless you do it.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
And so, she’ll go talk to the person and convince her that we’re going to do this and sit everybody down, and she unravels deals and does really well financially.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
Anyway, Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
So, I want to talk a little bit about the truth and what could go wrong. What should I be watching for? Well, number one is you’re going to drive your friends nuts. Think about this, and you got to be really careful about this, because you’re going to be out to dinner, this is all you guys have to talk about.
Your friends are going to be like, “Oh gosh, do we have to go out with those two again?” That Jack and Jill, all they talk about are deals and even though it’s home run deals, I’m so sick of hearing about their land business. And if I hear one more time about how their transaction coordinator did fill in the blank…” So that’s the thing. It’s easy to slip into this weird world where this is all that you talk about and it spills into other things. And even for us, we have to… I’ll tell you right now, I get in the car and we’re going to dinner and we have rules about it. We’re like, “It’s very natural and very easy to go, “Now that I have you alone, I need to run this by you and this by you.” And so, we have very nicely said, “All right, I’ll give you this, but boy, when we pull into the parking lot, that’s it.” I’m like, “You are right.”
Steven Jack Butala:
We do that all the time, actually.
Jill K DeWit:
We do.
Steven Jack Butala:
Now that I’m thinking about it.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s a natural thing for us. I try not to. I try to get it done before we leave the door, but there is some time that… And we very nicely will say, “Can I talk to you about this?” We’ve learned you can’t just launch into the other person. You can say, “This is really in my mind. I’m having a struggle making a decision on this property, here’s why. I think access stinks. I know you looked at it. Can we talk about it for a minute and have a plan?” Sure, but like I said, we’re parking. Doors open, work stops.
So, you have to be mindful of that for yourselves and every single person around you or you will drive them bananas. The second thing is it’s going to get heated. You are 100% going to not agree on something and when you’re starting out, it might be something every day, at least every week. I can pretty much guarantee once a week when you’re starting a land company and you’re bringing in some family member, even if it’s not your spouse, oh, it’s going to get heated. You’re not going to agree and you’re going to both be finding yourselves digging in and you cannot let this break you up.
Steven Jack Butala:
So, what’s the point to getting in an argument of any kind? I can answer that. It’s to get out of the argument and to set up some parameters that everybody agrees to, not reluctantly. Everybody willingly agrees that this is what caused this, and this is what we need to do in the future to make sure that the percentages are higher that we won’t have this confrontation at all. The point is not to ever have confrontation. That’s not realistic. Everything’s to explode at some point if that happens. There’s going to be confrontation with any business partner that you have. The point is to say, “All right, what we’re arguing about is seller wants to do this. This is going to happen, this has to happen, and this has to happen.” And to which I say, whose responsibility is that? Is it your responsibility or mine? And I don’t care which one.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s where the trouble starts.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s where the trouble ends, because that’s on your side of the sheet.
Jill K DeWit:
True. It’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s some fast and simple, one-sentence things that Jill and I live by, and believe me, it did not start off this way. I know about this, because we’ve been working together for almost 15 years. Number one, do not work in the same space. Do not connect your desk. I don’t care, do not connect your zip code, quite honestly.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s good.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill and I, when we’re not here, work in different zip codes, and what we just did yesterday-
Jill K DeWit:
Meaning back at home.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yesterday, Jill and I literally just went and got some office space, this office space sublease, and we got library cards, amazing, brand new library where we are right now with little rooms and stuff, and it doesn’t cost anything. It’s beautiful piece of real estate and a beautiful building, because we can’t work together. After a while-
Jill K DeWit:
Nor should we, it’s not bad. It’s not a bad thing.
Steven Jack Butala:
No, it’s not bad. After ton of time, you forget about this stuff, because at home we work separately and now we’re in a small space and she’s on the phone all day and I can’t stand it. So, I went and did something about it. Don’t work in the same place. Do not work on the same stuff. You have to have completely and totally separate responsibilities and the more separate, the better. I do data, she does sales, and anything to talk that has to do with a customer or talking of any kind, she handles. We don’t even talk about that anymore. And anything to do with data or accounting or finance or legal stuff or any of that, I handle, and she blindly trusts me. And the same here, I blindly trust her. And so, you see what I’m saying about how important this is that first point? Do you guys want to do this anyway? What kind of house do you want to live in?
Jill K DeWit:
There’s a lot to it.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you really… Jill and I now wake up in the morning wanting to accomplish stuff.
Jill K DeWit:
You know what’s funny about this? It sounds all dreamy. Here’s the thing, everybody’s like, “Oh, we want to be like you guys?” And I get it. I believe that and thank you. We’ve heard that often over the years. It does sound very dreamy when we started this like, “Wow, we could work together and share this bond and share the highs and share the lows.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Men have never had that thought.
Jill K DeWit:
I wasn’t referring to you.
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t want to share highs and lows with you.
Jill K DeWit:
But you do share the, hey, the schedule and the flexibility like, “Hey…” Because come on, let’s be honest, you start this and what if you’re at some point you can leave your W-2… One of you leaves your W-2, but one of them stay at the W-2. You’re still tied to a W-2, so that’s going to slow you guys down. So that’s where it gets dreamy like, “Oh, wait a minute. If we’ve been successfully being able to make this work with one of us working full-time on the land business and replacing their income, what if both of us work full-time at the land business and replace the other income? Now, we are free.” So, that’s where I’m saying it sounds romantic and exciting, but you do need to really go into this with your eyes open and test it. And I do agree with there’s something to be said for being land people.
We both have the bug, and so we are so lucky. If one of us didn’t, if you were dragging me along all the time saying, “Did you call these people back? I’m waiting for these answers from the county,” because it involves talking. What if there’s something he’s waiting for me? He needs to know something from the county about some zoning or something like that, and it’s kind of my side of the sheet because it involves this and, “I’ll get to it, I’ll get to it.” Now, he’s nagging me. It just won’t work, because I don’t have the bug. But on the flip side, what I do have, which is really lucky that I can’t wait, we do really seriously drive around, look at property all the flipping time. It is so weird. I know it’s weird.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s not right. It’s not healthy.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s not normal.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s beyond a healthy level of real estate looking.
Jill K DeWit:
But you know, it’s who we are. I did the podcast today with Bei, and Bei and I talked about that. This is my life. She loves it. She’s so happy and that makes her so good at it, and that’s because she’s like, “I’ll handle anything.” I can’t remember what the term was, closing the circle she was using. You got to start this and keep closing the circle. You got to keep it going, always going. You can’t just start and stop. And I said, “Bei, that’s beautiful. You’re right.”
Steven Jack Butala:
You have to finish stuff.
Jill K DeWit:
And she’s like, “And you can’t let…” She said, “Just like anything you’re going to do, any business you’re going to start, you’re going to have obstacles, and struggles and there’s going to be things you have to overcome and you have to do it, period.”
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m trying to get through a list of simple stuff.
Jill K DeWit:
Sorry.
Steven Jack Butala:
Have you ever… You’re fixing the dishwasher or something like that, and your wife is standing over you and telling you how to do it better? “Well, if you crank that…” Because you’re struggling with it. I can’t get the nut off the pipe. “Well, if you do it this way and hold it that way,” and she’s standing over you for a half hour critiquing what you’re doing, that only ends one way. Everybody’s angry.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
What your wife needs to do is walk out of the room, maybe out of the house until it’s done. It might take you a half hour, it might take you three hours, and then it’s done, and she never knew. We referred to that as the transmissions out of the car. We say that sentence to each other every couple of months. “This doesn’t look right at all.” Yeah, because the transmission’s out of the car. It’s not done yet.
Jill K DeWit:
Walk away.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yep, get out of there.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m like, “I’m walking away now.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Not gender-specific [inaudible 00:35:44]-
Jill K DeWit:
And I usually walk away like this, like I don’t want to know… Why, what? It’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s another thing, I believe that all talking will eventually lead to an argument. So, what do you do? You talk as little as possible. So, all the deals that Jill and I do and all the tasks and stuff that we have to get done, and believe me, it’s not a lot now, because we have staff and all that, but it used to not be that way. We put an Airtable, so we don’t talk about it.
She’ll say, “@Jack, I need to know about this, this, and this. I know you’ve done 62 deals in this area. Should we be doing this deal at 32,000 bucks or whatever the numbers end up being?” I get a little notification, I go in there, I look at the deal. No one’s talked about anything yet. There’s no verbal exchange. “Oh my God, yes, we should absolutely do this deal. In fact, I think we probably could pay 50 to $60,000 and still make 120 grand on it. Please purchase it within these parameters,” and then we never talk again. It’s the most beautiful thing ever. No talking within a professional relationship, in my opinion, is the best thing ever, unless there’s some really quirky, weird stuff. Most of the world believes that more communication is better, more clarification is better. Absolutely not for what we do here. I disagree with that.
Jill K DeWit:
Please tell me how we got to be on a podcast together based on your whole… I hate your whole speech-
Steven Jack Butala:
We’re not talking to each other.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, okay. Oh, that’s it.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’re talking to them.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, thank you. Okay, that’s it. Well, that’s great, babe. And the truth is, I wasn’t supposed to be sitting here, but here I am.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s the truth. People that I had lined up several years ago, almost 10 years ago to be on the show, just kept not showing up.
Jill K DeWit:
Or they weren’t good.
Steven Jack Butala:
They would come downstairs. I’m like, “We got to do it again,” or they weren’t any good.
Jill K DeWit:
Or they really stunk.
Steven Jack Butala:
So then eventually, Jill, we went back to just once a week with Jill and the whole community said, “Hasn’t Jill with you?”
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Then, it became the Jack and Jill Show-
Jill K DeWit:
That was sweet.
Steven Jack Butala:
… For a long time.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s really good. Hey, my last point is just make sure you don’t let this break you up. This beautiful thing, this path that you’re trying to do, going down, working together in your land business, you can’t let it sink the ship.
Steven Jack Butala:
Unless you think that you’re just saving a bunch of time, unless you just cut to the chase long before it ever got to be a point where you’d have to break up then 15 years later.
Jill K DeWit:
What are you talking about?
Steven Jack Butala:
Maybe working together with your spouse sped everything up and you found out what you were going to find out anyway 15 years later.
Jill K DeWit:
Holy Moly.
Steven Jack Butala:
Then, pat yourself on the back. Nice work.
Jill K DeWit:
Those of you watching my face right now are probably like, “Yeah,” at my face. Like, “What the heck?”
Steven Jack Butala:
We can wrap the topic up like this, it works for Jill and I. It took a lot of patience, a lot of practice, and a lot of screwing up.
Jill K DeWit:
And tears.
Steven Jack Butala:
And a lot of tears, and we figured it out. Is it for you? You’re going to decide, but I’ll tell you, you really need to be on the same page about where it’s all going eventually and when to stop, when to start, when to stop, what kind of deals you want to do if you’re really into it.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
Those are indicators of a relationship anyway, not just a professional relationship. It can work. We have multiple examples in our group of where it works. We have more examples where it didn’t work.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill, you have something to share?
Jill K DeWit:
I was thinking about the podcast I did with Bei earlier today, and, God, she’s such a sweetheart. You know what’s so great about Bei? Bei’s been with us so long. Every live event, Bei’s there. Bei’s been just every time we’re like, “Here’s what we’re pivoting to and why, and here’s what we’re working on now,” Bei’s like, “I’m on it. I’m following you. Okay, and now we’re doing this,” doing it, and she kills at everything she does. And so I was thinking, so today was more than a podcast. Today, it was me sitting down and getting to visit with my friend, which was so nice, and we were talking about just being an entrepreneur, and then it went to that next level. I’m like, “You know what, Bei? Hold on a moment. We need to pay attention to this, not just that we’re both entrepreneurs, but being a female entrepreneur is a whole nother level.”
And so, we really dug deep into that and I hope you listen to that. I don’t know when it’s going to air. It’s coming sometime in the next couple weeks, but watch for Bei Zhang, Z-H-A-N-G, B-E-I is her first name, and with me, and we were talking about, “Wow, you’re right,” because as a female, we are naturally tasked with other things, making sure the family’s taken care of it. We rattled off things like there’s work, there’s family, there’s our family’s health, there’s all these things, and often at the end of this, the very bottom of the list is our wellbeing, and we both talked about how important that is. So, it’s just so much that goes wrapped up into being female entrepreneur by nature. We can’t help but focus on all of those things, and I shared with Bei how I know that I’m guilty of saying yes too much. I still do that. I know I do that, I’ve given up.
Steven Jack Butala:
You mean taking on too much?
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, that’s just who I am. I have a very hard time saying no, so that ship sailed, so I just deal with it. It’s clearly my happy spot.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s a good thing you can’t get pregnant anymore.
Jill K DeWit:
Right? Oh, yes.
Steven Jack Butala:
You can’t say no.
Jill K DeWit:
Thanks. Yeah, it was my Indian name that he gave me a while back. Anyway, that’s another story, but we were just talking about the complexity of… And that layer-
Steven Jack Butala:
She can say that because she’s Cherokee, I don’t want all these angry emails coming to me.
Jill K DeWit:
True, I am allowed to say that. My card’s coming. So anyway, it was about that. Did you want to ask me anything about that?
Steven Jack Butala:
I think Bei, it goes without saying, you are and have been just a model investor. Forget about being a female investor, so I know that there’s a layer complexity on top of that, but that just makes you shine more. I think the tougher the road, the more the spoils. I don’t think that… If it comes easy, it’s just not as valuable. It’s just how it is. It’s everywhere in nature. There’s always a hunt.
Jill K DeWit:
Boy, that’s true. What about you? What do you want to share with us today?
Steven Jack Butala:
I am formally announcing through here and other places that Land Academy will be launched this fall.
Jill K DeWit:
You said-
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m sorry, Land Academy, ManPlan will be launched, manplan.com. You’re a man, you need a plan. I did a lot of research. I’ve written a lot. I’m in writing and filming right now on it, and there is no group that I can find on the internet that helps men or anybody who’s really interested in having a plan and being successful. It’s not just for men. Taking a step-by-step approach to accumulating a bunch of money, accumulating let’s say $10 million and how many real estate deals does it take, what do you have to do?
What are the things that you have to line up in your life? It’s not just about sending a mailer out like Land Academy is. There’s a huge component that’s behind the mindset of being wealthy and getting wealthy and-
Jill K DeWit:
That’s good.
Steven Jack Butala:
… And having an amazing life. You only get one turn around on this thing and that’s what it’s all about. I will actually be filming it on a motorcycle… It’s going to be very, very interesting. We will launch it in the fall. If you’re interested, go to manplan.com. It’s all set up now. Put your email address in there and you’ll get notifications about how it’s going and actual dates of when everything’s going to get released.
Jill K DeWit:
Awesome, I’m excited.
Steven Jack Butala:
Join us next Wednesday for another interesting episode, You Are Not Alone in Your Real Estate Ambition. We are Jack and Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
We are Jack and Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
Information.
Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration.
Steven Jack Butala:
So, buy undervalued property.
https://youtu.be/0Z4kMug2Pe0
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
In this episode of “The Land Academy Show,” host Jill DeWit interviews Michelle Bridger, a successful female member of Land Academy. Michelle discusses her initial success with over 160 properties sold on terms, the challenges of scaling her business, and how joining Land Academy provided the solutions she needed. She highlights the impact of detailed training and expert advice from Land Academy, which helped her transition to larger, more profitable deals. Michelle also shares insights into being a female land investor, building rapport with clients, and strategies for evaluating properties.
Transcript: N/A
https://youtu.be/60Bjk9aMU4Y
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
In this episode of The Land Academy Show, hosts Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit discuss the time it takes to make a million dollars with land compared to the stock market. They emphasize the importance of consistent and controlled growth in the land business, where doubling or tripling your money on each deal is more realistic and achievable.
Steven and Jill compare the potential returns of investing in the stock market versus investing in land, highlighting how land can provide a much higher return on investment in a shorter period of time. They also stress the value of continued education and staying involved in the land business to maximize success.
Tune in now and discover how to fast-track your financial goals!
Watch the episode herehttps://youtu.be/039wYrOPTRo
Listen to the podcast hereHow Long Does It Take to Make A Million Dollars With Land Vs. The Stock Market (LA 2007)I’m Steven Jack Butala.
And I’m Jill DeWit, and this is the Land Academy Show.
This is episode number 2,009 and we’re talking about how long it takes to make a million bucks with land versus the stock market. Here’s why? The Dow hit 40,000 today, this is when Jill and I were recording it, it’s I guess May 16th. That just shocks me.
Right.
Everybody’s celebrating.
What’s limit up and limit down? I can’t remember any of it. You know what I’m talking about?
Yeah, there’s daily limits.
Well, then they stop it. It can’t go so high. Did they even bring that up today like we’re pushing it or everything?
No.
Okay. I didn’t even know.
Because it wasn’t-
It wasn’t-
It wasn’t a huge jump from the previous day.
Astronomical.
And my philosophical question to you Jill is … There’s a lot of celebration today. When in real estate do you celebrate when things are at the top of the market? Do you celebrate and jump around? Are you happy when the land is selling for the most it’s ever sold for ever?
Not really, no.
How about houses? Do you love to go into a market and see people just hitting the top of the market with their remodel?
Nope. No. I see where you’re going with this and I understand your point. Okay. So everybody’s high-fiving each other because it’s the most expensive that it’s ever been, yay. It’s only good for one person who sold that stock at that time. Everybody else is going, “Oh, I blew it” kind of thing. That’s it. So you’re talking about our world and what really makes sense to us. What you can do consistently which is a lot of getting to second base I guess. First base, second base, I’m happy with that all day long. You know what? To me-
I like getting to second base too.
I know you also like a home run but we won’t go there. Home runs happen once or twice a year for us, let’s just say that. What happens more often than not, second and third base which is doubling my money and then a little bit more than doubling my money. There’s just like oh my gosh, I can’t believe I bought this for 20,000, sold it for 120. That’s a home run. First base is I bought it for 20, sold it for 30, 35. It didn’t go that great but who can complain about making 10 or 15 grand? This is all very consistent. And then second base to me is I bought it for 20 and I sold it for 40, 45. This is great. Third base is I sold it for 60 to 70. And then you know what home run is. I’m more happy with that. You never want to be the most expensive house on the block, I’ve always believed that.
Here’s some things-
And you don’t want to reset the market-
Here’s here some stuff-
worth I don’t believe in that.
We’re going to talk about today in a big picture. We’re going to talk about the stock market versus land investing, and we’re going to dabble a little bit in comparing those two. Also with owning a different business like a convenience store or a manufacturing facility. They’re all not apples to apples. There’s a different amount of energy that you can put in. This is super important for Jill and I. Control that you have over what you’re trying to accomplish financially. I mean, here’s a little prelude to that, and then we’re going to take a couple of questions. When you go out and buy a piece of … A share of stock or a block of stock, you’re paying retail for it. You’re paying retail for whatever it’s worth that day. When you buy a piece of real estate you’re paying, if you do it our way, 20 or 30% of what it’s worth that day.
I would like to point out one thing before we get into the big topic which is I want you to pay attention as we’re talking today about start-up costs.
I love that.
Thank you.
That’s an integral part of actually when we get into the real in-depth in this. And we will answer the question. How long does it take to make a million bucks in land versus the stock market? There’s a bunch of variables. The percentages never change in these things. What changes is your activity and your personality type. I will tell you it’s 10 to 30 times longer to make it in the stock market versus land.
That’s true.
And I’ll give you all the numbers.
Cool.
Each week on the show we answer a question from the Land Academy member Discord forum and we take a deep dive into land-related topics by popular request from our Land Academy community. Today we have two questions. Go ahead, Jill.
Okay. So the first question today is from Jamay. Jamay’s a sweetheart. Been with the Land gals for quite some time now. So she wrote, “Good morning, guys, quick question. How long is too long to troll for new markets? Over one hour, over two hours? I’m finalizing my weekly schedule.”
Good.
“Awesome video that Jack and Jill dropped yesterday has me looking more into scheduling my time more efficiently and to have an actual schedule. So I’m thinking to start one hour to troll, two hours for the red, yellow, green test. Test for reason, not sure how long to spend on that, and so on. So how do you guys schedule your time? Thanks.”
So Jill and I are very, very, very fortunate that I do the front 30%, maybe 40% of the work which is what you’re asking about here. And then unfortunate because she takes over. Once the mail goes out she takes over. She just counts on me to find good places to send mail, spend the right time analyzing whether or not they’re actually real good places from a data perspective, and then getting a mailer out that’s priced correctly. I hate to answer questions like this but it really depends on you. I spend a tremendous amount of time trolling, it’s actually crossed over into a hobby of mine.
It’s an unhealth, Jamay. It’s an unhealthy amount let’s just say.
I can’t tell you what-
“What are you doing over there?” “Nothing. Looking at a real estate.”
I can tell you what houses. Here’s an example, here’s a great example. I mean, I can tell you what houses in Juneau, Alaska are worth, I just can. We sat down during the college basketball tryouts at a little neighborhood bar, and these two people sat down next to us and we started talking to them. They’re in town from way out of town. In town for watching college basketball.
It was the Final Four tryouts. I’m sorry.
We just got to talking, they’re real interesting people. This guy renovated old buildings and condos and he was, I guess, sort of retired but not really. They had a place in Florida. We had a lot to talk about and a lot in common. They were from Michigan, so am I. And they described where they’re from and I said, “Oh, you mean Sturgis, Michigan?” And they both just like, what the heck are you talking about? That’s a direct result of my unhealthy trolling all over the market, and looking at all these little areas, and trying to find the best places to send mail. And when we do we send mail there. One hour to troll for a normal person, I think that’s a little bit light. I think I would spend … I don’t want to put a time limit on it because when you’re done trolling you’re … The data’s going to tell you-
Well, can I ask a different question?
“I’m done trolling.” Yeah.
Okay. Let me ask it this way then. How many zip codes or counties should I have identified to sit down and run a good red, yellow, green test?
I would look at no less than five separate markets.
There we go, there we go.
If you like Wisconsin, for whatever reason, and there’s three markets there and they’re very different markets … Maybe one’s outside of, geez, Milwaukee, one’s in … Way north close to Canada, and on and on. Those are three separate markets. I would look at no less than five. Maybe they have five to 10 zip codes in each.
There we go. All right. I’m going to argue that that’s a day. Have you spent a day on that?
That’s what everybody’s answer was in here.
Yeah, I’d spent a day on it.
And I was going to try to avoid that-
That’d be my Sunday.
But the truth is I really think that it’s going to take you a day.
This might be your Sunday. Today’s trolling Sunday, that’s fine.
And then the next time you go do it’s going to-
Trolling Tuesday.
It’ll take less time. And the next time less and the next time less. And I include the red, green, yellow test in that.
That’s good.
A whole day.
Okay. And so that’s a separate day or the same day?
The same day.
Okay. All right, so there’s your answer. Plan on blocking out a whole day, at least, to troll and test for reason. Troll and the red, yellow, green test, not the test for reason part that’s separate. Okay, got it. And then test for reason which is … This is after you run the numbers. You download, scrub the data, you priced it, you pulled down some comps. I’m guessing right now that the way Jemay’s asking this is she’s using Concierge in the middle there.
I hope so.
Or her kid. Her data, nutty kid who she said “Do this.” I don’t know. I’m guessing Concierge in the middle there. Because then they would take the zip codes that Jemay gave them, download the data, scrub the data, pulled comps, took out the outliers, gave her a graph, gave her the comps that they pulled, gave her the numbers she came up with, and then came back with “Here’s what 20% looks like.” Now is time to test for reason, and that’s where she’s at here. And then what are you thinking about that?
You never want to be the most expensive house on the block. You don't want to reset the market.
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I can’t get past second base.
Okay. There’s days-
Can I tell you … Can I tell you-
There’s days I don’t let you get past second base, that’s true.
Can I tell you about second base?
Okay, go ahead. Sidetracked.
Second base is just a stop off for most … For young men. I don’t know how it works for girls, I don’t want to know actually. For young men at second base is just to stop off on the way to hitting a triple or whatever ends up happening. You get older, and I just think you got to take the bases slowly. Enjoy the bases.
Enjoy the bases. That’s hilarious.
Tell me I’m wrong.
I don’t even know how to answer that. And there might be kids in the back seat.
They don’t know. We’re talking about baseball.
That’s true, they are little kids.
It’s baseball season.
This is baseball. That’s true, it is baseball season. Okay, you’re right. All right.
So you’ve got a day’s worth of trolling and red, green, yellow tests. You count-
Concierge.
You’ve used Concierge, that’s going to take-
Now it’s back.
You’re going to allocate, depending on how busy they are. Offers to owners.com, how busy they are. It might take two days to turn it around, two working days. Maybe it’s one if it’s real light. There’s another day. You’re going to get that back and you’re going to have probably a lot to say about it. They will input probably 20% for you. I just went through this with one of our-
Arbitrary number.
One of our children I just went through this because he’s smashing it, he’s sending out all kinds of mail. It’s a new rekindled interest and I hope he keeps up with it. We went in and adjusted pricing all over the place. Some of it was 20%. In some cases for large properties that were really rural, we were down as low as 3%.
Let me take a second and explain this. We’re not mailing out price … Property. We’re not sending mail out at 3% of the retail price of properties, there’s all kinds of other things to consider. If you solve for retail price per acre, or Concierge did, and it’s $10,000 an acre, that’s not going to apply to a 150-acre property, that’s way in the north end of the zip code. You just have to test that for a reason. You have to look it up as if the things came back signed. The purchase came back agreement signed. We did this many, many, many times and he said, “Oh my God, this is $180,000 for a $25,000 piece of property.” He’s coming up with that stuff, not me. You know how to price. When you’re having these independent thoughts, regardless of who you’re sharing this with, it just doesn’t make sense to me. That’s why it’s called test for reason. That’s going to take you a whole day.
Perfect.
The longer the better.
That’s it. And there you go. And I would say Jamay, the last little piece I would add to this question before we move to the next one is, give yourself … Do enough of this that you’re covered for a couple weeks. I would do this once a month. Because you can’t do this every week. If you spend all this much time every week you’re not going to have time to do your due diligence, close deals, all that good stuff. Find a broker to sell these deals. So if you’re doing this every other week, or most preferably once a month, you’re doing this so now you have your next four weeks of mail done. That’s going to be I think what makes the most sense.
The calendar that … Or the schedule that you come up with this week might change, will change next week, and then on and on, and then stuff’s going to happen. Maybe you have a funeral to go to, unfortunately. The calendar’s just not that’s it, it’s not finished ever.
I’m going to read this one because it’s for you.
Oh, okay.
Evan says, “I just wanted to share a quick reminder that the right agent, real estate agent changes everything. I bought a commercial property back in March of ’23 for 53,000 bucks. I hired a local,” and he means real estate agent, “That I thought was a good fit. She put together a good listing, appeared to promote the property, and communicated well. After listing it for a year she never brought one offer. I gave a listing to a Mossy Oak agent” … Mossy Oak is a nationwide land brokerage that we use often. “That did a great job selling a residential parcel for me. He listed the property for 150,000 bucks, same as when the listing expired with the first agent, and brought me $135,000 cash offer in three weeks. We closed 30 days later. Lessons learned colon. Really spend time researching and interviewing your agents and no 12-month agreements.”
I never do a 12-month agreement because here’s why. Here’s my conversation when I’m looking for an agent to sell a property for me. “What price do you think you could sell this for in, let’s just say, 90 days? There’s no fire, I don’t need it gone next week. And I’m not trying to reset the market here. I’m not looking for top dollar, I’m going to sit on it for a year and a half.” They’re like “Okay. 90 days I think we could sell it for X.” “Great.” And we all connect, we move forward.
So when we do the listing agreement, it comes back, I go, “Nope.” Cross that off right at six months. And if they ask, “well, what” … “I usually do 12 months.” “Well, you know what? We all agreed we’re going to sell it in 90 days. So we’re going to do six months, and if we need to, something weird happens, we will totally look at it, revisit this again at the end of six months.” And I’ve never had anybody say no. That’s the answer. Because if you don’t have a good one then at least you can get out of it after six months. You were stuck for a year. That’s painful. $53,000 is nothing to sneeze at. That’s not in your account that you could be using for other things right now.
I have to tell you-
Glad you brought that up, Evan.
Me too. Our responsibilities and what we do here, I feel like I have mine licked. I think doing a mailer hasn’t changed that much. The data we use has changed and the methodology of trolling changes but the basic stuff … If you said-
The concept.
“Please go do 150,000 unit mailer,” I would come back probably in-
A couple days.
Two working days with a pretty real good solid let’s send it out. The stuff that changes on Jill’s side it changes all the time. And it doesn’t seem to disrupt you. You don’t even have a thought about it, you just adjust that … For it and move forward.
No, I think it’s nature. I don’t know. Or is it nurture? I don’t know. I’ve learned, especially with you, to roll with the punches.
Isn’t that bad, Jill? Is it?
I had to say that. No. No, not at all, it’s not that bad.
Finding the right real estate agent. We’ve had great real estate agents and then they just go dark. We do a couple of deals with them, they get a girlfriend, and it’s over.
Oh, yeah. Oh, these are all real stories. It’s true.
Or they change brokerages, or they move to a different state, or all kinds of stuff happens and then you got to start the process over of looking at who’s got great listings. It’s very inconsistent finding a great land broker. We have a lot of land brokers that are in our group as … And they’re buying and selling their own land and they’re real distracted.
Oh, yeah.
And rightfully so. They’re distracted with doing their own deals or raising capital to … Or whatever, as they should be.
Right.
So stuff changes. How Jill answers the phone changes all the time based on how … Where we’re sending mail, and who’s calling back, and how-
Savvy they are or what’s going on.
Whether or their property tax bills just came out.
Yeah, time of year.
On and on and on.
Thank you.
A lot of variables.
Thanks.
Today’s topic, how long does it take to make a million dollars in land versus the stock market? So let’s just think about this for a second philosophically. You’ve got 30 or 60,000 bucks to spend … And we’ll get to that in a second because you don’t need 30 or $60,000 to spend on … In real estate because we’ll fund you. But let’s just assume, We’ll try to be as apples to apples as possible, that you got $60,000 to spend and you dump it into the stock market.
I wish you all could see this, this is cool.
Oh, they can, here.
Oh, can they? Oh. You don’t mind doing that?
No, not at all. They see it.
Give us a second, we’re going to add screen share here.
You’ve got $60,000 to spend. There’s three stock markets: the Standard & Poor’s, the New York Stock Exchange, and the NASDAQ which is in an acronym for something. They all have indexes to indicate how well they’re doing without looking at the entire exchange. The S&P has the S&P 500, the New York Exchange has the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and the Nasdaq, I think they have the NASDAQ 500, I’m not exactly sure.
The National Association Stock … I don’t know.
You’re just guessing.
I totally am. I bet I’m right.
Historically-
I don’t know.
When you buy a piece of real estate, you're paying if you do it our way 20 or 30 percent of what it's worth that day.
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This is a 10 years trailing because all the statistics came out because again, the Dow hit 40,000 today. If you put a dollar in the S&P 10 years ago it would be worth 13% more. In our case here we put $60,000 in, it’s worth 60,000, $7,000 10 years later. The Dow Jones, a much better performance, it went up 131% so $60,000 would yield 138,000.
Interesting.
NASDAQ 260% because of the tech stocks and the tech presence there would yield $200,000. Tripling your money in 10 years is amazing by anybody’s standards. That’s not what happens every 10 years. And I will tell you that if you look at it year over year, there were years where I had lost money and then made up for it and then lost again and made up for it. When’s the last time you had a losing year in-
Isn’t that what this is right here? It’s showing-
Yeah, that’s the Dow.
Okay, got it. It’s a screenshot of what happens year over year.
Well, I’m mindful of the fact that not everybody can see this. Most people are listening to it, not seeing it.
Well, hopefully, they’re on YouTube right now going … Or they paused and they went over to YouTube so they can see it. You’re good.
With land, it’s tied to inflation. So you would pay retail price for a piece of land and it’s … You do it the Land Academy way, you don’t buy a piece of junk. But you pay 100% of what it’s worth the day you buy it which we never do. It’s tied to inflation. Inflation went up over the last 10 years, if you combine it all, about 25%. So $60,000 would yield $75,000.
Wait, back that up again a minute. You’re saying retail is $60,000 for the property?
Yeah. I don’t do it the Land Academy way. I go out on the MLS, I choose a piece of property, I buy it for $60,000, and I let inflation do its thing.
This is what not to do.
You should never do this.
Okay, got it. I’m like where are you going with this?
You should never do any of these four things.
This is true. Now I understand where we’re going here. Because I’m like why would I buy something for 60 and hang on it for 10 years for 75? I’m not doing that.
Here’s what’s great about putting money into the stock market. Depending on how you look at it, you have to do nothing, especially if you put it into an index like this like the Dow Jones, or the Nasdaq, or the S&P 500. You put the $60,000 in, you turn the computer off, 10 years later you turn the computer back on and you see what it’s worth. Does anybody do that? Hell no. Does anybody put $200 on the roulette wheel and then come back 10 years later and see what it’s worth? Yeah, it’s worth zero. With land, no, you get up every morning and you do some stuff. Not a lot but you do some stuff. So here’s the deal. Those are the basic numbers. I wasn’t prepared for this.
Thank you for doing that though.
You have to take the bases slowly. Enjoy the bases. Enjoy the phases.
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Hopefully my guys will edit this out. If not, we probably just lost you.
No. A good guy, you’re good.
There’s a lot of variables. Here’s the most important variables, in my opinion. The first one is time. So you are doing nothing in these stock investments annually. If it were a regular year-over-year annual return you’d get about 1% on the S&P, 10% on New York, and Nasdaq would generate 20% return a year. Again, some years you lose money some years you make a lot of money. These last two years have been huge earners for all three so they’re skewing the hell out of these numbers. What I prefer is control over my money, control over my time. I want control over everything except Jill, that’s about it.
We want the same thing.
If you buy a piece of property and you sell it for twice what it’s worth … You buy it for 60 sell for 120, buy for 30 sell for 60, you just … You make twice as much money which is our … If I look back at 16,000 transactions that Jill and I have done, I see what we bought it for, and I see what we sold it for, and it’s like 52%. We’ve doubled our money if you look at all the average deals. Buy for 30 sell for 60. And you buy one piece of property every year, one piece of land every year and you make $30,000 on it, you will have had, at the end of the 10 years, turned that $30,000 into 330,000. That’s 1100% return. Now we’re-
It’s just one a year.
One deal a year.
A year.
Now we’re talking about comparing the Dow Jones at 130% return over these 10 years versus an 1100% return. I would argue that doing one deal a year would take oh-
An hour an month.
I mean, you could just do the deal in January and then you never work again. That’s not taking into consideration, well, I got to have a mortgage. I’m not saying drop your life I’m saying, you have a little land business on the side, go to college, continue to be a real estate agent, raise your children. Do what you’re going to do, just do a deal a year. Get into the land business, learn how to do this. Buy one freaking piece of land a year, 1100% return if you double your money. You could buy for 20 and sell for 40, buy for 30 sell for 60, buy for 50 sell for 100. All of those work.
This is a lot harder to do, full disclosure if you’re … You’ll see in a second … If you’re buying for 100 and selling for 200, that’s tougher. It’s totally possible, Jill and I do it all the time. If you’re new at this it’s just … There’s a lot less people to sell a property to for 200,000 bucks than 80,000 let’s say. Moving on to what really happens. These are all screenshots. Now Jill’s yelling at me to go back into the camera. Go ahead, Jill, say what you need to say now that the camera’s on.
Funny how you were looking at the camera and making your point but nobody could see it. You’re good. I think they got the gist of it now.
No, it gets better.
Oh, it gets better. You want to show this again? Okay, cool.
They got the gist of it now means Jill’s bored.
No, it’s all good.
We’ve burned it. Burned through her attention span.
You’re good.
What really happens, and what we teach, is you take that same 30,000 that you’re … And you turn it into 60,000. It might take you that January. It might take you January through the first quarter. You take that $60,000 and you turn it into two or three deals, or you use our money to do it. So what you often hear us talk about is do a deal a month, do a deal every three months. Or, as fast as you can, or your time allows, to buy and sell land pretty consistently and double your money as successful as you will be. Now I’m going to answer the question, how long does it take to make a million bucks? It takes about three years, probably less. I did a whole talk on 24 Month Millionaire and how to accomplish that. It’s very, very realistic if you work at this and understand it versus 30 years in the stock market based on the performance of the last 10 years.
That’s a point, I get that. I talked about this a little bit. I brought notes.
Yeah, I’d love to hear it.
Are you finished?
Yeah, totally.
This is what I talked about last week in our Land gals. We meet the first … Or two weeks ago. Anyway, we meet the first Tuesday of every month, we get together for a couple hours. And my whole presentation was, the most important things you’ve got to be doing right now today to be successful. And it was really cool, I acted like a crazy person. I talked about this recently on a podcast too. I gave them some math. I’m like, why would I do it? Why would I push so hard? Whatever. I’m like “Hold on everybody, let’s just do some” … “This is Jill math.” I love your beautiful spreadsheet, I just have one equation here and I’ll hold it up. It’s great because we’re both thinking on $30,000.
Okay.
And here’s why. Making $30,000 per deal is so flipping easy it’s not even funny. It a great sweet spot. You’re selling things for sub $100,000. You bought it for sub $50,000, right? You bought it somewhere below 50 you’re selling below 100. Your only goal is to make 30,000. And I want you to make 30,000 after commission, after your mail costs, and that … And your data and your … Whatever it is. This is not nuts. My goal was a little … Because I was really trying to push people, my goal was a little more than one a month, mine was three a month. I was speaking to a group that they either are or aspire to be full-time at this, we’re not messing around. Here’s your carrot.
If you come at this like a crazy person like this is all I’m going to do, I’m going to say no to everybody, I’m not going to take these trips, I’m not going to do this stuff … Yeah, I’m going to put my head down. I’m like big deal. You spend two years of your life, you put your head down, and you go like a crazy person. You try for three a month … Excuse me, try for four a month, you try to do one a week. But you’re like “I did three a week. What would that look like Jill?” So three deals a week for 24 months and you’re making $30,000 a deal period. You know what that is? That’s $2.16 million. Okay, wait a minute, say that again. This is how it went on the call. On our thing. Two years so 24 months, three deals a month making $30,000 a deal is $2.16 million. Come on. Okay. Jill, I can’t do that.
What if you do half of that?
That’s my point. Okay, you screw it all up. I averaged a deal and a half a month, okay? I went at it like a nutcase and I did a deal half a month. I did all this stuff, said no. Family was on board, they all understood. So what did I make? Over a million bucks. So it’s 1,500,000 whatever. Not even that. But anyway, you make a million bucks. So what. For me, that’s the whole point here.
My other point I wanted make today, that’s really important, since we’re talking big picture and comparing … Right now just stock market. I can’t think of any other avenue in real estate. We’re all [inaudible 00:30:41] money be made in real estate, right, we all know that check. So many people are still coming at this like I need to take out loans, I’ve got to get someone to back me because I want to do a flip. Well, these homes are getting more and more … I’m just comparing it to doing a $30,000 … Say you want to clear $30,000 on a house flip. For a lot of people that’s just fine, especially if they’re doing a house flip a month, they’re happy with those numbers. You can’t get started with the same cash we need, you need a couple hundred thousand dollars to come at that.
Oh, way more than that.
You probably need $300,000.
Oh, no, about 500.
Minimum three to five, okay? Three to $500,000 to come at this to try to make 30,000, maybe 50,000 a deal on a house flip. You can’t. And most people, that knocks them out of real estate right there. And I feel bad, there’s some smart people out there. Not to mention, I’m not even comparing the time, and the energy, and the costs. Cut this in half. I’m doing my one-and-a-half deals a month to make a million dollars in two years. Well, shucks, I can do it … That from anywhere. I’m not tied to this project. I don’t care what storm rolled through town and ruined the roof with hail damage or whatever it is, fill in the blank, it’s land.
We’re not philosophically talking to you about what’s possible here, we’re telling you what happens to us every single year. Every year Jill and I make about … These are gross numbers without expenses and stuff. This is the difference between the prices that we pay for real estate and then what we sell it for. Between 2.5 And $3 million. If you average everything out for the most recent years it’s about $2.5. And so if you divide $2.5 million, we try to make a 100 grand. We don’t always but we try to. That’s 25 deals. That’s a couple deals a month. That’s two-
That’s not all the we have going on but that’s a good thing.
That’s what we do. We’re not holding anything back from you. We’re not doing something special that oh, well, let’s not tell them about that. Nothing like that happens. We tell you exactly what we do. We send out a ton of mail. I do my homework with pricing and trolling, and all of that, and Jill smashes it on the phone. A couple of weeks ago we were talking … There’s a huge issue with the perception of saturation out there in competition. I don’t know why this industry is … Well, I’m sure it’s because other groups that are popping up are saying that they’re having trouble with saturation. Well, I asked Jill several times, “Are you concerned about saturation?” And she said no over and over and over again. And neither am I.
It’s like saying I’m sad … Worried about too many houses.
I think in the back of a lot of people’s heads they just say, “Well, I don’t have” … They’re trying to get out of it. I heard a sentence a … A couple days ago, because I’m taking a different course on a completely unrelated scenario, and she said, “I mean, are you more comfortable doing something or nothing?” Because she’s very more comfortable doing something.
That’s very sweet.
If you put your head down for two years and go like a crazy person, trying to do three deals a month, making thirty thousand dollars a deal, that's 2.16 million dollars.
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And so if it’s easier for you to do nothing then this is not the podcast for you, it isn’t.
But you know what? Put your head down for two years you can do nothing.
You can put 30,000 bucks into the stock market and do nothing-
True.
And get a return.
True. I’m more happy doing something.
I am too.
What are you most happy doing? Let’s have a sidebar conversation.
I like to diversify my activity.
Are we back to second base?
Yeah, I love second base.
That’s really good.
I like being on a motorcycle these days.
That’s good.
I love that, actually. Jill and I are about to embark on a three-month, maybe four-month RV trip-
I’m planning for five.
I’m very excited for that. Are you really?
Because you know what? I did the math, we’re … I think potentially we could be gone for five months is what I was looking at.
Are you excited?
And I’m craving that. Oh my gosh, yes.
So am I.
Oh, yeah. That’s so fun.
We’re leaving in three days. We’ll do the show from the road, you’ll see.
Oh, it’ll be fun.
Oh, we’ve got a bunch of interviews coming up but-
It’ll be good, you’ll see us.
You’ll see it sooner than later.
It’ll be great.
Jill, you have something inspirational to share with us.
Yeah. You know what I want to talk about? It ties into what you just said about, are you more happy doing something or doing nothing. I’m more happy always doing something, obviously, I can’t sit still. What was I going to say? So for me, it ties into what I do in my free time which is, I’m always learning something. And I want to remind everyone the value of continued education. There’s this sweet couple that have been a part of Land Academy not that long and they’re like “Oh, we got this.” And they stopped showing up, they stopped being involved. I’m hearing little snippets of their struggling. And I’m like you know what? Because they’re not staying involved.
There’s always things that come, up even within our group. For me, I personally pick up and read all kinds of books on all kinds of topics but it all ties to building a business or being an entrepreneur or being better at something that we do. I love sales, that’s been my whole life, right? I will still pick up sales books, I will still go to sales things. I might pick up a little nugget, I don’t know. Doing things a little bit differently. I’m never going to stop. I’m always going to stop learning … I’m always going to stop … I’m always going to keep learning, that’s what I’m trying to say. I’m getting tripped on my own words here.
Even in Land Academy, this was a discussion recently. Even though you come into Land Academy, you watched it your first year, went off and did some mail, go back and rewatch it six months later, watch it a year later. Not even just our updated versions but the same version that we have. As someone very nicely said on our member call, you’re a different person now that you’re watching it. What you knew when you first watched this one year ago, and you’re watching now, you are so different. And what you’re going to pick up on is going to be different because of that too. I’m just reminding everyone, don’t let off the gas, don’t get too comfortable, and keep pushing and you’ll get better, and more efficient, and it’s just all going to get better.
Here’s my inspiration and it was … I bled into it on the regular topic. Continuing education is imperative. I am much more comfortable doing something versus nothing. I used to race motorcycle, superbikes, back in the day, drag your knee on the ground but I’m much more into the dirt thing now. And so I’m going back into continuing education, like Jill is saying, just watching videos, and taking classes, and everything. And it occurred to me, and I didn’t even realize that I was doing this but … One of the courses that I’m taking said that if you get on your bike … It looks like there’s nothing going on when you watch somebody ride a motorcycle. But for me, what’s happening, especially in the dirt is every single turn that I’m taking, I … The next one I try to make it better somehow. I try to lose … Choose my line better, implement the gleaning techniques, and all that stuff so there’s a lot of mental things that are going on that I don’t think are apparent when you watch somebody else do it.
That’s continuing education, and I’ve been doing that since I started riding. Just try to become a better rider, trying to improve track time or dirt time, or get out there more, and all of that. You learn all about yourself, and what you’re capable of, and where your limits are. And this is no different. I’ve been watching CNBC for hours now because of this 40 … Because I’m just fascinated at the reactions of people and this 40,000-point milestone.
Have we ever hit this before?
Never.
Oh.
It is the first time ever.
That’s it.
Ever. And I don’t think it’s something to celebrate about, price-to-earnings.
What do they to tie it to?
So they spend a lot of time talking about that. And price-to-earnings ratios have never been higher also. So price-to-earnings means the price of the stock divided by the actual earnings for the same period or the period, however they defines it.
Meaning the profit the person made, the profits.
The profit that the company’s making. So Microsoft has a PE ratio and the price of the stock should be within a reasonable gap, within an acceptable earnings place. Theoretically can’t just have an amazingly high stock price with absolutely no income or no earnings, especially if it’s in a … In the point in its lifecycle. A company’s in its lifecycle where it should be throwing off some earnings like Apple or Microsoft or Ford or any of those companies. When you have a higher and higher and higher price-to-earnings ratio, it’s way more dangerous in my point … In my opinion, then having just a high stock price. It becomes a perception. The value of a stock becomes perceptional or with … More than it does reflecting the reality of the value of the stock. And that’s been going on for as long as I can remember. I remember when it hit 10,000 and everybody thought the world was going to end. People were talking about watching it hit 1,000 in the 80s … I think in the 70s when we were really young kids-
Wow.
Continuing education is imperative. If it's easier for you to do nothing, then this is not the podcast for you.
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And they thought then the world … And all kinds of stuff happened after that. We went off the gold standard, all kinds of crazy stuff. I don’t think this is a good thing but everybody seems to be really happy about it. I don’t know if it’s just clickbait or what. Probably some of that.
You’ve been watching Jack and Jill on Money Matters. I’m just kidding.
My big point, picture point is here … If you have control over how much money you buy a piece of real estate for, buy a piece of dirt and it’s way less than you’re going to turn around and sell it for two weeks later, where’s the risk in that?
I know. This is why I hate the stock market, I have no control. I hate it. This is why I hate … I’m trying to think of so many other things. Well, I won’t do a terms … What am I trying to say? A wholesale deal. Those of you who know know what I’m talking about. I’m not going to take it into contract, try to go sell it, trust my buyer’s still going to … Or my seller’s still going to be there. Trust it’s all going to go okay. Trust the state will let me post the property for sale because I don’t own it, I just have an equitable title. I’m not going to mess around with that I’m going to buy the dumb thing.
We’re here to reduce risk and reduce variables just like in a motorcycle seat. You don’t want to go into a turn all risky and with a ton of variables where you’re doing all kinds of stuff instead of just trusting your soul and utilizing the years and decades of experience that you have. That’s what you want.
Totally.
I don’t not know of any way to improve guessing at what stocks and what indexes to buy the way that we do now, the way that we do here.
That’s good.
Join us next Wednesday for another interesting episode, you’re not alone in your real estate ambition. We are Jack and Jill. Information-
And inspiration-
To buy undervalued property.
Join hosts Jack Butala and Jill DeWit on this week’s episode of “The Land Academy Show” as they dive deep into the common challenge of dealing with land sellers who have unrealistic price expectations. From understanding the reasons behind inflated prices to strategic responses and effective negotiation techniques, this episode provides invaluable insights for anyone in the land investment business. Tune in as they share: real-world experiences, practical tips, and answers to questions from the Land Academy community.
Transcript: N/A
https://youtu.be/Wmm0hGTyXoM
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Join Jill DeWit and Land Academy Member Bei Zhang, as they share their real estate journey. They cover everything from their shared experiences, to Bei’s inspiring career transition. Explore their philosophy of living like you’re retired, while still working, with insights into business operations, goals, strategies and more. Hear personal stories, tips on balancing work with personal health, and reflections on their journey. Don’t miss this engaging conversation packed with valuable insights for real estate enthusiasts and entrepreneurs!
Transcript: N/A
https://youtu.be/8O_y66uBWGQ
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
In this episode of The Land Academy Show, hosts Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit discuss the time it takes to make a million dollars with land compared to the stock market. They emphasize the importance of consistent and controlled growth in the land business, where doubling or tripling your money on each deal is more realistic and achievable.
Steven and Jill compare the potential returns of investing in the stock market versus investing in land, highlighting how land can provide a much higher return on investment in a shorter period of time. They also stress the value of continued education and staying involved in the land business to maximize success.
Tune in now and discover how to fast-track your financial goals!
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit, and this is the Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is episode number 2,009 and we’re talking about how long it takes to make a million bucks with land versus the stock market. Here’s why? The Dow hit 40,000 today, this is when Jill and I were recording it, it’s I guess May 16th. That just shocks me.
Jill DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
Everybody’s celebrating.
Jill DeWit:
What’s limit up and limit down? I can’t remember any of it. You know what I’m talking about?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, there’s daily limits.
Jill DeWit:
Well, then they stop it. It can’t go so high. Did they even bring that up today like we’re pushing it or everything?
Steven Jack Butala:
No.
Jill DeWit:
Okay. I didn’t even know.
Steven Jack Butala:
Because it wasn’t-
Jill DeWit:
It wasn’t-
Steven Jack Butala:
It wasn’t a huge jump from the previous day.
Jill DeWit:
Astronomical.
Steven Jack Butala:
And my philosophical question to you Jill is … There’s a lot of celebration today. When in real estate do you celebrate when things are at the top of the market? Do you celebrate and jump around? Are you happy when the land is selling for the most it’s ever sold for ever?
Jill DeWit:
Not really, no.
Steven Jack Butala:
How about houses? Do you love to go into a market and see people just hitting the top of the market with their remodel?
Jill DeWit:
Nope. No. I see where you’re going with this and I understand your point. Okay. So everybody’s high-fiving each other because it’s the most expensive that it’s ever been, yay. It’s only good for one person who sold that stock at that time. Everybody else is going, “Oh, I blew it” kind of thing. That’s it. So you’re talking about our world and what really makes sense to us. What you can do consistently which is a lot of getting to second base I guess. First base, second base, I’m happy with that all day long. You know what? To me-
Steven Jack Butala:
I like getting to second base too.
Jill DeWit:
I know you also like a home run but we won’t go there. Home runs happen once or twice a year for us, let’s just say that. What happens more often than not, second and third base which is doubling my money and then a little bit more than doubling my money. There’s just like oh my gosh, I can’t believe I bought this for 20,000, sold it for 120. That’s a home run. First base is I bought it for 20, sold it for 30, 35. It didn’t go that great but who can complain about making 10 or 15 grand? This is all very consistent. And then second base to me is I bought it for 20 and I sold it for 40, 45. This is great. Third base is I sold it for 60 to 70. And then you know what home run is. I’m more happy with that. You never want to be the most expensive house on the block, I’ve always believed that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s some things-
Jill DeWit:
And you don’t want to reset the market-
Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s here some stuff-
Jill DeWit:
I don’t believe in that.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’re going to talk about today in a big picture. We’re going to talk about the stock market versus land investing, and we’re going to dabble a little bit in comparing those two. Also with owning a different business like a convenience store or a manufacturing facility. They’re all not apples to apples. There’s a different amount of energy that you can put in. This is super important for Jill and I. Control that you have over what you’re trying to accomplish financially. I mean, here’s a little prelude to that, and then we’re going to take a couple of questions. When you go out and buy a piece of … A share of stock or a block of stock, you’re paying retail for it. You’re paying retail for whatever it’s worth that day. When you buy a piece of real estate you’re paying, if you do it our way, 20 or 30% of what it’s worth that day.
Jill DeWit:
I would like to point out one thing before we get into the big topic which is I want you to pay attention as we’re talking today about start-up costs.
Steven Jack Butala:
I love that.
Jill DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s an integral part of actually when we get into the real in-depth in this. And we will answer the question. How long does it take to make a million bucks in land versus the stock market? There’s a bunch of variables. The percentages never change in these things. What changes is your activity and your personality type. I will tell you it’s 10 to 30 times longer to make it in the stock market versus land.
Jill DeWit:
That’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
And I’ll give you all the numbers.
Jill DeWit:
Cool.
Steven Jack Butala:
Each week on the show we answer a question from the Land Academy member Discord forum and we take a deep dive into land-related topics by popular request from our Land Academy community. Today we have two questions. Go ahead, Jill.
Jill DeWit:
Okay. So the first question today is from Jamay. Jamay’s a sweetheart. Been with the Land gals for quite some time now. So she wrote, “Good morning, guys, quick question. How long is too long to troll for new markets? Over one hour, over two hours? I’m finalizing my weekly schedule.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Good.
Jill DeWit:
“Awesome video that Jack and Jill dropped yesterday has me looking more into scheduling my time more efficiently and to have an actual schedule. So I’m thinking to start one hour to troll, two hours for the red, yellow, green test. Test for reason, not sure how long to spend on that, and so on. So how do you guys schedule your time? Thanks.”
Steven Jack Butala:
So Jill and I are very, very, very fortunate that I do the front 30%, maybe 40% of the work which is what you’re asking about here. And then unfortunate because she takes over. Once the mail goes out she takes over. She just counts on me to find good places to send mail, spend the right time analyzing whether or not they’re actually real good places from a data perspective, and then getting a mailer out that’s priced correctly. I hate to answer questions like this but it really depends on you. I spend a tremendous amount of time trolling, it’s actually crossed over into a hobby of mine.
Jill DeWit:
It’s an unhealth, Jamay. It’s an unhealthy amount let’s just say.
Steven Jack Butala:
I can’t tell you what-
Jill DeWit:
“What are you doing over there?” “Nothing. Looking at a real estate.”
Steven Jack Butala:
I can tell you what houses. Here’s an example, here’s a great example. I mean, I can tell you what houses in Juneau, Alaska are worth, I just can. We sat down during the college basketball tryouts at a little neighborhood bar, and these two people sat down next to us and we started talking to them. They’re in town from way out of town. In town for watching college basketball.
Jill DeWit:
It was the Final Four tryouts. I’m sorry.
Steven Jack Butala:
We just got to talking, they’re real interesting people. This guy renovated old buildings and condos and he was, I guess, sort of retired but not really. They had a place in Florida. We had a lot to talk about and a lot in common. They were from Michigan, so am I. And they described where they’re from and I said, “Oh, you mean Sturgis, Michigan?” And they both just like, what the heck are you talking about? That’s a direct result of my unhealthy trolling all over the market, and looking at all these little areas, and trying to find the best places to send mail. And when we do we send mail there. One hour to troll for a normal person, I think that’s a little bit light. I think I would spend … I don’t want to put a time limit on it because when you’re done trolling you’re … The data’s going to tell you-
Jill DeWit:
Well, can I ask a different question?
Steven Jack Butala:
“I’m done trolling.” Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
Okay. Let me ask it this way then. How many zip codes or counties should I have identified to sit down and run a good red, yellow, green test?
Steven Jack Butala:
I would look at no less than five separate markets.
Jill DeWit:
There we go, there we go.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you like Wisconsin, for whatever reason, and there’s three markets there and they’re very different markets … Maybe one’s outside of, geez, Milwaukee, one’s in … Way north close to Canada, and on and on. Those are three separate markets. I would look at no less than five. Maybe they have five to 10 zip codes in each.
Jill DeWit:
There we go. All right. I’m going to argue that that’s a day. Have you spent a day on that?
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what everybody’s answer was in here.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah, I’d spent a day on it.
Steven Jack Butala:
And I was going to try to avoid that-
Jill DeWit:
That’d be my Sunday.
Steven Jack Butala:
But the truth is I really think that it’s going to take you a day.
Jill DeWit:
This might be your Sunday. Today’s trolling Sunday, that’s fine.
Steven Jack Butala:
And then the next time you go do it’s going to-
Jill DeWit:
Trolling Tuesday.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’ll take less time. And the next time less and the next time less. And I include the red, green, yellow test in that.
Jill DeWit:
That’s good.
Steven Jack Butala:
A whole day.
Jill DeWit:
Okay. And so that’s a separate day or the same day?
Steven Jack Butala:
The same day.
Jill DeWit:
Okay. All right, so there’s your answer. Plan on blocking out a whole day, at least, to troll and test for reason. Troll and the red, yellow, green test, not the test for reason part that’s separate. Okay, got it. And then test for reason which is … This is after you run the numbers. You download, scrub the data, you priced it, you pulled down some comps. I’m guessing right now that the way Jemay’s asking this is she’s using Concierge in the middle there.
Steven Jack Butala:
I hope so.
Jill DeWit:
Or her kid. Her data, nutty kid who she said “Do this.” I don’t know. I’m guessing Concierge in the middle there. Because then they would take the zip codes that Jemay gave them, download the data, scrub the data, pulled comps, took out the outliers, gave her a graph, gave her the comps that they pulled, gave her the numbers she came up with, and then came back with “Here’s what 20% looks like.” Now is time to test for reason, and that’s where she’s at here. And then what are you thinking about that?
Steven Jack Butala:
I can’t get past second base.
Jill DeWit:
Okay. There’s days-
Steven Jack Butala:
Can I tell you … Can I tell you-
Jill DeWit:
There’s days I don’t let you get past second base, that’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
Can I tell you about second base?
Jill DeWit:
Okay, go ahead. Sidetracked.
Steven Jack Butala:
Second base is just a stop off for most … For young men. I don’t know how it works for girls, I don’t want to know actually. For young men at second base is just to stop off on the way to hitting a triple or whatever ends up happening. You get older, and I just think you got to take the bases slowly. Enjoy the bases.
Jill DeWit:
Enjoy the bases. That’s hilarious.
Steven Jack Butala:
Tell me I’m wrong.
Jill DeWit:
I don’t even know how to answer that. And there might be kids in the back seat.
Steven Jack Butala:
They don’t know. We’re talking about baseball.
Jill DeWit:
That’s true, they are little kids.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s baseball season.
Jill DeWit:
This is baseball. That’s true, it is baseball season. Okay, you’re right. All right.
Steven Jack Butala:
So you’ve got a day’s worth of trolling and red, green, yellow tests. You count-
Jill DeWit:
Concierge.
Steven Jack Butala:
You’ve used Concierge, that’s going to take-
Jill DeWit:
Now it’s back.
Steven Jack Butala:
You’re going to allocate, depending on how busy they are. Offers to owners.com, how busy they are. It might take two days to turn it around, two working days. Maybe it’s one if it’s real light. There’s another day. You’re going to get that back and you’re going to have probably a lot to say about it. They will input probably 20% for you. I just went through this with one of our-
Jill DeWit:
Arbitrary number.
Steven Jack Butala:
One of our children I just went through this because he’s smashing it, he’s sending out all kinds of mail. It’s a new rekindled interest and I hope he keeps up with it. We went in and adjusted pricing all over the place. Some of it was 20%. In some cases for large properties that were really rural, we were down as low as 3%.
Jill DeWit:
Wow.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let me take a second and explain this. We’re not mailing out price … Property. We’re not sending mail out at 3% of the retail price of properties, there’s all kinds of other things to consider. If you solve for retail price per acre, or Concierge did, and it’s $10,000 an acre, that’s not going to apply to a 150-acre property, that’s way in the north end of the zip code. You just have to test that for a reason. You have to look it up as if the things came back signed. The purchase came back agreement signed. We did this many, many, many times and he said, “Oh my God, this is $180,000 for a $25,000 piece of property.” He’s coming up with that stuff, not me. You know how to price. When you’re having these independent thoughts, regardless of who you’re sharing this with, it just doesn’t make sense to me. That’s why it’s called test for reason. That’s going to take you a whole day.
Jill DeWit:
Perfect.
Steven Jack Butala:
The longer the better.
Jill DeWit:
That’s it. And there you go. And I would say Jamay, the last little piece I would add to this question before we move to the next one is, give yourself … Do enough of this that you’re covered for a couple weeks. I would do this once a month. Because you can’t do this every week. If you spend all this much time every week you’re not going to have time to do your due diligence, close deals, all that good stuff. Find a broker to sell these deals. So if you’re doing this every other week, or most preferably once a month, you’re doing this so now you have your next four weeks of mail done. That’s going to be I think what makes the most sense.
Steven Jack Butala:
The calendar that … Or the schedule that you come up with this week might change, will change next week, and then on and on, and then stuff’s going to happen. Maybe you have a funeral to go to, unfortunately. The calendar’s just not that’s it, it’s not finished ever.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m going to read this one because it’s for you.
Jill DeWit:
Oh, okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
Evan says, “I just wanted to share a quick reminder that the right agent, real estate agent changes everything. I bought a commercial property back in March of ’23 for 53,000 bucks. I hired a local,” and he means real estate agent, “That I thought was a good fit. She put together a good listing, appeared to promote the property, and communicated well. After listing it for a year she never brought one offer. I gave a listing to a Mossy Oak agent” … Mossy Oak is a nationwide land brokerage that we use often. “That did a great job selling a residential parcel for me. He listed the property for 150,000 bucks, same as when the listing expired with the first agent, and brought me $135,000 cash offer in three weeks. We closed 30 days later. Lessons learned colon. Really spend time researching and interviewing your agents and no 12-month agreements.”
Jill DeWit:
I never do a 12-month agreement because here’s why. Here’s my conversation when I’m looking for an agent to sell a property for me. “What price do you think you could sell this for in, let’s just say, 90 days? There’s no fire, I don’t need it gone next week. And I’m not trying to reset the market here. I’m not looking for top dollar, I’m going to sit on it for a year and a half.” They’re like “Okay. 90 days I think we could sell it for X.” “Great.” And we all connect, we move forward.
So when we do the listing agreement, it comes back, I go, “Nope.” Cross that off right at six months. And if they ask, “well, what” … “I usually do 12 months.” “Well, you know what? We all agreed we’re going to sell it in 90 days. So we’re going to do six months, and if we need to, something weird happens, we will totally look at it, revisit this again at the end of six months.” And I’ve never had anybody say no. That’s the answer. Because if you don’t have a good one then at least you can get out of it after six months. You were stuck for a year. That’s painful. $53,000 is nothing to sneeze at. That’s not in your account that you could be using for other things right now.
Steven Jack Butala:
I have to tell you-
Jill DeWit:
Glad you brought that up, Evan.
Steven Jack Butala:
Me too. Our responsibilities and what we do here, I feel like I have mine licked. I think doing a mailer hasn’t changed that much. The data we use has changed and the methodology of trolling changes but the basic stuff … If you said-
Jill DeWit:
The concept.
Steven Jack Butala:
“Please go do 150,000 unit mailer,” I would come back probably in-
Jill DeWit:
A couple days.
Steven Jack Butala:
Two working days with a pretty real good solid let’s send it out. The stuff that changes on Jill’s side it changes all the time. And it doesn’t seem to disrupt you. You don’t even have a thought about it, you just adjust that … For it and move forward.
Jill DeWit:
No, I think it’s nature. I don’t know. Or is it nurture? I don’t know. I’ve learned, especially with you, to roll with the punches.
Steven Jack Butala:
Isn’t that bad, Jill? Is it?
Jill DeWit:
I had to say that. No. No, not at all, it’s not that bad.
Steven Jack Butala:
Finding the right real estate agent. We’ve had great real estate agents and then they just go dark. We do a couple of deals with them, they get a girlfriend, and it’s over.
Jill DeWit:
Oh, yeah. Oh, these are all real stories. It’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
Or they change brokerages, or they move to a different state, or all kinds of stuff happens and then you got to start the process over of looking at who’s got great listings. It’s very inconsistent finding a great land broker. We have a lot of land brokers that are in our group as … And they’re buying and selling their own land and they’re real distracted.
Jill DeWit:
Oh, yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
And rightfully so. They’re distracted with doing their own deals or raising capital to … Or whatever, as they should be.
Jill DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
So stuff changes. How Jill answers the phone changes all the time based on how … Where we’re sending mail, and who’s calling back, and how-
Jill DeWit:
Savvy they are or what’s going on.
Steven Jack Butala:
Whether or their property tax bills just came out.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah, time of year.
Steven Jack Butala:
On and on and on.
Jill DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
A lot of variables.
Jill DeWit:
Thanks.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s topic, how long does it take to make a million dollars in land versus the stock market? So let’s just think about this for a second philosophically. You’ve got 30 or 60,000 bucks to spend … And we’ll get to that in a second because you don’t need 30 or $60,000 to spend on … In real estate because we’ll fund you. But let’s just assume, We’ll try to be as apples to apples as possible, that you got $60,000 to spend and you dump it into the stock market.
Jill DeWit:
I wish you all could see this, this is cool.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, they can, here.
Jill DeWit:
Oh, can they? Oh. You don’t mind doing that?
Steven Jack Butala:
No, not at all. They see it.
Jill DeWit:
Give us a second, we’re going to add screen share here.
Steven Jack Butala:
You’ve got $60,000 to spend. There’s three stock markets: the Standard & Poor’s, the New York Stock Exchange, and the NASDAQ which is in an acronym for something. They all have indexes to indicate how well they’re doing without looking at the entire exchange. The S&P has the S&P 500, the New York Exchange has the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and the Nasdaq, I think they have the NASDAQ 500, I’m not exactly sure.
Jill DeWit:
The National Association Stock … I don’t know.
Steven Jack Butala:
You’re just guessing.
Jill DeWit:
I totally am. I bet I’m right.
Steven Jack Butala:
Historically-
Jill DeWit:
I don’t know.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is a 10 years trailing because all the statistics came out because again, the Dow hit 40,000 today. If you put a dollar in the S&P 10 years ago it would be worth 13% more. In our case here we put $60,000 in, it’s worth 60,000, $7,000 10 years later. The Dow Jones, a much better performance, it went up 131% so $60,000 would yield 138,000.
Jill DeWit:
Interesting.
Steven Jack Butala:
NASDAQ 260% because of the tech stocks and the tech presence there would yield $200,000. Tripling your money in 10 years is amazing by anybody’s standards. That’s not what happens every 10 years. And I will tell you that if you look at it year over year, there were years where I had lost money and then made up for it and then lost again and made up for it. When’s the last time you had a losing year in-
Jill DeWit:
Isn’t that what this is right here? It’s showing-
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, that’s the Dow.
Jill DeWit:
Okay, got it. It’s a screenshot of what happens year over year.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, I’m mindful of the fact that not everybody can see this. Most people are listening to it, not seeing it.
Jill DeWit:
Well, hopefully, they’re on YouTube right now going … Or they paused and they went over to YouTube so they can see it. You’re good.
Steven Jack Butala:
With land, it’s tied to inflation. So you would pay retail price for a piece of land and it’s … You do it the Land Academy way, you don’t buy a piece of junk. But you pay 100% of what it’s worth the day you buy it which we never do. It’s tied to inflation. Inflation went up over the last 10 years, if you combine it all, about 25%. So $60,000 would yield $75,000.
Jill DeWit:
Wait, back that up again a minute. You’re saying retail is $60,000 for the property?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. I don’t do it the Land Academy way. I go out on the MLS, I choose a piece of property, I buy it for $60,000, and I let inflation do its thing.
Jill DeWit:
This is what not to do.
Steven Jack Butala:
You should never do this.
Jill DeWit:
Okay, got it. I’m like where are you going with this?
Steven Jack Butala:
You should never do any of these four things.
Jill DeWit:
This is true. Now I understand where we’re going here. Because I’m like why would I buy something for 60 and hang on it for 10 years for 75? I’m not doing that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s what’s great about putting money into the stock market. Depending on how you look at it, you have to do nothing, especially if you put it into an index like this like the Dow Jones, or the Nasdaq, or the S&P 500. You put the $60,000 in, you turn the computer off, 10 years later you turn the computer back on and you see what it’s worth. Does anybody do that? Hell no. Does anybody put $200 on the roulette wheel and then come back 10 years later and see what it’s worth? Yeah, it’s worth zero. With land, no, you get up every morning and you do some stuff. Not a lot but you do some stuff. So here’s the deal. Those are the basic numbers. I wasn’t prepared for this.
Jill DeWit:
Thank you for doing that though.
Steven Jack Butala:
Hopefully my guys will edit this out. If not, we probably just lost you.
Jill DeWit:
No. A good guy, you’re good.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s a lot of variables. Here’s the most important variables, in my opinion. The first one is time. So you are doing nothing in these stock investments annually. If it were a regular year-over-year annual return you’d get about 1% on the S&P, 10% on New York, and Nasdaq would generate 20% return a year. Again, some years you lose money some years you make a lot of money. These last two years have been huge earners for all three so they’re skewing the hell out of these numbers. What I prefer is control over my money, control over my time. I want control over everything except Jill, that’s about it.
Jill DeWit:
We want the same thing.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you buy a piece of property and you sell it for twice what it’s worth … You buy it for 60 sell for 120, buy for 30 sell for 60, you just … You make twice as much money which is our … If I look back at 16,000 transactions that Jill and I have done, I see what we bought it for, and I see what we sold it for, and it’s like 52%. We’ve doubled our money if you look at all the average deals. Buy for 30 sell for 60. And you buy one piece of property every year, one piece of land every year and you make $30,000 on it, you will have had, at the end of the 10 years, turned that $30,000 into 330,000. That’s 1100% return. Now we’re-
Jill DeWit:
It’s just one a year.
Steven Jack Butala:
One deal a year.
Jill DeWit:
A year.
Steven Jack Butala:
Now we’re talking about comparing the Dow Jones at 130% return over these 10 years versus an 1100% return. I would argue that doing one deal a year would take oh-
Jill DeWit:
An hour an month.
Steven Jack Butala:
I mean, you could just do the deal in January and then you never work again. That’s not taking into consideration, well, I got to have a mortgage. I’m not saying drop your life I’m saying, you have a little land business on the side, go to college, continue to be a real estate agent, raise your children. Do what you’re going to do, just do a deal a year. Get into the land business, learn how to do this. Buy one freaking piece of land a year, 1100% return if you double your money. You could buy for 20 and sell for 40, buy for 30 sell for 60, buy for 50 sell for 100. All of those work.
This is a lot harder to do, full disclosure if you’re … You’ll see in a second … If you’re buying for 100 and selling for 200, that’s tougher. It’s totally possible, Jill and I do it all the time. If you’re new at this it’s just … There’s a lot less people to sell a property to for 200,000 bucks than 80,000 let’s say. Moving on to what really happens. These are all screenshots. Now Jill’s yelling at me to go back into the camera. Go ahead, Jill, say what you need to say now that the camera’s on.
Jill DeWit:
Funny how you were looking at the camera and making your point but nobody could see it. You’re good. I think they got the gist of it now.
Steven Jack Butala:
No, it gets better.
Jill DeWit:
Oh, it gets better. You want to show this again? Okay, cool.
Steven Jack Butala:
They got the gist of it now means Jill’s bored.
Jill DeWit:
No, it’s all good.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’ve burned it. Burned through her attention span.
Jill DeWit:
You’re good.
Steven Jack Butala:
What really happens, and what we teach, is you take that same 30,000 that you’re … And you turn it into 60,000. It might take you that January. It might take you January through the first quarter. You take that $60,000 and you turn it into two or three deals, or you use our money to do it. So what you often hear us talk about is do a deal a month, do a deal every three months. Or, as fast as you can, or your time allows, to buy and sell land pretty consistently and double your money as successful as you will be. Now I’m going to answer the question, how long does it take to make a million bucks? It takes about three years, probably less. I did a whole talk on 24 Month Millionaire and how to accomplish that. It’s very, very realistic if you work at this and understand it versus 30 years in the stock market based on the performance of the last 10 years.
Jill DeWit:
That’s a point, I get that. I talked about this a little bit. I brought notes.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, I’d love to hear it.
Jill DeWit:
Are you finished?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, totally.
Jill DeWit:
This is what I talked about last week in our Land gals. We meet the first … Or two weeks ago. Anyway, we meet the first Tuesday of every month, we get together for a couple hours. And my whole presentation was, the most important things you’ve got to be doing right now today to be successful. And it was really cool, I acted like a crazy person. I talked about this recently on a podcast too. I gave them some math. I’m like, why would I do it? Why would I push so hard? Whatever. I’m like “Hold on everybody, let’s just do some” … “This is Jill math.” I love your beautiful spreadsheet, I just have one equation here and I’ll hold it up. It’s great because we’re both thinking on $30,000.
Steven Jack Butala:
Okay.
Jill DeWit:
And here’s why. Making $30,000 per deal is so flipping easy it’s not even funny. It a great sweet spot. You’re selling things for sub $100,000. You bought it for sub $50,000, right? You bought it somewhere below 50 you’re selling below 100. Your only goal is to make 30,000. And I want you to make 30,000 after commission, after your mail costs, and that … And your data and your … Whatever it is. This is not nuts. My goal was a little … Because I was really trying to push people, my goal was a little more than one a month, mine was three a month. I was speaking to a group that they either are or aspire to be full-time at this, we’re not messing around. Here’s your carrot.
If you come at this like a crazy person like this is all I’m going to do, I’m going to say no to everybody, I’m not going to take these trips, I’m not going to do this stuff … Yeah, I’m going to put my head down. I’m like big deal. You spend two years of your life, you put your head down, and you go like a crazy person. You try for three a month … Excuse me, try for four a month, you try to do one a week. But you’re like “I did three a week. What would that look like Jill?” So three deals a week for 24 months and you’re making $30,000 a deal period. You know what that is? That’s $2.16 million. Okay, wait a minute, say that again. This is how it went on the call. On our thing. Two years so 24 months, three deals a month making $30,000 a deal is $2.16 million. Come on. Okay. Jill, I can’t do that.
Steven Jack Butala:
What if you do half of that?
Jill DeWit:
That’s my point. Okay, you screw it all up. I averaged a deal and a half a month, okay? I went at it like a nutcase and I did a deal half a month. I did all this stuff, said no. Family was on board, they all understood. So what did I make? Over a million bucks. So it’s 1,500,000 whatever. Not even that. But anyway, you make a million bucks. So what. For me, that’s the whole point here.
My other point I wanted make today, that’s really important, since we’re talking big picture and comparing … Right now just stock market. I can’t think of any other avenue in real estate. We’re all [inaudible 00:30:41] money be made in real estate, right, we all know that check. So many people are still coming at this like I need to take out loans, I’ve got to get someone to back me because I want to do a flip. Well, these homes are getting more and more … I’m just comparing it to doing a $30,000 … Say you want to clear $30,000 on a house flip. For a lot of people that’s just fine, especially if they’re doing a house flip a month, they’re happy with those numbers. You can’t get started with the same cash we need, you need a couple hundred thousand dollars to come at that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, way more than that.
Jill DeWit:
You probably need $300,000.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, no, about 500.
Jill DeWit:
Minimum three to five, okay? Three to $500,000 to come at this to try to make 30,000, maybe 50,000 a deal on a house flip. You can’t. And most people, that knocks them out of real estate right there. And I feel bad, there’s some smart people out there. Not to mention, I’m not even comparing the time, and the energy, and the costs. Cut this in half. I’m doing my one-and-a-half deals a month to make a million dollars in two years. Well, shucks, I can do it … That from anywhere. I’m not tied to this project. I don’t care what storm rolled through town and ruined the roof with hail damage or whatever it is, fill in the blank, it’s land.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’re not philosophically talking to you about what’s possible here, we’re telling you what happens to us every single year. Every year Jill and I make about … These are gross numbers without expenses and stuff. This is the difference between the prices that we pay for real estate and then what we sell it for. Between 2.5 And $3 million. If you average everything out for the most recent years it’s about $2.5. And so if you divide $2.5 million, we try to make a 100 grand. We don’t always but we try to. That’s 25 deals. That’s a couple deals a month. That’s two-
Jill DeWit:
That’s not all the we have going on but that’s a good thing.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what we do. We’re not holding anything back from you. We’re not doing something special that oh, well, let’s not tell them about that. Nothing like that happens. We tell you exactly what we do. We send out a ton of mail. I do my homework with pricing and trolling, and all of that, and Jill smashes it on the phone. A couple of weeks ago we were talking … There’s a huge issue with the perception of saturation out there in competition. I don’t know why this industry is … Well, I’m sure it’s because other groups that are popping up are saying that they’re having trouble with saturation. Well, I asked Jill several times, “Are you concerned about saturation?” And she said no over and over and over again. And neither am I.
Jill DeWit:
It’s like saying I’m sad … Worried about too many houses.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think in the back of a lot of people’s heads they just say, “Well, I don’t have” … They’re trying to get out of it. I heard a sentence a … A couple days ago, because I’m taking a different course on a completely unrelated scenario, and she said, “I mean, are you more comfortable doing something or nothing?” Because she’s very more comfortable doing something.
Jill DeWit:
That’s very sweet.
Steven Jack Butala:
And so if it’s easier for you to do nothing then this is not the podcast for you, it isn’t.
Jill DeWit:
But you know what? Put your head down for two years you can do nothing.
Steven Jack Butala:
You can put 30,000 bucks into the stock market and do nothing-
Jill DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
And get a return.
Jill DeWit:
True. I’m more happy doing something.
Steven Jack Butala:
I am too.
Jill DeWit:
What are you most happy doing? Let’s have a sidebar conversation.
Steven Jack Butala:
I like to diversify my activity.
Jill DeWit:
Are we back to second base?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, I love second base.
Jill DeWit:
That’s really good.
Steven Jack Butala:
I like being on a motorcycle these days.
Jill DeWit:
That’s good.
Steven Jack Butala:
I love that, actually. Jill and I are about to embark on a three-month, maybe four-month RV trip-
Jill DeWit:
I’m planning for five.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m very excited for that. Are you really?
Jill DeWit:
Because you know what? I did the math, we’re … I think potentially we could be gone for five months is what I was looking at.
Steven Jack Butala:
Are you excited?
Jill DeWit:
And I’m craving that. Oh my gosh, yes.
Steven Jack Butala:
So am I.
Jill DeWit:
Oh, yeah. That’s so fun.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’re leaving it in three days. We’ll do the show from the road, you’ll see.
Jill DeWit:
Oh, it’ll be fun.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, we’ve got a bunch of interviews coming up but-
Jill DeWit:
It’ll be good, you’ll see us.
Steven Jack Butala:
You’ll see it sooner than later.
Jill DeWit:
It’ll be great.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill, you have something inspirational to share with us.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. You know what I want to talk about? It ties into what you just said about, are you more happy doing something or doing nothing. I’m more happy always doing something, obviously, I can’t sit still. What was I going to say? So for me, it ties into what I do in my free time which is, I’m always learning something. And I want to remind everyone the value of continued education. There’s this sweet couple that have been a part of Land Academy not that long and they’re like “Oh, we got this.” And they stopped showing up, they stopped being involved. I’m hearing little snippets of their struggling. And I’m like you know what? Because they’re not staying involved.
There’s always things that come, up even within our group. For me, I personally pick up and read all kinds of books on all kinds of topics but it all ties to building a business or being an entrepreneur or being better at something that we do. I love sales, that’s been my whole life, right? I will still pick up sales books, I will still go to sales things. I might pick up a little nugget, I don’t know. Doing things a little bit differently. I’m never going to stop. I’m always going to stop learning … I’m always going to stop … I’m always going to keep learning, that’s what I’m trying to say. I’m getting tripped on my own words here.
Even in Land Academy, this was a discussion recently. Even though you come into Land Academy, you watched it your first year, went off and did some mail, go back and rewatch it six months later, watch it a year later. Not even just our updated versions but the same version that we have. As someone very nicely said on our member call, you’re a different person now that you’re watching it. What you knew when you first watched this one year ago, and you’re watching now, you are so different. And what you’re going to pick up on is going to be different because of that too. I’m just reminding everyone, don’t let off the gas, don’t get too comfortable, and keep pushing and you’ll get better, and more efficient, and it’s just all going to get better.
Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s my inspiration and it was … I bled into it on the regular topic. Continuing education is imperative. I am much more comfortable doing something versus nothing. I used to race motorcycle, superbikes, back in the day, drag your knee on the ground but I’m much more into the dirt thing now. And so I’m going back into continuing education, like Jill is saying, just watching videos, and taking classes, and everything. And it occurred to me, and I didn’t even realize that I was doing this but … One of the courses that I’m taking said that if you get on your bike … It looks like there’s nothing going on when you watch somebody ride a motorcycle. But for me, what’s happening, especially in the dirt is every single turn that I’m taking, I … The next one I try to make it better somehow. I try to lose … Choose my line better, implement the gleaning techniques, and all that stuff so there’s a lot of mental things that are going on that I don’t think are apparent when you watch somebody else do it.
That’s continuing education, and I’ve been doing that since I started riding. Just try to become a better rider, trying to improve track time or dirt time, or get out there more, and all of that. You learn all about yourself, and what you’re capable of, and where your limits are. And this is no different. I’ve been watching CNBC for hours now because of this 40 … Because I’m just fascinated at the reactions of people and this 40,000-point milestone.
Jill DeWit:
Have we ever hit this before?
Steven Jack Butala:
Never.
Jill DeWit:
Oh.
Steven Jack Butala:
It is the first time ever.
Jill DeWit:
That’s it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Ever. And I don’t think it’s something to celebrate about, price-to-earnings.
Jill DeWit:
What do they to tie it to?
Steven Jack Butala:
So they spend a lot of time talking about that. And price-to-earnings ratios have never been higher also. So price-to-earnings means the price of the stock divided by the actual earnings for the same period or the period, however they defines it.
Jill DeWit:
Meaning the profit the person made, the profits.
Steven Jack Butala:
The profit that the company’s making. So Microsoft has a PE ratio and the price of the stock should be within a reasonable gap, within an acceptable earnings place. Theoretically can’t just have an amazingly high stock price with absolutely no income or no earnings, especially if it’s in a … In the point in its lifecycle. A company’s in its lifecycle where it should be throwing off some earnings like Apple or Microsoft or Ford or any of those companies. When you have a higher and higher and higher price-to-earnings ratio, it’s way more dangerous in my point … In my opinion, then having just a high stock price. It becomes a perception. The value of a stock becomes perceptional or with … More than it does reflecting the reality of the value of the stock. And that’s been going on for as long as I can remember. I remember when it hit 10,000 and everybody thought the world was going to end. People were talking about watching it hit 1,000 in the 80s … I think in the 70s when we were really young kids-
Jill DeWit:
Wow.
Steven Jack Butala:
And they thought then the world … And all kinds of stuff happened after that. We went off the gold standard, all kinds of crazy stuff. I don’t think this is a good thing but everybody seems to be really happy about it. I don’t know if it’s just clickbait or what. Probably some of that.
Jill DeWit:
You’ve been watching Jack and Jill on Money Matters. I’m just kidding.
Steven Jack Butala:
My big point, picture point is here … If you have control over how much money you buy a piece of real estate for, buy a piece of dirt and it’s way less than you’re going to turn around and sell it for two weeks later, where’s the risk in that?
Jill DeWit:
I know. This is why I hate the stock market, I have no control. I hate it. This is why I hate … I’m trying to think of so many other things. Well, I won’t do a terms … What am I trying to say? A wholesale deal. Those of you who know know what I’m talking about. I’m not going to take it into contract, try to go sell it, trust my buyer’s still going to … Or my seller’s still going to be there. Trust it’s all going to go okay. Trust the state will let me post the property for sale because I don’t own it, I just have an equitable title. I’m not going to mess around with that I’m going to buy the dumb thing.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’re here to reduce risk and reduce variables just like in a motorcycle seat. You don’t want to go into a turn all risky and with a ton of variables where you’re doing all kinds of stuff instead of just trusting your soul and utilizing the years and decades of experience that you have. That’s what you want.
Jill DeWit:
Totally.
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t not know of any way to improve guessing at what stocks and what indexes to buy the way that we do now, the way that we do here.
Jill DeWit:
That’s good.
Steven Jack Butala:
Join us next Wednesday for another interesting episode, you’re not alone in your real estate ambition. We are Jack and Jill. Information-
Jill DeWit:
And inspiration-
Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
https://youtu.be/039wYrOPTRo
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Join Steven Jack Butala in episode 2006 as he interviews seasoned entrepreneur and Land Academy member, Steve Hodgdon. Steve shares his blueprint for land flipping success, spanning from early technology experiences to building a successful real estate lending business. He delves deep into the 2008 crash, digitization in real estate, advanced tools in the land business, and the “Loan to Own” strategy. The discussion also covers market trends, inflation, property management challenges, and risk management. Learn from real-life examples and gain valuable insights into sustaining a profitable land flipping business.
Transcript: N/A
https://youtu.be/vyEPn0mj8pE
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Discover the inner workings of a successful land investor’s week on The Land Academy Show! Join hosts Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit as they unpack the essentials of organization, self-discipline, and daily routines crucial for thriving in the land investing world. With decades of combined experience, they share practical insights applicable to both full-time investors and those with limited availability, offering actionable strategies to enhance productivity and achieve investment goals. Tune in now for expert advice and real-life examples that will elevate your land investment journey.
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
I am Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit and this is The Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is episode number 2005 and today we are talking about a week in the life of a successful land investor.
Jill K DeWit:
This is going to be good.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
So important.
Jill K DeWit:
It really is. This is going to be touched upon today, but further explained in the future in some things that we’re preparing for.
Steven Jack Butala:
So I would argue that what we’re going to talk about today, which is really organization and self-discipline and being an entrepreneur and a bunch of stuff like that … And we’ll get into a pretty good amount of detail. I think this is equally as important, probably more important than knowing how to buy and sell land.
Jill K DeWit:
Having a plan.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well and just executing your … We’re going to talk about a week in the life. So you can sit down and be the greatest planner in the world Monday through Friday, and if you don’t execute it and have self-discipline about it’s just not going to be as effective as you want.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, today for me is really about what should I be doing every day? What do I focus on? And here’s the reality. The reason we’re talking about this is a successful full-time land investor, and we’re going to talk about it that way because so many people in Land Academy have come to us, started out with W2 jobs, left W2 jobs, and now they’re in it and this is how to organize your life basically and organize your week. But everything we’re talking about today can be applied even if you’re like Jill and Jack, I only have maybe two to three hours a day to throw out this and that’s okay. So you can shorten it. The process and the steps are the same and how you think about your day-to-day stuff is the same. You’re going to have to get a little more efficient at it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, it’s like everything. We can tell you how we do it very successfully. We can give you now, after 10 years of doing this, almost 10 years real core examples with people’s first names on how they did it. In some cases more successful than us. But in the end you’re going to apply it to your life.
Jill K DeWit:
Isn’t that interesting? You just said 10 years of Land Academy. But gosh, 25 something years-
Steven Jack Butala:
30 for me.
Jill K DeWit:
There you go.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s 30 this year.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh my gosh. It’s 15 almost for me. That’s a lot.
Steven Jack Butala:
So we may or may not be qualified to talk about this stuff.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. There we go.
Steven Jack Butala:
You decide.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s perfect.
Steven Jack Butala:
Each week on the show we answer a question from our Land Academy member Discord Forum, and take a deep dive into a land related topic by popular request from our Land Academy community. Let’s take a question, Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. Cooper wrote, hi everyone. I am new to Land Academy and looking forward to getting to know this group. I started on my own several months ago learning from every free resource I could find.
Steven Jack Butala:
Excellent. This is a great way to start off your career. There’s so much free content out there, including this.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. Yeah. Go back and listen to the years of this. I am a very motivated self-learner via books, podcasts and websites.
Steven Jack Butala:
So am I.
Jill K DeWit:
IE established my LLC, my website, my email accounts, my phone number, my company bank account. I don’t know what that is. Oh, that’s for CRM account. And have sent out a few thousand letters. Oh’s he’s already been working on this. However, I learned a hard lesson with neutral letters and all the many phone calls with those landowners wanting full price. I wish I would’ve heard the pros and cons of neutral range and blind offer letters before hitting send on my first letters, but I’m sure it’s one of my many lessons that I’ll learn in this business. Good attitude.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m employed full-time with over 25 years as a civil and environmental engineer, so I’m fortunate to have some experience with parts of this business. I live in Colorado, married with two kids. After listening to many Land Academy podcasts and alumni success stories as well as the Jack and Jill philosophy, I decide to join Land Academy to hopefully shorten my learning curve and become one of the success stories. First life goal is to retire my wife, a special education teacher for 25 years. Next life goal would be to retire myself for my W2 job and have more time with my family and kids as well as travel more often. My near term goals include completing all of the Land Academy videos in the next two weeks. Great. And get another batch of offer letters out in week one. Next step to include establishing a set of schedule for mailers, focus on responsiveness closing deals to match my monthly goals and joining career path in fall of 2024. This is great. I’m half jack, half Jill and engineering background, but I moved into more client service and development. This is awesome.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well put.
Jill K DeWit:
Is like a good member background and goals.
Steven Jack Butala:
Cooper, you’re our new avatar Land Academy customer. If this person … If you’re listening or watching this and this person sounds like you, you will do extremely well here. And maybe I’ll have our team contact you. I would love to interview you and I would love to know what your thought process is or has been with choosing us in choosing this business model.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Because you’re just a perfect fit for it. If you’ve got a technical background, you’ve got a little bit of Jill in you, which for the record I do too. I did so really well during W2 years because I could sell.
Jill K DeWit:
And make people laugh. And get clients.
Steven Jack Butala:
So congratulations. You’re welcome, if you need anything, please reach out to us.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m sure you’ll doing well. Today’s topic, a week in the life of a successful land investor. I have to tell you, I am a little bit excited about talking about this. This is something I have a bunch of anecdotes and some personal stories about points in my life and points in Jill’s life where we applied this and had great success with it and didn’t apply it and laughed about it and made some changes to make sure that it could work out for us. But first I’m going to tell a slight throw Jill under the bus story.
When we first joined forces professionally and we started making enough money or we were both comfortable enough so that she could quit her job, she did. She quit her job and we started working together and about the second week I realized that I thought correctly or incorrectly that we were not moving in a path that was the best for us financially and professionally. Like always we sat down and talked about it and I said, “This is what’s going on.” She listened and I said, “Every day we’re not doing the same thing. We’re not working on this, we’re not working on this, we’re not working on this.” And she says some version of this to me. “Yeah, but that’s what I did when I had a job. That’s not what I want to do now. I want to do whatever I want to do because I own part of the business.” And so I had a real good chuckle and we both had a chuckle about this on the air several times since then. Geez, this was 2009, probably. Maybe before that.
So as ironic as this sounds, if you’re going to be a very successful business owner, you are going to work harder. You’re going to work on the right stuff and you’re going to be a slave to your calendar way more than you ever were in your W2 job. And I mean this in a positive way because for me, that creates a sense of freedom. As you’re going to find out here, our Fridays … You know what’s in the calendar on a Friday? It’s called a goof off. And this is all Jill’s idea and she’s totally right. And so that’s just where we are in our career. I’m not saying you should do that yet, but schedule your fun.
And then when you do, when it goes from nine to 9:30 or whatever the time change is, turn all your stuff off and go have some fun and forget it. Because you know what’s going to have to happen next and when you’re going to have to do it. Might be Monday morning, might be Saturday night, I don’t know. Whatever works in your schedule. But when that clock ticks over for the next period of stuff that you have scheduled for yourself, then you take it seriously, but not until then.
The goal here is daily or weekly repetition and structure and execution. This is super, super important. This is my definition of self-discipline. Well think about this show. We have a structure to it. There’s an introduction. We laugh a little bit. We tell some stories. We answer a question and then we talk about … Right now we’re talking about the meat of this whole thing and then we’ll wrap it up with something hopefully funny about Jill and I. It usually ends up being Jill and I working together and that’s the structure of it and that’s what you consciously or subconsciously expect. If you’re old enough to know what a sitcom is, geez, that is the recipe for sitcoms all the way back to The Honeymooners. It’s five or eight things that happen to a set of characters on a set that you are very familiar with and the only Variable is the content or the jokes or whatever.
Jill K DeWit:
We were watching a movie a couple of weeks ago. Remember that one with a Shake Shack or something? I said going great, going great, okay, hang on a moment it. It’s movie outline time. There’s conflict coming. Don’t you remember that? And then sure enough-
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s Snack Shack.
Jill K DeWit:
There we go. I’m like, here it is. Here’s our conflict. Now they’re going to resolve it. It’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you’re an entrepreneur in your soul, you should watch snatch Snack Shack. It’s two 14-year-old boys in 1991 who during the summertime, get a hold of a snack shack and make it something that … If adolescents doing illegal stuff offends you, it’s not your movie. I saw myself in those two characters the entire movie. I’ve actually seen it three times.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s still you. Some things never changed. That’s still who you are in your soul. I can get away with this.
Steven Jack Butala:
You need structure. You just need it. Unless you’re a very, very special person. And there are self-help business related books. There are probably thousands about what your week should look like. This is our entry into that universe. What you never want to do is wake up and do what you feel is appropriate for that day. Or worse … I’ve done all these things. Use your inbox as your to-do lists. So your phone inbox, your phone messages and your email list. And the vast majority of the professional people that I know to this day, that’s what they do. I know almost all of our employees do this. Oh, they asked me to do something, I better do it. They haven’t asked me to do anything today, so I’m not going to do anything. You will fail. And if you have a job, think about it. Think about your job. Depending on where you are up or down the food chain, the lower you on the food chain, the more you are being told what to do. So think about this. You’re in high school, you wake up, pretty much do the same thing. Go to school. You have, depending on what year it is, four, five, six or seven classes that day. How many classes did you have?
Jill K DeWit:
Six.
Steven Jack Butala:
We had six too.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. Usually four and then lunch and then two.
Steven Jack Butala:
Same thing. And after school, you could choose an extra correct curricular activity or you could choose to go home and watch cartoons or whatever, and then you’re going to do some homework maybe. Maybe you’re going to do homework, maybe you’re not. Depending on how old you are would dictate that. I’ll tell you, I did very, very little homework ever. You probably did a lot.
Jill K DeWit:
What are we talking? Back in high school or college?
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, I’ll get to college in a minute.
Jill K DeWit:
Either way I didn’t. Well, let me get some truth time here. Truth timer. In high school I didn’t have to do a lot and I didn’t need to do a lot. It totally clicked with me. I breezed through high school. College, I kept that same philosophy and I failed miserably.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh yeah, same thing. I’ll get to that in a second. Jill’s a way better student than I ever was by the way.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. Now I’m a study nut. If I’m taking a test, I’m taking it once. And I did it with my real estate, which I never did that thing, but I passed the test. Flying a plane, bring it up.
Steven Jack Butala:
So in high school you’re told what to do and where to stand and where to sit and what to say and what not to say and then they give you a little bit of free time at the end, which you can choose what to do. I have no basis to say this, but I believe that it was this country’s way of prepping all of us either for the military or to go to join the workforce. And the people that really thought about whether or not they wanted to do one of those two things went to college. That’s how it used to be. And so it’s all structured. And if you have a job right now, very similar. Stack these boxes over there. When we get a purchase order, drive the forklift back over there, drive it back up here. If the box is green, put it over here. If it’s blue, do this, that, and that’s it. And you’re probably very successful at that. It’s so clear. Instruction’s so clear
In college you enter college and you have a few classes and you show up for those classes. Now I don’t think you even have to do that at all. You can just take it all online for the most part. And then the vast majority of your success depends on what you do outside of those classes academically. Studying, research projects, whatever they’re asking you to do and then you’re going to get judged on that. And so that’s a step toward owning your own stuff and being really totally responsible for your time and the actual outcomes, which is way closer to what happens here at Land Academy and owning any business. Are you laughing
Jill K DeWit:
Because you said judge and I’m like, that’s called graded.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. Grades are judging.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. I don’t see it like that.
Steven Jack Butala:
How do you see it?
Jill K DeWit:
Grading. You’re like judging.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, because geez, if you do a research project or write a paper in college and the teacher or the professor doesn’t like you, you’re going to get a C. If they like you, you’re going to get an A. You are being judged. Not just for the quality of your work, but your good or bad personality. Tell me I’m wrong about any of this.
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t know.
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t see the humor in it at all.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m just like, I don’t know. You’re probably right. I just don’t look at it like that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. Because they always loved you.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, there is that.
Steven Jack Butala:
That didn’t necessarily happened to me. You’ve never experienced the bad part of it.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. They gave me an F with a smile
Steven Jack Butala:
When I was in my core accounting classes I would show up for the last class, I had the best grade in the class. This is true. Most of the time, not all the time. And they were all upset about it. But you don’t write papers in accounting, you just take tests and they can’t, there’s nothing they can say. That doesn’t work in English at all. All right. So we’re going to talk about your week. What your week looks like. Really we’re going to talk about what our week looks like. You are going to take that structure or those concepts and build it around your life. You might have 18 kids or you might be retired, and so those are going to look like very different work weeks, but this basic stuff has to get done. There are five basic stages to buying and selling land. I don’t care how you slice it.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s good.
Steven Jack Butala:
Number one, you have to research places to send offers and then choose them. Choose the ones that you think are going to yield the best result for you. Customized financial you. Number two, you’re going to send correctly priced emails, excuse me, offers to those places that you’ve chosen.
Jill K DeWit:
In the mail.
Steven Jack Butala:
In the mail. Exactly. I don’t mean email at all. Number three, some of those sellers are going to respond. You need to manage the responses from those sellers and ultimately choose the best ones that work for you. All kinds of people are going to call you back or send you notes back somehow. Some of them are going to own property that they want to sell to you for the price that you want. This is number three is to figure that all out. Some people call that due diligence, but it’s a little bit more complicated than that. Number four, you’re going to buy that undervalued land. Number five, you’re going to resell it for more, Five things. Research places to send mail and then choose them. Number two is send mailers to those places that you’ve chosen. Number three is to manage the responses and do all the sales and stuff. That’s the magic here. That’s the magic that Jill brings. Number four, buy it. Number five, sell it.
Jill K DeWit:
It sounds so easy when you put it like that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Thank you for bringing that up because every person I’ve ever known, including me, gets hung up on one of these things and so-
Jill K DeWit:
Is a good point. You want to know what I think? Can I pick one where I think people get hung up on?
Steven Jack Butala:
I would love that. Please. Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
Number three.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what I think. I think number three puts people out of business.
Jill K DeWit:
I can pick a place, I can send the mail, but oh boy, now when I’m actually putting money down and I’m really acting on it, then they freak out.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think it’s by far number three. I think there’s certain personality types that can’t get there.
Jill K DeWit:
Get stuck there.
Steven Jack Butala:
They get stuck sending mail also. That’s my number two choice. But by far. Number three is what I call … When Jill and I have a cocktail in our hand and people ask us what we do, I say we buy land and we sell it for more and everybody stops what they’re doing because that causes a jaw-dropping response. Well, how do you know what to buy? These are people who own office buildings. These aren’t people that were co-mingling with that are unfamiliar with making money in real estate. Well, how do you do the research to find out what you’re going to buy? Well, we just send everybody an offer and we see which ones want to sell. Isn’t that illegal? It takes us down this sometimes not so fun path. You can’t do this in the wrong crowd because just ends poorly.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
So then I try to expand it like this to end all the questions. We create the real estate deal. Oh, you don’t have a broker? No. Oh, you don’t go out on the MLS and do all the analysis and see which one is priced right? No. Never. We create the deal. That usually stops a lot of it. So how do you implement all this? Because Jill just said you make it sound so easy. Well, it can be easy.
Jill K DeWit:
The big picture is easy, but then you have to back into it. We’re going to talk about here and really what’s involved in this and really talk about, all right, what does it look like in a week? And that’s what today’s show’s about.
Steven Jack Butala:
So this one through five business.
Jill K DeWit:
It took 20 minutes, but this is what today’s show’s about.
Steven Jack Butala:
This one through five business, I’m going to refer to it when we talk about your week.
Jill K DeWit:
Yep.
Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s your Monday. We’ll get to Saturday and Sunday at the end you have an answering service. We have an answering service called PATLive. They answer our phones 24/7. They’re constantly answering because you’ve sent a ton of mail out, they’re answering your phone. Not if you’re brand new. This is a successful land investor’s life. This is what you’re shooting for. So you have PATLive set up or we do where they’re answering the calls from sellers 24/7.
Jill K DeWit:
As we talk about this, I’m going to compare both sides too. The point is, even if you’re a professional full-time land investor like we are in this, you’re still not going to answer your own phone. And then if you’re brand new, you may not have time to answer your own phone. So I want to just point out this applies for both situations if you will.
Steven Jack Butala:
I will. Thank you.
Jill K DeWit:
So that’s where that comes in. All right. And so that’s just ongoing. Go for it.
Steven Jack Butala:
I call Monday mailer Monday. So these are where you research and implement phases one and two and we have for years and years now successfully been able to do this in one day every Monday. You troll. So this is you … This is what you do.
Jill K DeWit:
This is high level.
Steven Jack Butala:
We have week-long courses in this stuff. This is all just what you do, not how you do it. We have what’s called trolling where you go and find and do research on properties, places that where you believe, where you send mail are going to work for a bunch of reasons. Data-based reasons, not emotion. And implement what we call a red, green, yellow test to test those places that you’ve trolled and test them against each other and then ultimately choose two or three or three or eight or 10 or whatever you think that work. And then you get the mailer rolling and you price it. It’s everything that has to do with Monday. What’s important is that there’s a deliverable at the end of Monday.
Jill K DeWit:
Mail’s going out.
Steven Jack Butala:
You’re getting it to Offers 2 Owners, which is our mailing company one way or the other. We have a lot of different products based on where you are in your career with mailer comfort.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
They were not created overnight. They were created over years of Jill and I doing this and watching people struggle and then saying, okay, we’ll do this part of this for you. Mailer Monday. That’s one and two. So now we’ve knocked out … Monday’s done. We’ve knocked out the first two things of the five.
Jill K DeWit:
And this should be every Monday by the way.
Steven Jack Butala:
Right. Tuesday and Thursday, in my opinion look identical. Tuesday is you’re now doing due diligence or in our case, Jill’s doing due diligence. She’s checking to see … This is all number three.
Jill K DeWit:
What do I want to buy?
Steven Jack Butala:
Do I want to buy this freaking property or not?
Jill K DeWit:
And what do I need to find out about it? What more do I need to know to pull the trigger?
Steven Jack Butala:
It might involve you talking to an investor that you have. It might be you going out on the Land Academy discord channel asking people their opinions about these deals. You might be calling a local broker. You might be doing all kinds of stuff that makes sense to you or mimicking what we do in all of our educational products to see if you want to buy it and might have to call the sellers back.
Jill K DeWit:
Can I back up here? One thing I want to point out is why this is so important. You need to block off time each week to devote to it. If you sit and like Jack just described, you’re a slave to your email and you plan your day based on your email. How you about that is like an investor. If you’re a slave to the deals and the calls that come in. If the minute they come in, you’re looking that one up and you’re looking that one up, you’re looking that one up, you’re going to be a scattered mess. It’s so much better to batch them all together and at one time sit down and go, all right, in the last three days … Because remember you only do this on Tuesdays and Thursdays. So I’ve got Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. So four days for this part. Tuesday I sit down and look at all the people that reach back out, all the ones that want to sell and I’m lining up all those … I don’t know. 10, 15 offers and looking at them at one time. You’re going to be so much more efficient and you’re going to make the best decisions.
Steven Jack Butala:
Exactly. Wednesday is number four and five. It’s buying and selling day. Everything to do with buying and selling. Finding a broker, talking to escrow agents, maybe potentially talking with sellers or buyers. But it’s in generally that batch for buying and selling. Now let’s be realistic. Stuff happens. Urgent things happen in real estate transactions. Oh, this is an escrow agent calling. This is on Monday afternoon. This deal’s going to go sideways. I know we’re supposed to close today, but we need these three more signatures and the stuffs got to happen and the sellers got a contingency in here that’s got to be closed by Tuesday. So you need to block out … This is not looking at all kinds of … Jill’s exactly right. Block out an hour at the end of your day. It might be 3:00 P.M. to deal with cuckoo stuff that needs immediate attention.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s good.
Steven Jack Butala:
So this is maybe the shortest episode ever. You have to have a schedule like this. You have to stick to it and you have to have a reasonable contingency plan when stuff just goes over. What you do not want to do is on … Mailer Monday is my responsibility, so I know more about it than … Jill does a lot of this other stuff. What you don’t want to do is spend way, way … You have a clock on your desk, you have a clock on the bottom right of your computer. You start at 9:00 it’s 2:00 PM and you’re not done trolling. That’s not good self-discipline. You know have to test what you’ve trolled. You got to run the red green yellow test and run all the data for that. You know you have to price mailer from last Monday because you didn’t get it done. And you have to test for reason on that mailer and you know how long that takes. So you have two choices. Manage those increments all throughout Monday to get that deliverable out by 5:00 or work until midnight.
Jill K DeWit:
And sometimes both happen.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yep.
Jill K DeWit:
Sometimes that happens. Big deal.
Steven Jack Butala:
What I don’t ever let happen is I’ll do it tomorrow.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
So Tuesday at 9:00 when I’m supposed to be doing due diligence and calling people back, I’m pricing my mailer. And then Wednesday, I didn’t get to all that stuff. I was supposed to call that broker back. I didn’t do all that. The escrow agent’s calling me. Well, Jack said on Tuesday … And I didn’t price the mailer. Oh my God, I got to do all this stuff. You can’t let these things bleed into each other. If I don’t get the stuff done on Monday for mailer Monday, I’ll tell you what I do, it gets done on the next Monday. But I start earlier and work later. It does get out. Or … And this is like truth time. If I’m trying to do a 4,000 unit mailer on Monday or every Monday, let’s say I will do an 8,000 unit mailer the next Monday if it doesn’t get done right.
Jill K DeWit:
How about working ahead? You do that too sometimes. I like that.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’ve done a hundred thousand unit mailers in one Monday and I’m not saying you should do that. And I’m not bragging. I’m just saying I’ve been doing this for 30 years. So that’s-
Jill K DeWit:
You’re that good.
Steven Jack Butala:
The spoils of all that. And I’m not going to say that Jill hasn’t said this is a seller I’ve been wanting to talk to in the middle of dinner walks outside and a half hour later she comes back and I’ve had 92 drinks. So those things happen. You can’t beat yourself up about it.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s true. All right. So we got Monday, Tuesday, we talked about that. Did we cover everything we need to on Tuesday?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. You zoned out. I covered all of them except Friday. I saved it for you.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. Well you did Tuesday, Thursday, Wednesday. I’m just recapping. I want to recap. Because I don’t know if we talked about … Did we include that?
Steven Jack Butala:
So how do you deal with Jill in this scheme of things, returning sellers calls because it’s imperative. It’s real imperative.
Jill K DeWit:
Depending on where you are … Well you know what? It doesn’t matter if you’re brand new or if you’re seasoned at this. You have set times that you do things. And what you would do ahead of time is let everyone know that’s when I do them. Whether it’s your staff, your family, yourself or PATLive. This is when that’s going to happen and when you can expect a callback. So returning sellers calls usually happens after due diligence. I have to make sure, get my questions answered, do my own little recon, double check the back taxes, whatever it is, fill in the blank and then I can act on it. So that usually happens after that. And I do that on Tuesday and Thursday. So those usually happen at Tuesday and Thursdays and everybody knows and has expectations. We take this even a step further. Right now I’m doing less deals because they’re bigger deals. But for a while when I was doing so many deals a week, it was a lot. It was just I couldn’t handle having deeds coming at me multiple times, even a day. So I said, “Stop it, everyone. Deed signing is Thursday.”
That was the day for a long time. I don’t care what it is, it has to happen on Thursday. I’ll do it ahead of time for closing the next week and whatever. But we have to do it on Thursday. And when you put that out there like that and you’re whole … You know it and your staff knows it and then it’s like they just plan for it. It’s perfect. So that’s when the seller calls happen. This is awesome.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well here’s the good news about our business model. There’s a lot of this stuff runs in the background. So PATLive’s running 24/7. You’ve sent all this mail out. The initial phone call when they get it to send it back, you’ve got people answering that live. We haven’t had that in our entire career. Not even close. That takes a huge load off once you’re … Again, this is a season. We also have brokers on the sell side. Every property that Jill and I buy now, we list it with a real estate agent after we qualify them to deal with the sales piece. Deal with the inbound calls there. Hey, I’d like to buy that. How do I submit an offer? We don’t deal with any of that. They put all that stuff together and send it to us.
We also outsource escrow agents. In our case we have a transaction coordinator or if you’re an LA Pro member, you use our transaction coordinator to just deal with the deal. Once we buy the property, that’s it. It gets purchased by our staff or the escrow agents in the past that we’ve assigned. Once we actually buy it, we give it to the real estate agent to list it and manage it. So there’s a lot of the heavy lifting gets outsourced once you know how to buy and sell these properties. The issues are mailer Monday and Jill’s number three, which is managing the PATLive pre-qualified sellers. We work very hard two days a week. Jill and I do.
Jill K DeWit:
Mm-hmm. That’s good. You’re right. Can we talk about Friday now?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. Go ahead.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well Jill called Friday long ago, goof off Friday and that’s what it is.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. Well-
Steven Jack Butala:
And it’s in the schedule.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, here’s the reality too. Everybody does it. Whether you have a W2 job or you’re doing this for yourself, we all know good luck reaching people Friday afternoon. They are mentally checked out so why not take advantage of that? That’s what I do. I’m like, I’m not going to reach them anyway. So Thursdays are great days. If you’re a salesperson like I am for over 30 years, you know the flow, you know when people are most agreeable. Thursdays. When to meet, hit them, all that good stuff. That’s just normal sales stuff. And you all know that Friday afternoon is not happening. And even for posting and things like that, don’t expect to get a lot of views with that. Anyway, so that’s why we take advantage of that. And the other thing is you need some catch your breath time. That’s the big picture too. You need to take some breaks.
If you go at this a hundred miles an hour for a hundred days straight, you run the risk of burning out and I don’t want that to happen. So if you bake in a little bit of break in downtime … Not to mention your family will disown you. So if you don’t have a little bit of time with them … Everybody knows that you’re working hard on this and they know that you’re doing this for a reason for your family, mortgage college bills, just get ahead, have a different life. Whatever your reasoning is, you should have your family on board and on the same page as why you’re really focused on this and going to be saying no to a lot of stuff, but you need to have some time with them too. So plan for that.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you’re in a part of your career land investing or just any type of real estate career, this is a season. So what you need to do … This is what I would heavily recommend if you’re new or thinking about joining or any of that is block out two weeks to learn. And so like Cooper here said earlier, I’ve looked at all this stuff, we did all the research and I finally decided to join. And so he said his goal right in there. In the next … Fill in the blank. I don’t remember exactly what he said. I’m going to watch all these videos, I’m going to learn all this stuff to the point where I feel like I understand what to do.
And so continuing education for anyone has to be part of your life. I don’t have it in my calendar and here’s why. Continuing education is just really a natural thing for me. If I’m on the internet, I’m learning something. If I’m on the internet looking at markets I’m subconsciously analyzing a real estate market for us, whether it’s us personally or as an investment market and testing it and retesting it. And so depending on where you are in your career, you may or may not want to put in continuing education and do it for an hour. If there’s anything that I will run over on, which is probably why it’s not on my calendar … I’m guilty of doing four hours straight of research over researching markets.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s so funny you bring that up because that’s something that we have in common. It’s very hard for me.
Steven Jack Butala:
Is that all we have in common?
Jill K DeWit:
That’s the only thing. Today. No. So it’s very hard for me to pick up something non-educational meaning like a book.
Steven Jack Butala:
Me too.
Jill K DeWit:
I have a hard time. I truly enjoy in my free time learning about something new or learning about something that’s going to enhance everything that I do and make it better and easier and more efficient. Right now I’m reading this whole thing about investing and just understanding money outside of what we do. And looking at stuff a different way.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s great.
Jill K DeWit:
I know. And I love it.
Steven Jack Butala:
What do they say?
Jill K DeWit:
And it’s tailored for women.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is all I obsess on.
Jill K DeWit:
I know. It’s just beginning to scratch the surface right now. So far in the book that I’m reading, it’s talking about all the reasons why and I’m like, well, it’s funny because I picked up this book laughing going this is a joke. It’s a book aimed at teaching money for women high level and it’s written by a man. I’m like, what does he know? Right out of the gate I’m like, yeah, whatever. I’m like, this is a joke. So I got this book and now I’m like, oh man, the guy’s right. But right now he’s still explaining all the reasons why that we need to do this. And I’m just starting to get into some of the how and the understanding and everything so I will have more to share in a couple of weeks.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m going to steal that off your shelf when you’re-
Jill K DeWit:
So yeah, it’s really good. I’m trying to think where … But you and I … What did I say? You and I agree on the continuing education part. That’s the whole thing too. If you think that you’re going to come in and watch Land Academy and one time in 2019 and you’re like, I got this. I’m never going to change anything. I’m never going to change how I look at stuff. I’m never going to change my product type. I’m never going to change any of my mindset. I’m not going to show up for a single call. I’m not going to be involved in anything. You will fail.
Steven Jack Butala:
Or I’m never going to change my calendar. Maybe the type of real estate that you buy is changing. So everybody’s available on Thursday in Wisconsin. I don’t know. Stuff changes.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, I’m never going to change my market. No. I sat down in 2019. I picked some areas and it worked in 2019. I’m not going to change it. That’s not going to-
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s a lot of moving parts to this and it really keeps a lot of people out of this business. Many, many, many people right now enter this business because of the prevalence of Land Academy type education which out there on the internet, which I believe is substandard and many, many, many people leave. Yesterday I saw somebody said, you will be sending out … This is a former Land Academy member. On Saturday. Join us in this group. You’ll be sending out mail in four hours.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh yeah, I saw that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Did you see that?
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. He’s an Land Academy member. You’re right. Former Land Academy member. That is really funny.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let me tell you.
Jill K DeWit:
And it costs $7. I’m like, what?
Steven Jack Butala:
$7.
Jill K DeWit:
He’s charging $7 for this. I’m like, well what’s the point of the $7?
Steven Jack Butala:
Let me tell something. You will not be sending a good mailer out in four hours on Saturday.
Jill K DeWit:
It is funny.
Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s another one I just saw. This is not ripping other people day, but it’s just funny. Another one I saw was about entitlements. Entitlements are when you take a big piece of real estate and you cut it all up … You take one AP on one assessor’s parcel number. Let’s say it’s 40 acres. Cut it all up into let’s say just for numbers, 41 acre properties. First of all, there’s not a municipality in the land. There is not a single municipality in this entire country that’s not going to allow you to do that. It’s going to take two years, even if they do, and they will not allow you to do it unless you put in infrastructure and have a plan. In Arizona it’s called public report compliance and it’s very unrealistic to do that. So this guy has been advertising for a while and I go immediately to the comments and everybody … I don’t comment on this stuff at all, but everybody like me is in there is just saying, whatever you are smoking, please send somebody some my way because this is not possible.
Jill K DeWit:
Not this easy.
Steven Jack Butala:
And then there’s 90 people in there that says, “I want to know more. I want to do it.” Because it’s not hard to do the math.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s true. That’s very, very good. All right. We got to through our goof-off day back to … Yeah. We covered continuing education.
Steven Jack Butala:
What do we do with Saturday And Sunday?
Jill K DeWit:
You know what, Saturday and Sunday. Yes. I’m always doing continuing education and there’s half goof-off and half catch-up.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yep.
Jill K DeWit:
Sometimes I can’t reach people. I’ve had sellers that they are busy during the week and they said, “Call me Saturday morning and we’ll get this all done.” And I’m doing that. I will block it off and I schedule it by the way. It’s not like, “Yeah, I just reached out to you.” It’s like, “All right. What time Saturday and what phone number?” And it’s on everybody’s calendar. That’s how you get deals done, by the way.
Steven Jack Butala:
So let’s go back full circle now because everybody can identify with high school and college.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
You come back full circle and you look at this schedule that we put together that just the framework of it anyway. And it’s very similar to high school. I got to get up, I got to be in homeroom by X amount of time. I got 45 minutes to an hour there and on and on and on. But they’re telling you what to do. And there’s a five-minute bell and a real bell and there’s severe consequences or that used to be when I went to school for not complying with that. The military is set up that way. And W2 jobs are set up like that with clock. I don’t know. We used to have a punch clock. I don’t think it’s that way anymore.
Jill K DeWit:
That used to be that way.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think it might be electronic when you walked to the door.
Jill K DeWit:
Your card key.
Steven Jack Butala:
Your card key. Yeah. Probably card key. So that’s it. But to implement … Think about this. Okay, you don’t have to comply with high school anymore, but I expect you to pass the exams at the end. But you don’t have to come to class. You don’t have to do anything. Make your own schedule. Here’s a textbook. Pick them up on Tuesday and then we’ll see you in a month.
Jill K DeWit:
See at the finals.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’ll see you in three months. Who the hell would pass high school? No one. Five people in my entire high school, not including me, would’ve passed. That’s how you need to look at this. If you can do this or if you’ve done it in the past, you are going to do great. The vast majority of the people in the country can’t do this.
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s why the attrition rate in college is ridiculously high. It is huge. It’s like 70 or 80% of the people that start college don’t finish because they can’t manage a schedule. It’s not smart enough. It’s because they can’t say, this is what I’m going to do on Monday at 8:00 in the morning, then I’m going to stop partying in college at 2:00 P.M. and I’m going to be there at 7:00 PM with my desk lamp on studying. I’m not saying I did this. I’m just saying that’s what it takes.
Jill K DeWit:
I agree. This was good. Glad we covered all this. All right.
Steven Jack Butala:
Do you have anything inspirational, Jill this week? What’s been going on in your week with the ladies? The Land Academy ladies?
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, we had a great week. It was really cool. We have new people, which I love. I got to tell you, I’m seeing more and more female investors come into our group, dragging their men behind them. Honest. It’s true. It’s great. And the guys are like, bring it kind of thing. This is awesome. So this week we talked about … What was my topic? I’m trying to think how I worded it here. My topic was the number one thing to be successful. Because we talked about it on this before too. To be successful as an investor right now. And it was really about going at this like a crazy person. I watch people. If you don’t come in with the right mindset that you’re just not going to let this fail and you’re going to do everything it takes and you’re just nutty and you give up Sundays and you don’t care and you see the writing, you have real goals that you want to attain, financial goals and you’re going to hit those one way or another, then you’ll be successful and that was what we talked about this week. It was really good.
It did inspire some great conversations. It’s funny, in our ladies group, most other calls that we have from our Thursday member call to our LA Pro calls to our career path alumni calls they always divert. At the very end it goes back to reviewing deals. There’s always someone that says, “Can we go back and just look at some deals?” Every week on our ladies … We don’t talk about that.
Steven Jack Butala:
I figured that.
Jill K DeWit:
Isn’t that funny?
Steven Jack Butala:
That makes sense to me.
Jill K DeWit:
We’re more mindset … Not that it’s not on our mind. And it’s not that we’re not doing deals and not that we don’t … It’s just that when we get together, it’s kind of like if we’re talking about bigger stuff, bigger than just this one deal. It’s really about how am I going to get all these 10 done this week? How am I going to structure this? How am I going to relook at my goals because I want to make a million dollars this year? And that’s not happening fast enough. Or it is happening just fine as planned and I’ve got extra money now. How do I allocate that? How do I start deal funding for other people? I have all of that too. So we go into all kinds of different things.
Steven Jack Butala:
That tells me that’s the right group because you’re past the mechanics of it all and you’ve gotten past that. You’ve gotten past the learning curve. People that want to hang out with like kind people that have questions about … Because in a group like that, some people are crazy at the top of it like you and some people have done a few deals and they’ve proven it to themselves and now they’re intentionally putting themselves … Women I suspect are better at this than men. In a group of people where they’re all going to rise up.
Jill K DeWit:
Do you know what I just thought about? You’ve just brought up a perfect example. I think a lot of it is because the women in Land Academy are a lot like me, which is this. You were asking me something the other day about a car that we were in. We were in a certain vehicle and you asked me does it have this? And I said no. And you asked me how I know. Because I read the whole manual. So when I buy a car … I am not kidding. If it’s my car, not just every car, but if it’s my special sought out, this is my vehicle, I get to know everything about it. I read the whole flipping manual on the vehicle.
Steven Jack Butala:
I do with motorcycles but not cars. I don’t know why.
Jill K DeWit:
But what’s funny is I was thinking about-
Steven Jack Butala:
Tire pressure. Everything.
Jill K DeWit:
I think that relates to Land Academy. Which I would too. If I was not me joining Land Academy, I would’ve read everything four times to make sure I got it. And if I didn’t, then the parts I didn’t understand, I would’ve asked on the Thursday call or in Discord and got to the bottom of it. I’m not sure that men do that. I have to say just today, I may or may not have been snooping around in just some of the customer service stuff coming into our staff. So I wrote a little note to my staff. I’m like, “Well shucks, the guy just needs to go back to chapter three.” Hello. He was asking some questions and he put, “Can someone call me about this?” I’m like, “No. Well, you have it in your hand. You just skipped over it or you didn’t even open it.” That’s probably more likely. But anyway, it’s just funny. Is that a man? Is that a normal guy thing?
Steven Jack Butala:
No. That’s not gender.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
In any way. That’s a personality type. I do not learn anything sitting and talking to somebody on the phone. I will tune out. I don’t learn anything from a guy standing in front of a class with a chalkboard.
Jill K DeWit:
You need to watch it and figure it out yourself.
Steven Jack Butala:
I need to watch it, stop it. I need to study. I am a self-study … Don’t talk to me for four hours and then when I come out of this thing, let’s go at it. Let’s get it. And that’s what those discussions that you’re having, which bleeds into my inspirational scenario is that … All right, here’s a story and you tell me because this is a personality type.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill and I have some distant friends, some good friends that we’ve known for a few years. We have a lot in common with them. We just don’t see them very often. But every once in a while we run into them. They live in the same place in California that we did. They still have a house there. And it turns out they live like two blocks from us here and they own a printing company and so do we. So I ran into them recently. The woman’s driving the whole thing, the entire thing.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
I started asking her questions finally. We’ve never talked about work ever with them. We both had a beer in hand so I’m like, why not? She started as a very successful salesperson for the commercial printing industry and decided one day, “Why am I selling all this? There’s all this profit margin. I’m making everybody else rich. I’m going to start my own printing company with a warehouse and printing presses and all of that.” And she said, “What’s your story?” So these are high level discussions now.
Jill K DeWit:
This is good.
Steven Jack Butala:
Now one of us talked about which machine we would buy, what the mechanics are. The costs of any of that. We just talked about what happened and why are you so successful enough to live in these neighborhoods? So she said, “What happened to you?” And I said, “We got a lot of customers. We only do this one thing. We help our constituencies economically and intensity wise, mental intensity wise, help people send offers to owners, which is a core of our real estate business.” And she said, “All right. So you get these orders in and this happens and this happens.” I said, “No, no. For this section, this is how we process it. I know you guys process it differently.” And she’s looking at me. And then we started talking about how you’re increasing revenue. We never sat and talked about … And this is true with many, many, many successful people. The actual process. This is like live event stuff.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
The actual process of stuff is in our programs. The mechanics of all of this, all the answers to all the mechanical stuff are either in career path or in our educational programs. The real motivation doesn’t happen in there. It happens on this podcast and in environments like that.
Jill K DeWit:
Yep. That’s good. Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Join us next Wednesday for another interesting episode. You are not alone in your real estate ambition. We are Jack and Jill. Information …
Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration …
Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
https://youtu.be/WNh5K2gaW_M
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Join Steven Jack Butala and Jill K DeWit on episode 2,004 of the Land Academy Show as they delve into the five most frequently asked questions by new Land Academy members. From dispelling myths about land flipping to sharing real success stories, they tackle it all. Plus, get an exclusive look at a member’s journey to half a million in revenue within their first year. Don’t miss out on this insightful discussion packed with valuable insights for aspiring land investors!
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m Jill DeWit and this is the Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is episode number 2,004, and today Jill and I are talking about the five most-asked questions by new Land-Academy members.
Jill K DeWit:
Is this your version, my version, or the team put them up? I’m just curious.
Steven Jack Butala:
What we’ll do is reread-
Jill K DeWit:
I’ve got different questions like, “Are you guys married?” That’s what I’ve just got to start with. This is why I’m asking.
Steven Jack Butala:
How do you answer that?
Jill K DeWit:
See, this is why I want to know. Let me tell you my top-five questions, and then you tell me yours.
Steven Jack Butala:
All right. Go ahead. We’ll get to that, we will. Jill and I asked our staff to answer these questions and we’ll be serious about it in a second, but I’d like to know your five.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. “Are you guys married? Where the heck do you live? What do you mean you don’t go see your property?”
Steven Jack Butala:
This is pretty accurate.
Jill K DeWit:
You like this? Exactly. “You made how much last year?”
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. Is this for real?
Jill K DeWit:
And, “Is this for real?” There we go, that’s my five. What are your five?
Steven Jack Butala:
Jeez, my five are, “Is this for real?” Is number one. “What is all this? Can you please just tell me, let’s cut to all the stuff. Stop horsing around on the show. What’s the deal? Can you really buy land and resell it for more?”
Jill K DeWit:
That’s your number one.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s at a cocktail party or from people that have been in the real-estate industry forever. I don’t have five of them.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, that was it.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s the main one like, “What’s the deal? Is this for real?”
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, it’s so funny. From that cocktail party, it quickly goes to two things. It splits into, “Well, can I just give you some money?” “Yeah, thanks. No, I don’t need that.” Or, “Well, it’s obviously easy if you idiots can do it.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. I mean, here’s a great example. Jill and I, we’re doing our estate. We’re finishing our estate planning, we’re amending it, let’s say, and we met with the lawyer that does it. He’s like, “I looked you guys up before you got here, and I love land.” This is probably a 70-plus-year-old guy who’s probably got thousands and thousands of estates under his belt, and all he wants to do is talk about land. He doesn’t care about our estate.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. Yeah, it’s almost like it’s like, “Eyes up here.”
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s a regular-
Jill K DeWit:
“Eyes off the plat map. My eyes are up here.” That’s a new thing. That’s good. I’m more than just a plat map.
Steven Jack Butala:
I attribute that too and I was thinking about it. We are somewhat guilty of, Jill, making this sound easy.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, it’s true. It happens all the time.
Steven Jack Butala:
You know what? It is easy for us and here’s why. This is a little off-topic, because Jill’s amazing on the phone. Doing a mailer and pricing a mailer is like drinking a glass of water for me. That didn’t happen the first time. I mean, I can’t describe to you the number of mistakes I made.
I don’t know about you, but the number of mistakes I made from the data perspective on my side of the sheet to get us to where we are now doing mailers, we don’t hold anything back. I tell you exactly how I do a mailer. That’s exactly what we instruct, but it doesn’t take long for me to do a 150,000-unit mailer. I think that, what did you say recently, if you have the right mindset and you kick some serious butt, you’re going to do great at this.
Each week on the show, we answer a question from our Land-Academy member Discord forum, and take a deep dive into a land-related topic by popular request from our Land-Academy community. Let’s take a question, Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. Oh, an LA-Pro member wrote this. Cool. M. “Hi, Jack. This is a note.” I was wondering where this person was at, because I’m going to have this person on a podcast.
Steven Jack Butala:
I know.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay, “This is a note to say thank you at my one-year mark in Land Academy. Below are my numbers.” Did they email this to you?
Steven Jack Butala:
Mm-hmm. She sent it to me directly because…
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, will you share it with me too, please?
Steven Jack Butala:
Sure. Sure.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay, good.
Steven Jack Butala:
Grab the mouse, Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. “Below are my numbers. I’m so grateful that all I’ve learned from you. Jill, Carl and Sam are our ambassadors. I joined Land Academy in early April, 2023 and then did Career Path 6. I mailed 10,000 units right before Career Path 6 started. 2023, April 1 to December 31, I mailed 94,896 letters. In 2023 I averaged 10,500 mailers a month, that’s what that came to. 2024 so far I have mailed 49,371 letters, so there I’ve averaged 9,900 mailers a month.”
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s four. We’re at four months into ’24.
Jill K DeWit:
Mm-hmm. “Then from all total like May 2023 to end of April 2024, revenue is $567,623. That was first year at Land Academy made half a million dollars, period.”
Steven Jack Butala:
When she says, “Revenue.” She means purchase price.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. Profit on the parcels is $268,046. This does not take into account all of the expenses.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is buy side, sell side?
Jill K DeWit:
“Since January 1st, 2024, my revenue has been 250,761.61.” She’s this good. “December through mid-March, I hit a really dry spell in getting properties into escrow. Since starting Land Academy, average profit per property average has been $24,337. When I first started, I bought five properties that were smaller, lower value that I would definitely walk from now. I also had four sales that had 49 to $50,000 profit each suite onward.” What a great thing.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m going to bring up, I’m going to read between the lines and the numbers here and translate what I read out of this. Then, can you comment on the social piece, which is probably more important. She doubled her money and we’ve been saying this forever, buy For 60, sell for 120. Buy for 30, sell for 60.
That’s what Jill and I have attempted to do our entire career until about 18 to 24 months ago, where now we’re pretty much requiring that we make a 100 grand per deal, cash. It may or may not be twice the profit, but we want to make more per deal and do less deals, which we’ve been doing.
She has increased. She did almost a 100,000 mailers in calendar ’23, which costs about $60,000. There’s an upfront cost to this, that I don’t think people fully digest before getting into it. She’s not afraid of that. She has other businesses.
We know this person extremely well. She’s in a weekly meeting with us for LA-Pro members. Four months ended in ’24. She sent out 50,000 mailers so far. She’s way ahead. She’s increased the number of mailers that she’s sending out over last year. She’s doing everything right numbers-wise. She’s averaging 10,000 mailers a month. I think that’s a little light. I would take that to 15,000.
Jill K DeWit:
If she can handle it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, easily. And so, what she’s doing is looking at the numbers, part of this, increasing everything constantly, and then her dry spell did not knock her off the rails. If I had a nickel for every dry spell we’ve had.
Jill K DeWit:
I agree.
Steven Jack Butala:
Dry spells don’t-
Jill K DeWit:
It’s not real thing.
Steven Jack Butala:
…it doesn’t knock me off the rails, ever. I think it’s funny. I really do actually think it’s humorous when stuff happens.
Jill K DeWit:
What’s funny is too, when she says, “Dry spell.” That means I only did 6 deals instead of 10 this month or something like that, when I thought I was going to do 12. Everybody’s version of that is different. It’s not like everything’s shut down for three months, so yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s the numbers part of it, and she’s obviously got it licked and she’s micromanaging it. Now, what’s the magic sauce with her?
Jill K DeWit:
The magic sauce with her is what I’m going to talk about actually next week on my lady’s call. This ties right in. You have to go with this like a crazy person, put your head down. What’s interesting is about this individual, she came to us from another environment where she was wildly successful but they weren’t yielding the profits. It was really, really low numbers and stuff.
I’m so happy that she found us and she’s here and she’s a really good, successful member in LA Pro, so she uses our staff. My transaction coordinator is her transaction coordinator, and I know that she loves that, and that’s really helped taken a lot off her plate too.
Steven Jack Butala:
That wasn’t always the case. She did everything by herself. She’s a great addition to this whole operation and she’s really vocal. She’s constantly sharing positives and negatives with us within the group.
Jill K DeWit:
You know what else this is a thing about? This is a perfect example of my push, and to let you guys know, about this is one of the many successful Land-Academy ladies in our community and they are killing it. I can’t wait for something coming that will help inspire and push forward even more-
Steven Jack Butala:
What’s coming, Jill?
Jill K DeWit:
…females. I’m saving it. Just give it a minute. It’s coming.
Steven Jack Butala:
How many other female land-investing groups are there out there?
Jill K DeWit:
Let me think. Give me a minute, I’m going to think a little more. I can’t think of any.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s zero.
Jill K DeWit:
There you go.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s topic, the five most asked questions by new Land-Academy members. All right, I took notes. These are the direct five and we’ll talk about it. This is what our intake people, when people call or send an email asking us about, “What, is this for real?” These are the five biggest questions and not in necessarily any order that we get. Number one, “How do I price a mailer?” If I had a nickel. Number two-
Jill K DeWit:
Well, come to Land Academy, that’s what we teach you. Next.
Steven Jack Butala:
Number two, “How many mailers does it take to get a purchase agreement?” Number three, “Is there an orientation group coming up?” Number four, “How long does it take to get a purchase agreement?” That’s twice now. Number five, “Can my partner share my membership?”
Number one, “How do I price a mailer?” Well, I’ll happily answer that in about 30 seconds. Pricing a mailer is what is about 30% of what you need to be learning before you do this successfully. The other 70% lies in what Jill does. There’s no such thing as a perfectly-priced mailer, it just doesn’t exist. Pricing a mailer that’s the most amazingly-priced mailer that could ever happen, will do you absolutely no good if you’re not taking the calls. You send a mailer out and receiving the calls from the potential sellers and converting them into real-estate deals, but nobody asks that.
I have to take some personal responsibility, but here’s a question that I think you should call our people and ask them. “How do I take a call from somebody, that wants to sell their real estate and convert it into a real-estate deal?”
Jill K DeWit:
That’s Land Academy.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s not on the list.
Jill K DeWit:
I know.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill has all the answers to this stuff.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. You tell me what you want me to share or not share here.
Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s what I’m going to extract from these five questions. “How do I price a mailer? How many mailers do I get? How many mailers does it take to get a purchase agreement? Is there an orientation group, and can I share it with my partner?”
Jill K DeWit:
See, some of these are for people coming into Land Academy, and some of these are questions that clearly looks like they may be in Land Academy. Do you want me to one by one, knock these out?
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, just one second. When I read between the lines, what I hear is the profile of a potential member that’s asking these questions is I want to do it fast, I want to do a great mailer, and I want to collect some money. That’s a day-trader mentality. I want to beat the system. I want to buy the cheapest stuff that I can, sell it as fast as I can, and enjoy the money, and enjoy the profit and that’s just not what this is.
It’s not fast and easy. It’s what M, in the question earlier, that’s how you do this. It’s methodical. There’s several parts to it, and you have to answer the phone and you have to have a dynamic personality that just doesn’t know when to quit. Yeah, go ahead.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay, I will go through them. This is my version. Well, how do I price them? We covered that. This is all stuff. Well, let me first pause and notate that these are very different questions than we used to get when we launched Land Academy in 2015. Isn’t that funny? When we launched Land Academy back in 2015, nine years ago, it was like, “Who the heck are you guys? What are you talking about? How can you possibly make money on land and you’re not doing anything to it, and you must be subdividing or doing something like that.” It was all kinds of those.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s like, what’s the trick?
Jill K DeWit:
It was those questions. It was so funny and they’re like, “What’s direct mail?” All kinds of things like that. It was so funny. I just think this is really cool that the word’s gotten out. If you’re here and you’ve been listening to us for a while, I mean, you know. You understand. You get it. Now it’s more like some of the nuances that are coming up and all the things that we talk about, you need to know that.
Coming to Land Academy, you’re going to be so coached and so taught and so comfortable. Hey, we have nine years of helping people now, not 90 months, whatever it was. Because even before we launched Land Academy, we were helping people along the way. We talked about that before. Just helping our peers, helping our customers, helping other wholesalers because it was like, I’m happy to share. There’s enough property to go around. You’re obviously mailing whatever region in the country and I’m in this region of the country. Why would I not share with you? There’s no reason not to, kind of thing.
That’s the big-picture thing. I guess, for me that’s the takeaway here. But to blip through these, if these are on your mind, I’m happy to help. And so, pricing mailer, we got that. I mean, like Jack just said, “That’s one of the biggest components to Land Academy.” How many millers does it take to get a purchase agreement? Well, you know what? For me, not as many as someone brand new, I’ll be honest with you. For me, not as many as someone that cannot speak on the phone and they’re a Debbie Downer kind of thing.
That’s again, things that we help you with in Land Academy. I have solutions for all these, but is there a secret sauce to that? Yeah, kind of is. There’s depending where you’re mailing, depending how you’re pricing, depending even on the property type, there’s a lot of nuances to this. All things we discuss heavily, like to the point of nausea in Land Academy, I promise.
Even in our Discord forum, you could come in right now to Discord and really talk about, you could probably search for a certain region or property type and acreage even. I bet you’re going to find someone that’s already had a discussion on this and you’re going to go like, “Ding, ding, now I know what to prepare myself as I’m doing this mailer right now today.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Wait, let’s start. How many mailers does it take to get to a PA?
Jill K DeWit:
Land, [inaudible 00:16:41], houses.
Steven Jack Butala:
I would not ask that question. I would say, “What do I have to do to make sure that my mailer yields purchase agreements?” Because you’re not going to do a mailer. You’re not going to sign up for Land Academy, learn how to do all this and learn how to price a mailer, send the mail out and then look at your watch. That’s not what you do.
All the calls, you’re going to take the calls and you’re going to convert. If you’re amazing like Jill is, your conversion rate from mailer to purchase agreement, and that’s the real juice of this. Converting that when the mailer goes out and converting it to deals, whatever that looks like for you. We know what it looks like for us. Your mailer does not yield a purchase agreement, you do.
Jill K DeWit:
I just had this conversation. We have a couple of new people on our staff, and I was talking to a new person, helping out with people wanting to join Land Academy and ask questions. I said, “Look everyone, when you’re talking to people and they’re asking some of these questions about how we do this,” and then also within Land Academy I share this, “I fully believe every darn, single person that is picking up the phone to call you wants to do business with you, hands down.”
You know what? How many mailers does it take to get a purchase agreement? I’m going to say one. You think I’m kidding? I’m going to say one because I won’t let them off the phone. If we’re not on the same page, we’re going to figure out if we can get on the same page. One of us doesn’t budge, if the only reason that’s what happened, so it takes me one mailer to get a purchase agreement.
You know what? I mean, that’s the thing. That’s the reality. Maybe it’s not their price or not my price, but I can get a purchase agreement. I can say, “Cross it off, write whatever number makes sense to you and send it to me, and I’ll see if I can make that work.”
Steven Jack Butala:
One.
Jill K DeWit:
One. That’s good. That’s going to be funny.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’re going to get 600 emails on this.
Jill K DeWit:
I know. They’re going to be like, “What?” That’s it. This is what I coached you and teach too, and I want to get you there or as close as I can to get you there.
Steven Jack Butala:
Drew brings up 2014 for a really good reason because back then… Or ’15, I guess, when we started instructing, when Land Academy, when we released it. There was very few people teaching this and there was nobody teaching this on the internet correctly. The nature of these questions have changed so much from what Jill described. Because there’s a lot of fly-by-night groups out there teaching about how to buy and sell land, largely because there’s other groups preaching this. “You’ve got to start an education company. You’ve got to start a membership company.”
And so, there are people that join our group, take our information and regurgitate it and then expect results. And so, the root of these questions is the reading between the lines. The core of it is, I’ve got to do these five things and I’m going to make a bunch of money. I’ve got to do a mailer, I’ve got to price it right. I’m going to get some purchase agreements and I’m going to buy it and then resell it and make money. That’s it. That’s just not this.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, I mean loosely those are the steps, but there’s 80 other steps of going in there.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s an incredible amount of dynamic personality in between this that’s required.
Jill K DeWit:
If you don’t have it, we’ll help you with that. You can get it. All right, let’s move on. “Is there an orientation group coming up?” You know what’s interesting about this? I’m pivoting. I’ll tell you right now, I’m going to pivot.
We have a really good onboarding system and really good help and a really good support system, amazing within Land Academy. Showing you what to do and videos where you can step by step watch here, click here kind of stuff. I’m pivoting this to personal coaching because everyone’s asking for it.
Steven Jack Butala:
I agree. I’m glad to hear that.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. I’m just waiting for our new team to tell me when I can launch it. They’re like, “Not yet. Not yet. I’m not ready.” we’re going to get even better and it’s optional. If you want personal coaching, it’s there for you. If you don’t, you don’t, but so many people have asked for it, so we’re going to make that happen.
“How long does it take to get a PA?” Well, you know what? It could be hours. It could be minutes. I’ve been on the phone with people. They’re like, “What are you talking about, purchase agreement? What is this whole question about?” We sent out the mail and the seller calls me, the owner. They don’t know they’re a seller yet. The property owner calls me. We have a wonderful conversation. We agree on a price and maybe before I hang up, they sign it and scan it while we’re on the phone and they send it to me.
Steven Jack Butala:
Or take a picture.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It pops up on my cell phone and I say, “Great, I’m opening escrow right now. Susie at ABC Title will be calling you tomorrow morning.” “Great, thanks Jill.” It could be like that. Is it always like that? No, but it could be like that. You know what, and then honestly I think it should be like that.
This is part of my things that I’m talking about a lot this week with the land ladies and other things. We have the advanced call next week too, that I want to talk about. I’m seeing too many people take their time and get to it when they can. You know what? You’re not going to get a deal done if that’s your kind of term.
Steven Jack Butala:
You’re not going to get anything done in life if you do that.
Jill K DeWit:
You need to hang up the phone, have a next step with that person. How long is it to get a purchase agreement? Minutes and then it should be another maybe hour, if you don’t have a title company lined up, that you’ve got it over to them and the process has started.
Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s what we’re talking about, both of us. Here’s an actual example. The phone rings. “Ring. Ring.” You are on the other end, answer the phone. This-
Jill K DeWit:
I’m ready to role play. You do, “Ring. Ring.” I just-
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m going to do the wrong way, you do the right way.
Jill K DeWit:
I answer.
Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s how a data person would answer the phone. “Ring. Ring.” “Hello?” “I’m sorry, is somebody there?” “Yeah.” “I think you sent me a letter because you want to buy my property and you have a [inaudible 00:22:52].” “Yeah.” Silence. Silence. Silence.
Jill K DeWit:
Paper’s moving.
Steven Jack Butala:
“Well, do you want to buy it?” “Maybe. What does it say? How much did I offer?” You’re never going to get a real-estate deal done ever in your life if you answer the phone that way. In fact, you’re probably not going to get anything you want in life if you have that personality and talk like that. Hold on a second.
Jill K DeWit:
I have a whole thing now.
Steven Jack Butala:
All right, go ahead. Yours is going to be more positive than mine.
Jill K DeWit:
Turn that into a marriage proposal. I want to hear how does this individual function in life?
Steven Jack Butala:
I pictured myself getting married, not to you. This is you sitting at Applebee’s with a ring in your pocket. I pictured marrying a girl.
Jill K DeWit:
You just bought her the Oreo-cookie thing.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s not what I want as much as I thought, but I pictured a girl that looks a lot different than you. But what do you say, how about will you marry me?
Jill K DeWit:
Is that what this is? You know what? This is your version of that. Well, I’m 30. Number four on my list of things to do in life is get married, and then below that is start a family. I guess I’m on number four-
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s a girl’s dream.
Jill K DeWit:
…and you’re sitting there, so you’re up, baby.
Steven Jack Butala:
I asked three girls earlier this week and they all said, “No.” So you’re my fourth choice.
Jill K DeWit:
What do you say? Every woman’s dream. Oh, and by the way, it’s my mom’s ring or my grandma’s ring. Yeah, I didn’t do anything.
Steven Jack Butala:
How do you answer the phone?
Jill K DeWit:
My mom made me do this because I’m 30. Maybe I’m 40.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, 40. Boys don’t have a 30 thing.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay, now 30. You’re 40, mom’s really getting anxious now.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, she wants me to move out.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s the best.
Steven Jack Butala:
I tell you what-
Jill K DeWit:
That’s so good.
Steven Jack Butala:
…we joke about this. Both of our sons are in somewhat committed relationships, and I swear, they went from boys to men about two weeks after they met these girls. Will they end with these girls? Probably not, but it doesn’t matter, they’re just better. They’re men.
Jill K DeWit:
The girls are making them better men. They’re on their own, they’re self-sufficient. It’s great. One’s 25 and one’s 20. It’s awesome. Okay. Back to, do you want me to do a role play the right way or we got that covered?
Steven Jack Butala:
Sure. Ring. Ring.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. This is Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
Hi. I think you sent me a letter to purchase one of my properties in Apache County?
Jill K DeWit:
I did. Well, what can you tell me about it?
Steven Jack Butala:
I inherited it from my father and I think he inherited it. I’m not sure how he got it. Obviously, we’re not going to use it, but the offer that you sent, I do want to sell it but the offer that you sent, it’s not going to work for us.
Jill K DeWit:
All right, well let me look it up. Do you have some of the information on it? Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah, blah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, it’s AB and X, Y, Z.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. All right, so here I’m looking at it right now. I have a question about access. I can’t tell if the road’s on it. Have you ever been there?
Steven Jack Butala:
No. No. I don’t think my dad was ever there.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. Tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to put some time into this and I want to look this up and see what we can do here. Now given what you know about me, I’m a sweet… By the way, this is Jill, I’m the owner, so whatever deal you and I make, this is a deal. What’s going to be on your check?
Steven Jack Butala:
Well listen, I don’t have to sell this and I’m not interested in a low-ball offer, but we’re not going to use it.
Jill K DeWit:
I understand. All right. Well, let me just ask you this then. You got my offer and you just made it clear to me that that doesn’t work.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, $2,800 is not going to work.
Jill K DeWit:
All right. Well what is the number? Again, keeping in mind who I am and I’ve already explained how the transaction’s going to go. Blah. Blah. Blah. What is the number that is your rock bottom, hey, for this, I’m happy to walk away number and I’ll see if I can make it work. Keep in mind I’m cash, fast, blah, blah. I’m going to pay for all this stuff. Blah. Blah. Blah.
Steven Jack Butala:
How long would the whole thing take?
Jill K DeWit:
Oh my gosh, I’m doing so many deals. I shouldn’t say that. I have Suzie at ABC Title ready to go. I can get this done in 10 days.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, what can you really pay us then?
Jill K DeWit:
I gave you a number. My number’s $2,800. What is a number that really makes sense to you and I’ll see if I can make it work.
Steven Jack Butala:
I have to check with my wife. $2,800 is not completely out of the question, if you can do it quickly, and Christmas is coming.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
My wife’s, by the way, has been bothering me about this for two years. I don’t think it’s the land that bothers her. I just think it’s a thing on a list of things that we should be doing at our age that we have to take off the list.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh boy, do I understand. You should see our garage. My poor husband has his own version of this going on, so I can totally relate to you, Mr. Jones. All right. I’m going to make this so easy and so painless. You know what? I’m going to go look at this $2,800. Now we’re on the same page about that number.
Give me 24 hours, I’m going to check a couple of things with the county and double-check this access and fill in the blank and I’m going to call you tomorrow. What’s the best time for you and what’s the best number for me to reach you at?
Steven Jack Butala:
I have to tell you that we get three or four of these letters every quarter, let’s say, maybe one or two a month. “You’re the only person that has ever answered the phone.”
Jill K DeWit:
That’s too bad. I understand. I’m going to do this for you and we’re going to make this easy. By the way, have you thought about what you want to do with the dough besides just get your wife off your back about it?
Steven Jack Butala:
How’s tomorrow at noon?
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. You got it. I will call you then. Thank you, Mr. Jones.
Steven Jack Butala:
Thanks very much.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay, bye.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s how I convert a real estate deal.
Jill K DeWit:
By the way, you don’t have to talk for 20 minutes. There’s times to ask closed-ended questions because now we’re getting into sales. We need to go there. We could have a whole other podcast on this. There’s closed-ended questions that you should ask, and then there’s open-ended questions you should ask.
When you ask a few of those quick, open-ended questions about, “What do you know about the property?” Watch this flood of information. Sometimes they share information that you’re like, “I don’t think I want to share that.” I already got paid out because dad let a telephone, whatever company, put a cell tower on the back area and it’s not blocking anything, so dad already got 80 grand for it.” I’m like, “ka-ching, now I know that.” There’s lots of stuff.
Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s a world that we live in right now, according to me. Everybody has got their guard up as soon as they leave the front door. And so, whether you run into somebody when you’re running into the gas station to pay, everybody’s first reaction including that the store clerk or me even and probably you is, “Is this the person that just cut me off on the road? How am I going to be disappointed today? What’s going to go wrong?”
And so, when these people call back, they need to be disarmed. Jill completely disarmed me in that call, and within just a few minutes was starting down the path of establishing trust. Two more phone calls like that, so now I’m ready to take her phone call back because she’s not one of those people that I have to be worried about.
She’s not the person that cut me off on the way to the grocery store. She’s not the real angry store clerk. If I was a store clerk, I’d be angry too, by the way. She’s just not a bad person. Step by step by step, that 2,800 bucks that we offered, she’s going to get it for that, or maybe it’s 3,000 just to get the deal done.
Jill K DeWit:
Maybe. I’m happy with that.
Steven Jack Butala:
She disarmed the whole scenario and started down the path of trust. In two more phone calls, they’re going to be talking about grandchildren and what the weather is and the mechanics of the deal, if that. That’s how you do it, not my way.
Jill K DeWit:
The last one, ‘Can my partner share my membership?” Yeah, we have partnership opportunities. You just need to call and talk to my staff. There’s a way that we can work that out. We have husband, wife. We have siblings. We have partners in the same state, partners in different states. Whatever your situation is, we have a solution for all that. No problem.
Steven Jack Butala:
Excellent. I started down this rabbit hole then, about these five things that people ask. I asked the guy who runs our mailing company, same thing. Offers2Owners is the name of our mailing company, about what potential members ask. What are the top five questions?
Number one, “How many mailers does it take to yield a deal?” Same question. One of the same questions for Land Academy. Number two, “Is a land-investing community over-saturated?” I’ll answer that in a second. Number three, “How much money do I need to start?” Number four, “How do I pick a county to send mail?” Number five, “Do I need a membership to actually send land mailers through Offers2Owners?”
Jill K DeWit:
These are great. This is Q&A jumble today of all kinds of different things, so I love it.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’re going to be redundant here. How many mailers does it take to yield a deal? That depends on you. I’m going to give you some real numbers. When I started this, it was about 500 to 1. When we started Land Academy it was about 800 to 1, but these are deals that were with a property that was entirely and completely unusable. We didn’t have data the way that we have now. We had no mapping systems. This was before Google Earth, so we had no idea where it was and neither did the seller, by the way.
People that were getting my mailers, this is back in real early 2000s, they didn’t know where the property was. All they knew back then is that they were sick and tired of paying the real-estate taxes twice a year. Our yield was great, but the quality of properties that we were getting because we couldn’t research them, we would just buy anything. We would buy anything at all. They came back and would sign, and we would do the deal.
Then, we’d resell it and they would buy anything because they couldn’t resell it. These are not the good, old days. The good old days are right now. Everybody’s got an incredible amount of information. Everything is transparent.
There’s no more dart boards. I wonder what’s going to happen with this real estate deal? Now you know What’s going to happen. And so, those are the bottom-yield numbers right when we started. The yield for us now under our criteria, just you and I, is probably to make a 100,000 is maybe 10, 15,000 mailers. For M it was what? What did she say?
Jill K DeWit:
10 a month.
Steven Jack Butala:
10,000 a month to do a deal.
Jill K DeWit:
I think ours are lower than that, but I’ll let you go with that number.
Steven Jack Butala:
Do you know how many deals we turned down?
Jill K DeWit:
That’s the thing.
Steven Jack Butala:
How many transactions that are viable transactions?
Jill K DeWit:
I can’t accurately ask this question because I don’t buy them all that come at me. I don’t.
Steven Jack Butala:
I just talked to somebody who’s pretty active in the group and they said, “All we want to do is make $5,000 a transaction.” If that’s you and you have a personality like you just heard Jill on that theoretical phone call, you are going to kill it in this environment. You are going to knock it out of the park. If you want to make an extra $60,000 doing 10 or 12 deals a year, you’re going to smash it. Yield is all relative. It depends on your personality. It depends on your threshold.
Jill K DeWit:
If you pick a good area, by the way.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, you pick a good area, which we go through all the stuff-
Jill K DeWit:
We teach you.
Steven Jack Butala:
…and your threshold. If you want to make 5 or $10,000 more a month, you’re going to do extremely well. Notice I didn’t say how well you price your mailer because that’s going to happen anyway. For whatever reason, it has been since we started this, the number one question. It’s, I think, one of the things you should worry about the least. Is the land investing community oversaturated, Jill?
Jill K DeWit:
You know what I think? I feel bad. I think it’s thinning out a little bit. Sadly, I don’t. I know there’s a lot of people that want to be and they think they are, but they’re not sending mail.
Steven Jack Butala:
Or they’re not answering the phone.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s the bigger one.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what I think’s really happening.
Jill K DeWit:
Answering the phone, that’s a lot of it. We have so much property out there, I forget about it, it’s the funniest thing on the planet. I have a thing right now where this guy sent me a letter. I’m like, “You know what? He can have it.” It was one of the first people that actually followed through. By the way, ask me how many phone conversations we had.
Steven Jack Butala:
Two. How many? Zero? You haven’t even talked to this person?
Jill K DeWit:
No.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh my God, Jill, you get a trophy for that.
Jill K DeWit:
Nope, it’s been emailed. I signed it and sent it right back and then they emailed me. They emailed me and we talked about a couple of questions. We talked about this in another podcast, so you’ve got to hear where we are right now. They emailed me stupid questions.
I lightly answered a couple and said, “Knock it off. Do your homework.” They emailed me back with some more stupid questions. I said, “You really need to knock it off and call me when you’re done because I’m not answering these stupid questions. This is your job to do this. If you want it for this price, you’re doing the homework, which that’s what I do, I’m expected. Knock it off.”
And so then they said, “We’re sending you an overnight envelope with a check in it.” Indeed. I said, “All right.” Right now I’m just waiting for the check to clear. Actually, I didn’t even tell my transaction coordinator, “Hey, their check showed up. I’m ready to send it back as soon as the check clears.” Isn’t that funny?
Steven Jack Butala:
I researched which property this is.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, gee, I didn’t know.
Steven Jack Butala:
They’re getting a pretty good deal.
Jill K DeWit:
I know, I forgot about it. You know what? It’s too small for me anymore.
Steven Jack Butala:
I understand.
Jill K DeWit:
I feel bad.
Steven Jack Butala:
No, I’m not criticizing you at all you. You’re getting the deal done.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, just like M said before, earlier on the question, she’s like, ‘There’s some deals that now I wouldn’t even do anymore.”
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what this is.
Jill K DeWit:
I know. That’s the thing, it’s like it’s too little money for me. Thank you, but no. Yeah, and you know what? This person is actually, I’ll be truthful too, they’re not even a member of Land Academy. I just like, “Oh, I just feel like doing a good thing. Here you go.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Is the land-investing community oversaturated? Well, let me put it to you this way. I’m going to estimate, and this directly preludes to the next question, the next five, number three. There are probably about a 1,000 people that are actively sending mail in this entire investment-land community.
Jill K DeWit:
I bet you that it’s a good number.
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t mean Land Academy, I mean everyone that ever all-
Jill K DeWit:
Consistently.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, I don’t even think consistently. I just think there’s active people that come in and out and all of that. Maybe a 1,000. There’s probably 2 or 300 that do it real consistently like Jill and I do. There are 1.6 million licensed real-estate agents in this country waking up in the morning and running around trying to get listings on houses.
Let that sink in. Is that over-saturated? It doesn’t seem to be because every real-estate agent I talk to is either making money hand over fist or almost out of business. The land-invested community is the same way, only the pot is a lot smaller. If you have the type of personality where you would do great as a real-estate agent or if you are a real estate agent and you’re doing great, you’re going to kill it here. It’s the same thought process and it’s the same, I’ve got to get up in the morning and schedule myself and have small, little goals, so it’s all the same thing. Number three.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, I just was going to add a little something to that too. It’s sweet. I have a sweet, little, mousy girl that does my nails and she’s a real estate agent and she does this on this side. I said, “How many listings do you have right now?” She said, “Four.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Good for her.
Jill K DeWit:
Isn’t that sweet? I’m like, “Good for you.” I thought that’s-
Steven Jack Butala:
Did you asked her why they’re not sold?
Jill K DeWit:
We did. We had a long talk about it, and actually they’re doing great.
Steven Jack Butala:
This fascinates me.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, it’s really fast.
Steven Jack Butala:
We have enough time though, huh?
Jill K DeWit:
Well, I don’t remember all the exact details on all of them. One of them, they’re just getting ready to stage it. She’s talking to the person to stage it. Yeah. She’s actually moving them through the system. She’s actually doing a good job. I don’t remember all the details, but yeah, it’s good. I’m proud of her.
Steven Jack Butala:
Number three is how much money do I need to start? This is directly, again, associated with number two. For whatever reason, and I think this happens with everything on every type of business, people think that it should cost nothing and you should reap huge rewards, and so that’s just not the case. There’s risk reward.
To me, this business is really, really low risk. If you don’t want to put any money in, you like real estate and you just want to make 2 to 3 to $5,000 a month, that’s what being a real estate agent is. Go get your license. Don’t put any money in except for your association dues or whatever that costs. Hump, hump, hump as hard as you can. Work as hard as you can get a bunch of listings like Jill’s nail tech and make some money. Make 3 to 5 to $10,000 per deal and have a great life.
That’s not what this is. It costs money to do the mail. It costs money for education, if that’s the route that you choose, but it doesn’t cost money to do a real-estate deal. That’s what partners are for, and that’s one of the huge benefits of Land Academy.
Your job at Land Academy is to find an amazing real-estate deal by doing what Jill does on the phone. If you can get a signed purchase agreement and you’ve got $13 in your checking account, you’re going to go into the Land-Academy community and find somebody who funds deals. Hopefully it’s us. We’re going to buy the deal, pay a hundred percent of it and we’re going to split it with you, some percentage, split it with you so you can get on your way. You could do 10 or 15 deals under your belt and then you just don’t need us anymore. How much money do I need to start?
Jill K DeWit:
Need our money anymore.
Steven Jack Butala:
How much money do I need to start is you need money for mail. You need money to pay your rent or your mortgage just like you do anyway, and you need money if you choose for education and data and stuff. It’s not a hard-dollar amount. I don’t know, do you ever answer this question directly?
Jill K DeWit:
Absolutely.
Steven Jack Butala:
Go ahead.
Jill K DeWit:
If you have 5 to 10 grand, you could get started, preferably 10, but where else can you do anything for 10 grand, seriously. That’s my number, the tens, because then you could afford the education. You’ve got a couple of months of membership, which is basically to get you access to data, and you can afford to send out some mail.
Steven Jack Butala:
By the way, if it costs 5 to $10,000 to start this, number two question was, “Is it saturated?” That’s the reason this isn’t saturated because it costs some money to get into it.
Jill K DeWit:
True. Oh, that’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
The reason that the real-estate-agent environment is grossly oversaturated is because it doesn’t cost any money to really get into it. You just have to take a $300 class, pass the test and spend 2 or $3,000 in association dues, so you can get access to the MLS.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s a light-bulb moment, actually. Good. I’m glad that it costs some money to get into this because you need to be serious about it.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what I think.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s going to weed out a lot of people because they can’t afford to send mail. That’s fine.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you were doing 10 or 12 deals a year and you want to do 3 or 400, this is great news for you. The fact that this costs some money is keeping a lot of people out of it.
Jill K DeWit:
True. Very true.
Steven Jack Butala:
Number four, “How do I pick a county to send mail? Where should I send mail?” We spend two chapters on this and to the point, I have what’s called a red-green-yellow test. There’s a process of trolling around on the internet using Zillow and realtor.com. And then going through the red-green-yellow test I explain it in great detail.
Then in Career Path, which is our mastermind group, we do it all together. We do it to the point where everybody in the group is satisfied that they can do it on their own. Number five, “Do I need a membership to send land mailers, Jill?”
Jill K DeWit:
No, but it’s cheaper if you do.
Steven Jack Butala:
I haven’t done the math recently.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, can I go back and just cover this? This comes up a lot. Seriously, here’s the bottom line. You’re nuts if you’re going to invest a whole lot of money in mailers and you don’t know what you’re doing. I wouldn’t do that. It’s like I’m going to start fill in the blank. I can figure it out. I’m going to watch some YouTube videos. I’m going to wing it.
I don’t care what it is, I’m not even talking about what we do, don’t start anything unless you’re going to really give it a good go. Then if you’re going to give it a good go, do it right. Get some education because here what happens. You could spend, I don’t know, 5 to 10 years doing the school of hard knocks to get where we are. Or you could spend, I don’t know, 5 to 10 days and catch up by joining and watching education and going, “Wow, now I know what I’m doing.” That’s the difference, 5 to 10 days or 5 to 10 years. That’s my new slogan.
Steven Jack Butala:
Then I asked, this is an added bonus, the guy that runs Offers2Owners, our company, the mailing company. “If you’re an active member, are the questions any different?” If you’re a member of Land Academy, you’ve been around for who knows, a few months or maybe even a year, you’re about to do a mailer and here’s your five questions.
“How much does it cost?” Great question. You’ve got to be real conscious about mail costs. Number two, “What do successful investors do?” This is a question I would ask, so I’m going to translate this to this concept. I’m asking you, Jill, what are the five questions you would ask when you’re joining a new group? The first one that I would ask any new group is this exact question. “Give me the profile and give me as much detail, Jack and Jill, of the type of person who’s in the top 10% of the performers in your group.”
Jill K DeWit:
Agreed. What separates the men from the boys?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, and do I have it? That’s really what I’m asking. What do successful investors do? Number one, they are people.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, wait a minute, are we answering the questions or you want to go through all five? Go through all five-
Steven Jack Butala:
I’ll come back to it, yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
…and then we’ll come back.
Steven Jack Butala:
Okay, good. Number three, “How often should I be sending mail?” Great question. Very good season question. Number four, “How long does it take to obtain and close my first deal?” Pretty good question. “How long does it take to get the ball rolling and started now that I’m a member?” Four and five are the same question.
Jill K DeWit:
Cool. All right. Is it the question, “How much does this cost?” That’s number one about mail.
Steven Jack Butala:
How much does a mailer cost?
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, that’s easy. Go to offers2owners.com and it’s right on the page.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s two products. Number one, you’re doing stuff yourself, and number two, we do it for you and they’re priced differently. They’re between 65 cents and 98 cents per unit.
Jill K DeWit:
Something like that. Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Now, if you’re listening to this in 2026, which is going to happen, the numbers are real different.
Jill K DeWit:
Or 2,036. Where are we going to be? Oh, 2036, this is going to rock. What if we’re still in these seats in 2036?
Steven Jack Butala:
You have a good sense of humor and you want to feel great about yourself, go back and look at what Jill and I looked like nine ago.
Jill K DeWit:
2016. 2015.. Exactly. Oh my gosh. My team, we were having a whole joke about that. I said, “You know what? You’ll not hurt my feelings if you want to do a whole collage of Jill’s hairstyles over the years. Go for it.” Bangs. No bangs. Light. Dark.
Steven Jack Butala:
“What do successful investors do? What’s the profile of somebody who really succeeds at this?” Number one, whatever they’ve done in life, they’ve already succeeded at it.
Jill K DeWit:
Mine’s two words, but go ahead.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, go ahead.
Jill K DeWit:
You know what’s the thing about successful investors? No fear.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s true.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s it. That’s all I got.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you had a chain of restaurants and you just sold them and you did well, you’re like, “Oh, thank God. Thank God I got out of that and I got a bunch of money.” You’re going to smash this out the park. If you just retired as a mechanical engineer and endured that, or an accountant or something technical, or a corporate sales. Or you’re halfway through that environment and you do well at it, and you’ve got an extra bunch of money. And your bills are taken care of and you need to do something on the side to make a bunch of money and have some fun, you’re going to smash this. If you are a successful parent you’re going to do well at this.
On the flip side of this, here’s a profile of somebody if you’re brand-spanking new at this and you answer the phone the way that I did earlier in the program, you’re not going to do well. You need education about sales and personality. Successful investors also, and here’s another component, it’s essential. I don’t care if you have been successful or not, you need to create a calendar for yourself, which we talk all about in the program, and stick to it.
We have what’s called Mailer Monday, and so you should spend a whole week working on a mailer or learning or whatever else. You give yourself a deadline by the end of the day on Monday to have it done and reviewed and submitted to Offers2Owners.
Jill K DeWit:
Look, our most successful Land-Academy people come at this like crazy people.
Steven Jack Butala:
Reckless mailing, that’s what I call it.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s it. By the time they join on Friday, they consume it all Saturday and Sunday, and on Monday they’re sending something to Offers2Owners to get in the mail. That’s it. I just got it. That’s a flat-out fact. If you came at this like that, then there’s no stopping you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Do you have that personality?
Jill K DeWit:
Oh my gosh, yes.
Steven Jack Butala:
So do I.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. “How often should I be sending mail?” I like this. This is a good question too.
Steven Jack Butala:
You should be doing a mailer a month, and in the very beginning, you should ask Offers2Owners to cut it up somehow. So that you’ve got 10 or 15,000 units of data that is submitted, priced, and done. And you can ask them to cut it up into week by week or biweekly, bimonthly, twice a month. You won’t have to do that in the future. If you want to hone your phone skills, once a month is the answer.
Jill K DeWit:
Excellent. “How long does it take to obtain and close my first deal?” Well, shucks, as fast as you want it. I mean, I’ve had deals come in that first day. Not kidding. Every person in Land Academy that’s been here more than a year will say the same thing. They’re like, “Yeah, the call came in. I knew the area. I loved it. We made the deal. I’m up in escrow the next day.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. What you’re shooting for is cash. 30 days, cash in, cash out. 30 days, buy for 50, sell for 90. That’s the budget.
Jill K DeWit:
For 50?
Steven Jack Butala:
For 40 or 50, sell for 90 with some number.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay, but yeah, I’m still going to try to double my money. I like to buy for 30 and sell for 90.
Steven Jack Butala:
I know you do, Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m a nut about that. Isn’t that hilarious? He says, “This is fine. We can do it like that.” I’m like, “Mm-mmm, I want more wiggle room.” And I get it. “How long does it take to get the ball rolling and started now that I’m a member?” Well, what are you doing today?
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s the same question.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s like, yeah, what are you doing today?
Steven Jack Butala:
It takes as long as you allow it.
Jill K DeWit:
What was our sweet gal the other day? It was a woman, it was very sweet. I want to say it was Jennifer. I can’t remember now. Please don’t shoot me if I say it wrong, but on our last week’s member call she said, “Well, here goes another lost Sunday.” To which we said, “Cheers to many lost Sundays because you have a few lost Sundays and you’re going to be rich.”
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s a long, long list of multimillionaires that have lost a lot of Sundays, let’s put it that way. If it’s not apparent enough, we have a full-blown mailing company called Offers2Owners.com, where we will do your mailer for you. Or we will process the documents that you create as instructed at Land Academy, and get your mailer out and get it done right. Millions and millions and millions of mailers we send out every year. We have a lot of experience at this. We’re the most experienced in the country at doing this. This is the only thing that-
Jill K DeWit:
Because this one started it. We’re all of them.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, because we got frustrated with regular, commercial printers. We don’t do catalogs. We don’t do four-color bleed. We don’t do any of that stuff. We send Offers2Owners, that’s all we do, so check us out on the internet.
Jill K DeWit:
Don’t forget too, go to LandAcademy.com if you want to find out more. Learn more about us, learn more about the program, or schedule a call and talk to my team.
Steven Jack Butala:
Join us next Wednesday for another interesting episode. You are not alone in the real-estate ambition.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, sorry. I’m all confused because I was expecting another thing and I had my notes out. Sorry.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, go ahead. I’m sorry, Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
No. I thought we were going to do this last little part.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, yeah, go ahead. You have some inspiration to share.
Jill K DeWit:
Hey, we’re going to back up a minute here because I actually brought notes today.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s the first time in 2,000 episodes.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, hilarious. That’s so funny. Oh, gosh. No. I was preparing for the show today, and I’m just going to talk for just a minute about this. My last, little nugget because it’s really high on my list, and I’m really noticing a trend of people not doing this.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, it’s probably me.
Jill K DeWit:
Not kidding. This is the one thing that’s separating the men from the boys.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m afraid.
Jill K DeWit:
No, they’re not crazy people. You need to go at this like a crazy person. I have three little things to say about that. Number one, you’ve got to prepare yourself. How do I be a crazy person? What are you talking about, Jill? How do I make this work and come at it like that?
Well, you know what you do, you prepare yourself and preparing yourself is getting everything, all your ducks in a row. Clearing your calendar. Clearing your plate. Clearing your mind. Surrounding yourself with the right people and having a checklist of steps that you need to do to go from zero to deal close, and that we have all that in Land Academy for you. Number two, you need to prepare your family and friends. I’m not kidding.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is good, Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is good stuff.
Jill K DeWit:
Your wife, your spouse, your partner, whoever’s in world, they need to be on the same page. They need to be prepared to know that we’re not going to take a trip this month or maybe this year. This is all stuff that we’ve done.
Steven Jack Butala:
I love this stuff.
Jill K DeWit:
This is how I know this.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is our life.
Jill K DeWit:
This is our life. We’re not doing this this year. We’re not doing this this month. We’re not doing this this summer. Whatever it is, this weekend, daddy’s going to be… The family too. It’s your whole circle and your friends. Look, we’re not going dark on you because we don’t like you. We’re going dark on you because we’re working on something really important for our family.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, some of you are. We are.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, that’s true. You could use this for an excuse for that too. Anyone you don’t like, tell them this is why. No, but the truth is you need to prepare people and we’ve done that. I had a conversation with somebody about this on the phone just the last couple of days. I said, “Look, do you know what happened while we were doing Land Academy?” I was on a different level in our home at the time. You were downstairs doing the bulk of the writing and the recording and the editing for the original Land Academy. What was I doing? I was upstairs buying and selling land, putting food on the table, keeping food on the table.
You know what else my other job was? Because what he was doing was so important, mine I had down. His was new and important. There’s a big learning curve. I’m bringing him a sandwich now and then and making sure he had everything you need. I’d come down and check the thermostat. “Are you sweating? Can I get you water, tea? What do you want?”
Steven Jack Butala:
This is not gender-specific. I just cut up an apple for you because we’re recording during lunchtime.
Jill K DeWit:
Very true. Well, this is where this came up because there’s a member in Land Academy whose wife is really the rock star in their environment. I’m like, “She needs to hit because she’s the person that’s the best on the phones.” That’s the whole thing. Their whole company is dependent on her getting these deals done.
I just had to rip the Band-aid off and say, “She needs to do this.” How can we do this for her because she’s also the primary breadwinner right now. I said, “You need to meet her at the door and rub her feet and hand her a drink. And get her ready tomorrow morning to get up and call back some people and make these deals happen before she goes to her other job.”
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s great advice.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s the thing, so that’s preparing everybody. Then my number three is flip the switch and don’t look back. Now we can end the show.
Steven Jack Butala:
I have something inspirational to share. I would like you, if you’re a movie buff, to go watch the movie, Snack Shack. It is on Amazon. I don’t know, it might be in the theater too, but it’s new. It’s about two 14-year-old boys from the Midwest. I think they’re from Nebraska.
I’ve watched it twice now, and all I see is myself in both of those boys. It’s all in the spirit of these kids are born entrepreneurs and they have a snack shack during the summer. There’s a 1,000 things that happen to them, most of them they cause themselves because they’re 14, that almost ensure they’re not going to be successful and they smash it.
Jill K DeWit:
I love it. That’s a great movie. You made number three watch that. I saw that, it’s so good.
Steven Jack Butala:
Join us next Wednesday for another interesting episode, You’re Not Alone In Your Real Estate Ambition.
Jill K DeWit:
We are Jack and Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
We are Jack and Jill. Information-
Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration.
Steven Jack Butala:
…to buy undervalued property.
https://youtu.be/oyeL7ii6t8E
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Join Steven Jack Butala and Jill K DeWit on The Land Academy Show for episode number 2003, where they delve into Four Land Flipping Business Changes essential for thriving in the 2024 Economic Downturn. As experienced real estate professionals, Steven and Jill share invaluable insights and strategies to ensure your success amidst economic challenges. Don’t miss out on this essential guide to navigating the changing real estate landscape!
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
I am Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit.:
And I’m Jill DeWit, and this is The Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is episode number 2003. We are calling it Four Land Flipping Business Changes to Capitalize on the 2024 Economic Downturn.
Jill K DeWit.:
That’s a mouthful.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit.:
Can you say that five times fast?
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, here’s the gist. There’s economic downturn. We’re in it and it’s going to affect real estate. It’s already pretty dramatically affecting commercial real estate. And we want to make sure that when you, you’re buying and selling land, capitalize on this and you’re not victim to it. And that’s what the show is really about.
Jill K DeWit.:
We lost a lot of people… Not a lot of people. I shouldn’t say that. We watched some of our friends/competitors back in the day not recover. And that’s what I am watching already start to happen. I’m watching people leave. They’re not getting it. They’re not making adjustments. They’re not ready for it. And since you have done this a couple of times, I’ve done this more than one time with you or one time with you. So, this is really why you’re here. You’re listening to this because we’re not new to this. We’re not brand new. And yes, it’s really our real gray hair.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is my third real estate recession or real recession in my professional life, my fourth in my actual life. And I’ve learned a lot and I love to share it with you because you can avoid a lot of pain.
Jill K DeWit.:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
So, before we start, you have some news.
Jill K DeWit.:
I do. Well, so here’s the deal-
Steven Jack Butala:
And it’s fascinating to me.
Jill K DeWit.:
All right, so instead of doing a question today, I wanted to take a few minutes and talk about something different. So, I was reading our local little newspaper. And you’re going to love this as I hold this up. You’re like, “What? Jill, why are you holding a piece of paper in your hands? Do you get the paper?” No, I do not. But I have to tell you, I don’t order the paper. I don’t think it’s fufu. I like the paper, but I don’t get the newspaper. But because where we happen to live and because I think the median age in our area is about 80 or 90.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, I think 87.
Jill K DeWit.:
Yeah, 86. There is still a sweet little pretty in-depth local newspaper that we get for free every week in our mailbox. And I read the paper, because again, there’s some good information in there. So, I’m reading this article done by a local resident, and he is in houses, in real estate doing houses. And he got connected with a guy in England and he wrote a neat article with a top performer in England, an agent over there. And he was sharing the differences on how real estate is done in England versus the United States, and I just loved it. And this comes right at a perfect time because we all are all watching and hearing about the NAR and this big fine and, oh my gosh, are they going to take away sellers agents or buyer agents? Are they going to change the commissions? What’s going to happen and how’s this going to go? And I wanted to shed some light on this too because it’s so interesting to me how they do things versus how we do things. And I’m going to argue, I like theirs better.
Steven Jack Butala:
Me too.
Jill K DeWit.:
And let me tell you why. There’s 20 things, I’m not going to read all 20, but I’ll get close to 20 because they’re so interesting. So, number one, the commissions in England… Think about our commissions, 3% and 6%, right? That’s what we’re all used to. Hey, we do land deals.
Steven Jack Butala:
10%.
Jill K DeWit.:
Exactly. I was just going to say, sometimes it’s 10%. So, commissions there are typically 1% to 1.5%. I love it. And it’s payable by the seller to the estate agent who advertises the property. And by the way, the better the agent, of course the higher commission, generally speaking. I think that’s brilliant. I love it. The buyer is usually unrepresented, but there are a few special buying agents. Sometimes there are people who have buying agents, and it’s really only when they’re very rich and they need to find a certain property. Totally understand that. That makes sense. I can’t go out and see it myself. It’s optional if I want to get my own agent-
Steven Jack Butala:
Or I live in Monaco.
Jill K DeWit.:
Yeah, I do my own thing. This is one of the things I love too. Caveat emptor applies here. Sellers in England, unlike here, they’re under no obligation-
Steven Jack Butala:
By the way, we’ll get to this recession thing at some point.
Jill K DeWit.:
We will. To reveal defects in the property. How interesting that most of them are honest, like how we do it, I’m really honest. If I know it, I share it, but there’s no law against that. There’s no title companies, no title insurance. How amazing is that? There’s no MLS. That’s amazing too. That’s a lot of what these fees go for. What pays for MLS, the ads? Real estate fees?
Steven Jack Butala:
No, the National Association of Realtors Estate. It’s all-
Jill K DeWit.:
I had to think about that for a second.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s their association dues.
Jill K DeWit.:
They pay for all the MLS?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit.:
Okay. Yeah, parties can back out at anytime until they exchange the actual contracts, which are really usually done about a week before they close. I thought that was really interesting. Prices change… Both the buyer and the seller come to the table with their own attorneys to close a deal. Remember, because there’s no title agents and no escrow agents, they do it all. And each one has their own solicitor. They represent each person individually, and I love it. Of course, each solicitor has a fiduciary’s responsibility and duty to each individual client. I think that’s the greatest thing. It’s really interesting when you think about how we do deals here where you might have one agent who is representing the seller and then also representing a buyer. How can they have a duty to each one? They can’t. It’s really not possible.
So, this is a huge one for me. Estate agents in England have no required education and are not licensed. Anyone can wake up and decide they’re estate agent just by calling themselves one. I think that’s awesome. No formal contracts required. Often, these offers are made by phone calls. This is a huge one for us because we do deals so flipping fast. Deals over there typically take three to five months, and a lot of things fall apart because of that in that time. And they find out things and they get out of it. Like, yep, I get it. They have no fixed-rate mortgages for more than five years. Most of their mortgages are variable rates, which is really wild. So, they might have a fixed-rate for a short period of five years, that’s it. Remember, we have 30 year fixed? That’s not a thing over there. There’s no government guarantees on these loans and nothing like FHA, VA, Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Down payments are high, they usually pay 10% to 25%. So, that’s kind of it. But I just thought that was so-
Steven Jack Butala:
My take away from this whole thing is that you have a lot more choices as a buyer and a seller of real estate in England than you do here. And I have to ask myself in general in life, when are less choices better? We always want more choices and more freedom.
Jill K DeWit.:
Of course.
Steven Jack Butala:
This whole country was founded on that. For whatever reason, over the years, probably since the 1950s, the National Association of Realtors realized, correctly, that there’s a lot of money in real estate and they want a piece of it. And the contracts have grown to a point now where you’re interested in buying a piece of real estate and you start signing your names to things. The more signatures you sign, the more pieces of paper you sign, the further down that tunnel you go into making a commitment to buy it regardless of the outcome. And I can’t think of another business where that happens.
Jill K DeWit.:
Isn’t that awful? I changed my mind. What do you mean?
Steven Jack Butala:
[inaudible 00:08:18].
Jill K DeWit.:
It’s like I picked up something in the store and I put it back down, “Mm-mm. It’s yours.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, you touched it.
Jill K DeWit.:
Yeah. What the heck? I changed my mind.
Steven Jack Butala:
I can’t think of another business where that’s appropriate, and so-
Jill K DeWit.:
I agree.
Steven Jack Butala:
Now, what we’re seeing if you’re up on the news is some landmark rulings from the Supreme Court saying, “We’re going to undo this.”
Jill K DeWit.:
Yeah, you’re right.
Steven Jack Butala:
“We’re going to start down the path of undoing this because people need to be individually represented, buyers and sellers and real estate agents make too much money.”
Jill K DeWit.:
Well, it’s just not fair that I have to do all this stuff. I don’t want to. So, I could go on and on.
Steven Jack Butala:
So, the name of the show today is Four Land Flipping Business Changes To Capitalize on the 2024 Economic Downturn. We want to share with you today, Jill and I, our pretty in-depth experience being experts at buying and selling land for, geez, 30 years now, how we have dealt with and what I think you should do to deal with the economic downturn that’s actually here now and probably going to affect real estate more probably for the next three years.
Here’s the good news. Your business, this business model that Jill and I have put together over the last 10 years, really 30 years, is all set up to thrive in a downturn market anyway. Our regular business model during the good or bad times is buy a piece of property, a piece of land for 20% of its retail value, 20% to 25%, and sell it between 40% to 50% of its retail value. So, that’s the goal. You got $100,000 piece of property, the person just doesn’t want it anymore. You send a ton of offers out, you buy it for 20,000, 25,000 bucks, sell it for 50,000 to 60,000. And the person that buys it from you walks away shaking their head about how great of a deal it was. And so, it’s a garage sale model.You’re buying a piece of property or you’re buying a bunch of stuff that’s way undervalued, just out of convenience for the seller. And it happens very consistently. Jill and I do a ton of deals, and so do the Land Academy. Our Land Academy members do also. So, you’re set up for this. That’s the good news.
I can tell you this from experience that all recessions have one thing in common, they all end. And as a younger person, the second recession around 2009, I was convinced it was just over. And I hear younger people in our group and our children actually say, “Well, I guess we missed it. The market’s gone. The properties, they all rose in value and-”
Jill K DeWit.:
I can never afford to buy a house.
Steven Jack Butala:
“I couldn’t do it, so it’s over.” And that’s just not the case. This is all going to happen again. Interest rates are going to go back down. A lot of people will drop out of the market because of these recessions. These recessions are cleansing, so to speak.
Jill K DeWit.:
That’s good.
Steven Jack Butala:
And they’re cleansing for people that are set up to stick around and weather the storm. So, they will end. This will end. The key is what do you do while it’s happening to capitalize on it, which is what the show is about.
So, very quickly, here’s the four points on how to survive this thing and then Jill and I will go into detail on it. Number one, batten down the hatches to weather the storm. So, I’m going to tell you what’s going to happen here within reason or in general and what we do to change our life and our businesses, so that we can manage this, we can weather the storm, and ultimately, thrive during it. Number two, you need to change the type of land that you buy and what you’re willing to pay. We’ll cover that. Number three is the message you are delivering to potential buyers.
It’s not just about location and quality right now. You have to really seriously deliver a message that my loss is your gain, even though that’s not the case. And then number four, and perhaps the most important in my opinion is you need to have somebody in your corner, professionally or personally, like I have Jill-
Jill K DeWit.:
Very sweet.
Steven Jack Butala:
… that is standing shoulder-to-shoulder through this thing and you’re not banging heads with that person because it’s going to get tough. You’re on the bow of a boat during a storm. That’s no time to argue with the person that’s trying to hold on for life, just like you are.
Jill K DeWit.:
Tack.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, tack. Here’s what’s happening. Why is this recession happening? Why do recessions happen? Well, all kinds of stuff is going on. Inflation went nuts. If you haven’t been to the grocery store lately, inflation went nuts. Inflation in general in my opinion-
Jill K DeWit.:
Eggs.
Steven Jack Butala:
… happens because governments print a ton of money to hedge off inflation, and then it catches up. So, that’s what happened. The last two administrations printed a ton of money, and it made the value of the dollar less. And so, other stuff now increased in value because that purchasing power of that same dollar is less. That’s my summary of what happens, inflation. That happened. We’re in an election year and I don’t care which side you’re on.
Jill K DeWit.:
That’s always fun.
Steven Jack Butala:
Nobody likes it. Nobody likes to get all involved in that and the polarization of it and all. That’s not good for business, period.
Jill K DeWit.:
It’s not fun.
Steven Jack Butala:
Very specifically, and this is unique to this recession and imperative in my opinion, we had a long, long stretch of 3% mortgage rates, three-ish percent mortgage rates. Many people bought real estate and they bought it because of COVID. COVID just threw this incredible demand for real estate that was coupled with 3% mortgages, so people were buying second homes, buying land when they can finance it, moving because they didn’t have to go to work anymore. So, there’s a strange perfect storm of three or four things that happened. So-
Jill K DeWit.:
This is good.
Steven Jack Butala:
… a lot of lenders were leery of, and rightfully so, doing 15-year and 30-year fixed mortgages. So, instead, they did three and five-year adjustable-rate mortgages, which simply means your interest rate on your mortgage is three or five years. At the end of that period, it becomes a variable rate mortgage and then it will adjust to, she just alluded to this in England, adjust to the actual rate. So, you have a 3% mortgage for three years and now it’s 7% or 6% or whatever the terms of the agreement are. So, here’s the math on that. On a $300,000 mortgage, every month you’re paying at 3%, $750 of your payment goes to interest. When your mortgage moves from 3% to 6%, that $1,700 becomes $1,500. So, in the simplest terms, your payment might be $1,200 in the beginning because you’ve got insurance in there and real estate taxes, PMI, PITI. Principal interest, taxes, insurance. So, that $1,200 payment, that interest portion of that’s going to double, so $1,200 becomes $1,900.
That’s a lot to chew. So, you’re going along in life and you’re paying $1,200 one month because people don’t read their mortgages. They don’t know this stuff’s going to happen. Nobody gets a phone call and says, “Your mortgage is going up.” It happens that month. Your salary didn’t change, your life didn’t change at all. In fact, during these down times, you’re wondering if your job’s secure anyway. So, that’s enough to push a lot of people over to say, “You know what? I’m going to sell,” or, “We’re going to go move back into our parents’ house,” or whatever ends up happening. In those life events, which we preach at Land Academy, life events trigger people to choose to sell their real estate. And so, huge life events are going to happen for the next 24 to 36 months. This is one of the big ones. And so, that’s why this recession is happening. It’s causing people to choose to sell. Interest rates are real high, which are not making new buyers real excited about buying property. All of this turmoil spells thriving for us.
Jill K DeWit.:
We were also looking today, we did our weekly member call. We were looking at some statistics about how sellers, they are accepting less money probably on their home sales too, to account for these interest rates. That’s kind of a bummer too.
Steven Jack Butala:
Banks have been through this too. The last thing a bank wants to do, strangely enough, is take back a house for lack of payment.
Jill K DeWit.:
Yeah, I’m going to sell my house up-
Steven Jack Butala:
They’re not set up for it. They want to-
Jill K DeWit.:
Because you imagine they can’t qualify at this, so I rock it to this so they can qualify, and with their interest rates, now they can afford to live there. And that was the only way I could sell my house. You know that’s happening
Steven Jack Butala:
Now, we know why we’re here in general, why recessions in general happen. It’s four or five things that all happened at once. Plus, we just had, geez, 14 years of amazing thriving economy. It’s the longest that I’ve ever experienced and I don’t know what the stats are in that, but it’s huge. It’s usually not that long. To survive an economic change like this, cash management is the absolute whole key to winning. This is in your personal life and in your professional life.
And a little anecdote. I walked into a class during undergrad, this is a million years ago, a finance class, and on the board when they had chalkboards and when they had classes, on the board, this sentence was written, “Cash kills companies,” three words. I never forgot it. Obviously, I’m talking about it now. Cash kills everything. Lack of cash is a real huge problem. And then, lack of access to cash causes even bigger problems. So, you have to take a look at what your current cash position is. And that leads me to number one. You need to batten down the hatches to weather this storm. This is the first of four landflipping business changes to capitalize on this economic downturn. So, before we get into the real estate part of it, let’s talk about you and your life and your company.
Take a look at how much cash you have in the bank, and then take a look at what your equity position is in all of your assets. If you were like us and during this last recession, we had a lot of land. We had a lot of paid-for land that we paid for. We didn’t have any debt associated with it, and Jill and I were lucky enough to have a paid-for townhouse that we lived in. And it wasn’t our primary residence. The primary residence we had to end up short selling because of lack of cash flow, but we were lucky we had a place to live that was paid for and actually ended up being a lot of fun.
Jill K DeWit.:
Yeah, we still have it.
Steven Jack Butala:
I look back on those times-
Jill K DeWit.:
We love it.
Steven Jack Butala:
I look back on those times and I think those are some of the happiest times ever.
Jill K DeWit.:
I know. Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
So, take a look at how much cash you have and tighten your belt on, how much money, where you’re spending it. Not everybody is as fortunate to be in a situation where you can just move yourself around or move jobs and all of that. But look at your cash position and look at the equity you have in land or in any type of real estate that’s free and clear, so you can sell it for it maybe less than you paid if you have to. We’re in a world now where if you find a real estate deal, a good real estate deal, we have… In Land Academy, people just packed in the Land Academy that are ready to fund your deal. We didn’t have access to capital back then like that. We were forced to sell assets for not what we wanted to sell them.
Jill K DeWit.:
Well, it wasn’t even so much that… It wasn’t a hit. It was more like, “Hey, I bought it for 25. I thought I’d sell it for 80. Now I’m selling it for 60. Big deal. Maybe even 50.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Or 40.
Jill K DeWit.:
Or 40. What if it went really crazy? It was still fine. That’s how we roll. That’s the whole point. That’s how we roll.
Steven Jack Butala:
And finally, review your debt position. We were very fortunate. All the debt that we had, and it wasn’t a lot, it was directly tied to assets that we underpaid for. And then, in a couple of cases, we had to renegotiate with the lender to deal with that. On one specific was an office building that Jill had nothing to do with. I would’ve never done that deal if she was around, but we got out of it okay. And then, you need to review for a single point of failure. And I hate to say this, I don’t like to say this out loud, but a W-2 job is a single point of failure. And so recessions are when-
Jill K DeWit.:
That’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
… I learn the most about the stuff that I’m screwing up in a really good way, and it’s a hard lesson to learn. But you need to have multiple streams of income and you need to really manage your cash position and your equity and debt position. Hopefully, there’s no debt. The perfect scenario is you have a ton of assets, they generate a bunch of money, you have no debt at all, and you’re standing next to somebody like Jill who everybody’s patting themselves on the back saying, “Wow, we finally learned something from the last time.” If this is your first recession and you’re getting pounded, please don’t beat yourself up over it. Learn. It’s going to happen again 12 years from now. We’re going to come out of this. There’s a bunch of real estate you can buy, which we’re going to talk about in a second. Just learn from it. Don’t look in the mirror and call yourself an idiot because you’re not. There’s no class at any level of education called surviving a downturn that I’m aware of.
Jill K DeWit.:
There should be.
Steven Jack Butala:
There really should be.
Jill K DeWit.:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Batten the hatches down because you can weather this. That’s number one. Number two, I’m sorry, do you have anything to add?
Jill K DeWit.:
No, no. This is a Jack show, and I’m actually having fun over here. This is nice. Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s probably another newspaper you can read during this.
Jill K DeWit.:
Yeah. Maybe I will. I’m just drinking my juice. I got other things to do. I didn’t bring my nail polish, but I’ll do that next time. You’re good.
Steven Jack Butala:
So, number two, change the type of land you buy and what you’re willing to pay. And this is for number two and three, I want you to put yourself in the shoes of people who buy assets during a recession. What do you think the profile’s of somebody who’s scrounging around to buy undervalued stock, undervalued dirt?
Jill K DeWit.:
Pick me. Pick me. They’re loaded and they have a lot of cash.
Steven Jack Butala:
And they’re not smart. They have the perception, not the reality, the perception that there are amazing bargains to be had during a recession.
Jill K DeWit.:
Sometimes there are.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, but they’re not on the MLS in general. So, you need to change the type of land that you buy and what you’re willing to pay based on who you’re going to sell it to. So, we love rural vacant land here. We love out-of-the-way properties that are really, really, really cheap that we can buy 50 acres, 40 acres for 20,000, 30,000, 40,000 bucks and sell for 80,000. I don’t want you to focus on those types of properties right now. They’re not easily resellable during a recession. What I want you to focus on are properties that are urban and really valuable properties that are maybe commercial properties that maybe are zoned agricultural right now, but during the next uptick, might be a developer’s dream.
And look at what that buyer’s perception is of the dirt that you have. I’m not saying stop your rural vacant land effort. If you want to buy those and you just love it and that’s your specialization, that’s great. It’s one of our specializations. You just got to buy them way cheaper than 20% of retail. If you’re deep into the Land Academy scenario, you’re staring at 10 properties that are rural vacant land and you were ready to buy them, just call the seller back and say, “It needs to be cheaper.” We do that all the time.
Jill K DeWit.:
There’s nothing wrong with that. Things changed. I thought I could pull it off, but I can’t. This is what I can pay now. If it works, great. If it doesn’t, I understand. It works for me so often.
Steven Jack Butala:
How many times you gone to a, I don’t know, garage sale or looked on Facebook Marketplace, and you’ve seen a posting of something that… You have this thought and then you execute on it. “I will never be able to buy,” fill in the blank, “like this ever again. This is an amazing opportunity. It’s probably 20% or 30% or 40% of what I would actually pay during a regular time, and I’ve always wanted it.” That’s what you want someone to say about your real estate listing. It needs to be-
Jill K DeWit.:
That’s good.
Steven Jack Butala:
… “Holy heck, I got to buy this right now.” So, whatever type of land that translates to where you’re buying and selling land, adjust what you’re willing to pay. So, that the outcome is when you go to sell it, that person’s thinking that. By the way, this applies to a classic car, a boat, all kinds of stuff like the nuttos that have a bunch of money that have always wanted a yacht.
Jill K DeWit.:
Oh, am I a nutto? You’re pointing to me like I’m one of the nuttos.
Steven Jack Butala:
No, you described what kind of person buys this stuff. It’s a nutto that wanted to buy a yacht and can buy it now for half the price.
Jill K DeWit.:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
Number three, change the message you’re delivering to potential buyers. And I alluded to this in the previous one. My loss is your gain. Jill and I have had a lot of success having that be the title of a land posting. My loss is your gain 40 acres for $60,000. Two years ago, this would’ve been 320 grand. Huge success rate on things like that in working with the real estate agents that list our stuff. My loss is your gain. We are in liquidation mode. Now, is the time to sell on price. Every financial class I’ve ever had about building a business or an entrepreneurial classes, people who sell on price get in a price war scenario, like grocery stores do, never win. And that’s true, except in a recession like this where price just matters so much, both on the buy side and the sell side, and be loud about it. Now’s not the time to be coy. You need to jump up and down in your real estate listing or wherever you’re selling property and say, “Here’s the message. I’m going to lose money on this,” and you’re not. You just bought it cheaper.
Jill K DeWit.:
Which is what we do, but now we’re even doing it even better. That’s normally what we do. Like look, we talk about this… I’m not here to reset the market now. I’m really not here to reset the market. You want your buyers to be jumping up and down for this great deal, and that’s what you’re going to tell them. It’s our same narrative, but we’re just more vocal about it right now is the big thing. We all know this is worth way more than I’m selling it for.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill and I used to teach a college-level entrepreneurial class. And one of the things that I taught specifically is nothing lasts forever. There’s ups and downs in everything. And this can be an up or down for you depending on how you deal with it and how you’re managing everything. When things go sideways, they always do, in every relationship and every financial scenario that you’re involved in, stuff always goes sideways. And the first thing that you need to do is get back to grassroots. Whatever your business is about, buy a piece of property for cheap, sell it for more. That is our most grassroots scenario. “Oh, that’s great, Jack. How do you do that?” So Jill and I have spent 10 years explaining that.
One of the things that has to happen or will happen and is happening in an environment like this is it’s hard to sell land. Your buyer pool is a lot smaller. You got to go out there and get your customers just like the old days.
Jill K DeWit.:
This is good.
Steven Jack Butala:
And extreme examples of that are, jeez, it doesn’t happen anymore. But when we were kids, you could get a summer job selling encyclopedias by knocking on people’s doors. That whole cliche about going down a block and knocking on people’s doors because the wife is at home and the husband’s at work. We’re not that young. And selling vacuum cleaners, you could do well if you could sell. I’m not saying do that, and I can’t stand that kind of sales and I don’t condone that then or and I don’t condone it now. But the people who are going to buy your real estate, especially if it’s priced correctly, already own real estate in the immediate area. And they need to be directly contacted by you. Maybe you text them. We really advocate sending neighbor letters. Every time you buy a piece of property, send a letter that says, “My loss is your gain.”
Jill K DeWit.:
If you’re like me, you have a good agent who knows this stuff and is doing it. One of the things that’s happening now too, we talk about this a lot within our Land Academy community, is that we’re already seeing agents leave. And I feel bad for them, but I’ll tell you what happens. The good ones survive. The good agents are still out there and they’re doing okay, and they are hustling. I’ve got some great ones that are really hustling. That’s what it takes.
Steven Jack Butala:
So, change the message that you’re delivering to potential buyers, that’s number three, and I think we covered that pretty well. And change how you’re looking at getting buyers. Try a little harder is what I’m saying. Have that grassroots thought. How did I sell the first 20 properties that I sold… What’s a real basic business model here? It’s buy for this, sell for that. Who’s going to buy my property? If you look back at who buys your real estate, I bet you a dollar, a lot of it your dirt got sold to people in the immediate area.
Number four, and this is, I would love your input on this, Jill, because it’s important. Have somebody in your corner. You don’t want to go through this alone. You don’t want to go through happy times alone or bad times alone if you’re most people. But like I said earlier, you’re weathering a storm here. If you’re on the bow of the boat hanging on for life, you don’t want to do that alone. You want to do it with somebody. And you don’t need somebody in your life that’s criticizing you every step of the way you go.
Jill K DeWit.:
This is something we talk about too. I talk to people when they’re coming into Land Academy. It doesn’t mean you have to have a partner like we do and be all in it like each other. I would not recommend that, actually. But one of the things that I say when I talk to people and they wanted to come down, I’m like, “What does your significant other think about this? Because you’re about to start a new business. You’re about to spend all day on the computer. You’re about to go into the cave of your office doing data all day. If they’re not on board, this isn’t going to work. You need someone who understands it, gets it. They’re supportive of you. They’re going to take care of the kids today and they’re going to bring you a sandwich when you need to because they know what you’re doing is hard work, and you’re really trying to make it better for your family.” So, that’s when I think of being on the same page.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m paraphrasing, but Jill and I joined forces during the tail end, or let’s say the middle of the last recession. And you don’t know what the middle of a recession is. You don’t know when that’s going to end.
Jill K DeWit.:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
But she got frustrated with how I was selling. And she said, and I’m paraphrasing, “Just give me the phone.”
Jill K DeWit.:
Yep. No, I pretty much said that. “Stop it.”
Steven Jack Butala:
“Give me the phone.” And so, she went out there. She just got tough. I’m tough about a lot of other stuff, data and all kinds of things. But when it comes to just saying, “We’re selling these properties this week,” and then Jill gets it done. You need somebody in your life like that. You don’t need somebody saying, “I told you this land thing wouldn’t work.” You just don’t need that.
Jill K DeWit.:
Exactly. It made me think of the support. We were joking on our member call today, and I can’t remember, I think it was Jennifer, I don’t remember who said it, but something about, “I just lost a whole Sunday.” She was lovingly joking about losing a whole Sunday testing her mailer for a reason before it goes out. We’re like, “That’s a good way to spend a Sunday.” And she said, “You’re right.” And you made a funny-
Steven Jack Butala:
I said, “In the lists of extremely wealthy people, there’s a lot of lost Sundays.” Until you get wealthy and you pull up in a nice sports car and everybody’s like, “That guy’s really, really lucky. I wish I was that lucky.”
Jill K DeWit.:
Nope.
Steven Jack Butala:
How many Sundays of luck does it take?
Jill K DeWit.:
Correct. I love that. Oh, my gosh. Even looking at Land Academy, oh man. When we think back, because here we’re in episode 2004, I think, thinking about how many days and nights we were up early at our computers, at our desks, creating content, doing our own this, doing our own, that. This is broke, we had to fix it. Here we are.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill and I have been shoulder-to-shoulder for 15 years and whatever comes, it comes.
Jill K DeWit.:
Thanks.
Steven Jack Butala:
We don’t blame each other. I’m not saying it’s peaches and cream because it’s hot. And in fact, I would say never work with your spouse, ever. But she doesn’t blame me for stuff and I don’t blame her. So, the infrastructure should be there or everything’s a lot harder. Most of you know exactly what we’re talking about here. It’s got to be a team effort.
Jill K DeWit.:
Such good advice. Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Four things.
Jill K DeWit.:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Take in what your cash position is. Cash management is absolutely key to surviving this and thriving it. The same is true with cash where if you go ahead and find it… If you’re short on cash now, continue to find great real estate deals. Send out mail, do what you’re doing and get into our Land Academy Discord and find yourself a great land funder.
Jill K DeWit.:
Go to landfunding.com.
Steven Jack Butala:
Or landfunding.com too. Put the deal in there.
Jill K DeWit.:
Hey, go to landacademy.com, by the way. Check it out.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’re all looking… We’re included. We’re at the top of the list. I know it’s going to happen here and we have money allocated for all of this.
Jill K DeWit.:
I’m ready. I hate to say it, I don’t want to look. We’re as ready as we can be, how’s that? I never want to assume, but we’ve been through enough. You’ve been through enough, and you are smart enough to make sure we are in a great position. I know it. This is not our first one. And I know there’s a lot of in Land Academy because of this reason, because we’ve weathered the storm. We’ve done more than 100 deals. I’m more than a year into this, fill in the blank. Even though some other people have done really well, but we really have. And if you can put your head down, give up a Sunday, do all these things we talked about, put yourself in that position and stay focused, stay on track, and try not to get discouraged by little things, because they’re going to happen, just stay the course, you will pop up for air and be right there with us. And sadly, there’ll probably be a lot less people, but we’ll all still be here.
Steven Jack Butala:
Join us next Wednesday for another interesting episode. You are not alone in your real estate ambition. We are Jack and Jill.
Jill K DeWit.:
We are Jack and Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
Information.
Jill K DeWit.:
And inspiration.
Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
Jill K DeWit.:
That was great. Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Good. Good.
https://youtu.be/y3ueZYWweuA
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
In this episode of the Land Academy Show, hosts Jill DeWit and Steven Jack Butala dive into the topic of pricing land-flipping mailers with their five pro tips. With over 30 years of combined experience in the industry, Jill and Steven share invaluable insights gained from their own successes and failures. They emphasize the importance of sending legitimate blind offers with specific pricing, highlighting how this approach leads to more meaningful conversations with sellers. By sharing real-life examples and anecdotes from their own experiences, Jill and Steven offer practical advice for land investors looking to optimize their pricing strategy and maximize deal success. Tune in to learn from the experts and take your land-flipping game to the next level!
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit and this is the Land Academy Show. Today’s episode number 2,002. Isn’t that crazy?
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s nuts.
Jill K DeWit:
I know.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today, we’re going to talk about the five pro tips that Jill and I have lived by for pricing your land-flipping mailer. This is a real hot topic on the Internet and in our-
Jill K DeWit:
In our group.
Steven Jack Butala:
… Land Academy Discord channel among our group, exactly. It’s real interesting because we have some new people right now that … pricing’s just always a hot topic and we’re getting a lot of orders at Offers 2 Owners, I’m hearing, from our guys, the mailing company that Jill and I own, and there’s a pretty wide variance between how offers are getting priced by people who are within Land Academy and people who are not. My guys are ending up having to have a pretty detailed conversation about how pricing should go, so I figured we’ll just lop it into the podcast.
Jill K DeWit:
I love it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Each week on the show, we answer a question from our Land Academy member Discord forum and take a deep dive into a land-related topic by popular request from our Land Academy community. Let’s take a question, Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
Sid wrote, “Blind offers work! I just had a great conversation with a seller because, one,” this is interesting, “I was the fifth offer in six months, but all were neutral letters with no price.”
Steven Jack Butala:
That tells me … I’m going to take these as I go here. It tells me that he’s getting a lot of offers, or his seller now has gotten a lot of offers from people who are not in our Land Academy group. There’s other groups out there who are, I think, incorrectly instructing people on how to buy land.
Jill K DeWit:
Then, what they went on to say is any phone calls she made were not returned and, since I was the only blind offer of X price, she decided to call.” Isn’t that great? Then, number two, “She was amazed that I answered the phone and was the same guy that sent the letter. After I explained who we are, our procedures, et cetera, we agreed to a price. Still need boots on the ground to confirm, but should be another one in title by the end of the week.” The moral is keep mailing legitimate blind offers and answer the phone. That’s so true.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill and I, we say this stuff … what, we’ve been doing this now 10 years, right? Almost 10 years.
Jill K DeWit:
Nine years of Land Academy, shoot, 15 years of deals together and then you have 10 or 15 before me.
Steven Jack Butala:
This experience is one that we experience in our land office every week but, when your father says something or when your spouse says something, you’re like, “Eh, whatever. He’s just talking again.”
Jill K DeWit:
What?
Steven Jack Butala:
But if somebody else says it, like Sid, one of our members, you start to listen.
Jill K DeWit:
Can we just explain it real quick for a minute?
Steven Jack Butala:
Sure.
Jill K DeWit:
For people … just to make sure everyone knows what we’re talking about. When we’re sending … what we’re doing, Land Academy … everything that we’re doing here, land flipping, in case you’re new and you’re just catching up here, we create deals. We are acquisition machines and we know how to create a deal. How do we do that? We are reaching out to the seller before it’s on the MLS, before anything, when it’s just a little thought in the back of their mind, they’re getting an offer in the mail from us to buy their property.
Are they getting a pretend yellow letter like, “Hey, call me.”? Nope, “I want to buy your house.” They’re not getting that. That’s a neutral letter. Are they getting a, “Oh, I love your property. I’d love to buy it between 4,000 and 14,000.” I’m not doing that. It doesn’t make any sense. They’re getting a real specific, and we’re going to talk more about that today, well thought out, planned … the area was planned, the APN scheme was planned, the pricing was planned, exactly who we’re hitting was planned. The right people are getting these offers for a dollar amount and they’re picking up the phone and they’re calling back saying, “Okay, I just got your offer. You want to buy my property for $8,995.61. I had no idea it was worth that much,” or, “How did you get that number?” or “Hey, how can we do this now? I forgot about it. I didn’t even know so-and-so had it,” kind of thing. That’s what it is. I just want to just remind everyone, too what … well, I have time. I can slow this down.
Steven Jack Butala:
Sure.
Jill K DeWit:
Here’s how this is important, too. Again, like I mentioned before, Jack’s been doing this for going on 30 years now. It’s not by accident. We’ve tested, tried and done all kinds of things over the years. We’re here to save you and that’s what Land Academy’s about. All that happens if you send a neutral letter, “Hey, I want to buy your house, call me,” or, “Hey, I want to buy your land, call me,” especially those of us … you own your house, you get these letters. You’re going to get a million calls from the wrong people. They’re going to want to talk to you and everybody has a number in their head. I call it their make me move number. That’s the last thing you want is to spend weeks of your time talking to people that you have no interest in buying their land at whatever price they dreamt up because they just think it should be worth four times what they paid for it a year ago or something. That’s not real kind of thing.
The second thing is I see people or I still hear people talking about doing a range. Well, here’s what happens when you send a person a letter with a range on it. You see the lower number. “I want to buy your property. I want to buy your land somewhere between $4,000 and $10,000,” let’s just say, “an acre.” Well, first of all, they’re not going to do the math. They can’t do the math and, if they do do the math, all they’re going to do is take the higher number. “Well, I see 10,000 an acre and I got three acres, so we’re talking 30,000.” What you really see is the bottom number, “3,000 times nine or 4,000 times nine, that’s 12 grand. That’s what I’m going to spend.” Huge gap between 12,000 and 30,000. What you’re probably trying to do is buy for 12 and sell for 30. That makes sense.
We got that out of the way. The main thing is here, as Sid just pointed out, there’s a whole other layer of why this is good and important. These people are sending neutral letters, no price. This person’s like, “Yeah, whatever. You’re wasting my time. I’m not going to call you. You’re not even giving me me any information about it, what you’re thinking.” Then, she picks up the phone, calls and gosh, Sid answers the phone, he’s a real person, this is his own company and he’s ready to go. He has his checkbook out. That’s how we do deals and that’s what we’re going to help you do.
Steven Jack Butala:
We have a 10-step process to buy a piece of real estate and resell it as fast as possible without altering the asset in any way. I didn’t pull that out of a hat, it’s because of 30 years of experience of making mistakes.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, let’s just call it refining the process, but part of that’s making mistakes and failing. Whoever’s sending out these offers that are neutral have clearly … it’s 1998 for them. I tried sending out neutral letters without an acceptable response and that’s the truth of it. That’s great. It’s great when a successful member like Sid sends us in and really tells the truth, tells a personal experience. This happens to us all the time. People call us back and say, “I couldn’t get anybody to call me back.”
Jill K DeWit:
You’re right.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today, we’re going to talk about pricing and within that, we’re going to talk about answering your phone.
Jill K DeWit:
I love it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s topic, Five Pro Tips for Pricing Your Land-Flipping Mailer. I’m not going to reel down the five, but I will tell you number one is this and Jill, I would love your comment on this: it will never be perfect. Pricing and your analysis of pricing is not going to … it’ll never … you won’t reach a point where you say, “That’s it. I’m wiping my hands. It’s where I wanted to be.”
Believe it or not, I took an art class in college, which was far from my favorite class, but one of the things that I took away from that forever obviously is a true artist is never done, they only just run out of time. Throughout the years, I’ve heard a lot of people say in a lot of different businesses, “I’m not done with this, but I hit my deadline and I’m turning it in.” Well, that’s never been more true in my current life than doing a mailer. Even to this day, I don’t sit and say, “I’m done with this mailer. Now, it works for me and I think we’re going to get the most yield. This is going to be the best-performing mailer we’ve ever had.” It just doesn’t happen that way.
Jill K DeWit:
Doesn’t every sporting event say, “Well, no, we didn’t win, we just ran out of time.”? That’s the same thing.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s just like that. I saw an interview with Sting, the creator and the former lead singer of Police. He said he was working on one of his non-Police records after his Police career as an independent artist. He said, “It’s been a year and a half and I’m staring at the same 12 songs, so I had to give myself a deadline.” Then, he turned it in the record sucked, but that’s not the point.
Jill K DeWit:
Don’t share which one it was.
Steven Jack Butala:
I saw an interview with George Lucas, the creator of … this is a lot of years ago, the creator of Star Wars and Electric Light and Magic. He said, “We’re never done, we just have to turn this stuff into whoever ordered it. We’re never done with making this clip perfect in animation or anything.” I think he created that animation company, too, Pixar. It’s never going to be done. It’s truly … and when it is done, I usually crack a beer and it’s just like, “Oh, it’s going out in the mail. Let’s see what happens.”
Jill K DeWit:
This is good.
Steven Jack Butala:
Number two, huge mail volume. If you’re new at this-
Jill K DeWit:
This is good.
Steven Jack Butala:
… this is the first time you’ve ever listened to a land-related or real estate-related podcast, these are golden tips here. Huge mail volume is required for your success. We call it internally reckless mailing, after a guy that joined Career Path, which is a class that Jill and I take, a mastermind class that Jill and I teach once or twice a year. This is several Career Paths ago. He said, “I just … ” because he had a very profitable operation, he was making actually more money-
Jill K DeWit:
A couple million.
Steven Jack Butala:
… than us. It was six, actually, a year. All of us in the whole group, including Jill and I, were like, “All right, hold on. Maybe my process is not perfected yet,” which is true. I’m always trying to improve it. “What’s your secret?” He said, “Reckless mailing. Sometimes, I’ll send out 19,000 letters and not get a deal, then I’ll send out a 1,200-unit mailer and I’ll get six deals out of it,” which is exactly what happens to Jill and what has happened to us in my entire career. Huge mail volume is required. Relentless mailing. I’m oversimplifying because this is the podcast. I’m not saying send out neutral letters, just skip over pricing or don’t go through the steps in Land Academy, I’m not saying that at all, I’m just saying do all that stuff and do it correctly but, if you send out a lot of mail, you’re going to get a bunch of deals.
Jill K DeWit:
Totally.
Steven Jack Butala:
It might not be in the order you want. I’m re-hearing now people saying rumblings of, “I’m going to test this. I sent out 200 mailers. I just want to see what’s going to happen.”
Jill K DeWit:
Let’s just explain, too, 1,000 units is not huge mail. Some people might be confused on that. That’s not enough. Make it count. Do five. I say, “What’s your minimum?”
Steven Jack Butala:
Five is my rock bottom minimum, 5,000.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s what I think, 5,000.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’d rather see-
Jill K DeWit:
How many areas-
Steven Jack Butala:
… 25,000.
Jill K DeWit:
… Let’s help people listening. In a perfect world, I’m starting out, I’m doing 5,000 units a month, that’s what I budgeted and that’s what I think I can handle volume-wise. I split it into two different … I do it the first of the month and the middle of the month, 2,500 and 2,500 [inaudible 00:13:14] … and that’s my schedule I’ve planned out for myself. Now, in those 5,000 units, how many areas should I be hitting?
Steven Jack Butala:
If you’re new, three.
Jill K DeWit:
[inaudible 00:13:24]
Steven Jack Butala:
Three to five, but three.
Jill K DeWit:
Three’s good.
Steven Jack Butala:
But still bear in mind, though, that now, you’re sending out a small mailer in three separate places. There’s no replacement for fire for effect. Tens of thousands of units in the mail will make you wealthy, if it’s done correctly, I’m telling you.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you skip a big … like I said earlier, there’s a ten-step process to … I like to think about it as you’ve got some cash, you do all this stuff, you get your offers in the mail, you spend that cash on a piece of real estate, or you use our money or somebody’s money in our group deal funding. 30 days later, you get cash back, only more. If you send out tens of thousands of offers, you are dramatically increasing your chance of having that happen. All kinds of things can happen in between, good and bad. If you’re just doing a lot of deals, sending out a lot of mail, the chances of some really good things happening are just … it’s not quite exponential but they really dramatically increase. From experience, I can tell you.
Jill K DeWit:
Totally.
Steven Jack Butala:
Which leads everybody to this question: “Well, okay, Jack, what’s the yield? If I send out 7,000, am I going to get a deal where I make $30,000, $50,000, $80,000?” I don’t know. Maybe.
Jill K DeWit:
I was serious.
Steven Jack Butala:
“Well then, is it 10,000?” Maybe. It might be-
Jill K DeWit:
Make it count.
Steven Jack Butala:
… 200.
Jill K DeWit:
You know what I always say? Make it count. You know what it is? Here’s what I think. I’ve been talking about this too, a lot. I’ve been doing a lot of calls recently helping new people coming in and answering questions about this. I’m like, “Look, let’s just assume you do it all wrong. Assume the worst is going to happen. Assume you’re going to send 10,000 out and you’re only going to get one deal.” I will get more than that the way we do, I know, but let’s just say it took you 10,000 to get one. “Wow, that’s a lot. It cost me $7,500 a mail. Hoo.” Okay, follow me on this one here. Let’s just say, though, the one thing you did right was you made sure that you were only going to buy property where it’s a buy for 30,000 to try to sell for like 80,000 or 90,000. Buy for 30, sell for 80, 90, right? I got one deal out of it. I screw it all up and I only sell it for $72,000 or whatever it is. Hold [inaudible 00:15:50] … I buy it for 30, I sold for 72.
Steven Jack Butala:
Or 60.
Jill K DeWit:
Right? Do I care that I spent $7,500 on it? Not really. I did it all wrong, by the way. I screwed up. So what? Look how much money you made, look how much you learned and by the way, there’s probably going to be some more juice coming from that mailer once you get rolling, too. It’s not just the first wave. When you see how many people call you back after your expiration date or the day before your expiration date or, heck, like we’ve had, 10 years after your expiration date, you can’t go back and redo your yield, you just forget about it. If you did nothing but made sure that, “Well, I’m going to make sure if I get one deal, it’s going to pay for everything,” then you’re okay and you move on.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yield … I calculate our yield in the most basic sense at the end of the year and honestly, it’s not even then, because we still get offers. We’ve been sending mail forever, millions, millions and millions of offers. We get calls all over the place. Mailer yield is … apply that concept to any other business that you could buy or start.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s the best.
Steven Jack Butala:
Apply it from an ROI standpoint.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
I like to use a convenience store. You open a convenience store or you buy a convenience store that’s breaking even. If you’re opening it, you’re not breaking even for quite some time. What’s your yield on that? What’s your ROI? It doesn’t compare to this. People ask about yield and volume requirements for one reason, one reason only in my 10 years of instructing with Jill: they don’t have enough money to get into this business.
Jill K DeWit:
You should save up and wait, then.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yep.
Jill K DeWit:
There’s nothing wrong with that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Or get a money partner.
Jill K DeWit:
Or that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Because done correctly … I’m 30 years into this and Jill and I are … Land Academy is 10 years old this year.
Jill K DeWit:
Nine. Close enough, sorry.
Steven Jack Butala:
Thanks for correcting me, Jill. Thank you.
Jill K DeWit:
Sorry.
Steven Jack Butala:
I appreciate getting corrected, especially when the camera’s on.
Jill K DeWit:
Sorry. [inaudible 00:17:55]
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill and I started Land Academy in 2014. It was launched in 2015.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s where I go by, sorry.
Steven Jack Butala:
You decide how old it is, listener.
Jill K DeWit:
Sorry about that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Number three … I forgot what I was going to say. Number three, all of this pricing and implementing a mailer in general won’t be effective if the person who’s answering the phone doesn’t follow through. That’s as nice as I can say that, which is why I chose Sid’s question earlier. Let me give you an example. If you’re a chef, a trained chef, and you, right out of a movie, go to real early morning, you get up and you go to a market, it’s all farmer ingredients and it’s the greatest stuff ever, you bring it back, it’s now 6:00 in the morning, you create a menu for that day and it’s a fantastic, fabulous world-class menu, but you don’t put those ingredients together and you use a ton of salt, oversalt everything so it just tastes like salt, that was all wasted. Going to the market, getting those perfect ingredients and spending time on the perfect lettuce or whatever it ends up being, I’m not a food person. Jill is. Actually, you probably have a lot to say about this.
Jill K DeWit:
No, I have nothing to say anymore.
Steven Jack Butala:
Feel correct … feel-
Jill K DeWit:
No, no, no. Actually, I was looking at the timing. Do I tell my team to edit that? I won’t do that, but no, I’m just going to sit on my hands over here.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think this should be called the Correct Jack episode.
Jill K DeWit:
No, I’m just sitting on my hands. I like food if you say I like food.
Steven Jack Butala:
Wow, I might utilize this. This never happens.
Jill K DeWit:
There we go.
Steven Jack Butala:
Look, if you got the greatest ingredients in anything … it goes for manufacturing, too. You can buy the greatest high-grade whatever you’re manufacturing, put it all together and, if you put it together wrong, the best ingredients in the world aren’t going to matter. It’s the same thing with a mailer and the same thing with this business. You do the perfect mailer, which doesn’t exist, but you do an amazing mailer, you do everything you’re supposed to do, you run the red/green/yellow test, you find a great place to send mail, you diversify it, three to five locations, zip codes and counties, and your price the mailer really well, get a second set of eyes on it, because that’s what your peer group here Land Academy is for, you get it out in the mail and you don’t return the calls, you’re not going to do a deal.
I know this is about pricing, but I can’t talk about this without saying you need somebody like Jill, hopefully, it’s you, or you need a business partner like Jill that’s going to take that raw data that you spent so much time putting together in pricing and turn that into a real estate deal. That’s the real magic here.
Jill K DeWit:
In a perfect world, they’re answering the phone right then. That’s my thing. You need a live body on the end of the minute the first [inaudible 00:20:48] … they ring, they call in.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is me kissing and making up now.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, okay. Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s how you have a marital argument on a podcast, by the way,
Jill K DeWit:
There you go.
Steven Jack Butala:
Should be about 60 seconds.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
We talk about all of this in Land Academy. You talk about it on our Thursday member webinar for our members. Please make sure that you’re not just doing a great mailer and it’s going out into the universe and never coming back.
Jill K DeWit:
And no one’s there to receive them.
Steven Jack Butala:
Sid just said it. Whoever those people are, I’ll tell you what happened with Sid’s mailer. Not with Sid’s mailer, the question before this, and all those five or eight people that called or sent mail out: what happened is they sent a mailer out according to some other group on the Internet’s instruction and it was a neutral mailer, so it said, “Hey, I’m interested in buying your land, give me a call back,” and they did. The first wave of mail hit and everybody’s interested in selling their land, trust me. All pieces of land are for sale, with very few exceptions.
Jill K DeWit:
Pretty much everything’s for sale. Come on. I always look at this. I don’t care if it’s your childhood home and you just inherited and remodeled it, you probably have a make me move number. It might be a big number, but we all have a number, like, “You know what? If somebody paid me this, I’d move and start over.”
Steven Jack Butala:
They got excited, the person who did the neutral mailer got real excited. He’s got 10 messages waiting from their answering service or however it is and then message by message and call by call, that person got discouraged. “Oh, really, Mr. Smith? You want to sell your land? Well, tell me a little bit about it,” an hour goes by, and, “What’s your price?” “Oh, I’d love to sell that for $13.2 million,” when you think it’s worth about 13 grand. That’s an hour and a half wasted. Next call. The same thing happens. “Oh, no, you know what? I’m going to actually do what my instructor said. I’m going to make the call smaller and get to the price earlier in the conversation.” What ends up … you just end up being disappointed earlier in the call. Correct me if I’m wrong on any of this.
Jill K DeWit:
No, you’re good. Oh, again, I’m not correcting you today. You know what? This is your get out of jail free card today. You should. Save it up, by the way. You should just drop little nuggets in throughout the show about, “You know what? I’m not liking your hair color lately,” and I’ll say, “Okay.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Literally. This is a strange self-manifestation here. I really just looked at this Far Side comic on Facebook because I was looking for some stuff and it was two married people staring into the camera just like you’re looking at right now. He turns to you and says, “I’ve spent 19 years with you listening to you correct me and have comments about everything that I say,” and she said, “20 years.”
Jill K DeWit:
That’s cute. That’s good. I like that. Good.
Steven Jack Butala:
Silence.
Jill K DeWit:
Number one … Can I recap?
Steven Jack Butala:
Sure.
Jill K DeWit:
Number one, it’s not going to be perfect. You have to cut yourself off. You have to just get it out there and know you’re going to adjust it. Two, volume. That’s one of the things we talk about often within our community is what solves all these problems? More mail. Then, three, perfect pricing is all wasted if you don’t have somebody answering your phone and the right person answering the phone.
Steven Jack Butala:
Number four is get professional help. It’s something that comes up in our personal lives that Jill says to me all the time, “You need professional help.”
Jill K DeWit:
Thanks.
Steven Jack Butala:
Sometimes, she’s right. Sometimes, she’s wrong.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s not about that. You’re saving that one up.
Steven Jack Butala:
All kidding aside … Well, it’s appropriate now.
Jill K DeWit:
Thanks.
Steven Jack Butala:
All kidding aside, that’s why you joined Land Academy, so you have a bunch of peers that are going to say, “Yeah, I’m not sure that this is the best way … I don’t think you priced this right,” or justify why you’re sending a mailer to central Vermont, let’s say. “Show me the numbers, show me the data and how you got to this point,” because there’s no guessing here. That 10-point plan that I was telling you about addresses all these issues. We don’t guess. The data tells us where to send land and the data tells us how much to send it out for, how to price it. We don’t guess. Almost all cases, you should be able to back up and justify if another set of eyes … Jill and I do this to each other all the time in a really healthy way. “Will you please take a look at this before I send it out?” Always another set of eyes in a big … and it might be that you chose the wrong place to send out mail, to which I would say, “All right, the next time you do this, ask for help earlier.”
Jill K DeWit:
Remember I was just saying about … We had a super cool couple. They finished Career Path and they joined Land Academy Pro. They were going off on a tangent and they were struggling, so they had a private consulting session, which we do. They were at the level of Pro where that’s included. They had a private consulting session where the outcome was, “Let’s look at how you’re picking the areas.” They pivoted and picked a different area and now all of a sudden, floodgates. That’s all it took. Sometimes, it’s that kind of professional help, too. It’s not just, “My pricing is off,” It might be, “I’m having trouble figuring out how to troll, how to pick these areas,” just that part. “I got the pricing down, but I’m not picking the really best areas yet.” All of that, we can help you with no matter what.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yep. Number five, none of this is going to happen unless you have a delivery schedule, unless you break out the components of doing this mailer. You can send your mailer out through Offers 2 Owners, which I highly recommend if you’re brand-new or if you’re at our level. It seems to be those two types of people where [inaudible 00:26:35] … that just don’t want to do it. I don’t want to do a mailer anymore. All the heavy lifting. I price every single one of our mailers personally, but I picked the area, I test it, test it, test it, triple, quadruple test it to make sure it works for us, then I send it to Offers 2 Owners through this product we have called Concierge Data, they do it, they do the mailer and they send it back to me for pricing. That’s exactly what I would recommend. None of that, and I mean none of that, would get done or does not get done, in my case, unless it’s in a calendar, each one of those steps.
Jill K DeWit:
Totally.
Steven Jack Butala:
You just have to stay on track with the delivery schedule. I’ve never known anybody who’s really accomplished [inaudible 00:27:16] … I’ve never talked to anybody who sat around and said, “I’ve accomplished just about everything I wanted to in my life, but I just got up and did whatever I wanted.”
Jill K DeWit:
Will you repeat that? You never [inaudible 00:27:28]-
Steven Jack Butala:
If you’re successful, it’s because you have a schedule.
Jill K DeWit:
… Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
You had a concept of what’s possible in your mind and you had … for us, it’s Microsoft 365, and a calendar system that everybody can see and they know [inaudible 00:27:44] … The people that work for you need to know what you expect in a calendar, not by talking. You can’t talk to that many people. You have to have a delivery schedule that’s implemented and everybody that knows what you’re doing. Can you imagine if I did a 40,000-unit mailer, Jill didn’t know when it was going out and had no idea where I was sending it? Could she get through it?
Jill K DeWit:
Not that that’s happened.
Steven Jack Butala:
Could she get through it? Yeah. But that’s not good.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s helpful to be prepared, that’s true, because I’ll be prepared for it. When I know the area, what’s coming, I’ll start working on all the next steps. I’ll have everything else lined up so I’m ready to go when those deals come in.
Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s my question to you, Jill: what do you think I missed? Are there more than five things about really pricing a mailer or doing a successful mailer?
Jill K DeWit:
No. These are the pro tips. This is the stuff that you need to know past the basics. This is like, “Okay, what do we talk about? More mail.” This is stuff that we talk about even with our Career Path alumni calls and things, too. How much are you guys sending? What are you finding? What nuances? Whatever. What’s your schedule? A lot of it’s schedule. That, honestly, I think number five, I’m glad you saved that for the last, is the hardest thing no matter what level anyone is at. I know that people leave … they leave Career Path and they’re fired up, ready to go, then they do it, do it, “Uh-Oh, running out of deals,” and then they get back on. You can’t do that. That’s where … if you send out a mailer, answer the calls, buy the property, sell the property and then start up all the way fresh, that’s not going to work. It’s going to go … You need to be constant momentum and always have things going through the system. That’s what we do and that’s how you sleep really well at night.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s great that you brought this up. During Career Path, which is … it’s eight weeks. It’s every Wednesday, usually. Sometimes, it’s on a different day, depending on how Jill feels when she schedules it. The Wednesday morning is office hours, so it’s two hours of talking about deals with the whole group, just whatever you want to talk about, pricing, whatever. Then, there’s a guided module that we take a little break and, for approximately two hours after that, every week for eight weeks. The eighth module is you’re supposed to fly out of the nest kind of thing.
I don’t mean that … most of the people that take … it’s called Career Path for a reason: you want to make this your career. Most of the people have already done mailers, they’ve proven the concept to themselves pretty dramatically and they’re making some money, but they want to times X it, times 10 it or add zeroes, as Jill puts it. These aren’t new people, but something happens at the end of the eighth week where people just don’t want it to end. It’s for what you’re saying.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, I know.
Steven Jack Butala:
They want … it’s like, “Well, wait a minute, wait a minute. In module two, we talked about this, this and this.” I’m like, “Yeah, maybe we should have talked about it in that module, too.”
Jill K DeWit:
You need to do it. Now, you need to take action.
Steven Jack Butala:
Right.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s the whole thing.
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t bring this up to criticize anyone, I bring it up because it’s the hardest part.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s going off on your own.
Steven Jack Butala:
You’ve got to stick to the schedule.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
You have to create the schedule. As an entrepreneur, you’re stick to the schedule, create it and implement it, then deal with the outcomes. I would say the vast majority of people never create the schedule in the first place. You’re already ahead. Create it, stick to it and then deal with what’s going to happen. Those are all built into these five points.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. I think you covered it great. I’m trying to think if I … I don’t really have any questions without getting the nitty-gritty, which I’m sure we’ve done it a lot and we can do it again. We’ll do more about that. This is a good point to bring this up, too: if you have some comments and you want to know more, like, “Can we do a deep dive again into something?” Hey, go on our where you’re [inaudible 00:31:43] … if you’re watching this on YouTube, put it in the comments or send us a note. We are happy to talk even more about individual pieces of this, maybe how we do it, how we stay on track, what does your calendar look like? Whatever it is, we can do that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill, you have something inspirational to share?
Jill K DeWit:
I-
Steven Jack Butala:
What’s going on with Land Gals, let’s say?
Jill K DeWit:
… Oh. Well, last week’s episode, 2,001, was Samantha Lathus and I talking about some stuff about the Land Gals and we’re working on … well, I can’t divulge a whole lot, but here’s what I can say. We’ve got some good stuff coming that we’re going to release here in the next couple months, weeks/months. They’re going to be not only Land Academy … let’s just say a level between the self-study and our Career Path is coming in the middle there because you’ve been asking for it and I think we have a solution for you. That’s coming up. Maybe some additional coaching opportunities, some one-on-one stuff. It’s going to be pretty darn cool. That’s what we’re working on. Then, for the Land Gals, some whole different things that we’ve got and I’m really excited about that. Then, we’ll have Career Path coming in the fall.
You know what? I guess my inspirational thing is right now … I just want to talk about staying on track through the summer. Here’s what’s going on in our world. It’s the end of April. You know us. Well, if you don’t know us, you do now. We’re getting antsy. We are in Arizona now. It’s our main place for the year, but anybody who knows Arizona knows you don’t want to be here in June, July, August, you just want … We take our sweet RV and we hit the road, like we’ve done for the last two or so years. You will see us doing the next couple shows … in a couple weeks, we’ll be showing up on the road. We’re planning that. It’s really easy to, “Hey, kids are out of school, we’re on summer break, all these vacations,” it’s very easy to do that with your land business. Sure. You’re just like, “Eh, take a break.” Well, guess what happens? Your bank balance will take a break, too. Seriously.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, jeez. You’re right.
Jill K DeWit:
What’s really interesting is what we’ve been doing is what I hope you’re doing or you should be doing: stocking up, man. It’s still April. It’s not late. Buy, buy, buy. That’s one of the things Samantha and I talked about last week was she’s like, “We’re low on inventory. I’m selling out.” I’m like, “Every year, it’s a repeat thing.” We’ve been watching and following trends, seasonality and things like that. Those of us who are in this, in Land Academy, know stock up when you can because come with the nice weather, people want to be out and buy their own property to camp on, fish on and build or whatever, and they can get to it, by the way, in the pretty times of year. You want to have a lot of property available to sell for those people.
It’s not late. You should be stocking up and you need to make sure whatever it is … this really ties back to your schedule. It’s not just motivated, it’s just stick to your schedule and make it easy on yourself. If you need to bring in some help, bring in some help to do your schedule. What if you do your own mailers throughout the year but summertime, your way of taking a break is, “I’m going to use Concierge Data. I’m not going to do my own [inaudible 00:35:21] … ” That’s a huge break. If you do stuff like that-
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what I do.
Jill K DeWit:
… you could be brand-new to Land Academy, have a 10-hour work week, I’m not kidding, and do everything you need to do by using Concierge Data, have PATLive or somebody like that answering your phones and all you’re doing is the front-end stuff. Two hours a day, five days a week, you could get this done. Then, you probably have someone helping you close the deals like a transaction coordinator, like I do. So what? You bring in some help, like I said, and that’s how you take a break in the summer and then not lose any momentum. That’s my inspiration. I want you to think about doing that and what will probably happen if this goes like I think. Come fall, you’re going to go, “Why would I change this then? I don’t have to go back to my 40-hour week. I could stay at my 10-hour week.” You’re doing math.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, my inspirational talk is very similar to yours.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, let’s pivot to you. What do you want to share with us right now?
Steven Jack Butala:
What I want to share is that we are coming into one of the … this has happened three times in my life, this will be the fourth, my professional life. We’re coming into the fourth real estate recession of my professional life and I can tell you they’re all very similar. What’s going to happen in this recession is the same thing that happened in the last three. The only variable is how long will it last and how deep will it go? Your response to both of those things should be almost the same.
If you’re concerned about your schedule, it’s hard to do and … take a yellow piece of paper, a yellow pad of paper. There’s 12 months in a year. There’s I don’t know how many months left in this … I think eight months left in this year. Take a look at what you want to accomplish in eight months, divide it all up by eight, or 12, or however you look at it. If you believe it takes 10,000 units to buy a piece of property that you want, make sure you send out 8,000 to 10,000 or whatever those numbers are a month. Make sure you’re sending it in places where you know can make whatever number amount of money that you want at the end of the year. If it’s 100,000, 200,000, divide that by the number of months and that tells you how much mail you need to send. Do your data on every Monday, your deadlines on the next Monday to get it to Offers 2 Owners, to get it in the mail or whatever those little steps are. It’s not hard. All it is just sitting [inaudible 00:37:53] … you are 15 minutes away from planning out the rest of the year when it comes to what we’re talking about here. You know what’s hard in life? Not this. What’s hard in life is-
Jill K DeWit:
I’m like, “Uh-oh.”
Steven Jack Butala:
… raising children and paying a mortgage.
Jill K DeWit:
Working with your spouse.
Steven Jack Butala:
Working with your spouse, living with your spouse, at times, having a podcast with your spouse and making up for an-
Jill K DeWit:
[inaudible 00:38:19] with your spouse.
Steven Jack Butala:
… argument right on camera with your spouse.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. Sharing a bathroom with your spouse … let’s see, where should we go?
Steven Jack Butala:
Keep going.
Jill K DeWit:
[inaudible 00:38:30]
Steven Jack Butala:
Doing this mailer, organizing your professional life and being an entrepreneur for me has always been the easiest part of my life.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Join us next [inaudible 00:38:41]
Jill K DeWit:
Wait, wait, wait, time out. What’s the moral of this? Is there a silver lining at all?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, doing a mailer … this is not hard. You just have to be organized. I know new things can be [inaudible 00:38:53] … I just dusted off an old drum set that I’ve been meaning to get back to more for exercise reasons than actually learning to be a great drummer, because that ship sailed. I know that’s not going to happen.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, come on.
Steven Jack Butala:
But it’s still … I have to relearn everything because it’s been so long and I literally just before the show did all that. If it’s new or if you’re bringing it back into your life, it is a little intimidating. I’m a little intimidated by the whole thing. It’ll going to take some saddle time, the right attitude and a schedule and, within a week, I’ll be back into it, probably better than I was before.
Jill K DeWit:
You got this and you got this.
Steven Jack Butala:
Join us next Wednesday for another interesting episode. You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Both:
We are Jack and Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
Information.
Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration.
Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
https://youtu.be/6xLD-djs8g8
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Join Jill and Sam as they uncover the groundbreaking rise of women in the land flipping industry. In this eye-opening discussion, they share their journey and insights into how women are reshaping the landscape of land flipping with their unique skills and perspectives. Discover how this traditionally male-dominated sector is evolving, and gain valuable tips and inspiration for your own ventures. Don’t miss out on this empowering conversation about the unstoppable force of women in land flipping!
Transcript: N/A
https://youtu.be/5vhTuwrDZO4
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Join Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit for a special milestone episode of the Land Academy show! They reflect on the highs and lows of the past 10 years serving the land flipping community, reminiscing about memorable moments, big land flipping wins, and the amazing members who have been part of the journey, as well as the future of Land Academy.
Experience the journey from the beginning by visiting landacademy.com/podcast to access all episodes, including the originals! Don’t miss this celebration—tune in now! 🎊
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit and this is the Land Academy show.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is episode number 2000, I can’t believe it. We are calling it Acre by Acre, 2000 Episodes of Land Flipping. Jill and I will be covering the high and low points of the last 10 years serving the land community I guess, moments we remember, big land wins, and amazing members, and then ultimately Jill is going to cover at the end, the future of Land Academy.
Jill K DeWit:
What do you mean low points? Hold on a moment. What are talking about, low points?
Steven Jack Butala:
I can summarize this whole thing like this. This is not anything what Jill and I anticipated.
Jill K DeWit:
No.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s been like a windy, curvy, switchback-y road.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, no. For me it’s been all peaches and cream, skipping through a field of dandelions. That’s how this has been, so no. I mean, but seriously, this has been an amazing ride. I’m going to start right now because I peeked ahead on the script here and I know it’s not in there, but I got to just remind everyone here, I’m not even supposed to be on this show.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, my gosh.
Jill K DeWit:
I was never intended to be … It was the Land Academy Show, but it was never the Jack and Jill show. It was always Jack and the Land Academy show. And so day one, or not even day one, as we’re pre-episode zero, episode negative two, negative three, as we’re figuring this out and testing this and having guests, some of which showed up and some of which didn’t show up, some of the shows that you recorded we could air and some of them we couldn’t air. It’s funny. We had one guy in particular, we can’t cut that much of this up. This is G-rated. It’s just not going to work. So back in the beginning I was just a fill-in guest.
Steven Jack Butala:
When people didn’t show up, Jill would sit in and the numbers on the shows where she sat in were two and three times what the regular numbers and downloads were.
Jill K DeWit:
So that means three people.
Steven Jack Butala:
So yeah, [inaudible 00:02:11] it’s five instead of three, both of our parents included.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’re going to cover some of the high and low points all the way through this, but Land Academy doesn’t look anything like what we intended when we started it. And the real reason why is, and we will cover it in a few minutes, is we were constantly and are constantly listening to what our members want and not the changes that they want, and how we can better serve the land community is what this has been. And it ended up being through different products that we’ve released, which we’ll talk about in a few minutes here.
Jill K DeWit:
I still think it’s funny. You go back and dig if you really want to, you could find it on our YouTube channel and on our website, some of the old original ones. You would just call me at my desk and we’d talk for 45 minutes about the I’m doing.
Steven Jack Butala:
They’re all on there.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
You know what? That’s a great point. I didn’t think of this. If you want to go back and laugh, they’re on our website, so they’re on the free portion of our website. You can go all the way back to zero. You can’t do it on iTunes or wherever you listen to the podcasts or watch the podcasts usually. It’s too much data storage, but-
Jill K DeWit:
YouTube and our website can do it?
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t think even YouTube can. I really think you have to go back on our website. I know you do. Those are all audio only anyway.
Jill K DeWit:
Feel free to make a collage and laugh at Jill’s hairstyles over the years or Jill’s hair color over the years.
Steven Jack Butala:
I was thinking about that because we don’t look the same.
Jill K DeWit:
No bangs. No, we don’t. Exactly. That’s so good.
Steven Jack Butala:
So let’s start with moments we remember.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m going to phrase this in the form of a question to Jill. What do you remember the most or the least or the most painful?
Jill K DeWit:
Starting just Land Academy?
Steven Jack Butala:
Mm-hmm.
Jill K DeWit:
I remember the yellow pad. I remember having a yellow pad and when we finally decided, I don’t know, it was like, I want to say around the holidays or something. For some reason I’m thinking it’s December, but I remember … So this was 2014 I want to say because we launched in ’15, but I remember getting a yellow pad out and drawing a circle and we have it somewhere. I know I scanned it and saved all this, and in the middle of the bubble I wrote Land Academy, and then we had all these little lines drawing out from the circle going what goes into doing a land deal? And I just remember writing down all … We had 10 big pieces to the puzzle to getting a land deal done and it was the beginning of sharing our whole business model and in there we would put down things like, oh, I know what it was, soup to nuts, but we would put down all the little things. I’ll get back to that in a second here. We would put down all the different things that went into having a business like ours. That was the whole point here.
And I remember every time we’d say, should we put that in? Do we talk about that? Do we cover this? How much detail do we go into this to share our business model with? We had no idea how many people would be interested, but who we thought would be interested. We always said, let’s just put it in there, and that was when you taught me the saying soup to nuts. And I’m like, what the heck? So, yep, truth, time. I didn’t know what soup to nuts was and it was so darn funny. So he taught me that and so, for me, that was what this was about.
In my mind, I was one off teaching people, our customers at the time, people were buying land from us. You and I were one off helping them and teaching them like here’s where you get the data, here’s what you do, here’s how you could do this, here’s how you do that. And then we decided to, let’s just say, one by one, it’s going to take a long time. Let’s put something together and call it Land Academy. You came up with Land Academy and share it with the planet and see what happens.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a few steps back.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’ve been buying and selling land since 1994.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s a huge real estate recession that happened between 2007, and I was very good at it, a huge recession that basically sunk what I created between 2007 and 2009, entered Jill and Jill brought in what I didn’t realize at the time was a massive missing piece to all this, which was personality, personality and sales and just a presence. This is long before Land Academy, so we had to. I was forced to retool the business entirely and she got on the phone and so I provided a bunch of real estate at very good prices for her to sell and that’s when this thing really took off.
Fast-forward to 2014, we’re on vacation with Jill’s yellow pad and we created Land Academy because we ran out of money. We needed more money. We were buying so much property because Jill was and is fantastic on the phone from a sales and an acquisition standpoint. And so we put this thing together to raise capital and we said, you know what we’ll do? We’ll describe to the world, to whoever wants to listen to it or watch the program, this is how we buy property and if you’d like to get involved and fund with us, share in the profit, that’d be great, because we have tons and tons of deals, and it became something after that that I can’t describe. I mean how would you describe that? I just wanted it to cover the cost of … It was a pretty big undertaking. I had to learn the Adobe Suite. We didn’t hire anybody. We bought a camera.
Jill K DeWit:
No, that’s true. It was us.
Steven Jack Butala:
Bought a camera and bought a DVD burner and put the program together and I had to learn the Adobe suite of products so that I could screenshot it and-
Jill K DeWit:
I ordered and lovingly we created together these beautiful binders with an embossed Land Academy logo on them and that’s how it was delivered. That was so funny back then too.
Steven Jack Butala:
CD sets.
Jill K DeWit:
We did it all, down to, I’m going to the mailbox, I’m popping this in kind of thing and printing out our own shipping labels. We did it all.
Steven Jack Butala:
When I knew that we were doing it wrong is when multiple members, new members would send us a note saying, I really want to be a part of this and I love the product, but I don’t have a DVD player.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, yeah, that’s true. That was true. Remember there was one person that we actually bought them a DVD player. I remember that. I’m like, it’s $39 nowadays, so literally we bought a DVD player and sent it to him. I’m like, got to be kidding me, but okay. That was funny. That’s a good memory. Yeah. What about you?
Steven Jack Butala:
I was thinking back. We have lived in five places since we started Land Academy.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s funny. Only five?
Steven Jack Butala:
What’s wrong with us? We’ve moved five times.
Jill K DeWit:
I know. It’s good.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s not counting the summers that we spent in RVs, plural.
Jill K DeWit:
True. We got the starter RV out of the way.
Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s Land Academy since the beginning until now by the numbers. We’ve had thousands and thousands of members. We’ve had tens of thousands of just land deals, all land deals, Land Academy wide. There’s no way for me to confirm that, but I know it’s true because we look at these land deals on our Thursday member call, which we’ve been doing for years. It’s been years and years, probably seven plus years. We’ve had a webinar once a week. We’ve had hundreds of thousands of ebook downloads, millions of podcast downloads, and about 5,000 hours of recorded and available content.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s a lot.
Steven Jack Butala:
How does this make you feel? It makes me feel old.
Jill K DeWit:
Tired.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, old and happy, and I don’t know.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, I was going to say we should not look as good as we look, but you be the judge. I’m sure you’re like, no, yeah, Jill, you look tired. That’s fine.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s a politician who gets elected and they look great and then four years later it’s like, what happened to that guy?
Jill K DeWit:
They age 20 years.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s this.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s probably us. That’s good. Thank goodness for hair color.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s move on from moments that we remember to big land wind.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
So we’ve completed, again by the numbers, just Jill and I, over 1,000 deals since we started Land Academy in 2014 and over 16,000 since I started in ’94 Jeez, the average land deal for us right now, we generally will buy a piece of property for less than $100,000, let’s say between 60 and 90,000 and we’ll sell it for between 150 and $350,000. That’s the sweet spot now, but jeez, it never was. It changes all the time. There was a time when we started the first program we did, we’re up to Land Academy 3.0 now, but the first program was called Cash Flow from Land. We were still buying real small properties that are real inexpensive and selling them on terms, which we’ve long moved on from. Not because it’s a bad model, it’s just we saw a better opportunity elsewhere. That’s a reoccurring theme at Land Academy. We continually grow and change and adjust to the market.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
And so-
Jill K DeWit:
Well, let’s pause on that for a second because that’s a bigger deal and I think gets talked about. I mean you figured this whole thing out. I want to back up. This is all in his head. You didn’t have a mentor, you didn’t have an education program, you had nobody to learn this from. You figured this all out on your own. Even I had you, so I had a mentor and an education, if you will, which was me at your desk and you showing me what to do and not on the data side, you always kept on that, but on the sales side, here’s how we run the properties through the system, go with it. Like, okay, I got this, and I would post my own property and all that good stuff back then. So we have, together, 15 years of full-time transaction history and experience, not counting the 15 years before that that you created.
And so back to what you were saying about pivoting and growing and learning, I mean that’s who we are, and you know it. Those of you who have been listening to us from day one, you know who you are and I know who you are, you go, wait a minute, I remember when you hated real estate agents. Now you love them and now you hate them again and now you love them. There’s all different things that we’ve done. Our data sources have changed. This has changed. I got tired of eating my words, by the way. I’m good at it now. And we continue to do that and we will continue to do that. So this episode 2000, by the way, is not, well, mic drop.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, my gosh. No.
Jill K DeWit:
And you’ll hear more at the end here of the show. This is like, oh, hold on. We are positioning ourselves to do even more and greater things with you.
Steven Jack Butala:
I really wonder. You’re right. I’m glad we paused on this because adjusting to your environment is a theme that should be happening in life, not just in business. It’s relationships, all of it. I mean, if you’ve ever had children, you don’t treat a two-year-old the way you do a 17-year-old. You just don’t as a parent. And why should your business be any different? The deals that we were doing 10 years ago or 20 years ago completely don’t even look the same at all. And we’re going to talk about some of the big land wins that we had here in a minute, but had those big land win opportunities come across our field of vision, I would’ve passed on that, largely because Jill’s involved and she knows now and I’ve had, what, 15 years to work with her.
So there’s another set of partnership eyes on the types of deals that we do that we would’ve passed on because I wouldn’t know where to start from a sell side. We can buy it. Jill and I can buy anything. We can buy and fund anything now because of Land Academy. We can fund any deal. We can fund it and we can receive funding. I mean, I think it’s almost infinite, which was why we started Land Academy is to get a group of people together to have a bunch of money so we’re better together, and so that is just a win right there.
Jill K DeWit:
True. Exactly. You had some good notes here about some of the transactions you used to do. That’s pretty good there.
Steven Jack Butala:
For me, I always remember the first land deal and the most recent land deal. The first deal I ever did, I was on eBay sitting at my coffee table in Cincinnati. I was a vice president of Deaconess Healthcare System, one of the vice presidents, and I hated it. And so I got onto eBay, didn’t know you could buy property and 30, 40 minutes later I bought 80 acres in Arizona for I think around eight to $10,000. Clean the whole thing up, clean the posting up, never went to Arizona, never thought about it, made the posting look a lot better, added a lot of information after I researched it online, got on the phone with the county and the whole thing, and resold it for 16 or $20,000.
I don’t remember the exact numbers and I remember receiving the payment on that. I remember it like it was yesterday, receiving the credit card payment. No, it was a check back then. They didn’t even process credit cards and the check clearing and me saying to myself, that’s it. This is what I’m doing for the rest of my life. All I need to do, this is the thought that I had, was institutionalize buying inexpensive property or undervalued property. That hasn’t changed.
Jill K DeWit:
Correct.
Steven Jack Butala:
That is exactly what we do now, and that’s what happened. I quit that job, moved back to Arizona and went on a quest of physical and what ended up happening was I would travel around the country at tax sales, tax deed sales, buy property and resell it online. This is before Jill and I joined forces, so there were some real memorable deals during then. I bought a big release of property, escrow release property in Grand State, Mexico. We made a couple million bucks. That’s a memorable big land win. I bought several hundred properties real close to the Grand Canyon, which by law back then we had to sell in six packs for a bunch of reasons and I made, I don’t know, eight or $900,000 on that.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill and I did a deal, a tax deed deal where it was right in the middle of the recession and we just hit this tax sale at the right time and bought 1400 properties, 1400 APNs.
Jill K DeWit:
We were sitting in the county offices waiting for an hour or two, I can’t remember how long it was, while they printed out the deeds and they sent us home with a big stack, a ream of paper with all these APNs. I’m like, this is hilarious.
Steven Jack Butala:
I remember driving home stopping to get her an iced tea and I said, it’s probably about the time you should quit your job.
Jill K DeWit:
You did. I didn’t get it at the time. I remember you really looking, [inaudible 00:18:05] You were driving. You’re looking at me going, you don’t realize this is it. And I’m like, okay, I got this.
Steven Jack Butala:
We paid $11 in APM.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
We ended up selling those for over $1,000 each.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. You can’t calculate those numbers.
Steven Jack Butala:
I can calculate.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. They-
Steven Jack Butala:
I can calculate it in my head.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay, got it.
Steven Jack Butala:
So can everyone else.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, that’s true, but that was insane.
Steven Jack Butala:
So from there, what was real interesting that happened, and this is a great example of the dynamic between Jill and I as professional partners, she said, well, are there other deals out there like this? This is her sales mind at work because I’m over here doing all the accounting. And I said, yeah, in fact, we should wholesale some of these properties out and suck some cash out of this so we can go buy all these other deals that we have on deck. And she said, well, can you just make a list of, I don’t know, the top 10 people that you think would buy these? And so she did, and that launched, this was around 2009-ish, 10 maybe, launched what would be the next several years of how we bought and sell land. We would buy land, she would contact … She built an email list of people. It was probably 20 or 30 people. I would put a spreadsheet together with prices and APNs, the most basic thing you can imagine, not maps. There was no real copier pros at all.
Jill K DeWit:
There are other investors, they’re pros. They don’t need that. Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
These are people that were selling stuff all over the country and online on terms and God knows what they were doing with it, but my job became very, very easy. I had to just to do what I know how to do, which is go and to either tax sales or to find in the little corners of places where I know where to buy back then really inexpensive land, create a spreadsheet for Jill, and then she would distribute it and take the phone calls and process the deeds. So that’s a fantastic example of that was a huge win, that milestone. That’s a fantastic example of just change it with the times, improving. Geez, that was just probably 10 times the revenue. Well, I was out of business because of the recession and she came in and totally breathed new life into the whole thing. So I-
Jill K DeWit:
We had the property. Let’s define our business, had a lot of property, but just not a lot of gas.
Steven Jack Butala:
We had a ton of property and no sales talent because it was me, and she came in and sifted through. We had tons of real estate actually now [inaudible 00:20:45] tons of free and clear real estate that was sitting there and no way to sell it because eBay was done too, single point of failure.
Jill K DeWit:
Totally. So yeah, over the years, boy, we have pivoted, grown, moved. You know what’s funny? You remember the deals. Did you want to …
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, just to finish the thought, and then I’m sure you have land wins, too, we recently did a transaction that I would …This was a frequent thing between John and I, I would’ve passed on, and the deal came in, we bought it. I can’t remember where it was. I think it was Oregon. I’m not sure. The deal came in. I think we paid 140-ish?
Jill K DeWit:
Something like that?
Steven Jack Butala:
And sold it for 235.
Jill K DeWit:
More than that even, actually, it was 280, I think. Yeah. It was an easy double.
Steven Jack Butala:
Right, and that’s always been our thing. Try to double it and now it’s try to double it and make $100,000.
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
So if we end up doing 40 deals a year at $100,000, you don’t need a calculator for that either, right? I try to make 2.5 million in profit in our land buying endeavor here the bottom, and so it ends up working out, and so that was a great example. I mean I’m just about done with our 2023 tax return and I can tell you it all worked. I don’t remember the deals anymore.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
I know the money and I think you know the people.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s even different for me now. Someone once told me this, don’t think about this, don’t think about how pretty it is, don’t think about where it is, don’t think about the attributes, don’t get hung up on these. Think about all of these properties as a line item on a spreadsheet. I was almost like a general giving a soldier a speech and I’m like, noted. I remembered that. It’s funny. So I’d stop paying attention. If you want to ask me what I closed on last week, I can’t tell you. I have to go look. I really cannot.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s great.
Jill K DeWit:
Remember, I move on. But what I do remember though over the years is I pay way more pension to our deals some of our members are doing. I can remember some of the deals that are going on right now, I’m not going to share them, but some good deals in the works right now that our community is doing and more importantly our members in their lives and, oh boy, all of you who have shared with me, we call it the Quitters Club still. When you’re quitting your day job and have sent us notes over the years? Oh, I remember that. That’s what I [inaudible 00:23:28] because that is life-changing. Hey, my wife was able to retire. We don’t have to go back to work. I quit my job, fill in the blank. I love all of that, so that’s the stuff that I remember. Those are some of my big wins more than the deals.
Steven Jack Butala:
So the name of this segment is called Big Land Wins, but there’s been other wins now. I realized that I like to instruct. I really get a real huge kick out of … Again, we directly keep in touch with our membership group every single Thursday on a Thursday call-
Jill K DeWit:
In Discord.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, in Discord, on a minute-by-minute basis, so we know what kind of deals they’re doing. We know what is making sense to them. Jill went through a whole phase in Land Academy a few years ago called adding a zero. You’re going to buy for 10,000 and sell for 180,000? Then just add a zero. Or I mean, buy for 10 and sell for 80, add a zero or add a one in front of it.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, it was even to be before that, because a lot of people were hung up with buying for 1000 and selling for 8,000. That was a big hang-up for a lot of people. I’m like, knock it off. Especially with our deal funding now, you don’t have to buy for 1000 because that’s all that you have. Buy for 10, make it count.
Steven Jack Butala:
Deal funding was a massive pivotal point, more for our members than us. It was pivotal for us because we started Land Academy and we immediately got four or five people that were throwing money at us, more money than we needed.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s always the case.
Steven Jack Butala:
WE then realized there’s a lot of other people that want to be involved in this. So we did that and then at some point several years ago, we came up with landfunding.com, and so now we fund people’s deals. And we’re very, very choosy, so we’re almost sure, within reason, if we fund it, we’re all going to do pretty well.
Jill K DeWit:
If I sign off on it, it’s going to be good. We’re going to be okay. Either way, it’s my money, so don’t worry about it. That’s usually the case. So yeah, it’s awesome.
Steven Jack Butala:
The next segment is our amazing members. So without naming names yet, they all have the same kind of profile or MO. Imagine you take a college course and there’s 30 people in the class and the instructor’s somebody with gray hair. If you ask, and I’ve done this with the college professors, what are the students that you really enjoy teaching to get out of it? They’ll always say some version of this, the people that actually got something out of the program and then went and used it in some different way that I never anticipated.
Well, the same situation happens here. My favorite members are the ones who take this basic concept of finding and trolling for real estate that looks like it might be a good place to buy land that’s undervalued and resell it for more, send people offers and then process the deal on the buy and the sell side. And then they see something else in there that no one’s seen, including me. These 80 acre properties can be subdivided or minor split into fill in the blank, or geez, I noticed there’s a ton of variants in a mobile home for sale and sold pricing. And so they take this concept of direct mail offers and make it their own or they make their spreadsheets that we provide their own, and so it just takes on this life of its own. And then we hear from them, I don’t know, six months later and it’s like, yeah, we don’t need to be members anymore.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s not that. They’re funding other people’s deals.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s the thing that happens. That’s what I see that’s funny, the progression. Some people, they’ll come in and they need the education, got it, and the funding, got it. And then after a little while, that’s going great and I’m like, Hey, let’s do some more deals. No, thank you, Jill. I don’t need your funding anymore. I can afford to do this myself. I’m not splitting any profits. Noted, and then wait six months and now they’re at the bank for somebody else.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
I know that there are people that hang out in Land Academy for a very long time and some that even just come into Land Academy because they know how smart this group is and how strategic we are and how data focused we are. We’re using data, making sure we make really smart decisions and people love to fund our deals and love to work with us.
I remember years ago too, when we were first starting, and my peers at the time, other investors were doing deals together. I’m doing deals over here, they were doing deals over there. We all knew who each other was and I remember then when they would say, oh, I bought a property off one of your members, I know exactly that this person came from you. And I’m like, oh, that’s great.
Steven Jack Butala:
I remember that too.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s really cool, and they actually would thank me. They’re like, thank you. Honestly, it was like, thank you for teaching the planet how to do a deal and what all this stuff means and things like that. That was really good.
Steven Jack Butala:
Over the years, we’ve had people reach out to us and say, you know what? I’m in a position in life where I’m happy to help you guys with Land Academy because it’s working out for me and I’d love to take on partners or whatever their personal motivation for that is.
Jill K DeWit:
Give back.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, I’ll give back. I have to mention Kevin Farrell. He was with us for years and years and years.
Jill K DeWit:
He’s still with us.
Steven Jack Butala:
He doesn’t, but he’s not a moderator.
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
Kevin stepped up. He was directly involved in the live events that we had in the distant past and he was a moderator on all of the community sites that we’ve created over the years. The most recent one, the one we use now is a version of Discord. And so he was a moderator and he was also ended up being a consultant you could call him and [inaudible 00:29:28] coaching and consultant, paid for a half hour. And geez, the response we got from people that talked to Kevin was like, wow, he really cleared up chapter seven or really, that’s the push I needed to get the mail out the door, on and on and on. Same thing right now with Carl and Samantha Lathes. They both have really, really showed up. They’re brand new members. They’re career path graduates and just they’re giving it their all. They’re funding people’s deals and it’s been a pleasure to work with them.
Jill K DeWit:
I was going to say, what I noticed, what you just touched on here is people have over the years realized, okay, there’s a lot of giving going on in this group. There’s a lot of abundance in this group, and so there’s more helping than anything, and so I think that’s what you’re speaking to. [inaudible 00:30:24] Thank you for sharing all that. Wow, I can’t believe you just shared all that with me. You just gave me all your secrets and everything. I’m like, awesome. Please help us and pay it forward, and that’s going on.
Steven Jack Butala:
I remember a huge compliment somebody said to me that you guys have created what social media is supposed to be.
Jill K DeWit:
Aw. That was nice.
Steven Jack Butala:
I know. This is a lot of years ago, actually.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s nice. Yeah, helping each other, not cutting people down.
Steven Jack Butala:
Right.
Jill K DeWit:
There’s abundance. There’s enough property to go around. We used to get that, remember, in the beginning? This is a good one. We used to get this all the time and now we don’t get it anymore. Aren’t you guys nuts for sharing your business model? Because didn’t you just create competition for you? To which I say I understand your thoughts and don’t think we didn’t talk about that because seriously, before we sat down and even put Land Academy together, we did say, are we nuts for teaching other people to do what we do? That could be creating our own competition in the land buying and selling space. And we did the math and, trust me, there’s enough property to go around. I still don’t worry about it.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s 150 million pieces of property in this country.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
We can all-
Jill K DeWit:
I can’t touch them all.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s almost two million licensed real estate agents in this world all scrambling to try to get the same listings. There’s probably less than maybe 800, maybe 1000 people buying and selling land actively like we are.
Jill K DeWit:
True. I want to talk about amazing members on my side of the sheet here.
Steven Jack Butala:
Sure.
Jill K DeWit:
Who do I recall and remember and get excited about? All the strong women in Land Academy and you know what? There are more. I remember early on my Bay and Chelsea from a while ago who’s back, and Bay’s been with us for quite some time. So in the beginning there were very few women investors and then it transitioned to more couples coming in. The men would join Land Academy and get the wives involved and some of them … I remember a member in particular bought Land Academy and handed it to his wife. If you don’t want to go back to work, this is a way you can not go back to work and be home with the kids. I’m like, oh, this is smart. You’re good. And then watch the women get into this and take off, and so now I have … Gosh, thank you, Bay and Chelsea and Michelle and Sam and Shannon, and I’ve got some new ones coming up through the ranks right now. I got a Tara and a Zane that I’m like, oh, I’m keeping an eye. I’m hearing about you guys and I’m excited to see what kind of deals you guys put together.
Steven Jack Butala:
So as fun as it is to take this little trip down memory lane, I’ve tried to live my life by this saying, you’re only as good as the last great thing you’ve done, and I really believe that. So great, we did all this. Congratulations, Jack. You started in 1994, you did thousands and thousands of deals and you and Jill made it together. Congratulations.
Jill K DeWit:
And you’re still together.
Steven Jack Butala:
How does this affect me? Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
How does this affect me and what’s going to happen next? Which brings us to our final segment called The Future of Land Academy, which is my favorite. This is really what I want to talk about. We’re always, both of us, looking forward.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, totally.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m not patting myself on the back about past tax returns. All the products, as I said earlier, have been developed directly in response to members’ requests. From the very first product, people were asking us long before that Land Academy was even a thing, how do you guys consistently buy cheap land? And we would tell them, we wouldn’t hold it back. This is what we do. I didn’t give anybody seller’s phone numbers, but we told them, this is the concept.
Jill K DeWit:
This is where you go get the data, that kind of a thing.
Steven Jack Butala:
Then it happened so much because Jill was selling so much property to people just on email and verbally, can you teach us? That started happening.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
And so we said, sure, I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you give me this piece of property that we know you own and then we’ll all sit down for a few hours and I’ll answer your questions? That’s how it started. Then that happened more and more and more. So finally Jill and I sat down and said, this is where the yellow pad came in, we were actually on vacation, why don’t we just create a program so we don’t have to do this individually, one-on-one all the time? And I remember saying this to Jill, if we make $5,000 extra a month, it’ll cover all the costs and the grief and the labor and all of it and we’ll go on our way. And so that was the whole goal of Land Academy, to generate $5,000 to just cover costs.
Jill K DeWit:
That was so funny.
Steven Jack Butala:
Here we are.
Jill K DeWit:
I will never forget, I launched it early. I was doing my own little social media posts, my own little pictures and all the little stuff in Facebook and just doing what I thought and then I opened up … We had a checkout, you made the website, had a sweet little checkout page and I sent a little email blast and here you all came. I’m like, what just happened? It was so good.
Steven Jack Butala:
So my point is those products were at the request of people, our regular land buying customers, and then I remember launching Land Academy, and just what Jill said, and it was landacademy.org back then because we couldn’t afford the dot-com.
Jill K DeWit:
Yep.
Steven Jack Butala:
There were all these questions, so they got these DVDs, they watched them and they were emailing us question after question. So Jill said, we need a place on the internet where everybody can communicate with each other and help each other, not just get the help from us. And she said, oh, and I’m going on vacation. This is all a true story.
Jill K DeWit:
This is funny.
Steven Jack Butala:
I said, all right. And she was gone for, I don’t know, four or five days.
Jill K DeWit:
Just a weekend. You did give me some tasks. You said, I’m going to do this. You need to come back with three blogs. And I’m like, you did? I had to write three blogs. I’m like, okay, deal.
Steven Jack Butala:
Did you write them?
Jill K DeWit:
Yes, I had to. That was my assignment.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh my gosh.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, I remember that.
Steven Jack Butala:
It makes it sound like a one-way street.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, no, but you were doing something and I was doing something, so yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Make no mistake, I work for Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, thanks.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s just be clear on that. So I created this website called Success Plant, and it was a WordPress plug-in, and geez, it just immediately took off. All these products, with a few exceptions, which I’ll mention in a minute, really took off. And so everybody that was in Land Academy and we had a free section and a paid section and everybody within Land Academy, that’s when we really got to hear or watch what the hang-ups were, where people were fumbling and one of them was data. Oh, my God, can you believe how much it costs at RealQuest? This data costs this and this. Then they started saying, well, maybe we should put together a group where we know we can buy this much data every month. And so Jill came up with, let’s just have a membership.
And we went to Irvine and sat down [inaudible 00:37:42] RealQuest at the time. We sat down with one of the directors or vice presidents of RealQuest and they said, you two are out of your mind. We will never resell data to you. You guys are land investors and I get it, but we were for oil and gas companies and all that. Enter Jill and so we came out of there with a drafted agreement for how we can provide way low-cost data in RealQuest. Now it’s DataTree. We did the same thing with DataTree. A lot easier with DataTree because they were looking at our usage in RealQuest, and so that became the data situation. I can keep going.
Jill K DeWit:
That was fun. I wonder what happened to that guy. We had a good time. Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Then we got so frustrated with attempting to find or do our own mailers that Jill and I started offers to owners and hat was pivotal, too, because that’s all we do. offersandowners.com only processes offers for us and members and people in the business, so we got really good at it. Jesus, this was a few years ago
Jill K DeWit:
And again, brought the cost down. That was the whole thing. People were getting hung up on the mail merge, and so that was one of our first products was we’ll do the mayor much for you and we can bring the cost down, because one by one people were trying to figure out how to save money, including a sweet member who’s been with us for this whole time too, who was first initial was L, getting his own big printer in his garage thinking that that would work, and then realizing that’s way too expensive.
Steven Jack Butala:
By the way, I did that.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, I know, but we turned it into a company now and not a one-off. It was for us, one off. You can’t one-off do your own mail.
Steven Jack Butala:
It won’t work financially.
Jill K DeWit:
No, it won’t work financially.
Steven Jack Butala:
You can’t one-off get your own data.
Jill K DeWit:
And you don’t have a backup when the printer doesn’t work and your envelopes don’t show up and all of that, so that doesn’t work.
Steven Jack Butala:
Getting your own data and doing your own mail will end in tears.
Jill K DeWit:
Totally.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’ll end in bankrupted tears.
Jill K DeWit:
Yep.
Steven Jack Butala:
I know this because that’s what happened to us, minus the bankruptcy, but there were a lot of tears putting this stuff together. We started a company that’s still around called Deed Perfect because we noticed that people are having trouble doing their own deeds, and so you just plow in your information and it kicks out a deed.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
For a very long time, our transaction coordinator was using Deed Perfect to do our deeds. I don’t even know that.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, I did know that.
Steven Jack Butala:
She said that recently. We provided a place to sell land called landpin.com, P-I-N. It’s not used so much now anymore because we use real estate agents for much higher valued real estate deals on the sell side. Geez, we started landfunding.com, landtank.com. Both of those are places where if you need to get a deal funded, you can put it in there. We started houseacademy.com.
Jill K DeWit:
And House Tank.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, and House Tank. So Jill and I regularly, not super regularly, but consistently still buy houses and we will be, because the economy’s changing, get back to that, not exclusively. It’ll never replace land, but it’s a good product type to add to what we do. We started Career Path, which is our high-end class. It’s an eight-week class.
Jill K DeWit:
A mastermind.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, it’s a mastermind group for people where it’s their career. They’re not just horsing around. They’re past all that and they’re real serious about it.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s like, I’m done making $200,000 a year. I want to make that two million a year. Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
These are all the result of us getting floods and floods of requests of emails like, how do I do this? What happens here? And finally the answer is you should join Career Path and all these things will be answered. Okay.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
We have a program now as a result of … Again, and this is my final product, it’s not a conclusive list of all of our products, but because people in Career Path were being introduced to the people in Offers and Owners that do put the mailers together and being introduced to our transaction coordinator team, the people who do our deals, their response was, well-
Jill K DeWit:
Can I hire them?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, can I hire them? Why can’t they be my staff? And we started Land Academy Pro, so now you can use our staff and use our people to do the mail, the same people that Jill and I used to buy and sell property in this very small group.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, so that’s a good recap. There’s some other things that we don’t need to bring up that didn’t work out over the years. There’s several sites. If you go back and dig, you’re like, what happened to that? Okay. So that’s part of why you’re here too, right? Well, we’re going to pivot. This is our thing for 30 years. Sorry, 30 years for you, 15 for me, this has been our gig and we’re not going anywhere and we’re even better at pivoting and spotting these things and staying ahead of it. And so for me right now, my big exciting thing is Landgals.com, that’s coming. There’s going to be a live event in the works. I’ve got new program stuff in the works. I’ve got special breakout things that I’m already doing right now just within the Land Academy community for my Sweet Ladies group because you guys are figuring it out and I want to help you. That’s it. Our theme has been retire your husband and I love that. We have had people in Land Academy that have done that and it’s so great.
Steven Jack Butala:
Who knows what’s next?
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
I can tell you we’re in a flat real estate market now, and for the first time in a lot of years professionals, reading their opinions about what’s going to happen with real estate and a lot of it’s nothing’s going to crash, I don’t think, like it did the last time, but it’s certainly flattening and there’s a shift in high demand real estate in urban areas to rural areas, which is our specialization. So why not? We will be buying and selling more rural real estate than we ever have, and so will our members. And so if that becomes some type of special product, then I’m sure it will. Then we’ll get involved in that forever. People have been asking us to pool revenue or pool investment capital and do syndications, and I have kept that in my back pocket, but we’ll see.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, we’re too good at what we do to stop.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
Honestly, I’m going to end it on this for me, like I said, we’re too good at this to stop. Why would I? We have built this amazing community that is just … We’re taking over the world here and I’m pretty proud of them and we have so many good ideas and things, and the lifestyle that we can do all this. We can take our RV, be anywhere, and we’ve been showing you how to do this too. So gosh, wherever you are in your investment journey, and if this is something you’re just thinking about, you’re not too late. I’m going to say you came in at the right time. No matter where you’re coming in, it’s the right time because we’ve learned a lot, solved a lot, and we’ve got new things going forward and that’s who we are. So maybe when I’m 90 and I can’t talk on the phone, but by then, when I’m 90 and it’s hard to talk on the phone, watch me still get some good deals [inaudible 00:45:15] I believe it will happen.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s in your soul.
Jill K DeWit:
It is in my soul, and we’re here to help you and I’m excited for what’s to come. I have to share one little thing too before you end this, and I know you have a wrap up too. So one of our team members sent us the sweetest celebration, personalized M&M’s thing, and I just wanted to thank Erin for this. It has our faces on it. I can’t [inaudible 00:45:43] but the staff’s all laughing like, I don’t know if I can eat an M&M with your face on it. I’m like, I bet you can.
Steven Jack Butala:
I bet if you tried real hard, you could maybe put it under the sole of your shoe.
Jill K DeWit:
Our faces, and congrats on 2000. So we are going to be celebrating tonight, not with M&M’s, but with a real bottle. So thank you and thank you to the Land Academy members for this and our staff and to you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Thank you, Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
This is your brainchild.
Steven Jack Butala:
Do you think we’ll do episode 3000 someday?
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, maybe 4,000 and 5,000.
Steven Jack Butala:
I really do too.
Jill K DeWit:
I do.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you would’ve asked me around episode 1000, I would’ve said, I don’t know. It’s a lot of work.
Jill K DeWit:
I think at episode 10. No, just kidding.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, at episode 10 I said there would be no episode 11.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. That’s so funny.
Steven Jack Butala:
Join us next Wednesday for episode number 2001. You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Steven and Jill:
We are Jack and Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
Information …
Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration …
Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
https://youtu.be/OFQeb_-1t28
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Join Jill DeWit and Kimberly Crossland in this land flipping podcast as they discuss working with your spouse and real estate from the road. They share valuable tips and personal experiences. Whether you’re a seasoned remote worker or aspiring real estate investor, this episode offers practical advice to thrive in today’s dynamic landscape. Tune in for actionable insights!
Transcript: N/A
https://youtu.be/t2xxDRA3-Go
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In this podcast episode, learn how Jack and Jill successfully flip land. They emphasize the importance of experience and knowledge in the land flipping business, and highlight the value of learning from those who have been in the industry for a long time. They outline the 10 steps involved in flipping land, including identifying a target market, sending out mailers, managing inbound responses, acquiring properties, listing them with a real estate agent, and closing the deals. They also provide insights into what makes someone successful in this business, such as taking action, making quick decisions, and being willing to ask for help and funding. They conclude by encouraging listeners to be prepared, motivated, and committed to their land flipping endeavors.
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit, and this is the Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is episode number 1,998, and today we are talking about how to flip land successfully.
Jill K DeWit:
You know what’s cool? I need to add up the numbers, but we’ve been doing this now going on 10 years. Not just our land business, that’s decades. We’ll get to that later.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’ve been teaching for 10 years.
Jill K DeWit:
But just teaching and sharing our business model now for going on 10 years. We have people who have been in Land Academy with us since the beginning. They’re going on 10 years. So my point is-
Steven Jack Butala:
Totally, I didn’t think about that.
Jill K DeWit:
If anyone is qualified to talk about how to make millionaires, and I don’t like to drop numbers like that, but it’s the fact, and really teach people how to start and grow and make a really successful land flipping business, it’s us.
Steven Jack Butala:
So I have a whole framework about how for this episode, about how to actually flip land successfully, but Jill brings up a good point. I wonder if it’s a good thing with all this experience or a bad thing.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s a great thing.
Steven Jack Butala:
I do too.
Jill K DeWit:
Are you kidding? I was talking to somebody the other day and they even said it to me or they’re like, “Duh, why would I want to learn from someone who’s done 100 deals versus someone who’s done 10,000 deals?” And we’re going on and we have like 17,000 deals and these are our deals. I want to make sure everybody knows it’s not the community deals. I can’t even imagine as a community how many deals we’ve done, because we’ve got some heavy hitters that are just male and flip like crazy. They’re always the quiet ones in the group. You don’t hear about them very often, but they’re there. I know they’re pulling a lot of data. I see the charges go through and it’s really, really cool.
Steven Jack Butala:
When I was young, I was always the smartest in the room professionally when it comes to computers. This is when Apple just started and Windows started to become names and products you could buy that could really enhance your business. And so as you can imagine from the older people that I was doing business with at the time or working for, there was a lot of pushback. They literally thought computers and technology was a fad.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, gosh.
Steven Jack Butala:
It was going to go away, and there’s no real replacement for personal relationships. And I think half of that’s true. So I do think there is no replacement for personal relationships and there never will be. It’s the reason we still have real estate agents and we still go to buy a car to car dealership, God forbid.
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s because people just need to have a face and talk to somebody. So I understand that, and the technology part, that’ll apply too. It certainly applies to everybody. There are over the years since what, 25 years I’ve been doing this, the technology changes are staggering without going into the details.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, my gosh.
Steven Jack Butala:
And I decided a long time ago to keep up with them, but the basic stuff’s never changed.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, even be ahead of them.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, be ahead of them.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m going to say, “You’re not a, ‘Oh, I’ll catch up with you guys.'” What do you think? No, you find something and tweak it and say this and pull us all with you in a really positive way.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, so my point is you keep up with or stay ahead of the technological changes, and I’ve made a commitment to that a long time ago. But I think that there’s young people, and I love this by the way, who think that people who are older and have a lot of experience in stuff might not be the best place to learn from, because they are not embracing these brand new concepts. The newest one now is AI, which that term is grossly misused. AI is now what I believe is a term that’s used for querying a database. And there is such a real thing of learning intelligence out there. It just doesn’t apply to the internet. And so I think that there’s so many buzzwords that go on with things on the internet now, like, “Oh, well. We’re applying AI to buying and selling land.” You’re never-
Jill K DeWit:
Please define. And if you ask them, explain and then it goes into a black event.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, I’m just not, you know?
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t know.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s not going to be a title for us.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s just not, because I understand the implication of AI and we can sit here and talk about it for two hours if you want. Probably looking at me or Jill and I, probably don’t look like the people that are capable of talking about that stuff.
Jill K DeWit:
You know what? There’s stuff behind the scenes. I have two points to make, first about the AI thing. There’s stuff behind the scenes though that our team is using that, so we really are using it. It’s not like, “Oh, we’re old school, we’re never going to do that. And I have an IBM electric on my desk.” No. So there’s stuff that we are behind the scenes utilizing this new intelligence and way of doing things. We’d be nuts not to. And the second thing I wanted to say was back to your point when you said in the very beginning of this paragraph, I don’t know what to call that.
Steven Jack Butala:
I call it a rabbit hole.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. You were the smartest one in the room in these areas always. I may not have been the smartest one in the room in a lot of environments, but I was probably the most talkative.
Steven Jack Butala:
And most energetic.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
And none of that’s changed.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, thank you. None of that’s good or bad. Boy, who’s that person in the corner and what are they talking about?
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m almost never the smartest person in the room any more about anything.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, please.
Steven Jack Butala:
But I was really early on. So my point is there’s a real serious value to the amount of transactions that Jill and I have done. And that was my lead into our topic, How to Flip Land Successfully. We’re qualified to talk about this topic.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m going to argue the fact that if you are in any room of real estate professionals, you are the smartest one, period. I’m just going to say it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, boy.
Jill K DeWit:
Come on. You’ve been doing it the longest.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s too much responsibility.
Jill K DeWit:
You invented all this stuff. Look how many people are following in our footsteps and it’s beautiful. You started this thing.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yep.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
All right, so what’s the very first step about how to flip land successfully? Number one-
Jill K DeWit:
Are we jumping into the topic?
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh yeah, right. We have to do this. Three [inaudible 00:06:22].
Jill K DeWit:
Like we have no question and I’m like, I missed all this.
Steven Jack Butala:
Each week on the show… I’ll get back to that in a second.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. [inaudible 00:06:29]. He got us all excited.
Steven Jack Butala:
Each week on the show we answer a question from our Land Academy Member Discord Forum and take a deep dive into a land-related topic by popular request from our Land Academy community. So let’s take that question, Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. So Sandy wrote, “Hello all. I’m new to Land Academy, but not new to land flipping. I came from another online land group where I realized about 10 land deals in” Excuse me, “Where I completed about 10 land deals and then I sold them on terms. I realize now that buying for cash and selling for cash is where the real money is. I’m a Jack, not a Jill. What advice do you have for me in making this transition and any advice in general to be successful in this space?”
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, welcome.
Jill K DeWit:
Yay.
Steven Jack Butala:
You are joining the ranks of probably more than half of the people who have ever passed through Land Academy here in an existing membership group. For whatever reason, I don’t think that we’re the best marketers out there, but people seem to land. They choose us last after going through other programs.
Jill K DeWit:
You may not start here, but you’re probably going to end here if you’re good. Yes.
Steven Jack Butala:
No. So what’s my advice for you for starting out? Or I don’t know, you’re probably in second gear right now, which is great.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s good.
Steven Jack Butala:
I would clear your mind, go through the programs and utilize all the tools that Jill and I have put in place to help you be successful from wherever you’re joining us. So you’re joining us in the middle, which is great. You have some experience. Join our Discord Forum, get through Land Academy 3.0, the education. Somebody told me recently, it’s like 26 hours.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, it was like 14 hours.
Steven Jack Butala:
Okay, good.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, I don’t think it was 26. I think it was like 14.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s a lot. There’s a lot of detail.
Jill K DeWit:
But I think we thought it was like six or eight hours and they’re like, “No, no. It’s more than that.” I’m like, “Okay.”
Steven Jack Butala:
And then there’s a user dashboard where you can access everything. We have a Thursday member webinar. There’s 100+ people on there every Thursday where we look at our deals, ask any questions. There’s a lot. There’s that and a lot more. We will do your mailer for you with a product called Concierge Data. We own… This is not a sales pitch. She’s asking where she should start?
Jill K DeWit:
Utilize the tools, utilize the resources.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s it.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s the main thing. We provide you with, not only the education, but all the tools and support that you need. You only have to ask.
Steven Jack Butala:
They’re all there. And so it’s your job to get yourself organized, stay on track with the program and execute each little piece. And then there’s all kinds of support for wherever you’re coming, we will meet you there.
Jill K DeWit:
Can I add one little note too, because she said she’s a Jack and not a Jill?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
There are other Jills in this group that need Jacks. So if you’re not sure what we’re talking about, he’s always the data guy, picking the areas, pricing the mailers, doing all that stuff, right? Getting it out there and making my phone ring. And then the phone starts ringing now, and that’s where I jump in, getting these sellers to getting the deals, getting them to fall in love with me and my team and wanting to do the transaction with us, make it easy for them all the way to the sales point when it’s all done. So it’s interesting that there’s a lot of Jacks. Now more Jills are coming around.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, it’s true.
Jill K DeWit:
But in the beginning when we started Land Academy nine years ago, we had way more Jacks, way analytical and nobody could answer the phone. It was actually funny, and now it’s like we pivot a little bit, pivot a little, even more women, which is a whole nother conversation. But more Jills. So my point in bringing this up is there are so many partnerships I have seen made successfully running that met within Land Academy, and so that’s a huge thing. So don’t worry about that too, Sandy. If you’re like, “Great, I can do all this but I can’t do this.” Then again, all you need to do is reach out to your peers, because there’s probably somebody there that said, “You know what? I need you, Sandy.” No, I’m serious.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s topic, How to Flip Land Successfully. So I want you to just clear your mind for a second and think about what flipping a piece of land really is. You’re buying something and you’re selling it for more. And through that transition, you’re taking money, you’re buying an asset. You’re redressing it up on the internet, not physically, but redressing it up on the internet and selling it for more. And keeping the money, that’s in between. So if you buy a piece of property for 20,000 bucks, you sell it for 40,000… I’m oversimplifying here, you’ve made $20,000. You put it in your pocket. That’s what this is. That’s the goal. It’s never changed. I don’t care how much AI or whatever is called AI is involved, how many employees you have don’t have, that’s it.
So what I did, and I didn’t realize this and I was thinking about this early this morning for some reason, I don’t know why. Well, I knew the topic was going to be this today. I know you did it too, long before we ever crossed paths, is bought stuff and resold it. I don’t care what it is. So if you’ve done that, if you bought a house, let’s say, cleaned it all up, and I don’t mean renovated it, I mean bought a house. Your life circumstances changed and you need to sell the house, how’d you sell it? Did you sell it for more? Did you lose money on it? Did you put your heart and soul into reselling that house?
If you ever had a garage sale, you got 25, 30, 300 things out there, a couple of them you probably sold for more than you had into it. Maybe somebody actually gave whatever you sold and so you made money on it. That’s either in your soul or it’s not, buying something and reselling it for more. It certainly is in mine.
Jill K DeWit:
I was going to say too, the point I want to make sure it’s clear, because I think this is going to attract people who are new to us, and they don’t know who we are, and you’re probably maybe listening to this for the first time. We’re not saying, “I’m buying something off the MLS that’s a bad listing with bad photos and involving an agent,” or something like that. That’s not what we’re talking about. We create a deal where there was no deal and then so we’re taking something… It’s almost like I’m going back to your garage sale thing. It’s like I walked in my mom’s house and said, “You know that vase in the corner that’s collecting dust, that’s worth something. Can I buy it from you for 20 bucks?” And then all I’m going to do is give it a bath maybe. I wash it and put it on a table and sell it for 50 bucks. Kind of like that. That’s what we do with land. So I want to make sure that that was clear how we do that.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s 10 basic steps to buying and selling land successfully. Number one, you have to identify a market where you think this is going to work. This works in all markets. I’ll say that again. Buying land and selling it for more works in every single market. The variable is time. So I can buy a piece of property in the most rural market in North Dakota that there ever was for a reasonable price, and clean it all up and resell it and it will sell. It might take 20 years. We don’t want that. We want to choose intelligently-used data to choose markets where we can do it a lot faster than that, hopefully inside of a month. So you need to really understand how to use data to find a target market to buy and sell land. We are experts at that. There’s no other way for me to say it. That’s how I spend most of day.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s one of the unique things about us.
Steven Jack Butala:
Number two, you need to test that market and then get the data of all the people that own real estate in that market. The universe of property owners, we are experts at that. We are licensed providers of the best source of data, and when you look at all the costs associated with it, there’s no place cheaper to get data than it is from us in the long term.
Jill K DeWit:
And training.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s keep this real simple.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s just go right through the 10 steps.
Jill K DeWit:
I won’t talk.
Steven Jack Butala:
You can talk. Now you’ve got the data. What we do is we send every single one of those logical sellers an actual offer. “Sally Smith, I would like to buy a property for $3,122 and 13 cents.” That we have found gets the best response. Jill and I own property all over this country. Every week we get offers that we crack up, like, “This is never going to work. The seller’s never going to respond to it.” What was the most recent one we got?
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, in the mail?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, my gosh. It was like a fake handwritten envelope with a fake yellow pad, and there wasn’t even a number in there. It was just, “I want to buy your property in this county.” They didn’t even tell me which property. They didn’t have my name inside there. It was really weird, and they only use their first names. They didn’t even really give their company name or their last name, and they gave me a Yahoo email account. I’m like, “This is not, this is,” I feel bad. I want to help this person.
Steven Jack Butala:
So these are examples often.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s not going to send the right message.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m only on step two, and we’re already identify… The name of the show here is, How to Flip Land Successfully?
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
And so if you’re not identifying a target market based on data and results, that’s number one. You’re not going to do it successfully. Number two, if you’re not sending out pricing, creating a mailer and sending it out, based on very intelligent data-driven pricing and sending out an offer, not just a letter of interest, what Jill just described as a letter of interest, you’re probably not going to do it successfully. In fact, I’ve done all these things.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s going to slow you down.
Steven Jack Butala:
And I’ve done all incorrectly.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s time and money wasted, unfortunately. You want them to call you back with a number.
Steven Jack Butala:
And so I’m skipping ahead in steps, not necessarily, but steps between creating a mailer and pricing it, and then approving the mailer. Whoever you get to do your mailer, we have a company called Offers 2 Owners that does mailers for you. All you have to do is check our pricing. That’ll get you to step number five, which is managing the flow of inbound responses. So let me be super clear. Step one is to identify and test for logical places to send mail. Number two is to get the ball rolling down the mailer road, and so you’re creating a mailer. Number three is managing the mailer, whether you manage yourself or you manage it through our mailing company or anywhere else.
And number four is you price it and you get it out in the mail. So number five now is managing the flow of inbound responses. This is where I stop working and Jill starts working.
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
So she will utilize something, some phone-answering service. We use PATLive. There’s a ton of them out there. Or you can answer your phone yourself.
Jill K DeWit:
Back in the day, I did it myself.
Steven Jack Butala:
And manage all this inbound flow of people saying, “I do want to do this deal and thanks for letting me know, and what’s the next step?” All that to go pond sand, because you’re crazy. My properties were $13 million and you offered me 13 cents.
Jill K DeWit:
I personally love this part. This is my favorite part. Can I just want to pause for just a second? This is when the win happens for me. You know when you’re buying it, what you’re buying, how valuable it is and all that good stuff. So that’s for me, that’s so exciting. I love it. I love getting the calls and talking to the sellers and making these transactions happen. So that’s step five.
Steven Jack Butala:
Step five is what I call, because the name of the show is How to Flip Land Successfully, this is where I believe most people fail.
Jill K DeWit:
Really?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yep. I think that. There was a… I said this in Career Path. Jill and I teach a class called Career Path. It’s in a real advance for people who make this their career or it is their career and they want to get better at it. One of the things that I remembered from going to school to college is that in every business there’s a moment where the customer is receiving your product or your service. There’s this magical moment where they decide, “Wow, this is something I’m going to utilize and I believe in it,” or, “I don’t want any part of this.” It’s when you sit down in a new car in a dealership and you decide, “This is exactly what I’m looking for,” or, “Oh, my God. I never want to see this car again.” It’s the time. It’s what bedside manner is for healthcare workers.
Every business has that moment, and it’s at this moment when they talk to Jill for the first 15 to 30 seconds, the seller does. They’re going to decide whether or not they want to talk to her and sell a piece of property or deal with her at all. This is imperative, and I used to think a perfectly priced mailer, “Oh, we don’t need to do this other stuff over here. It’s just not the case.” I used to think that before Jill and I joined forces about what, 15 years ago?
Jill K DeWit:
Mm-hmm.
Steven Jack Butala:
So it’s imperative to get somebody who knows how to do this. If you’re somebody like me or just if you’re in corporate sales for your entire life, then you already know all of this. Number six is now you’ve got a list of people that have called you back or a list of potential deals. You’ve created, congratulations, real estate deal flow. This has eluded the vast majority of people in all real estate of all time. Creating deal flow, what Jill referred to earlier, is you’re creating a real estate transaction. You’re not out on the MLS looking for one to sell for a higher rate. You’re not in Walmart trying to buy something to resell it for more somewhere. It’s very unlikely that that’s going to happen. In fact, I would say it’s probably not going to happen.
So you’ve got these 10 real estate deals that you have created and just like 10 of anything, some of them are going to be great, some of them are going to suck and the rest of them are going to be in the middle. And so you take some time and decide which ones you want. Or if you’re Land Academy-
Jill K DeWit:
Well, the great ones.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. Well, if you’re a Land Academy member and you’re new, then if you’ve been doing this for a long time, you’re going to jump up and down when you get off the phone.
Jill K DeWit:
You know.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you’re new, you’re going to utilize the resources that Jill and I put together in Land Academy to make you successful.
Jill K DeWit:
Or ask us. We’ll help you.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’ll tell you if it sucks or not. We’ll tell you if it’s great. If it is, we’ll fund it. If it sucks, then we’ll tell you that too.
Jill K DeWit:
We’ll save you. No, no. The whole point of that is we save you. That’s one of the big values I see every week on our member calls and say, “Hey, would you guys do this deal? I’m on the fence.” And we’re like, “Okay. You need to look at this, this and this,” and guide them. Or like, “Uh-uh. Because of this and this, I wouldn’t even do it.” They’re like, “Whew. Thank you. You just saved me all that work and energy and time and money potentially.” So absolutely.
Steven Jack Butala:
Hey, now’s a good time to ask you to Like this episode if you do or follow our channel. We’re here every week, every Wednesday. I think that these programs air at 3:00.
Jill K DeWit:
Yep.
Steven Jack Butala:
And then we also have just redeveloped a product called Concierge Data where our guys that work for us, they’re the same people that do our mailers, will do your mailer for you. So if you go to Offers 2 Owners, offers2owners.com. Just check it out. Give them a call, actually. Talk to Aaron. Tell him Jack and Jill sent you from the podcast. So step seven, you actually acquire the property. You looked at, let’s say 10, and a healthy number is two of them really meet after talking to the sellers and checking it all out and using the due diligence program that we have provided, let’s say eight A’s, which that’s for a different conversation. We try to make due diligence as simple as possible, and you decide you want to buy two, so you buy them, and if you are brand new at this, that can be intimidating, that process.
But again, that’s why you have Land Academy and a bunch of people at your fingertips, literally. You can ask questions all day long and get the deal done correctly without any fear of missing steps. I’ve noticed that people, that was one of the things I was concerned about when I started was, “What steps am I missing in this actual transaction?” Or, “What should I be reading? There’s a big stack of papers in front of me on these two deals. I don’t know what a lot of this stuff means.” That’s why you have your peer group here, us.
Number nine is just quite simply, you’ve made a decision. You bought the property, and so now you’re going to travel down the path of listing it with a local real estate agent. And so that can be a tricky little path too. Again, we’re all going through the same thing. Hundreds and hundreds of us here at Land Academy are going through the same thing. So picking a real estate agent, Jill, we could spend hours.
Jill K DeWit:
That’d be a whole nother show. That’d be fun to talk about. So I love that.
Steven Jack Butala:
So you listed it with a real estate agent and then you manage the real estate agent, geez, like you manage your children. Unfortunately, it’s a very-
Jill K DeWit:
I hope you manage your children.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m sure some of you don’t.
Steven Jack Butala:
Bad example.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
The property eventually gets sold. It may get sold for the price you want. It may not, most of the time for us, almost all the time.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s pretty close.
Steven Jack Butala:
We sell for what we want, otherwise we wouldn’t buy it.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think that’s step eight or nine. And then step 10 is you collect the money. You approve the sale, close the deal and collect the money. It’s a 10 step process. The difference between doing it successfully, in my opinion, or not successfully, is all about who’s in your life. If you have people that are buying and selling land and doing real estate deals all the time who have had a ton of experience and they’re available to you, that’s the difference between all the people on the internet right now who believe that they can flip land and actually the people who do it successfully.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s a good point. Can I look at that for just a minute before you close it?
Steven Jack Butala:
Sure. Sure.
Jill K DeWit:
It’d be nice to just identify some of the trigger points here. What makes someone really wildly successful? I would like to add that. So of these steps, step number one, okay, taking the time to dig in and not have a dart board, not trust your friend, not trust somebody you’re watching, doing what you think you know. “Oh, San Antonio, I got to hit San Antonio. Let’s just mail that.” But really taking the time and testing these markets, that’s a huge thing right there, and that separates the successful from the unsuccessful right out of the gate. Number two, just taking action, going through the process, learning how to do a mailer or hiring someone to do it for you, but knowing. Don’t have an automated easy button and you know someone who really knows what they’re doing.
They understand this whole process. They know how to scrape comps. It’s again, not an easy button in a machine that doesn’t really look at these numbers and knows what is real and what is not real so you can take them out and not mess up your numbers and have an overpriced mailer kind of thing. But taking action and getting through that is huge. These are places… Like someone coming in, I’ve seen them go through the step one, but actually getting the mail out, huge obstacle. For some reason, people get hung up right there. We’ve had people in Land Academy for months who haven’t sent out a mailer, and I know in their hearts they’re here for the right reason. They’re like, “Okay, next month I’m going to do it. Next month I’m going to do it.” But there’s something that holds them back. So you’ve got to just, who cares? Push through it.
If it’s not the greatest work, that’s okay. Get it out there, but you have us, and we’ll show you and teach you and coach you and help you to make sure you did everything you possibly could. Do your best job here. Now hit it, get it out kind of thing. Looking through here where people get hung up and what’s successful. Okay, when we got to the part about the calls are coming back, that is huge. The successful folks answer the phone themselves, A., or have some other live body that they know, they’ve vetted, they’ve tested, even a service that we all use or other people have used and trusted, huge. You would have so many missed deals, if it goes to voicemail or you have some other… What if you only had an email? It’s just people aren’t going to use that. They’re going to pick up the phone and call you kind of thing.
And you have to have someone there and have the right person there, by the way, who knows how to talk to these sellers and work with them. Let them know who you are. It’s a real person and talk money with them right away. That’s another just a light bulb, successful moment. Making the decisions, what’s a really good, successful person there? They know how to make quick decisions, and they’re very good with their time, and they are not afraid to cut a deal that they’re not comfortable with. I see people getting hung up here trying to make a bad deal work. A real successful person knows what we’re talking about. They study their eight A’s. They go, “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Got them all. Let’s go.” And they’re not afraid to just move forward and buy the property.
What’s another point? Well, when we’re buying the property, what’s a real successful person doing? They’re not afraid of money. They’re not as afraid of spending money, and if they don’t have the money, they’re not afraid to ask for money. I know people that don’t utilize the deal funding resources that we have right here, even from us. Ask. If it’s a great deal, I will happily write that check.
Steven Jack Butala:
If it’s even a reasonable deal, there’s somebody in our group-
Jill K DeWit:
They’ll write the check.
Steven Jack Butala:
… may or may not be us, they’re here to fund deals. They’re not here to do what you do.
Jill K DeWit:
That happens and what’s great too, it’s confidence and experience and knowing what you’re good at. I am not too proud to say, and I’ve done this like, “Hey, I think this is a great deal, but you know what? I don’t know this area quite as well as this person, and I know they are loving to do deal funding. If I were you, I would reach out to this person and tell them I sent you, see what they say. And if it’s a real good deal, they’ll tell you. And if they want to fund it, oh, they will,” kind of thing. And there you go. I’m trying to find the… I’m thinking of successful light bulb moments is what I’m doing here. Signing paperwork, there’s no light bulb moment there, other than do it. Let’s see what else here? And make it easy. Just make it easy. Don’t overthink stuff.
Steven Jack Butala:
Can I jump in here?
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. Why? You’re going… I can’t go through with this?
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, are you… Just go ahead and finish it.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, yeah. I want to finish my little light bulb moments through the list. Listing with an agent. Real successful people know how to pick up the phone and vet an agent and to not take the first person you call until you find someone that you connect with. And then the last thing, you already know how it’s going to end. Real successful people already have, when they bought it, already have in their head a targeted sales price. So it’s no surprise. Now you can take that.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s a recap. Let’s recap. The first step in this process is to locate, based on data, locate a place to send mail. The second step is to identify all the people that own property there and get an offer in their hands. The third step is to manage the inbound flow of deals and make some decisions about which ones you like, which ones you don’t, and why. The next step is buy the ones you like. This next step after that is sell the ones you like or sell the ones that you own, and that’s it. And it’s those five basic steps. There’s a lot of stuff in between that happens, a lot of details, but that’s what groups like Land Academy are for.
Jill K DeWit:
We’ll help you.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s a five step process. Yep.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, the whole thing is too, people don’t understand I think though. We go into great, almost too much detail sometimes, but you brainy folks love it. So if you’re questioning, “Hey, does Land Academy talk about fill in the blank?” 99.9% of the time, it’s yes.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, we do.
Jill K DeWit:
The only thing I’m not going to do is to sit down with you and fill out your tax return kind of thing. But outside of that, every possible conversation you can imagine, because that’s who we are. I’m here to help. The whole thing is Land Academy is helping you start or grow or both your own successful company. That’s it. And then we’re all just doing deals together and it’s awesome.
Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s a profile after 10 years of teaching that we think really fits who’s successful at this and who’s not. First, who’s successful? If you’ve been successful at anything in your life in the past or let’s say most of the stuff that you’ve tried, you’ve been successful at it, you’re going to be successful at this. You probably don’t even know it. You don’t know that you have that go-getter type personality, and you’re not going to lose. You’re not going to even know when you’re defeated. You’re just going to keep barreling through. We have tons of people in our group who have sold their companies or own companies now, and they want an extra place, diversification, an extra revenue stream. And so those people do very, very well with us. The second type of really successful member for us is somebody who’s just really, really new and really, really energetic.
Jill K DeWit:
I was going to use the word hungry.
Steven Jack Butala:
Both. It’s the same thing. We’re talking about the same type of person. So those are real, and that comes down to a personality type. It doesn’t come down to whether or not they’re smart enough to understand the processes or whether they’re a Jack or a Jill. That personality type is going to overcome all of that anyway. That’s just how they do it.
Jill K DeWit:
And age doesn’t matter.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. As you can imagine, on the flip side, the people who don’t do this successfully are the ones who quite simply just don’t follow through. They don’t follow through on the steps and that’s it.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, I just call it sometimes it’s like I say, “They let life get in the way.” That’s what happens. So I understand. So that’s part of it too, when you’re going to come at this… Oh, I could use it for that. All right.
Steven Jack Butala:
No, no.
Jill K DeWit:
I’ll save it. Oh, no, I can save it for my inspiration.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m just saving it next. Jill has something inspirational to share.
Jill K DeWit:
Something [inaudible 00:35:15]. Okay, I can save it for that. So all right, so I’ll just say that. What my inspiration is, don’t let life… Well, life will get in the way if you’ll let it.
Steven Jack Butala:
With anything.
Jill K DeWit:
It really will. And I know I don’t need to minimize. Sometimes there are major life events, so I’m not referring to that. But there are a whole lot of life events that people could overcome, but they let them get in the way. And it’s interesting to me. I’ve had people even four times, it’s the sweetest thing.
Steven Jack Butala:
Really?
Jill K DeWit:
You know who you are and I love you guys. People have left. There’s been a life event. They left and then sometimes weeks, sometimes months, sometimes even a year, they’re like, “You know what? I did not give that my full attention and energy. I know what’s going on in Land Academy. I’m still hearing about my buddy that I started with and how much money he’s making right now. I need to go back and get back to this.” And they come right back, and I’m happy to have you back and I love that.
So my inspiration is the first thing would be, get yourself mentally and physically ready to do this. I want you to have the budget so you can afford to get educated. Just like anything, I wouldn’t say go buy a 7-Eleven with no money and take out a loan. And I wouldn’t say… There’s no business I would say, “Oh, just take out a loan and see how it goes.” No way. No matter what business you’re going to do, save up, get some education, do everything you can before you jump in so you know what you’re getting into, and then prepare your whole family and your whole life, your vacation schedule, your kids, every little thing. This is the same thing. It shouldn’t be taken lightly. If you want to really be successful, get everything in a row.
Prepare everybody. “We’re not going to take a vacation this summer. This is what we’re doing, because wait two years and wait until you see the vacations we can take,” kind of thing. That’s the goal. So just get everything ready and go at it 112%. Remember that 12 degrees thing. I think that was 12 degrees, whatever that book was, that was so long ago. That’s my inspiration. And if it’s not the right time, and I tell this to people all the time, I talk to people that call in, I say, “You know what? Wait six months. I’m not going anywhere. You need to be in the right place. You need to be ready to do this, and I don’t want you to do this half blank. I want you to come at this full speed, and we’ll get you there.” What do you want to share today?
Steven Jack Butala:
So I was having a conversation with one of the people that worked for us a couple of weeks ago, maybe a week ago, and we were talking about how this generation, it is an absolute. It’s expected of you and it’s a norm to have some type of side gig, to be working on something on the side that eventually, if it goes right, is going to be your entrepreneurial shot and mark in life. And I could not have grown up in a more different environment. I grew up where you were very rewarded for, this is a lot of years ago in Detroit, rewarded for either being in a company person and working there forever and getting a gold watch and you retire. Or going off and starting your own company, which is nearly impossible back then unless you had all kinds of backing and people that were involved in the businesses and the contacts and the money, because starting a metal stamping plant costs back then even millions and millions of dollars.
So most or all of us chose number one. Fast-forward to now, it’s 180 degrees different. You are expected to have a side gig. But I don’t think that most people have any idea what that means from a personality standpoint and what Jill just referred to about sacrifice, personal sacrifice. The more stuff you pile on in your life like children and marriage and a mortgage and all of that, the further you’re going to get away from accomplishing whatever’s making that side gig that we’re all now expected to have a reality. And I think that makes me sad, because we’re in one of the greatest entrepreneurial times, if not the greatest entrepreneurial time, in the history of our country. It has never been cheaper and easier. You are literally a half hour away from starting your own company.
Jill K DeWit:
Isn’t it amazing? Can we unfold this onion a little bit here? I was raised differently, which really I saw both sides. I watched my dad hustle with different jobs back in… He had so many jobs it’s comical, from firefighter and selling insurance and radio DJ and mailman, Disneyland. Some of this was before I was born, but I know of these jobs, and to pilot to professional pilot to investor. He too, I always watched my dad have this job that paid very well and then a little side hustle, because he had time to do this stuff. I just think it’s really interesting. I’m trying to think with the kids now. I see when I say kids, I am referring to our kids. So this is the one. I’m not picking on anybody that doesn’t deserve it, but I watch our kids have-
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill’s caveats. That’s what I call it.
Jill K DeWit:
There we go. So I watch our kids have an opportunity, squander the opportunity, have to get a real job or just some other job to pay the bills, which you should, not sleeping on my couch, kind of thing. And then realize, “Oh, that’s an opportunity,” and I’m seeing a shift. I feel like there’s a generation where… There’s a generation in the middle of us and our kids where they’re afraid to take on their own company. Have you noticed this?
Steven Jack Butala:
Go ahead. Yes.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s the same fear that I had and that my parents had and their parents had. Nothing’s changed. I’m going to finish your point.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, go ahead.
Steven Jack Butala:
Nothing has changed from me staring into the abyss when I was 18 or 17 years old with this insurmountable task of trying to open a metal stamping plant or whatever.
Jill K DeWit:
That was your thing?
Steven Jack Butala:
Just hold on.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, sorry.
Steven Jack Butala:
It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what I wanted. You are staring if you’re a young person right now into this seemingly black abyss, because everything’s relative of where do I start? What you have that we never had was education and the internet.
Jill K DeWit:
YouTube.
Steven Jack Butala:
And you have answers to every question that you’ve ever, ever… So this is not some old guy saying, “I had it harder than you.” That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying it’s the exact same thing. It’s just relative. The tools that we had were finite back then, and the tools that you have are finite now. You just have to work your way through it, and at some point you’re going to look at yourself in the mirror and say, “I’m set up for this or I’m not.” Or you’re going to motivate yourself. If you have a personality type like Jill, you’re going to motivate yourself and talk to yourself to the point where you’re going to make this successful and that’s it.
And that is coming full circle to what this topic is about today is How to Flip Land Successfully, because you’re staring in the mirror saying, “This is it now, this is it, and I’m taking this down to the end. I might not know how to do a mailer. I’m going to find out somebody who does. I might not know how to build a website and that’s easy. It costs 300 bucks on Fiverr. I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to do this, but what I do know is I’m going to succeed at it and I’m going to be the quarterback.” That’s all I am. In all of these businesses that Joe and I own is a quarterback.
Jill K DeWit:
What am I?
Steven Jack Butala:
You’re like a-
Jill K DeWit:
I like this.
Steven Jack Butala:
You’re the wide receiver.
Jill K DeWit:
I was going to say-
Steven Jack Butala:
You’re Tron.
Jill K DeWit:
I know. I was waiting for that one. I’m not the kicker.
Steven Jack Butala:
No one wants to be the kicker.
Jill K DeWit:
No one wants to be the kicker. Yeah, I’ll be the wide receiver. I was expecting that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Calling myself a quarterback is actually not that accurate. I think I do a lot less than what a quarterback does. What I probably-
Jill K DeWit:
Well, you call the plays.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m a general manager more than anything.
Jill K DeWit:
That makes sense.
Steven Jack Butala:
Quarterbacks have talent. I’m the general manager that makes sure the lights are on in the stadium and then whoever didn’t turn the lights on in the stadium is going to hear from me. I am not the quarterback at all now that I’m thinking about it.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s hilarious. Are you the guy that makes sure the Gatorade’s out there and all filled up too?
Steven Jack Butala:
I am the guy who put the person in place of the Gatorade.
Jill K DeWit:
There we go. Okay. Well, in that case, now what? Am I still the wide receiver or what am I?
Steven Jack Butala:
No, no, I think I’m not sure. I don’t know.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m definitely not the person with the clipboard yelling at people.
Steven Jack Butala:
You’re the mascot.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, I’m the mascot. That is actually accurate.
Steven Jack Butala:
Although if Jill was a mascot, she would be the mascot with the head on, the head of the mascot on for about eight minutes, and she’d take it off and, “No one can see me with his head on.”
Jill K DeWit:
No one knows it’s me. This is going to come back to bite us. I can already hear you folks who know us are going to bring this up again. I’m talking about the… What was your job? You’re the manager, the manager of the mascot.
Steven Jack Butala:
Not even the owner. I’m just the manager.
Jill K DeWit:
General manager of the mascot. That’s great. That’s like every years ago we had team red, team blue. That’s good. I love this. Hey, don’t forget, if you want to find out more, you have some questions, you can talk to our team, reach out. Send a note to support@landacademy.com.
Steven Jack Butala:
Join us next Wednesday for another interesting episode. You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill K DeWit:
We are Jack and Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
We are Jack and Jill. Information.
Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration.
Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
https://youtu.be/MqVbdwkCAcc
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Jack Butala and Jill DeWit explore the real estate market, discussing the anticipated stagnation in 2024 and offering valuable insights for investors. Jack shares three crucial strategies to thrive in this shifting market: increasing offer volume, recognizing the rise in rental demand, and predicting demographic and relocation trends. With their expertise, Jack and Jill provide practical guidance for real estate investors adapting to changing conditions. Discover expert tips and strategies to excel in the evolving real estate landscape by watching this video.
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
I am Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit, and this is the Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is episode number 1,997, and today we are talking about three ways to take advantage of the 2024 real estate stagnation that is sure to happen this year. A little later we’ll talk about how we’re going to take a look at how you respond to change. This change is going to happen this year, not just in real estate.
Jill K DeWit:
Uh-oh. Is this a, “Jill, we’re taking a deep dive into your psyche. How do you respond to things?”
Steven Jack Butala:
I would not dare.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, gosh.
Steven Jack Butala:
To put you center stage, and ask you all kinds of questions that put you out of your comfort zone. No joke.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, right.
Steven Jack Butala:
No, that’s not what this is.
Jill K DeWit:
Thanks a lot. We left my comfort zone a long … way back there a long time ago, like 10 years ago.
Steven Jack Butala:
Were you ever in your comfort zone, do you think? Seriously?
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. I mean, yeah. You know what? I was not in my comfort zone. I was in a comfort zone, and I hated it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Me too.
Jill K DeWit:
I felt trapped.
Steven Jack Butala:
Me too.
Jill K DeWit:
I felt stuck. I couldn’t stand it. I hit the ceiling of where I was working. There was nowhere to go, and then that’s why … I’ve had that a couple times in my life, and I had to make changes, and now that we run our own companies, I don’t have that problem anymore.
Steven Jack Butala:
We just had this exact talk about, I don’t want to blow the episode here, but how risky a W-2 job is, and it’s so ironic because you think it’s the greatest thing ever, “Oh, I got this great job. I’m going to get a new car. I’m going to buy a new house. I’m finally going to do the stuff I want to do.” It’s totally the opposite.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
You should hunker down, especially this day and age, and prepare for that single point of failure to fail.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
Each week on the show we answer questions from our Land Academy member Discord forum, and review land acquisitions from our weekly member webinars, and then we take a deep dive into two land-related topics.
Jill K DeWit:
Yup. All right, so Alicia wrote, “How many zip codes do you gauge your mailer on in the red yellow green test? So what I mean is, do you test 3 to 10 zip codes, and then if 6 out of 10 are good, and then 4 don’t pass, what’s your number? I’m sure I’m overthinking here.” I like this question.
Steven Jack Butala:
Alicia-
Jill K DeWit:
How many is enough, and what’s not too much?
Steven Jack Butala:
You’re not overthinking this at all, and I have to tell you, I love your contribution to Discord, not as a person who’s … you are using Discord how we intended it when we set it all up. She’s asking tiny little questions every single step of the way. I can read through Discord on most of the channels, and I can see where you are in your career.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s sweet.
Steven Jack Butala:
And at some point I’ll tell you, and I say this with passion, we’re just not going to hear from you again. That’s how this always happens because you’re off and running and, “Thanks, guys-
Jill K DeWit:
That’s true, “Loud, loud, loud, got it.”
Steven Jack Butala:
“I got what I needed from you, and bye.”
Jill K DeWit:
True. True that.
Steven Jack Butala:
You’re not overthinking this at all. I would test as many zip codes as you possibly can stomach. The more that you test, the more you’re going to find two or three or four that absolutely kick the heck out of the other ones. But I will tell you on a personal note, the vast majority of the time when I pick an area to test, and I run, let’s say a 10 zip code test, I choose like eight or nine of them. There’s usually one glaring.
Jill K DeWit:
What’s your average, 8 or 9 out of 20?
Steven Jack Butala:
10.
Jill K DeWit:
10.
Steven Jack Butala:
10 is good. 10 is a good-
Jill K DeWit:
10 is good.
Steven Jack Butala:
Regional rural market, if it’s urban, it’s a whole different deal, and we talk about that in House Academy. Urban markets are usually for House Academy, and you can see right away where you should be sending mail, but rural land markets, like 10.
Jill K DeWit:
What’s the most common thing that you … of the red yellow green tests, days on market new list is sold, and what’s the third?
Steven Jack Butala:
In the universe of properties, what’s listed.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. Okay. What’s the number one? What weighs the most? Is it days on market?
Steven Jack Butala:
No, it used to be. It used to be days on market for a long, long time was a real indicator, or you could look at, let’s say three zip codes out, just on the sake of argument. One’s got a days on market of 80, one’s got a days on market of 70, and one’s got it of 60. 60 is the best because stuff’s moving faster, but that’s just not … What I really look at now is what’s pending, and what’s existing. So if I have … There’s a market I just analyzed for mobile homes, and it has as many pending properties as it does for sale properties. What I can tell then is that, and it was a lot too, like 30 pending, and with the entire list, I think there were, left over there were 30 for sale still. So there was a huge problem, in my opinion, with the properties that are still left for sale, meaning they’re not priced correctly, or the quality of the product or location is substandard. So now it’s telling me everything I need to know about that market, and I want to stay out there.
Jill K DeWit:
They’re not interesting.
Steven Jack Butala:
So you can tell so much from this red green yellow test.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
You can’t overdo the red green yellow test. First of all, it’s free.
Jill K DeWit:
By the way, it’s free. Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s free.
Jill K DeWit:
You haven’t download any data yet.
Steven Jack Butala:
And it’s easy.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Doing the mailers, if you don’t get concierge data to do it, especially if it’s your first time, it’s time-consuming and a pretty big learning curve. But red green yellow test is you in a weekend and a pot of coffee, and you’re going to come out of that, which I can tell you know what you were doing already just by asking this question. More is better for all this stuff.
Jill K DeWit:
I think more is better too, in a lot of things, most things, not kids.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s a gear shift there. I agree with you.
Jill K DeWit:
Not marriages or kids, more is not better.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill, just bought a new couch, and she, I think overspent on it, and-
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, this is good.
Steven Jack Butala:
Hold on, there’s a compliment here.
Jill K DeWit:
I can’t wait to hear this one.
Steven Jack Butala:
We both sat down on this couch, and it’s really nice actually. It’s going to change our lives quite honestly.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s sad to report, but that’s all it takes.
Jill K DeWit:
I won. I was right, not that I need to win.
Steven Jack Butala:
The first thing, we both looked at each other and said, “No children will ever sit on this couch. It’s not going to get racked or-
Jill K DeWit:
We have no kids at home, and no pets.
Steven Jack Butala:
We both just had a little smile on our face like-
Jill K DeWit:
I can have a tan couch, a cream couch, that’s it. I intentionally bought a cream couch and I love it.
Steven Jack Butala:
I do too, actually.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s awesome.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s first topic, three ways to take advantage of the 2024 real estate stagnation that will happen. Mark my words. It’s happening now. The real estate market is finally responding, finally responding to the crazed frenzy that was COVID-driven. Everybody got to work from home, who could. Everybody moved out of town, who could.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
And so there was a lot of movement. There was just … and it drove prices way up, unrealistically high.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
And so for lots of industries, they got subsidized by the governments, not just in this country, but all over the place. So what ended up happening, in my opinion, is this massive interruption in real supply and demand, and that trickled into this pure supply-demand of real estate in location and price and all of that. Then a bunch of other stuff happened, it got too crazy, so the federal government stepped in specifically last year, raised the hell out of interest rates to a kook level, in my opinion, and that had a huge effect on access to capital, including mortgages. The whole result is, and that was the federal government’s intention, is to stop the madness, and to bring some balance back into pure supply and demand, and we’re going to see that.
Before that actually truly happens, the pendulum’s going to swing back in the other direction. It was a frenzy before, it’s going to take a huge chill pill, and this year we’re going to see what I’m going to call stagnation. It’s probably going to be a little bit deflated, but it won’t crash, I don’t believe, like it did in 2000 and, let’s say ’10 or ’09. So how can we really take advantage of this as investors? I said this before a thousand times, this is my third time, so I really … my third time buying and selling land as a primary way to make money, my primary income in business. The second time was just a repeat of the first time, the severity was different, this time will be just like the first time, pretty equal severity. So number one, there’s a lot more properties on the market so you need to, number one, make a lot of offers, a lot more offers than you’re making now because they will be responded to much more favorably because there’s so much real seller competition.
Jill K DeWit:
I love this.
Steven Jack Butala:
Number two. More people, and take this how you will, will be renting than buying. There is the stagnation that’s going to happen or is happening, happens in the job markets too, less people are getting-
Jill K DeWit:
Because they can’t afford to buy.
Steven Jack Butala:
Less people are getting raises, more people are getting laid off. I hate to be negative here, but there’s no other way to say it. So there’s a lot more down, and when things are down, it’s just like the stock market, when it’s down, those are opportunity. Some things … In my opinion, the stock market usually gets artificially put down, like let some newscast comes out, or some type of natural event happens and the stock takes a huge dive and then it comes back up. It’s all based on news reporting. It’s based on reality. This is based on reality.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
People lose their job, they’re going to need to make some decisions in life, which takes me to point three. People are going to move. All this frenzy of all these people that are working from home in response to COVID, and bought a property in Lake Tahoe, can’t afford it now, or maybe they’ve got a jobs change or scenario, and they have to move back into the city, and so it’s not just houses, it’s all of it. Tons of people bought land with the idea of building a house out in the woods because they were going to work from home forever, and that’s all going to change, and it is changing. So enter you, the real estate investor, take a look at all these things, digest it all, run and just keep sending offers out in areas that are indicative to these three things or more, whatever makes sense to you, you’re going to win.
Jill K DeWit:
I love it. I’m trying to think what is … I had a question about this as far as prices. Did you really dive deep enough, I wonder, in the pricing or can you add to that? In addition to sending out more offers, this is where you can just … We talked … How do I say? On our Thursday member call, we have people that will bring up deals sometimes, and they’re kind of on the fence about it, I’m like, “You know what then, what will solve it?” Often it’s money. So I’m like, “All right, so if you got it for what,” they’re like, “Well, yeah, if I could buy it for that, then I’d do it and figure it out. It would be a no-brainer.” I’m like, “Okay, that’s how you need to think about it.” I think that’s going to come up even more.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let me just kind of tee up what Jill is really saying. We get a deal in. Where’d you do this deal? On our Thursday call we look at tons of them, every single Thursday for our membership group, and they are presented like this. This is a buy for 14,000, and a sell for 65,000.
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
We look at it, and bring our experience, and a bunch of other people that are on our panel say, “Oh, I love this about it. I love this about it. I love this about it, but this is not good. There’s an issue here.” What’s going to fix it? Well, you’re buying it for 14, what do you say you try to buy it for 7, and then you’ve got all kinds of room on the sell side if something goes wrong to say “No, it’s a buy for 7 and sell for 22.” Because some stuff went wrong, and you don’t want to be buying for 14 and selling for 22, it’s just not worth your time. So what she’s saying is, I think, if I can paraphrase, “Just do that anyway. Send out the offers that way. Do it on all the deals. Just send out three times as much mail as you’re currently sending, and pick and choose which ones you want to do.”
Jill K DeWit:
You speak Jill very well. Jill got three sentences out, and Jack says, “Let me take this back over here, I’ll explain it.”
Steven Jack Butala:
[Inaudible 00:12:59] super clear. What she’s saying is buy the freaking property cheap, all right? Especially now, there’s a lot more property-
Jill K DeWit:
That’s it, be aggressive.
Steven Jack Butala:
On the market. Probably it’s going to take you a little longer to sell it, you want to make sure you’re buying the stuff cheap.
Jill K DeWit:
You should be looking at everything like this. If this guy says yes to this number, I’m buying it. I got to buy it. That’s how I want you to think about it with every deal right now, and like he said, mail it out that way. Don’t be afraid of it. Watch what happens. We joke about this all the time. You’re on the phone and you say, “You know what? I know I said 53, I meant 53,000. I meant 5,300. I did some looking at it, that’s best I can do,” and then wait for it and see what happens. Usually there’s a reason behind it. I don’t want you to be that guy, don’t try to be a not good person, but there’s circumstances that you’re like we’re talking about right now you got to make some really smart decisions, and you’re not … Whatever it is, it’s up to them to say yes or no, if they’re comfortable with it, they say yes, and if they’re not, they’ll say, “Can you make it 10?” And I might make it 10.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let me tell a little anecdotal story about Jill to really drive her point home here. I used to live in Hermosa Beach, and there was a town in California, a town close by named Torrance, and a property came up for sale. I’m not sure if it came up on the MLS. It was a house, which is way out of our business model. Back then we were buying and selling land just like we are now, but a property came up, we either became aware of it or it was listed on the MLS, and it was a good deal, just the square footage and all the statistics. It was clear to me something was going on with the seller, so I said, “Hey, you know this girl friend that you have, who’s a real estate agent, and she seems to be really active and very successful at it, let’s get her to go find out why. She can be our real estate agent on this deal.” I think it was 700,000 bucks in a sea of 1.2 million properties.
So she did, she called her girl friend, she went and found out the whole thing, and we determined that the property at 700,000 was a pretty good deal, but not a good enough deal for us. We determined that at 650 or 625, I don’t remember the exact numbers, that’s the kind of Jack and Jill pricing and deal that we’ll do. It’s real tough for us to lose any money. In fact, we’re probably going to make a hundred grand pretty quick. That was the exact thought process. So Jill being Jill goes back to her and says, “I know what’s listed for this. This is the price, and let’s close the deal,” and she blew her top. She said, “At that price I would buy it.”
Jill K DeWit:
That was it. I’m like-
Steven Jack Butala:
And Jill said, “That’s the whole point.”
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
Every deal we do is like that.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
As if to say, “You have to buy it at that price,” and a big massive light bulb went off in her head and said, “That’s why these guys live on the ocean, and I don’t.” I could see it unfolding in her head, because she was thinking it-
Jill K DeWit:
Wasn’t that funny?
Steven Jack Butala:
In terms of presenting offers and potential embarrassment, or whatever real estate agents think about. I don’t know.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, probably maximizing her commission, I would say. I don’t know.
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t know either.
Jill K DeWit:
No, but that’s a good story. I forget about that.
Steven Jack Butala:
When you look at the land deal, you need to look at it and say, “I have to buy this. I have to buy this. This is … In fact, I probably should open escrow today and-
Jill K DeWit:
Run to the bank.
Steven Jack Butala:
“Stop what I’m doing now. This deal is so good I need to buy it.” Those are the-
Jill K DeWit:
Before anybody changes their mind.
Steven Jack Butala:
Those are the only deals that Jill and I do, and there will be more of them during this stagnation period. How do we accomplish that? What’s the real secret? We send out truck tons of mail and offers.
Jill K DeWit:
I love that. That was good.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a look. Do you want to talk more?
Jill K DeWit:
Nuh-huh. I’m drinking my tea.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a look at one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m trying to think what to say, to talk about … I liked your offers to owners. I’m trying to think if there’s another product I can roll in here and talk about.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, it’s March, are you ready?
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill and I own a full-blown commercial company.
Jill K DeWit:
Printing.
Steven Jack Butala:
A commercial printing company called offers2owners.com, and I know for a fact because I just approved it, that we are running some pretty amazing March sales.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. As a matter of fact-
Steven Jack Butala:
March discounts.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, and there’s going to be some special stuff going on too if you join us next Tuesday. So next Tuesday, March 26th, I will be live with our concierge data lead. What do we call him? We’ll just say lead in the companies, and doing a behind-the-scenes look at the concierge data, what really goes on. So join us, go to offers2owners.com or landacademy.com, and you’ll find on the front page there a place that you can sign up to attend the live webinar, and just see what we do, what goes on, and ask some questions, and take advantage of the deals coming up. Now we’re going to take a look at another question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. All right, Sid wrote, “Responding to Troy-
Steven Jack Butala:
Another member in Discord.
Jill K DeWit:
“I started with another,” I can already tell this is cool, “I started with another program that used neutral letters as their primary marketing method. Since you’re not putting a price on the letter, you will get three to four times the number of responses. You will spend a lot of time on the phone to determine that 95% of those callers will not fit your buying criteria, and want retail price for their property. I did buy my first property with this method, so it does work, but with a lot of wasted noise.”
“I joined Land Academy and switched to the blind offer method, not near the amount of responses, but the seller has an idea of the price you’re willing to pay. Most will want to negotiate the price, et cetera, so the person answering the phone or calling you back, if you have it going to a service, is the key to the business. I’ve priced too high and I’ve also priced too low on some mailers, so the key is to determine what price you’re willing to negotiate and stick with it. I’ve had sellers refuse to initial accept my price only to call back one to two months later and accept. Good luck with your journey.” That’s so sweet.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s a lot of … For whatever reason, we had several people in the last, let’s say 60 days, join us from other programs, and there’s all kinds of different methodologies out there. We obviously believe ours is the best, and one of those is neutral letters where you just send an offer saying, “Hey, yeah, you know, I’d like to buy a piece of property.”
Jill K DeWit:
One of the other ways to do it. Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
“I’d like to buy a piece of property, give me a call,” and so it generates a ton of activity, but not at a price that you typically want to pay.
Jill K DeWit:
Right. I even had one come in. We don’t do neutral letters at all. We don’t do postcards. I don’t do anything to warm anybody up because the last thing I want to do … If I send out a postcard to the planet saying “I want to buy your property,” they’re all going to call me, and then we’re going to all … It’s just going to slow me down and waste my time. What’s funny about the offer range, which I’ve seen, did we mention that?
Steven Jack Butala:
No.
Jill K DeWit:
This is just … I got to tell you, I just had someone send me an offer on a property that I don’t own anymore, but it was so funny because not only … they’re expecting me to do math as a seller, they don’t know who I am. So I get this thing like, “Hey, we want to buy your 4.6 acre property in Tennessee, and we’re willing to pay anywhere between 2,000 and $8,000 an acre.” I’m like, “Well, A, all I see is $8,000 an acre, and now I got to do the math.” But when they sent that out, I’m sure they’re thinking 2000, why don’t you just send an offer for 2000 an acre and just cut to the chase? Then when I get it and I see it, it either works for me or it doesn’t, that’s the point.
Steven Jack Butala:
Why would somebody do that?
Jill K DeWit:
I know, ain’t that weird?
Steven Jack Butala:
No, I’m asking seriously why.
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t know. I guess just to get a phone call. I would say that if you’re going to write 2,000 and 8,000, just say 2,000 or more, or just at minimum or something like that. I don’t know.
Steven Jack Butala:
Whoever you are, and-
Jill K DeWit:
When you give two numbers, you’re automatically going to see the higher one. Unless you’re buying something, you automatically see the red sticker.
Steven Jack Butala:
Whoever you are, whatever type of investor you are, or you want to be, please take note of this. When you do a mailer, I don’t care what kind of mailer it is, put yourself, picture yourself sitting at the kitchen table opening the mail, and they open your letter and what their response is going to be. I don’t think that you’ll end up sending a letter that requires somebody to get out a solar-powered calculator out of their junk drawer, and then explain it to their husband who doesn’t want to sell a property anyway for any price.
Jill K DeWit:
That happens. Is it really 4.6? I mean, can we-
Steven Jack Butala:
We make them go through four steps to actually consider picking up the phone and saying, “Oh, $8,000 for my four acre property, $32,000 sounds pretty good.” About 1% of anybody who receives your letter that way is ever going to get it … is ever going to go through that process. They’ve already had the life event that’s going to make them sell the property to you, if they see $32,000 associated with a property they never wanted in the first place, they’re going to call you. If not, if they think it’s worth 55,000, they’re going to call you and yell at you. That’s fine, that happens all the time. They’re going to crumple your letter up and throw it away, and that’s fine too. That’s all part of what we do.
Jill K DeWit:
Totally. It’s hilarious.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s second topic, let’s take a look at how you, not you, Jill, but you listener, respond to change.
Jill K DeWit:
It should be let’s take a look at how Jill responds to change. Let’s just start there actually.
Steven Jack Butala:
Actually, you know what?
Jill K DeWit:
I’m okay with that.
Steven Jack Butala:
You handle change really well.
Jill K DeWit:
You know, I didn’t always.
Steven Jack Butala:
Really?
Jill K DeWit:
No, I didn’t. Well, I guess it depends on some things, but I remember … maybe I do it well because there’s one situation I didn’t, and then that surprised me, and that’s the one I hang my hat on. It was changing from Sabre to quick Res. Anybody who was in the airline industry knows, “Ah, I know what that is.” Heck, I spent eight weeks learning Sabre, and you’re making me ditch all this knowledge that I had. It’s like, you know what it is, it would be like if I took Excel away from you and said, “No, you’re just going to fill in the boxes.”
Steven Jack Butala:
That happened.
Jill K DeWit:
You would fight, wouldn’t you?
Steven Jack Butala:
I went from Lotus to Excel, and I was in companies where they would start riots.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. So that was the same with me, I’m like … That one I wasn’t really comfortable with, and there was a reason why, because I like the old school. I want to know what I’m pulling and what I’m doing. I don’t like easy buttons. What?
Steven Jack Butala:
We come from a generation, Jill and I, as many of you do, where just putting a computer on your desk was a massive change.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
Why can’t I put this in a three-ring binder? Why don’t I have to use a copy machine anymore?So that first generation of change, then there was terrible software we used that didn’t work, so you turn the computer off and just do it the old way. Then some software came around that actually worked okay, and the supervisors all said, “We’re going to use this now so you can throw those three ring binders away.”
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
Then we really started getting software that made our lives easier. So if you entered the workforce when software was good, then change is really easy for you. That’s my whole point to this. So if you’re younger, change through computer … Now we know, fast-forward to now, we know that Apple 17 is going to be better than 15 theoretically. We just know that, and we’ve accepted it, and change will come, and it’s going to happen and we pay for it, and it generally makes our lives better.
Jill K DeWit:
Usually, it’s better. Now I’m excited for it.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s better. Yeah, me too.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, you know what? So here’s what happened, that was my one thing. So you know what? You’re right, I am good at change because I’m … as you’re talking, I’m thinking about it. I’ve moved a lot. We’ve moved a lot. We go where jobs are. We go where kids need to get in school. We go where we want to be. We go where we can now afford, or we go where we can’t afford. We are not afraid to do that. Some people don’t do that. A lot of people don’t do that.
So I was raised on change, I wonder if it’s nature or nurture. I guess that’s my … I always think of that, whatever it is, I always go, “Is it nature or nurture?” I don’t know why, but it helps me process it when I think of it like that. So I think for me, by nature, I’m probably fine with it like, “Am I still going to be able to do X?” Then I’m like, “Sure, then let’s do it.” That’s all I care about. I don’t have a lot of major needs, but by nurture, I was raised in a little bit of a, “Here’s what we’re doing now,” kind of thing. All right, let’s go.
Steven Jack Butala:
So a lot of this too, I think is industry-specific. If you’re in the tech industry, you have to embrace change, and it’ll make or break you. You’re always trying to find the next best thing and make it great. Timing is everything in that industry. In healthcare, you have to embrace change. I used to be in healthcare, and I’ve never seen a group of people, in general, that are more adverse to anything changing in my entire life.
Jill K DeWit:
If we’ve got by with using this old charting system for 25 years, why can’t we do it for 25 more?
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s some reasonably good arguments to back it up like, “I’m going to deliver the same exact care to this person, whether I put it in the computer or not.” What you lose is outcomes, and care plans, and all the stuff where you can measure the delivery of care, and which caregivers maybe has a better outcomes than the one next to them and all of that, and that defeats the purpose of why you should theoretically get into healthcare in the first place. So I get it, a lot of it is industry specific, and some of it is age, but I’ll tell you what? Change happens, and in this industry you better embrace it.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, I’m going to talk about you before you bring it into us real quick.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, man.
Jill K DeWit:
I know. Well, just how do you think you are on a scale of 1 to 10? And then I’ll tell you what you really are. Wait, I’m writing down a number. All right, so what do you think you are?
Steven Jack Butala:
I embrace technology change, on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 meaning I’m terrible, and 10 meaning I’m great at it?
Jill K DeWit:
Mm-hmm.
Steven Jack Butala:
I embrace technology change probably north of 9.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
I embrace technology or I embrace change that’s related to the regular building blocks of life like where I live, I’m probably a 2.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, so where would you if you overall averaged it? I’m holding … You could probably see my number.
Steven Jack Butala:
I can’t see it.
Jill K DeWit:
So yeah-
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m probably like a solid 6.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, I gave him an 8. Do you see that?
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, good.
Jill K DeWit:
You can’t see it, but there’s an 8 on there. I gave him an 8. You’re way better than you think.
Steven Jack Butala:
You’re probably about an 8 too.
Jill K DeWit:
You know what? I take it back. I’m an 8, you’re a 7.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, I think those are good numbers, maybe 6.
Jill K DeWit:
For whatever reason, I’m good at it. You’re like, “Here’s what we’re doing now,” I’m like, “Okay.” When we bring people into Land Academy in our backend part of it, the staffing, what’s one of the things I tell them? Don’t get comfortable, because however we’re doing it today might not be how we’re doing it tomorrow, so just hang on and you’ll get used to it. So it’s funny, so thinking about Land Academy, this is a good topic because we are now, we are in year nine of just Land Academy, everybody. We’re going to be in 10 years of Land Academy, a decade of teaching and helping people. How cool is that?
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s insane, yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
Man, this is awesome. So we’re going to quickly be rolling into year 10 of Land Academy, and I’m thinking about the changes we even had since Land Academy. We didn’t have the mapping stuff. We didn’t have the GPS stuff that we had when we started Land Academy. We had a whole different data. We’ve gone through three different data sources, almost four when you go back to the old, old, old school ways, it’s pretty cool. Our online community has changed three times. I’m trying to think-
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, geez.
Jill K DeWit:
Right?
Steven Jack Butala:
We failed at sending out mail with outside commercial printing companies, to the point we were so upset about it we just started our own.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
How many data set? This is our fourth. This is our fourth source of data because they just keep getting better.
Jill K DeWit:
Four, yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
And it’s not our last.
Jill K DeWit:
Right. That’s the thing, you know-
Steven Jack Butala:
You know what hasn’t changed?
Jill K DeWit:
What’s that?
Steven Jack Butala:
What Jan does, Jill’s transaction coordinators. How we source transactions has dramatically changed.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
How we sell them has changed.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
First, it was real estate agents, then it was just us, Facebook marketplace, all this other stuff, then we did it on terms, then we didn’t, and now we’re back to finding good real estate agents. We’ve come full circle.
Jill K DeWit:
Myself in the middle didn’t change, the way I answer the phone-
Steven Jack Butala:
Nothing in the middle changes.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, the way I enter the phone, and what I do, that didn’t change.
Steven Jack Butala:
The two ends change, and that’s it.
Jill K DeWit:
Wow.
Steven Jack Butala:
Processing a deal, and taking it through escrow is all exactly the same.
Jill K DeWit:
That didn’t change, and my phone number didn’t change.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s really important to really, I think, deconstruct your life and see where a change is appropriate and where it’s not, and not to be hard-headed about this. I was very hard-headed about this. I was the last person to get a cell phone. Once I embraced it though, and some of it’s really worth it, I think social media in general has a terrible change, I think it brings worse than better.
Jill K DeWit:
I think it peaked.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, I hope so.
Jill K DeWit:
I really do think it peaked, so we’ll see. My point for me to wrap up today is, I still mean it, we’re investors right here with you, doing our own deals right alongside you, so when a change is needed, we’ll do it. We’ll record it for you. We’ll write a program and record it for you, and we’ll share it with you. We’ll figure it out. We’ll watch for it. We’ll figure it out. We’ll test it, we’ll perfect it, and then we’ll share it with you to keep you moving forward, because we do want to do some bigger and better deals with you all the time. That’s our goal.
Steven Jack Butala:
Hey, let’s take a look at another one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar. Jill, you have something to share?
Jill K DeWit:
I do. So I was thinking about this recently, talking with my staff about people in Land Academy, and people not getting to Land Academy. Off and on I help take calls and talk to people who are interested, and have questions about joining, and I have a new person now helping me out, who’s within our existing staff, he’s been here for years, he said, “I want to help with the phone calls,” I’m like, “Thank you, yes.” It’s interesting, my point today is it’s interesting what we’re uncovering, and some people are not coming at this with the enthusiasm that they need to to be successful, or to make it more positive, yay, to those who are. So let me pivot for a minute.
Steven Jack Butala:
Hear the story. There’s a story here.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m going to pivot and make it good. Why wouldn’t you not go 110% at something, anything that you’re committed to?
Steven Jack Butala:
I agree.
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t have it in me to not do that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Me too.
Jill K DeWit:
I would rather not do it. If I’m going to start a new hobby, take on a new project, definitely a new line of business, oh, I’m in, and I’ll start kicking other things. Anything else that’s not important, takes up my time, takes up my mental energy, oh, it’s out of here. Anybody who stands in my way, especially people who stand in my way, who don’t agree with what I’m doing, or just holding me back, sorry, they’re just not going to be around because I’m going to commit, and I’m going to go at it. So that’s the thing, most of our community is made up of that, and that really does make me happy. That was my comment today, is think about when you make a pivot and you’re jumping into something new, make sure that you are all in, because if you are and you make those tough decisions to say, “I’m not going to let this fail,” you have to come at it and say, “Whatever happens, I’m going to get through it. I won’t let it fail,” you will succeed.
Steven Jack Butala:
My dad used to say, “If it’s worth doing, do it right,” and that’s what I think you’re saying. If it’s not worth doing or you don’t add into it or whatever, then don’t even just … just get out of there.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, if it’s not worth doing to you, then you don’t see it, you don’t feel it, you’re not invested in it.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what I mean.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, you shouldn’t do it. Don’t do anything you’re not invested in.
Steven Jack Butala:
First, figure out what’s worth doing.
Jill K DeWit:
Right, and for me, well, for you, if it’s a hobby, you’re doing it to, for whatever reason you want to do the hobby, you love it, you want to learn it, maybe you just want to have a release, it’s relaxing, those are all good reasons too. But for what we do, like if you’re starting a new business or something, or adding to your existing businesses, you’re going to make sure the math works, and then when you make sure the math works, then you’re in.
Steven Jack Butala:
Times 10. Make sure that-
Jill K DeWit:
That’s what you do.
Steven Jack Butala:
It had to work in a spreadsheet before it’s going to work in real life.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. What about you, Jack? What do you have to share with us today, informational?
Steven Jack Butala:
Along the lines of what we talked about today, I’ve realized that this is an endless pursuit. Components of it end and restart, but it is not … you don’t ever stop trying to get better at what you’re doing if it’s worth doing, along the lines of what you’re saying, so it’s endless. I used to think, and for a lot of reasons, and I grew up in an environment where you start a company, the company works, you keep your customers, you keep them happy, and that’s it. You keep making parts or whatever it is that you’re doing, and it’s not an endless pursuit, it’s kind of like a and then you kick your feet back up and this whole notion of, and you don’t hear this anymore of, “Hey, I want to be on the beach by the time I’m 40 years old.”
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, you don’t hear that anymore.
Steven Jack Butala:
Ever. Because it’s not a thing anymore.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s interesting.
Steven Jack Butala:
You’re going to endlessly pursue whatever it is because, largely because of technology, technology changes so fast. The way that we source real estate deals will not be the same next year as it is this year, that I can tell you for sure.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
Then three years from now, we probably won’t even be … it’s probably going to look really different, how we buy them, how we sell them, the amount of technology that’s used, whatever role AI plays, it will play a role for sure, and if you don’t have an open mind to that, it’s going to end. This is just an endless chase.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s so interesting.
Steven Jack Butala:
I actually think it’s good.
Jill K DeWit:
Don’t forget, you can reach us and my staff for questions, or you want to join or just find out more, whatever it is, two things, go to landacademy.com, or if you need to reach someone, just send a note to support@landacademy.com.
Steven Jack Butala:
Join us next Wednesday for another interesting episode. You are not alone in your real estate ambition, we are Jack and Jill-
Jill K DeWit:
We are Jack and Jill-
Steven Jack Butala:
Information-
Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration.
Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
https://youtu.be/9rqxEe4lt-I
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Join Steven Jack Butala and Jill K DeWit on the Land Academy Show as they dive into episode 1,996 discussing why tech layoffs create some of the best land investors. With insight into the upcoming recession and strategies for capitalizing on the influx of available properties, they provide valuable guidance for navigating the market. Tune in for expert advice on leveraging layoffs for success in land investing and learn how to make the most of changing economic landscapes.
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
And Jill DeWit. And this is the Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is episode 1,996. Today we are talking about why tech layoffs create the best land investors. And a little bit later in the show three ways to take advantage of the huge amount of property that’ll soon be for sale. How do we know this? This is our third time, our third cycle, Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
True. But I’m not as old as you. How is that possible? Are you sure? There’s parts of me that I’m like, look at me. I have wrinkles. I’ve experienced…
Steven Jack Butala:
Stop.
Jill K DeWit:
All right, well.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill keeps getting skinnier and prettier, and that’s the truth.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m not trying to win anything here.
Jill K DeWit:
Do you know what you won’t see?
Steven Jack Butala:
I keep getting less intelligent and wider.
Jill K DeWit:
Stop it. If I have my way and I do it right, you’ll never see my gray hair. Now, you on the other hand, we’re not going to go there. Could you imagine if I Just For Men’d you and you just showed up like… I wonder if there’s a one-day washout? That would be kind of funny.
Steven Jack Butala:
What’s a one-day washout?
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t know. We could try it.
Steven Jack Butala:
What is that?
Jill K DeWit:
I wonder if they have a… I bet they do. I bet there’s a version of that. They have stuff for gals. I’m sure I could do it with you where I just put it in, and it only lasts a day until you wash it.
Steven Jack Butala:
And then I don’t leave the house because I’m a freak?
Jill K DeWit:
It would just scare everybody. Like, who is that guy? Like you just saw some late-night TV guy. He was on a commercial. I’m not going to name names. I don’t want to throw him under the bus, but I kind of did. But he did an insurance commercial, and we’re like, “Whoa, colored his hair.”
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what I was just going to say. I mean, we’ve all seen old guys walking around that have 32-year-old looking hair, and it’s so obvious.
Jill K DeWit:
See, I’ve been coloring mine for decades.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, but women, you can’t tell.
Jill K DeWit:
Kind of like the recession we’re coming into. You won’t feel it. Stick with us. If you stick with us, my hair color won’t change, and I’ll make sure you keep making money. How’s that?
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s actually pretty true.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Each week on the show, we answer questions from our Land Academy member, Discord forum. We review land acquisitions from our weekly member webinars, and we take a deep dive into the two land-related topics by popular request. If you want a sneak peek of our Discord forum, go to landacademy.com. It’s free.
Jill K DeWit:
All right, so here’s our question. Julie wrote, “You can also try…” I guess this is a part of a thread talking about AI stuff. So Julie piped in, in this thread, and her comments were, “Hey, go ahead and try the reworked AI service. Just found out about it at a conference. They scrub on lists, and they give it a score based on the likelihood for a response rate and acceptance rate.”
Steven Jack Butala:
So hold on a second.
Jill K DeWit:
Huh? Is this what I think it is?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, so somebody created an application where you upload a list. In our case it would be, I’ve done all my stuff in DataTree, and I got a mailing list ready to go. And I’m going to upload it into this unknown area on the internet.
Jill K DeWit:
Share it with them.
Steven Jack Butala:
For whatever application they wrote, they’re going to judge the likelihood… They’re going to give it a score, the likelihood of a response rate that your seller’s going to give.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s hilarious.
Steven Jack Butala:
So go ahead.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s $150 for 3,500 lines. Okay, that’s flipping expensive.
Steven Jack Butala:
Who cares?
Jill K DeWit:
I know.
Steven Jack Butala:
If it’s accurate, I’m all-
Jill K DeWit:
That’s your phone service.
Steven Jack Butala:
If it’s accurate, I’m all for it. It’s not accurate. Go ahead.
Jill K DeWit:
“I just did it, and we’re sending our first mailer out.”
Steven Jack Butala:
This, Julie, scares me like I can’t describe to you.
Jill K DeWit:
“Contact them and ask more about it if you’re interested. But yes, my husband used to do only out-of-state mailings, but we’ve had plenty over the years who live in the States in the same county.” Same here, Julie. I’ve had that too. And even around the corner from the lot. Same here. Anyway, “LOL. Now I’ve been filtering out instead just people who live within a 30 to 50 mile radius.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Okay. I’m not picking on you.
Jill K DeWit:
I’ve got people that live in the lot next door.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m not picking on you. I’m really not. But this is very flawed logic, not on your part, but on the part of these developers. And that just goes to say, or it goes to show you… And this is just the beginning. It started with Priced a few years ago. The logic that goes into these applications all under the name of trying to make our lives easier is flawed.
It just says, “We had a great luck sending out out-of-state mailings, and then over the years we’ve got people that are close to the lot where we’ve done deals too.” So why, what’s behind this acceptance rate ideology? I think we’re all in this world that we live in right now, way too quick to say, “Oh, there’s an app for that.” There’s an app for telling me whether or not the person’s going to respond to my mailer. I’m telling you, if you send out 10,000 letters and you price it right, and you do your homework, just like we teach about where to send the mail, read the data, read. This is not a data-driven decision. This isn’t an easy button.
Jill K DeWit:
You know what? I feel like they’re preying on people. I could make this in a heartbeat. This is just a roll of the dice. I could make one. People would buy it all day long for us because I could say, “Look, I have the experience. I can tell you what chances they’re going to answer the phone.” But you don’t really know that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s why people will respond.
Jill K DeWit:
You can pay $150 for these lines.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let me take all the mystery out of this for everyone.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m just saying, I’m sure there’s exception, exception, exception, exception, exception. “We don’t guarantee our results.” I’m sure that’s on there.
Steven Jack Butala:
Year over year, over decade, over decade. Not just Jill and I, but the members of Land Academy and people in Career Path and our alumni group and we have all agreed on this one point. The vast majority, if not all of the people who responded positively through our mailers the way that we do them are because they’re experiencing some version of a life event. Their spouse died.
Jill K DeWit:
Got laid off.
Steven Jack Butala:
They got laid off. There’s life event scenarios where they need money or they’re just done. It’s the same decision-making process literally as having a garage sale, “Yeah, I just don’t want it anymore.” How an application would know what’s inside, what’s going on in a seller’s head? Sign me up for that app.
Jill K DeWit:
It won’t.
Steven Jack Butala:
But whatever ideology this is using, and it sounds like the ideology is based on proximity to the actual target property, whether they’re close or far or out of state or in state or the property’s vacant or all that. I’ve worked through all of that stuff and it doesn’t work.
Jill K DeWit:
Nobody has more experience than you. Period. And you wouldn’t even do this.
Steven Jack Butala:
No, I wouldn’t.
Jill K DeWit:
Because you can’t guarantee that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, first of all, I’d say, “How are you deciding application developer?” And this is a 22-year-old kid out of Palo Alto that probably designed this thing. How do they know? All they did was someone told him out-of-state mailers are more successful than in-state. So he said, “I’m going to make an app for that.” And so you pay $150 to run your lines up and it takes out half of them or 20%, or scores it based on proximity. You can do that in Excel.
So again, Julie, I am not… And thank you for bringing this up and I’m not criticizing you in any way, but this is just the beginning of the applications that like this thing, you will see, and this isn’t AI, by the way. This is database mining.
Jill K DeWit:
I guess the main point today. I want to make it positive please. Don’t pick on anybody.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, too late for that.
Jill K DeWit:
Just a little bit. So I’m going to bring it back in. Remember what you have here in our community and with us and this is why we’re here, to save you. And if you think it through and it makes sense, run it by us, like you just did, Julie. So I’m curious, I bet within Land Academy in our Discord area, I’m sure a lot of people said what I’m thinking, which is, “Hold on a moment, think about who you’re missing here and what you could be missing,” which is what’s going to happen. So we talked about this just the other day in Career Path. We just went through pricing.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s why I put it up here.
Jill K DeWit:
And the whole module was, well, everybody’s like, “What if I zero in on this and I zero in on that? What if I just go by zip code?” I’m like, “Hold on a moment. Keep in mind everybody, my mailer now, your mailer is now not going to reach 20%, 30%. Who knows? Even 20% is too high. If you scrub out some people that could be good sellers, gosh, you’re just missing out. And there’s some opportunity right there.”
Steven Jack Butala:
I am all for new technology. Geez. I remember when I started sending out direct mail in the late ’90s, early 2000s, everybody told me I was nuts. It was a waste of time and money. And that was a new technology, believe it or not back then. So I’m all for new technology and making your lives easier, as long as it’s accurate.
Jill K DeWit:
Let’s all think it through.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, and we’re thinking it through.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s it. Just all think it through just to make sure what are they using, what are they doing, what’s behind there? Well, even the other day too, we were having a lot of discussions on, I think it was office hours talk. Oh, it was the Advance Group. We all got to go to the Advance Group and we were talking about a lot of these easy buttons and things to do, and new technology, and a lot of us ruled it all out. At the end of the day… I had another thought and I lost it, but I’ll come back to it.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s okay.
Jill K DeWit:
Anyway.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’re pretty famous for saying here at Land Academy, “Make your mailer bigger, not smaller.” The numbers work. If you send out ten, twenty, thirty-thousand mailers and you make $10,000 or $15,000 on a deal, your ROI is significant. And so I’m not sure why you would pay to actually make your mailers smaller?
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Thanks for this topic. Why tech layoffs create some of the best land investors that Jill and I have seen?
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, I just thought of what I was going to say. We were discussing a program that all it is taking DataTree, which we all have access to the real direct DataTree, but it’s taking DataTree data and scrubbing out stuff and serving it up. I’m like, why would you do that? And just a different format? I’m like, why would you do that? Just go to the source. So anyway, that was my thing.
Okay, so today’s topic, I love this one. I hate it when I hear it. I feel so bad. YouTube music in one day, shut down. I mean they laid off everybody. Google, was it 40,000? How many people from… Amazon’s getting ready to do some layoffs. I mean every day you’re hearing about layoffs and it’s not like escrow agents. It’s like big tech stuff, mass laying off people. And I’m like, my first thing is I feel bad. My second thing is I can help you. I can teach you how to put food on the table. That’s what we do.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, here’s the thing, there’s a lot of layoffs not just in the tech industry, and this is not going to go away. This is probably the rest of 2024, and all industries. If it hasn’t been hit yet, it will. We founded Land Academy during the tail end of the layoff in the early teens. It was a devastating bank crashing, real estate crashing, negative amortization loan scenario. Much, much worse I believe than anything that’s happening now. And we picked up some of the best members and long-term members that ultimately have come to us and said, “I’ve replaced my salary, my family’s happy, and everything’s going great.” So I’m not trying to sell anything here and I am certainly not trying to… Geez, we feel for you. I empathize. We have both been laid off. So I understand what that is.
Jill K DeWit:
Have you?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, in the way, way distant past.
Jill K DeWit:
I haven’t been laid off. Except when you laid me off. You laid me off now and then, that’s the only time.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m trying to not make light of this. This is the one time we’re not supposed to laugh right now.
Jill K DeWit:
I know. I’m like, speak for yourself buddy. Well, I almost did, but then they put me in a different position. So, sorry.
Steven Jack Butala:
It doesn’t matter. It’s not about us.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. That’s what I’m saying.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s about you. And this is very, very unfortunate, but I’m saying it can be a new beginning of something. And we have many, many long-term, very successful and extremely intelligent members that have joined us, written their own applications to make their lives easier based off of what we teach, and they buy and sell property. And it’s also, it’s kind of a double-edged, well, a triple-edged scenario because at the time that you’re experiencing this extremely unfortunate situation, there are a lot of sellers out there that are liquidating stuff that they don’t use, namely land or whatever. So you can get some amazing bargains and build up a pretty good strong land portfolio pretty quickly.
Jill K DeWit:
I have two things.
Steven Jack Butala:
Sure.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. One is back to the topic. I want to bring some energy up here right now too. So tech people, one of the things I love about this is really as a topic, is you guys get it. You know, it’s interesting. There’s all kinds of people that come to Land Academy and it’s changed over the years. The women and the couples now are way more prevalent than they were in the beginning. But we’ve always had a brainy group and I think it’s because, I know it is because of the way you see this and teach this and run the numbers and data. This sings to people who are tech pros and minded. So I love it. I mean those of you in the tech world that have been analysts and all kinds of positions like that, or accounting, numbers focused, this is drinking water for you.
Now other people, you can still do it. It’s harder. There’s more of a struggle for people that come to this from other walks of life, but they could figure it out. But I just wanted to just hit it home that this is a perfect fit for you if you understand real estate a little bit. If you understand there’s money to be made in real estate and you’re coming from a tech position, this is going to be child’s play for you, like taking candy from babies. I’m not kidding.
The other thing I wanted to talk about today along these lines, I thought was really interesting. And I noticed this, in a recent group of new members, people have come to Land Academy and their goals and their needs are much lower than they used to be. People are like, “I want to make $2 million this year.” I have a lot of people who are like, “I just want to make $500,000. I just want to make $100,000.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, I noticed that too.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m like, well shucks. It’s really easy to screw it all up and make $100,000.
Samantha did a, one of our Land Academy ambassadors, did a sweet presentation about the economy and the way we do deals. Man, if you set out to do one deal a month and make $20 grand, if that’s your goal, you screw it all up and you only do five deals this year, but you make $20 grand, that’s $100,000. Those are for a lot of the group low numbers around our group. So I just want to… I don’t know, do you want to talk about that? I just thought that was so interesting.
Steven Jack Butala:
I mean just the pure math should be real easy. To replace a salary or a good salary is not that hard. Jill and I are… The people in Career Path are used to making a lot more money than that in general. So you’re absolutely right. But the other thing is that the lifestyle, if you’re a tech person, you wake up and…
Jill K DeWit:
Ding, ding.
Steven Jack Butala:
Make a cup of coffee and get dressed, maybe not, and go to work. You’ve got a place already set up. Well, that’s what buying and selling land is.
Jill K DeWit:
Yep.
Steven Jack Butala:
By the way, you don’t have to wait until you’re laid off. If you’re a tech person, you have 90% of the smarts already is in your soul or you wouldn’t have chosen this career and succeeded in it in any capacity. You already know all the tech piece. There’s some people who have historically struggled with the tech piece that’s involved in how we make data-driven decisions, you already do all that, probably better than us.
Jill K DeWit:
You know what I found too is interesting about tech people? It’s like they’re never satisfied. No one’s going to say, “Well, I’ve learned Excel. I’ve learned the 2020 version of Excel and I’ve Windows 9?
Steven Jack Butala:
Somebody’s got Windows 9?
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t know, you know what I mean.
Steven Jack Butala:
You have a pick 9.
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t know. I’m just thinking about… You know, like…
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m an expert at Windows 9.
Jill K DeWit:
You get an update on your phone. No, I don’t need it. I’m not going to do it. So what’s funny about tech people is, my point is they’re always… They are wired. I don’t know if it’s nature or nurture, but they’re wired to get to the next program, get to the newest version and create the newest version and all that. So I think when you said, “Hey, don’t wait till you get laid off to do this.” I’m thinking it probably sings to tech people anyway because they’re always bored and looking for something else. I know you are.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. Technology never ends. Actually, that’s my end little talk at the end of this episode. Technology will never stop. There’s some stuff that stops. If you go to a convenience store, that’s about it. Or you can get another one.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, if you have a convenience store in Windows 9.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah,
Jill K DeWit:
And Lotus 1-2-3, you’re still using that.
Steven Jack Butala:
No. Let’s get back to Windows 9 because you’re never going to live this down.
Jill K DeWit:
I know.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you’re running Windows 9 in your convenience store, you’re done.
Jill K DeWit:
Maybe they don’t even have that. Maybe they have a journal. Oh my goodness.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a look at one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar and stop this madness.
Hey, if you don’t know by now, Jill and I have our own full-blown commercial printing company to help you get mailers out in the mail successfully. We keep adding products. The latest product that we’ve added is concierge data, so you don’t have to do a mailer at all. You can just go in, place your order, and at the end of it we’ll provide all the data back to you so you can check it all. And make sure that it’s your own. Make sure it’s priced right, and it fits with your criteria. It’s not an easy button, but they do take all the heavy lifting out of it.
Jill K DeWit:
I was going to say too, don’t forget, March 26th. Tuesday, March 26th in the afternoon, check out our website, check out offers to owners and check out Land Academy or check your email if you’re in our group here, you’ll know the time. We’re going to do a behind-the-scenes sneak peek with concierge data.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh good.
Jill K DeWit:
Yep, it’s awesome. So check it out.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s great.
Jill K DeWit:
Go to landacademy.com and you’ll find out where you can sign up to attend that. It’s going to be a Zoom webinar.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take another question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community.
Jill K DeWit:
Chris wrote, “On wholesaling/dual close, what drives me crazy is that they are all taught they can buy houses/land, whatever, even commercial properties by tying it up with a purchase agreement, without a clear exit strategy or money needed to close. Then they all run around on Facebook groups trying to sell the contract or double close, and these deals sometimes get daisy-chained with three or four investors on the same deal. And when double closing, they put the property under contract for up to six months.”
“They promise the seller the price they want and then if they don’t find a buyer, they have a way out of the agreement so the buyer is screwed.” Or the seller is screwed, I should say, the seller is screwed. “Buying in cash with a funder or a lender has an actual value proposition. If you need cash now, we can buy the property at a lower price and close quicker than if you listed it. If you don’t see any value proposition for double closing, let me tie your property up for six months so I can possibly make more money, is the only value I see one-sided.”
Steven Jack Butala:
This is a really important point, and this has been a debate that’s been going on for a lot of years between people like us who actually buy assets and resell them, control the deal and provide some value in my opinion. Versus people who wholesale/dual close, who just do it, exactly what Chris just said. They tie the property up, try to flip it before they… It’s a no-lose situation for them in most cases. Well, Jack, if it’s a no-lose situation, why wouldn’t everybody do it? For the exact reasons that Chris is saying here, it’s a one-sided value proposition. One person can potentially win. In the end this is doing way more damage in the industry than good.
If you see a good deal, buy it. Or call somebody in our group to fund it and just do the right thing, buy it and then resell it.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m going to go on record setting too, what’s to keep the seller from changing their mind? What if you’re doing everything right? You’re doing this, you have it under contract, you’re doing your best to be a good person. You just don’t have the dough. But guess what? The seller changes their mind. They go dark on you. You find a buyer, you’re all locked up. You’re ready to go and then good luck getting them on the phone. What are you going to do? Sue them? No, let’s be realistic. It’s going to be a waste of time and money. So that’s the part that bothers me too. I don’t control the deal. That’s your saying, and I love it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Just the whole notion of brokering, a successful broker if you’ve ever dealt with one on anything, let’s say for fun, it’s a commercial real estate broker and an art broker. Separate people in separate situations. So the broker has some knowledge or has some… They’re bringing some value to the table and so the broker calls me and says, “I know that you buy these types of paintings and I have one. I’m not going to tell you exactly who the seller is, that I don’t think you know about.” Now he’s immediately bringing some serious value to the table. I’m intrigued.
There’s no value in tying up a transaction and then splattering it all over the place to see what’s going to happen. Just to have somebody else, just to see who the next sucker is. That’s what this is. If somebody’s got a pocket office or let’s say an apartment building, they know I have six apartment buildings in the area and they call and say, “This isn’t on the market, but I’m bringing some value to you. I think the other six buildings that you own, this one’s just like it. So I’m happy to put this deal together for a fee.”
There’s huge value in that for both parties, the seller and the buyer. Or if we call or send a mailer to somebody, “Hey, we’d like to buy your property, and it seems like it might be the right time for you.” Oh my gosh, yes, there’s value. Everybody wins there. So I don’t see, this can’t go on. Legislation’s going to close in on this. That’s how I see it, see it kind of ending.
Jill K DeWit:
True. Well, there’s so many that we could go on and on and on about this. I don’t think we need to, but thanks.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s second topic is three ways to take advantage of the huge amount of property that’ll soon be available for sale.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, I’m going to have to say this again. How do you know that, Jack?
Steven Jack Butala:
This is our third time going through a recession. All kidding aside, I didn’t believe it the second one we went through, just it was a mirror image only much higher in severity than the first time. And I believe this will be less severe. But I will tell you that we’re already tracking the data. The data doesn’t lie about how many properties are getting listed. There’s way more properties getting listed than there were even just last year and certainly way more over the last several years like before COVID.
More properties are being listed and staying on the market longer, and so all the statistics and the data add up to more properties for sale. What does that mean to you? Well, it means an amazing number of opportunity. Well, let’s talk about the three ways to take advantage of that. Let’s just all buy into for a second that it’s happening. It is happening and there will be more and more and more inventory throughout the year, probably into 2025. When there’s more property on the market, it becomes what everybody now refers to as a buyer’s market. There’s more property, prices are less.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s number one of your three?
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, yes. So in a buyer’s market, what do you do? Number two, it yields to cheaper prices and access to capital and things like that.
Jill K DeWit:
I’ll be the visual. You’re the audio, I’m the visual.
Steven Jack Butala:
And then number three, which I believe is the most important is, this is a symptom and the underlying cause of all this is the need for additional capital for some reason. That’s what’s driving a seller’s decision even in the greatest market ever. It drives the seller’s decision. So we’re watching a tertiary debt or credit card debt go up. That’s an indication that what’s the first thing to go when people start having financial life events? Stuff they’re not using. It could be land. It could be a second house. It could be a car that they…
Jill K DeWit:
People start looking around. I know people that do this, they literally start looking around their house to see what they could sell. I’m not kidding. Wow. I was just thinking, there’s going to be some good deals. I mean, I’m not being funny. I’m being serious here like on OfferUp and those things too. Someone’s going to be dumping those excess, fill in the blank just to get some money just to get some food and stuff. That’s a real thing. It’s so interesting.
But on the bigger scale, like you said, there’s going to be people that, “Hey, this property, we’ve never built on it. We’ve owned it for 20 years. We inherited it.” Whatever it is, it’s time to get that and to turn it into cash.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you’re a successful land flipper like us, or if you’re a successful house flipper, let’s say, not a house renovator, but a house flipper, you need to start just… I want to plant the seed in your head. Start to look into expanding your existing business because it’s only going to get better, into other things. Jill and I have had this exact conversation in the last week, so we’re great at buying and selling land. We bought sold a lot of houses, but we really need to step that up because the amount of, the number of deals for houses are going to become more abundant.
And then finally, and I can’t believe that we’re actually having this serious conversation is maybe we should start buying some long-term rentals. If the prices get to be anywhere close to the way that they were 10 or 15 years ago, there’s massive advantages. If we were buying and flipping houses for buy for 20, sell for 60, those houses are worth $300,000 now. And so that’s a great… And I’m not a big fan of renting, but I’ll tell you, for those margins I can put up with it.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
So, expand your product type is my point.
Jill K DeWit:
But wait a minute, Jack, it sounds like you’re eating your words again. Well, listen folks, things change. I had someone call me out.
Steven Jack Butala:
I am absolutely eating my words.
Jill K DeWit:
Someone called me out the other day about, “What the heck, I actually been… Like, I’m one of the two people that started listening to you guys back in 2015.” I’m like, oh, oh. They’re like, “You hated agents and now that’s all you use.” I’m like, “Yep. And I’m sure there’s more things coming that I’m like…” You know what? If you can’t roll with the punches and change, you’re not going to survive. And I’ve gotten very comfortable eating my own words. That’s okay, stuff happens.
So you know what? Now let’s take a moment and take a look at another land acquisition from our weekly Thursday member closed webinar.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill, you have something inspirational to share?
Jill K DeWit:
Yes, I wrote it down. It kind of goes with a little blog in an email that I had to go out a couple of weeks ago, just kind of reminding everyone. 2024, one of my themes for 2024 is, “You got this.” And in the blog and in the email I took it to, “We got this.” So what does it mean? We’re in this together. Our community is so, two parts of this. Our community is so smart. If you don’t lean on them, you’re nuts. And if you don’t see them as a resource, you’re crazy.
Lean on our community. Lean on us. There’s just so much knowledge there. Even now and then I have to remind people, “Why aren’t you going to Discord and using the search function? There’s probably someone that’s dealt with this situation.” You don’t have to even wait until Thursday. You have us every Thursday, but you don’t have to wait for that. Go in there and if you don’t see it, pop in the question, wait 10 minutes, someone’s going to probably have some experience and knowledge or ideas to help you solve whatever the question is, or get out of any jam that you might be facing.
I’m like, I just want to remind everybody we’re in this together. The possibilities are really endless. And then my other little part was, every deal has potential. I want to make sure that everyone knows that every single phone call that you have coming to you, there’s a potential deal there. And I want you to really take them seriously. Especially now with what’s coming up. We’re going to have some more people from years ago calling you back. And what if they’re calling you on a mailer that you don’t even do? It’s too small. You don’t buy for 3,000, sell for 9,000 anymore. You’ve way moved on. But you know what? Maybe they have something else. So, take those calls. Ask them those questions and just give it a moment and see what’s possible.
Steven Jack Butala:
This leads directly into my information piece.
Jill K DeWit:
Well good. All right, Jack, what’s your part please?
Steven Jack Butala:
I was in a pretty long staff meeting. There’s no such thing as a short staff meeting, but I was in a staff meeting, let’s call it.
Jill K DeWit:
For you, wait, wait, wait. Aren’t all staff meetings too long for you? Five minutes, too long.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’re all going around the room telling everybody, and it’s good. It’s very healthy to know, it was all company scenarios. So we have, Jill and I have three major lines of business. First and foremost, we have our real estate company where we buy and sell land. We have our commercial printing company where we do people’s mailers, and they actually do our mailers, our real estate company’s mailers. And then finally we have Land Academy. And as everybody was going around the room and saying what’s going on in their lives, I noticed that they were either talking about people or they were talking about processes.
Like the printing people were saying, our printing people don’t bring up processes anymore. They never have because they’re not… We’ve got it licked. Because it’s our process that Jill and I have perfected for a really long time to do a mailer. And so they spend a lot of time talking about people. “Wow, this person submitted this mailer. They really have their act together. We should contact them and offer them this promotional thing because they’re easy to work with and they’re real consistently with the mail,” and on and on and on. “This person on the other hand, nope, big huge problem. Had to talk with them for two hours. Not sure that they’re going to actually ever send out a successful mailer. The real estate people, no process issues there at all.”
Jill K DeWit:
True. The deals are going through the system?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. The deals that we do, the process was long-established before I met Jill. She’s only just improved on it since she got involved. Land Academy, all people. It’s none of the processes. And I’m a process person. I’m constantly looking around to try to find out how I can do a better mailer, how I can make a product that we deliver in the mailing company easier for everyone to follow. And so you have to decide if you’re a people or a process person and embrace it. Jill just talked all about people in her inspiration, and actually glomming on that moment when they contact you and say they want to sell their property. Just positive.
Jill K DeWit:
But wait, I turned it into a process like the answers in Discord. Does that count? Do I get points for that? But there’s a process and a way to get your question answered. But I hear you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Embrace either one.
Jill K DeWit:
Yin and yang. That’s why we’re good together.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what I mean.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Every successful anything.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m going to answer the phone and get deals. And if you had it your way, it would be all automated. And that’s nothing wrong with that.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s right.
Jill K DeWit:
And that’s just different.
Steven Jack Butala:
And I would fail.
Jill K DeWit:
You’re doing just fine.
Hey, don’t forget, you can reach us for questions and help simply by sending a note to my team via support@landacademy.com.
Steven Jack Butala:
Join us next Wednesday for another interesting episode. You are not alone in your real estate ambition. We are Jack and Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
We are Jack and Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
Information…
Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration…
Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
https://youtu.be/Nnny-H3Px5g
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Today, Steven and Jill offer crucial insights for successful land acquisition in the 2024 recession, emphasizing the need for the cheapest property and strategic deal creation. They also share experiences and advice on working with a spouse in the land business, highlighting the importance of open communication. Stay tuned for exciting announcements about Land Academy Ladies, a monthly gathering for female investors associated with Land Academy.
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit, and this is the Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is episode 1,995 and today we are talking about what your land acquisitions need to look like to survive the recession that’s going to happen here in 2024, and a little bit later we’re going to talk about working with your spouse.
Jill K DeWit:
Yay. That’s what I think.
Steven Jack Butala:
So much fun to work with your spouse.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s the best thing when people go, “Wait a minute, and you guys, you live together?” Uh-huh. “You travel together?” Uh-huh. “And you work together?” Uh-huh. “And you’re here at the bar drinking together?” Uh-huh, now you know why we drink.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s the result of that.
Jill K DeWit:
Here we go. But we’re still laughing.
Steven Jack Butala:
I feel compelled to quote Homer Simpson.
Jill K DeWit:
Uh-oh.
Steven Jack Butala:
Alcohol is the cause of and the cure for everything.
Jill K DeWit:
There we go. That’s great, babe. That obviously sung to you 12 years ago.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yep.
Jill K DeWit:
There we go. That’s awesome. All right, so what are we going to talk about today? So land surviving, this is the interesting. I’ve had a lot of conversations, I’m glad you picked this topic. I’ve had a lot of conversations with people recently who are coming to us because of this. They’re like, “Hey, I looked around. I’ve got so much figured out now, I understand there’s money to be made in land, and it checks all those boxes, and now I’m trying to figure out, who’s best to show me the way and navigate this? Because you’re not the only ones anymore.” I’m like, “Nope, you’re right.” “And we know that we’re coming to you because you’ve been through a thing or two.” Yep, you’re right. Come on, we didn’t, like you just said last week, it’s been 30 years that we’ve been doing this, and pushing, we have around 17,000 transactions. I always clarify, that’s not Land Academy, that’s us, mostly him. And then we’ve been through three terms?
Steven Jack Butala:
This will be our third full professional recession.
Jill K DeWit:
And we are still here. And boy, I can even remember since I got involved in ’09, I can remember the actual names of people that were other investors with us and who didn’t-
Steven Jack Butala:
Gone forever.
Jill K DeWit:
Weather the storm. They’re alive, but they did not weather the storm, and I feel bad.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’re going to talk about how to avoid that here in just a minute. All of those key points.
Jill K DeWit:
This is good.
Steven Jack Butala:
Each week on the show we answer questions from our Land Academy member Discord Forum, review land acquisitions from our weekly member webinars. I’m going to take a deep dive into two land related topics by popular requests.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
We have a question, Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
Yes.
Steven Jack Butala:
I have to say.
Jill K DeWit:
What?
Steven Jack Butala:
I love this question, and I’ll read it if you want because I would like you to answer it.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, okay, go ahead.
Steven Jack Butala:
Troy says, “Today, I called up three realtors for a price opinion in a new area to me. Realtor one was driving and asked if I could text her the APN and she would get back to me by the end of the day. End of day is here and gone. No email, no callback. Realtor number two must have let a 2-year-old pick up the phone and say something about her toy in 2-year-old gibberish and then immediately hang up. Right away I get a call back, but it must’ve been a butt dial since I could only hear distant conversation in the background while I said, hello, hello, hello. Realtor number three.”
Jill K DeWit:
This is real. I believe all this.
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t think… This person’s not making this stuff up.
Jill K DeWit:
Troy, this is real.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is real life.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Realtor number three was an older gentleman who was driving but claimed to sell more land than anyone else and gave me a quick price based on acres in the area. Oh, now we’re getting somewhere. I offered to text him the details to take a closer look when I wasn’t driving, and he just said, with zero enthusiasm, “I guess if that’s what you want.” I have a gut feeling he isn’t going to take a closer look. So before I announced this possible deal to every realtor in the area, where the owner still lives, does anyone have a realtor recommendation in X, Y, Z County Florida?
Jill K DeWit:
This is real. Do you remember the other day I was looking at a property in Colorado and I came into you and I said, “This agent doesn’t want to sell?” She actually pushed back. So I have a fourth one. This is all very real. I’m going to go, Troy, with number four, what happened to me the other day. I’m like, “Hi, my name is Jill. I’m not an agent. I’m interested in this property. I have some questions about it,” kind of thing. And the bottom line was it was an older ranch, and then there’s a newer ranch really nearby. And I am like, why would I spend this? I had some questions. I’m like, “What’s going on here? What’s the situation?” Kind of thing, “Do they even really want to sell?” “Oh yeah, they want to sell. Mom moved out. The kids got it.” Well, I’m like, “Okay, then you do realize, on the other side of the river, there’s a very similar, much newer property for not much more. I could buy that instead of this.” And she’s like, “Then maybe you should.” I’m like, “Wow.”
And I think for me what happened, I’ll tell you right now, well, A, she’s a stinky agent and I think… I don’t know, because I really tried. I thought maybe I came across like I knew too much, but I was trying to just nicely let her know I’ve done my homework, I’m not wasting your time. I quickly said who I am. I’m not an agent. I’m personally interested in this property. I looked at this and this and this and these are the only questions that I have left. I had two questions. Current condition, and does that justify this price? Which it didn’t. So anyway, I feel bad. In these situations, Troy, too, whoever these agents are, and whatever people have property listed with them, I feel bad because they’re not going to sell.
Realtor number one, not taking it seriously, didn’t get back to you, not even a text. There’s no reason to. She shouldn’t have said, “I’ll get back to you by the end of the day,” unless she really could. She should have said, “You know what? I’ll get back to you the end of the week. I need 48 hours.” Whatever it is, should have been realistic. And then if she couldn’t meet that, let you know like, “Hey, something came up. I am going to look at this. Can I let you know tomorrow by noon?” And then really follow through. That’s what should have happened. Number two, again, I am sure this is real. Talk about nuts.
Steven Jack Butala:
Me too.
Jill K DeWit:
Not taking your job seriously. Gosh, could you imagine if I didn’t take my job seriously like this? How funny is this? And then number three, I love that he knew the area, but what? He just has too many listings, he doesn’t need one more? Who would ever say that? But you know what? There are people that say that, now that I think about it. We have an accountant, our accountant, who does a really good job, we have come to him many times over the years and said, “Can you bring on more clients? Because our Land Academy people, we have some not far from us that would love to use you,” and he’s like, “Nope, I’ve got enough clients. I don’t really want to open up to more.” And I’m like, who does that? So you know what, Steven, I’m going to tell you this. I’ve got enough deals, I don’t really want anymore. Can you imagine? Not true. So I hope that, Troy, you did everything right, and I would do what you’re doing, I would keep calling until I get the right person.
The right person is going to personally answer their phone. Here’s the example of one of my recent stories, or-
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, how should it go?
Jill K DeWit:
A repeat story that I tell about our agent that I love. It was Friday night, about 6:00, and I called him, and he answers the phone as he’s walking away from the table in a restaurant. So you get points for that right there, number one. Number two, listens to me and tells me, “Hey, I’m out to dinner with my family. How are you? How can I help you?” I love that. “Hey, well, you know what? Thanks for telling me that. Thanks. Here’s the deal. I just got this property in. I want to know what you think about it. It’s over in this area. Are you familiar with that? Does that sound like something you can do?” Heck, yeah.
“You know what? I’m going to be driving around that area on Sunday,” and I’m like, “Awesome. Do you want me to text you or email you?” “You know what? Text is great,” as soon as I hang up, or even leave me a voicemail. One time I said, “Here, I’ll hang up. Call me back. I won’t answer the phone. Leave it in the voicemail, perfect, all the details, and then I will do that and I’ll get back to you Sunday night or Monday morning,” whatever. That’s a perfect thing. Because here’s my whole point here. The person who takes your call to get you as a client is going to do a good job selling it, because I need someone that buyers are going to be able… I need a buyer to call and I need them to answer the phone. Period. That’s it.
Steven Jack Butala:
I have a couple of points to make. I think you have to ask yourself, and we have to all ask ourselves this take a step back question. What is the point of a real estate agent? And actually, ask a real estate agent this. Why am I going to hire you?
Jill K DeWit:
You’re going to get all kinds of answers.
Steven Jack Butala:
Nine times out of 10, they’re not going to know. So because what they really believe in this day and age is that they’re processing paperwork, many, many, many of them have no idea that we can buy and sell a property ourselves, without any help from a real estate agent or from a title agent, without bending any laws or rules. And so you have to ask yourself then, okay, that’s the facts, then what the heck am I hiring this real estate agent for? And a real estate agent is supposed to add some serious value to the deal, not just process paperwork. It’s the same thing with lawyers. Lawyers believe this day and age, their job is to process paperwork and navigate the system because you don’t know how to do it.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
And so in the land case here, or in the real estate case, I actually do know exactly what I’m doing. I’m calling you because I’d like to outsource it and I would like you to convince me that you’re going to bring some value to the deal. And Jill’s number four case, she’s not going to bring any value to the deal, she’s just processing paperwork. In fact, you’re inconveniencing her by calling her. She just wants an offer from another real estate agent so that they can together process the paperwork, collect the check, and complain.
The bigger picture of what’s going on here is this, I just read an article about why car insurance has gone up in the 20% in the last year, and whoever wrote this article, I really hope it wasn’t AI because it was wonderfully written, gave some real factual scenarios of what was going on. It started in COVID, and people who were the number one law enforcement during COVID, if you can remember and watch any TV at all, defund the police, that whole movement, that never really went away. So sporadic and terrible driving is now going ridiculously unmonitored and unpunished especially, I can tell you.
Jill K DeWit:
I didn’t know that.
Steven Jack Butala:
I can vouch for that here. Number one. Number two, everything costs more. So it costs more to labor and it costs more to repair a car. So insurance, it’s higher, and the electronics, the cars around Scottsdale are driving themselves, so there’s a lot of electronics in a car that wasn’t there in 10 years ago. So the repairs are way, way more expensive. And the final point that they made was, which is what my point here, is that drivers got a sense of entitlement and a sense of personal, this is me in the road, get the hell out of my way-
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
As a result of COVID. And I think that that has come into play in all of our lives.
Jill K DeWit:
That makes sense.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s a sense of people who would have regularly been at work to pay their bills and to try to get ahead in life like the rest of us were falsely encouraged that they didn’t have to go to work, and they got this sense of, I’ve got all this power now, I don’t have to do this, this is below me. And it translated itself into these real estate agents just have… They have an attitude that I haven’t seen prior to.
Jill K DeWit:
COVID?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, I think you’re right. That’s awesome.
Steven Jack Butala:
I see it in everything. You see it in the grocery store.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s true. It’s nuts.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s first topic, what your land acquisition needs to look like to survive this looming recession in 2024. I will tell you this. Let’s start from the end of your real estate deal and go to the beginning, before you even buy the property, to see if it’s going to work. And here’s what the sale of your land acquisition looks like so you can throw some cash into the deal and then get more cash out at the end. That sale process and that sale dollar, you better have the cheapest property in the market,
Jill K DeWit:
Not reset the market. People still try to do that. I’m like, why are you doing that?
Steven Jack Butala:
If there’s 10-
Jill K DeWit:
You’re going to fail.
Steven Jack Butala:
Five acre properties that are like kind acquisitions that are for sale, you better have the cheapest best one. And so here’s what-
Jill K DeWit:
I love this.
Steven Jack Butala:
Real estate looks like during a recession, there’s a lot more of it for sale, it’s cheaper, and in general, you can negotiate a better deal as a buyer. It’s a buyer’s market. So your job as a land acquisition specialist, and put this on yourself like we do, is to go in even cheaper, send out more mail, and negotiate harder. Because here’s the good news, this is all spells good news for you by the way, I love down markets. Up markets are harder, for us anyway, and our personality types. Down markets, there are a lot more people and a lot more factors involved in why people choose to sell land, so there’s more acquisition candidates for you.
People need money, they’re moving, they change jobs, they got laid off, the kids couldn’t get into the school that they wanted to so they got to move across country, on and on and on. And so all that spells acquisition opportunity for you, you just got to buy it super cheap. We just got out of Career Path and somebody brought up a question, somebody in Career Path is not satisfied with how much property they’re buying, and so their answer was, well, I’m just going to offer more. Worst thing you can do. What you can do is choose better places to send mail, price it better, price it lower, and take Jill’s job in all this and be a Jill. Create a real estate deal where there wasn’t one two hours ago.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
On the phone.
Jill K DeWit:
Not money. It’s not money. People think that too. So many of our transactions, it’s not about the money, it’s about, it’s the timing in us.
Steven Jack Butala:
We made so much money around 2010 and 11, Jill and I, buying and selling houses and land.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
You get these people on the phone and I’ll tell you, you can pretty much tell them how much you’re going to pay. Not everybody, and I’m not advocating kick them when they’re down at all. I’m just saying if somebody says, “I got your letter and I really do want to sell,” I’m not saying, oh, then if it was $10,000 for your offer, then get them down-
Jill K DeWit:
Not five.
Steven Jack Butala:
To five. I’m not advocating that ever. We don’t do that.
Jill K DeWit:
No.
Steven Jack Butala:
But if 10,000 works because you price the mailer correctly and all of that, then say, “Great, let’s process your deal. Let’s get you paid out of this thing.”
Jill K DeWit:
I completely agree. You know what I was thinking about this topic today? I was just thinking about people who aren’t… One of the things that we do correctly, and we always have because you designed it this way, is we buy and we sell and we own it in the middle. I’m not running around with a piece of paper. I’m trying to imagine how scary it would be right now in 2024 to have equitable title on 100 properties and run around trying to sell them, and all the things that can go wrong with that.
Steven Jack Butala:
She’s talking about wholesaling.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly, so I’m like…
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, especially in this opportunity scenario.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s my point.
Steven Jack Butala:
How would you let that opportunity go?
Jill K DeWit:
That’s the thing. I keep going-
Steven Jack Butala:
Shouldn’t jeopardize it that way.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m going to say it right now for everyone listening here. I don’t care where you deal, who you are, you do not have to be in Land Academy, I’m not going to let a good deal go to waste. We are not going to do that. So you could throw it up in front of us. Don’t run around a piece of paper because you don’t have the money to buy it. I have the money to buy it. If it’s that great, let’s do it. Let’s own it and feel great about it and not worry about losing it, because I think people, in these times, get worried about putting money down, and so they’re happy that they could be celebrating that they have a piece of paper, but I’m like, too many things can go wrong with that too. Just buy it, get it for the best price that you feel good about it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a look at one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar. Jill, when does Land Academy Ladies air, and can you tell us about Land Academy Ladies or not?
Jill K DeWit:
Well, currently Land Academy Ladies, in its current form, is a monthly get together of women who are members or related to partners, business partners, some other extension of a Land Academy member. We meet once a month and we have a separate thread in Discord where we communicate and talk about our own stuff and our own deals in there. It’s working on evolving this year and it’s going to be announced in April. So the week of April 22nd, after tax time, this is the first time I’ve ever even dropped this little nugget, there’s going to be some big announcements coming, with Land Academy, everything that we do, and the ladies, so I’ll just leave it at that.
But the main thing is we are getting more and more female investors and, man, these ladies are amazing. The women that find us and jump in Land Academy, I’m going to say percentage wise, have been more successful, no offense, than the men.
Steven Jack Butala:
None taken.
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s because of how we are. Maybe it goes back to good news, bad news. Bad news is we don’t jump in anything until we think we have 80% of it figured out. Good news is, boy, when we jump in, out of my way, because we’ve got 80% of it already figured out. Maybe that’s it. We’ve done all our homework by the time they get to us and they get to me.
Steven Jack Butala:
I have a theory.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s awesome. What is it?
Steven Jack Butala:
If you’re a woman and you’re a land investor, then you’re choosing Land Academy.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s no other real logical ultra women friendly environment to be in.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think that’s a lot of it. So we get really amazing investors. You do.
Jill K DeWit:
We do.
Steven Jack Butala:
In that group.
Jill K DeWit:
I do.
Steven Jack Butala:
So I love that, I’m sure there’s a bunch of young girls and women in there being inspired by older successful women and there needs to be more of that in the world.
Jill K DeWit:
I agree. Thank you very much.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take another question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community.
Jill K DeWit:
All right. Umer wrote, “Hi everyone. I’m a new member, but not very new to this land investing/land flipping world. I started in this business a few months back and I’m excited to be a part of this group. I’m a certified civil engineer in Texas, so I’m very familiar with the industry. I’ve been a part of other businesses before, hoping my professional skills can translate to this business. My wife and I just had a baby in August and now more than ever I want to create financial security and achieve financial freedom. My first goal is to increase my income through this business enough so my wife can quit her job. Then I will follow. I’m going after it and hope you guys can assist along the way because it is frightening. For me what’s more frightening is coming back to the work at the age of 60 and having someone else determine if I can put food on the table or not. Let’s do this. I have huge goals for 2024.”
Steven Jack Butala:
You’re going to do great.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s awesome.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well said, well written. I love your professional background choice. Congratulations on the baby and the whole thing. Now let’s get cracking. And I love this go forward attitude.
Jill K DeWit:
I do too.
Steven Jack Butala:
You’re going to do absolutely great.
Jill K DeWit:
I love when people have big goals. I’m always like, go higher. Just say it. Just do it. Say it. I don’t care how crazy it sounds. Say it and get it out there. Nothing’s nuts. All right, Jill, my goal is 4 million this year. Awesome. Let’s see what that looks like. Whatever it is. Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s second topic is called Working with your Spouse.
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t really have anything to say.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m going to stay quiet right now, just because-
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t have anything.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what I do while I work with Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, stop.
Steven Jack Butala:
Is remain quiet.
Jill K DeWit:
We’re both like, nothing, I got nothing. No.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is an actual sentence I said at a dinner party last Thanksgiving to all of our close friends and family. It’s taken me 14 years to realize this. I can’t work with Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh. That’s funny.
Steven Jack Butala:
No, we’ve worked it out. But in general, if we were working with each other the way that we started out working with each other 14 years ago, or 15 years ago, or whatever it was, we would not be working with each other right now. Just like when you, in your land business, you got to roll with it, change it, make some changes and-
Jill K DeWit:
What does that mean?
Steven Jack Butala:
And fix stuff as it’s not working. Here’s an example. We worked in the same office in the beginning when we were buying and selling land together. It’s been more than that. It’s been 15 years. In fact, we even were working on the same deals together-
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, that was awful.
Steven Jack Butala:
It was a disaster.
Jill K DeWit:
We learned that one first. That was quick.
Steven Jack Butala:
We were both negotiating the same deal. So, geez, if we still did that, we would never get a deal done long ago, it would never have worked. But we ultimately decided I’m better at acquisitions, she’s better at sales, or I’m better at data, I should say, and she’s better with people. We now work in very separate geographic locations with separate staff and I’m primarily involved in very, very different things than she is. I’m a very good startup, big picture, next product person, and Jill is a very, she’s just fantastic with the real estate deals and has built her own staff that they all understand each other and can very effectively get deals done without my involvement. So the fact is we’re on-screen together all the time, and this is the truth, but that’s about it. We don’t really work with each other all day, day in and day out at all. And so if you’re working with your spouse house, please have a good long serious unemotional conversation with that other person about what they want, and listen and implement, and don’t be afraid to separate stuff.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, it’s not a bad thing.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what saved us.
Jill K DeWit:
You should do that. What’s better than that, actually, when you can say, I trust you? And you’re better at that and you want to do it, run. Great, I’ll stay out of your way. Call me if you need me for anything.
Steven Jack Butala:
I have to tell you too, there’s a huge element of luck here because I don’t know how this happened, but Jill just is a people person and I’m more of a data person. If we were both data people, we would try together then, I guess, to-
Jill K DeWit:
No one would answer the phones.
Steven Jack Butala:
Find a people person. Or if we were both salespeople then nothing would get done.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh.
Steven Jack Butala:
We would never get a mailer out.
Jill K DeWit:
Nothing would’ve got out. It’s true. That’s actually really funny and that it’s true. I like it. I’m trying to think, but it’s challenging. From day one of Land Academy people have come to us and said, “I want my wife to be involved, my husband to be involved. I think if we just, I get them listening to you, I’m going to get a motivated and we’re going to jump into this and be a team just like you guys and it’s going to be beautiful.” Okay. Hold on a moment.
Steven Jack Butala:
You’ll never motivate your spouse. I’m telling you that. She just said, “I’m going to get them motivated.” No, you’re not.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, it’s true, and it’s not easy, it’s not for everyone, and I want to point that out because I don’t want you to think there’s anything wrong with you if you’re like, “We tried it and it didn’t work,” and that’s okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s the norm.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s okay. We tried it and it didn’t work. Just kidding.
Steven Jack Butala:
15 times. And for probably two years now, I think we pretty much figured it out.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, we do. And a lot of it is, you know what? Just like you said, you have to be honest with each other and have conversations and let the other person… I really love that. When you have honest conversations and you divide up the tasks and you let the other person run with them and you stay out of it, because if you butt in, now they’re not doing it and it’s going to end in a fiery ball of tears.
Steven Jack Butala:
I didn’t think you were going to say that. I was going to say it, but better coming from you.
Jill K DeWit:
I took your saying. I did it before you did.
Steven Jack Butala:
The problem is this. Think about where you work or where you have worked. I don’t care where, I don’t care if it’s Starbucks or a public accounting firm or everything in between. When your coworker says or does some silly stuff, they just become like, oh, that’s the silly guy. Or, oh, that’s the guy that cooks fish every Wednesday in the company microwave and stinks up the entire warehouse. But if your wife does that, it’s not funny. It’s like you dig in and find out what’s wrong with their personality, and so you have to really consciously not do that. I don’t know why we do this in our relationships. Just, not us, but people, destroy the other person’s soul and break them down. You don’t do that.
Jill K DeWit:
Its not healthy.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you work in a warehouse with six people, you don’t do that to each other.
Jill K DeWit:
You can’t do that.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s this little veil of courtesy that doesn’t seem to happen between two married people who will work together.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, not like that.
Steven Jack Butala:
There needs to be a veil of courtesy. I’m here to tell you.
Jill K DeWit:
In the warehouse scenario, you might not make it to your car that night.
Steven Jack Butala:
No, I think in a marriage situation that’s also true.
Jill K DeWit:
All I could think about, I’m like, what could be worse? And all I could think about is these commercials that we have, we’re in the Phoenix area, and we have these commercials with the husband and wife law team.
Steven Jack Butala:
I saw that.
Jill K DeWit:
What the heck? Could you imagine? They probably threaten to sue each other once a week.
Steven Jack Butala:
They probably have.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, probably. There’s probably 16 restraining orders that they’ve each filed on each other. Could you imagine? That would not be fun.
Steven Jack Butala:
Look, it takes a lot of humor and it takes a huge amount of boundaries.
Jill K DeWit:
Patience.
Steven Jack Butala:
And then if you’re going to add your kids into it, Jill and I have three children, and all three of them have at one time worked for us, and it’s all past tense now. Because the notion of a family business, we don’t have crops to harvest, or a country store. We can go get our own labor, and so the notion of a true mom and pop family business is gone. It’s not a good idea.
Jill K DeWit:
I believe that.
Steven Jack Butala:
We should teach a class, because I can tell you exactly step by step all the stuff you’re going to go through and the whole key is to try not to let one of those steps just house of cards the whole thing down.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a look at another one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar.
Jill K DeWit:
Give me a second. Let me think about this for a moment. Before we begin rolling, Alex, I’m thinking about this. What’d you put? Oh, okay. You’re all inspiration. How funny is that? You’re inspiration and so I’ll be information.
Steven Jack Butala:
There you go. Let me know when you’re ready.
Jill K DeWit:
I will. Trying to think of something good and technical that I can share that I’ve experienced. I’m having a total brain fade right now. Can you help me think of something technical?
Steven Jack Butala:
You can’t do it while you’re talking though.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’ll just ask you some questions. It’ll be fine. Ready?
Jill, I have something, and several questions that I think will hopefully inspire listeners.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. Bring it.
Steven Jack Butala:
What inspires you to get up in the morning and buy and sell land on a normal day? Because there’s a lot less going on in our lives right now. All the kids are out of the house. We’re in a super, super good shape financially. Most of the people and staff are happy. Most of our Land Academy customers are happy and our staff’s happy. So now-
Jill K DeWit:
Are you done? Why do you still do this?
Steven Jack Butala:
We’re a little bit… Yeah, just in general, you seem to me to be very inspired and I don’t believe that there’s no put a happy face on in the morning for you. I think you wake up happy and deal ready.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s it. You know what? Doing deals is my number one thing. That fuels everything else. And I think when I realized I’m a land person, I just love it. Land more even than a house. I love land and scenery and nature and animals. When we go away for the summer, we’re outdoors. We are so outdoorsy people. We are on our bikes and doing all kinds of fun exploring things.
So to me, so how does that translate to what I do every day? Looking at a new piece of property is a new area I don’t know. Every second, I’m like, “Ooh.” I see what’s there and what’s possible. Every time a deal comes into me, I look at it. I’m like, “Okay, where’s the town? Oh look, it’s on a river. What’s going on here? What are the trees like? How beautiful is that?” I can easily transport myself mentally onto that piece of property, and then I think that translate into, I can get inspired and talk to the seller and get it, and then I can be further inspired and talk to a buyer and help them fall in love with it too. So I think in my soul, I love land.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m going to throw you under the bus a little bit here. All in the name of this massive compliment.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
When I met Jill, she was very, very inspired and got up in the morning. She was in a core W2 job, like punch a clock, W2 job, and she was very, what motivated her was time off. Whether it was a weekend or vacation or whatever, we would obviously take vacations together and she would spend the first part of the vacation planning the next vacation before she could enjoy that one. So you’ve come a long way from a mental standpoint about, I think we’re all supposed to enjoy getting up in the morning and doing stuff that we want to do, not wait for the weekend or plan for a vacation.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s good to hear you. You know what? I’m worried about the same thing. That moment where you get a new deal in and you look at it and you’re like, “This actually could work. We should probably look into it further. We can do the deal.”
Jill K DeWit:
Well, you know what else, when you really think about it? We have had many companies over the years, some not land related at all, we’ve always had land rolling in the background though, and we’ve never once had a business or company that has the same margins. So I’ll just be honest here, I love being my own boss. I will never go and not go back.
Steven Jack Butala:
I like getting rich.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, that too. So you can quickly get to a position in your life in this business where you can be your own boss and set your own schedule. Maybe that’s it. If I wake up in the morning and I have a meeting at 9:00, it’s because I scheduled it. I have the complete control over everything that I do and so does every other full-time investor.
Steven Jack Butala:
In that meeting, whatever it is, and whoever it’s with is getting toward the goal that you set for yourself anyway. It’s like whatever it does ends up being, be more wealthy, doing more deals, for some reason it’s not some staff meeting that somebody set to hit their goals.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you. That was really good. How about you? What do you have to share with us today?
Steven Jack Butala:
So I’m going to do my side of that.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. Ready.
Steven Jack Butala:
I have to tell you that I really believe in what we do for a living. I have been, like probably everybody, in many situations where I don’t believe in the product that I’m selling, I don’t believe in the client I’m representing, I don’t like the coworkers I have, and certainly don’t like my boss. So it’s hard to get… You need to believe in what you’re doing every day and a few weeks ago, this little segment, this inspiration segment at the end of this episode, my talk was ask yourself, yesterday, how much time did you spend doing something you don’t want to do, and how much time did you spend doing something you really do want to do? And boy, that next Thursday, when that aired, on the Thursday call, do you remember this?
Jill K DeWit:
Mm-hmm.
Steven Jack Butala:
People were typing in on our regular Thursday webinar. I remember. We would listen to this, and I spent 12 hours yesterday doing something I don’t want to do and eight hours in bed, and the rest of it, I had just a couple of hours to myself. And boy, if you can convert, if you can do, I can safely say this with both of us, there’s probably maybe an hour, maybe two or three hours a week that we do stuff we don’t want to do.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
If that.
Jill K DeWit:
True. I agree.
Steven Jack Butala:
Usually if I don’t want to do something, I delegate it, because we have employees, or one of our car needs a new battery right now and I’m just going to call AAA. I’m not going to do it. That’s why we buy and sell land. That’s why I don’t have to change a battery in a car.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
That, and it’s very lazy. All kidding aside-
Jill K DeWit:
I love it.
Steven Jack Butala:
You got to believe in what you do, or it’s just not… Ultimately it’s going to break.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. Don’t forget, if you have any questions, you want to learn more about us, check out landacademy.com, and you can always send a note to my team via support@landacademy.com.
Steven Jack Butala:
Join us next Wednesday for another interesting episode. You are not alone in your real estate ambition. We are Jack and Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
We are Jack and Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
Information.
Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration.
Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
https://youtu.be/QpVrcFFvWxw
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Dive into the ever-evolving landscape of land investing online with Jill and Jack in this revealing episode. They share insights into the dynamic world of mailer yield, tracing its evolution from the ’90s to 2024. Discover how market shifts, tools, and strategies have shaped their success. Whether you’re a seasoned land flipping investor or just starting, this episode unveils crucial truths about mailer yields and navigating the lucrative terrain of land investing. Don’t miss the wisdom gained from years of experience and the exciting future of this thriving industry!
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
I am Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit, and this is the Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today, Jill and I are talking about, well, it’s episode 1,994, and we’re talking about the truth about mailer yield, this year in 2024, and a little later we’ll talk about the three types of land to buy, and the two types I think you should probably avoid, especially this year.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, this is going to be good. We talked about topic number one ahead of time a little bit, but we did not talk about topic number two, so I’m going to be just as surprised.
Steven Jack Butala:
Good.
Jill K DeWit:
But I have a feeling I know what it is, you know what? I’m not new to this. Isn’t that funny? It’s a little bit funny when you talk to someone that’s just learning about us and learning about land flipping and they’re trying to wrap their heads around this.
It’s like part of me is I feel very proud to say how long I’ve been doing this and how long you’ve been doing this, but then I go, oh my God, how old are we? Then there’s a part of me that goes, you’re not 20 anymore and you’re not 30 anymore. You’re not even 40 anymore.
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t have a problem with that. I like it.
Jill K DeWit:
I know it’s a guy thing. You men.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s talk about this for a second.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
What’s the problem with getting older?
Jill K DeWit:
Because men look better. Men get distinguished and women get old. Not kidding.
Steven Jack Butala:
I disagree with that. You look, and I’m not blowing smoke or trying to get anything out of this. You actually look better with the age, and I’m really serious about this.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, if I could grow a beard and hide some of my wrinkles, I would, you know what I’m going to do?
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh my God. We should have one of our guys put a beard on you and just keep it there for this camera.
Jill K DeWit:
Great. Now that you said that Alex is going to do it. There’s going to be a beard here in a minute. I know it.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think this age thing is ridiculously perceived.
Jill K DeWit:
All right.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think that there’s a certain population or a certain part of the population that sees real value in very young women and you don’t want to hang out with this people.
Jill K DeWit:
Anyway, I couldn’t, if I was getting into this right now and I saw some kid, especially a kid standing next to a Ferrari, I’d be like, nope, not my people.
Steven Jack Butala:
Any version of that.
Jill K DeWit:
But if I just saw anybody that looked less than 30, “I’ve got this. I can teach you.” I’d be like, “Son, first of all, call me when you’re old enough to shave and then,” you know what I mean?
Steven Jack Butala:
If I was really young and we were in Land Academy and I had a few deals under my belt, this is what I would say, “I’m really young, but I have a lot of credibility and I have an incredible knowledge in how do you use the most current tools that are available to buy and sell land? Is it a replacement for experience? No, but it’s a slight edge.”
Because I had that when I was really young, a really serious edge with computers and all of that. I was surrounded by people that were baffled by, let’s say, Excel. Back then it was Lotus and so it was a huge edge and I used it to my advantage and here we are.
Jill K DeWit:
I understand.
Steven Jack Butala:
So instead of just what ends up happening, and I don’t want to make this a rant, what ends up happening is a lot of lies, and it’s very unfortunate for the person who’s doing it. And then obviously the constituency gets caught up in believing all that stuff, and then let down, which by the way is probably 50 to 60% of the people that ultimately find Land Academy and become a part of it have these…
This is why we know this, jill and I, because we get these stories, “I joined this person’s group and it just wasn’t what I thought.” I didn’t think this is where this was going, but that’s the truth.
Jill K DeWit:
No, it was really about age and us. But anyway, that’s good. It’s funny. Here’s what I heard from it, like the other day that we did on the Thursday call or the in career path, 41-year-old casual dating. We’ll get to that later but…
Steven Jack Butala:
When do you think casual dating should end, Jill?
Jill K DeWit:
I’m like Lotus 1, 2, 3. That’s how I remember that. When should casual dating end?
Steven Jack Butala:
When should you be kind of done with casual dating?
Jill K DeWit:
All right.
Steven Jack Butala:
And sort of starting to say, “I’ve got to implement my life plan here.”
Jill K DeWit:
Let’s give the backstory real quick here. So in the beginning, we’re in career path nine right now, so we’ll get to this topic in a minute. We have too much, we have-
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s talk about your mail [inaudible 00:04:24] in a minute.
Jill K DeWit:
In a little bit. This is more important. So, we’re in career path nine right now. Career Path is our highest level coaching product like mastermind group that we offer. And the beginning of week two, Jack was very sweet and shared with us some of his behind-the-scenes content coming someday for Manplan.com, and there’s a whole life timeline. It’s a Gantt chart, there’s a financial Gantt chart and there’s a personal Gantt chart.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s a life Gantt chart for men.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, this was the first time I had seen it. This evolved, let’s just say, or maybe even seen it at all. I don’t know. You may have shown it to me and I blanked it out.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, I’m sure.
Jill K DeWit:
Because that happens. So you’re showing the financial piece to it and my eyes, all they do is go down to the personal part of it and it talks about the developmental years and the things that you’re doing and then there’s education.
Steven Jack Butala:
Education, formal education.
Jill K DeWit:
Focus here and they’re like, it’s like when you need to be thinking about getting married, if you want to do that and thinking about that part of your life, and all I saw was a casual dating period, which started somewhere in the teen. You’re in your teen years and it ended at 41. I’m like, “Are you kidding me, casual dating still til 41?” and then you get serious about somebody.
Steven Jack Butala:
What are the two things in life that will destroy any hope for a man of being independently wealthy?
Jill K DeWit:
Well, probably getting married and having kids.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s it. So, why not not do it until it’s time?
Jill K DeWit:
I’m not disagreeing with you.
Steven Jack Butala:
I knew you wouldn’t.
Jill K DeWit:
I just don’t know what to do. Well, you know what? I got to tell you, we have three children and the last thing we do is pressure them to get married or have kids.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s the opposite.
Jill K DeWit:
We pay them.
Steven Jack Butala:
I have a handshake, dollar amount.
Jill K DeWit:
If you make it 30, here’s what you get.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s 30 and then 40 without children or marriage and it’s equal by gender.
Jill K DeWit:
I understand.
Steven Jack Butala:
I believe they’re going to hold us to it.
Jill K DeWit:
It doesn’t mean that if you’re in that situation now, you can’t overcome that and doesn’t mean undo it. It means you may have to work a little harder and [inaudible 00:06:43].
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what it means.
Jill K DeWit:
You just have to, that’s…
Steven Jack Butala:
You have a different Gantt chart now.
Jill K DeWit:
You do. Where is that?
Steven Jack Butala:
And that’s okay.
Jill K DeWit:
I want to see that one.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what we do. We adapt and overcome in our lives. And the Gantt chart that Jill was exposed to and the people I was presenting this all to-
Jill K DeWit:
What if none of them were 18 years old so it didn’t apply to them, but you have to start with a template. And so if you find yourself listener and you’re 42 years old, you have three children who span in age, maybe some are in college, maybe some are still in grade school or all of the above, and you’re on your third wife, you’re going to have a different Gantt chart than that 18-year-old who’s thinking about it.
So, that’s the point to Man Plan. This is not a commercial by any stretch. You just need to be aware of these things. Everybody always says, “Well, there’s no life manual.” That’s what Man Plan is and that’s what that Gantt chart is. It is a manual. That doesn’t mean that you can’t solve any social or financial problem that you have at just about any age, man or woman. It’s just a different Gantt chart.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m just thinking of people that we know in their Gantt charts. Casual dating to 25, casual dating, again, starting at 40 and ending at 51.
Steven Jack Butala:
How about not getting married when you’re 19?
Jill K DeWit:
And then casual dating at 60. Seriously, so we have three [inaudible 00:08:17]… You know who you are, and I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with this, but there’s people that I’m sure they have 10 years of casual dating in their early years, 10 years of casual dating in their middle years, and then 10 years of casual dating again, and maybe they’re 95 and they’re casual dating again.
Steven Jack Butala:
My dad is 85. He lives in-
Jill K DeWit:
He’s been casual dating forever.
Steven Jack Butala:
He’s casually dating at 85, whatever that means for him. He explained to me with a very high degree of seriousness, because I think this topic is a crack up, that he did everything the opposite in life. He got married too early, had kids too early, meaning me, because I’m the oldest, which is fine.
Jill K DeWit:
Yep, you’re the problem.
Steven Jack Butala:
Then he got unmarried and then two wives later, passed away, and now he’s reversed. So all the stuff he’s supposed to do in high school, he’s doing now.
Jill K DeWit:
Behaving like a teenager.
Steven Jack Butala:
And he was mansplaining it to me like I’ve never thought about these things before and I’m sitting there saying, “Oh wow, thank you for this advice. I didn’t really didn’t think that. I never thought about that.”
Jill K DeWit:
Don’t worry, Dad, I watched you do it all wrong.
Steven Jack Butala:
I got to be careful. I know he listens to this.
Jill K DeWit:
Oops, sorry, sorry. Sorry, LB.
Steven Jack Butala:
Each week on the show we answer questions from our Land Academy member Discord forum. We review land acquisitions from our weekly member webinars and we take a deep dive into two land-related topics by popular request.
Jill K DeWit:
Perfect. And don’t forget, if you have a question or you just want some more information, reach out to my team, support@landacademy.com.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a question, Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
All right, person X wrote, because we don’t have their name.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is their name. This is their real name.
Jill K DeWit:
Is it you?
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s not me. They have the same name as I do.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, I saw Stephen B, and I’m like, you’re Stephen B. So a different Stephen. B, Stephen B two. Stephen B dos says, “Has anyone acquired land through tax deed sales? I’m researching them a little bit as a way to try to increase deal flow. Would be curious to know if folks have had success or not. Thanks.” Well, you can speak about this a lot, so let her rip.
Steven Jack Butala:
I feel qualified to answer this.
Jill K DeWit:
Yes, you do. I’ll just sit back here and drink my tea.
Steven Jack Butala:
I cut my teeth in the land business by buying a back tax property and reselling it online, specifically on eBay, and thousands and thousands and thousands of deals later and millions of dollars of profit margin later, I can tell you that it is not the right way to buy property cheap. And I would never have known that had I not gone through it.
So my answer to you is give it a shot and see if you like it, and maybe it’s going to spark a light bulb for you that it never did for me. I was always chasing these land sales and there’s a lot of work. Here’s the pros and cons. The pros are you can buy some cheap dirt and as evidenced by me and resell it for more very successfully.
When you buy properties for three, four, $500, it’s hard to not make money, no matter how you slice it. The downside, the very severe downside, which is how I came about and devised this system of sending out blind offers. The problem is, best case scenario, you’re staring at a list of, let’s say, in LA County’s case, LA County has a tax deed auction that’s a week long. It’s a week long. That’s how many properties they have that they have to get back on their tax rolls.
So that’s, in some cases, thousands of properties. It’s run the analysis on thousands of properties and then bid on them, raise the capital beforehand, go to the auction or do it online, bid on them on the ones that you want. It’s a massive undertaking. It sounds fun. It sounds profitable when you talk about it at a 35,000-foot level like I’m talking about it now. But the fact is it’s going to take you weeks if not a month, to analyze all those properties and figure out what the values are and what you’re willing to bid.
Jill K DeWit:
And then what if you don’t get them?
Steven Jack Butala:
And then there’s a real good chance you end up with nothing.
Jill K DeWit:
You’re like, well, there, I’m not willing to work that hard.
Steven Jack Butala:
So what we do, and he’s in our group so he knows this, is rather than do that, we spend a couple hours, maybe five hours on a mailer, a 10,000 unit mailer, let’s say, with real specific pricing in it, and we send it all out and the mailer does the work for you. Then so 20, 30, 40, 80 properties come back, a hundred properties come back with people saying, “I am interested in selling.”
Then you analyze those a hundred properties, 80 properties instead of 10,000 and decide which ones you want to buy, and you have the luxury of saying, “Nope, nope, nope, nope. Don’t care. Don’t care. Priced that wrong. Seller doesn’t want to sell. Seller’s not alive,” and on and on and on until you whittle that thing down pretty quickly and efficiently, if you’re somebody like Jill, into two or three deals that you’re going to make 30 to 80 or a hundred thousand bucks each on, and that’s how the real funnel works. So tax deed sales, I’m all for them. It’s just a lot of work.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s topic, the truth about mailer yield in 2024.
Jill K DeWit:
This is cool. I was thinking about-
Steven Jack Butala:
This is Jill’s topic.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, it came up in career path again this week as we are filming. We just wrapped up week two of eight for our career path session. We have an awesome group, heavy smart women involved, which I love.
Steven Jack Butala:
Have you noticed that there’s more and more women in our group?
Jill K DeWit:
Yep. Oh, I’ve noticed.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think it’s the greatest thing ever.
Jill K DeWit:
I do too.
Steven Jack Butala:
It tells me that you’re providing, not me. You’re providing an environment that’s…
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
… more toward that type of mental… Women just invest differently than men and I think that’s great.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill’s got a book on our desk that says Invest like a Girl, and it’s written about Warren Buffett.
Jill K DeWit:
So we were talking in career path, mailers to get mailed again, and we were talking about, and it was just interesting to me to think about how long we’ve been doing this. And I mean, back in the day, I bet when you first started this, you could send out, we’re talking in the 90s now, everyone, you could probably send out a thousand offers and buy 10 properties. Good ones.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m embarrassed to say that’s really high.
Jill K DeWit:
Was it high?
Steven Jack Butala:
Mm-hmm.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, you didn’t have me then.
Steven Jack Butala:
No. We could send out 200 letters and get a deal.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, and buy 10 properties, because nobody was doing it back then. No one knew it. People would get a letter and go, what the heck is this? Well, back then too, they couldn’t even find their own property. Even when I got involved 15 years ago, it was not what it is today, finding these properties. There’s no state county APN and it pops up, did not exist.
Steven Jack Butala:
I have to say, when Jill and I talk about these years ago, what we were doing, it’s not under the guise of our good old days.
Jill K DeWit:
This is better.
Steven Jack Butala:
I am more happy now and we are more financially successful and I think rewarded all the way around now than I ever have been in my land career ever. The tools out there are easier to use. We got a group of people in Land Academy that have open checkbooks, and so there’s really-
Jill K DeWit:
Us included.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s an unlimited supply of capital when we bring in good deals. The truth is, Jill and I, we don’t do a ton of deals, but the ones we do, hell yes.
Jill K DeWit:
So I’m going to go back. So you could send out a thousand offers and buy a lot of property, 20? Let’s just say 20 that you picked out that you loved.
Steven Jack Butala:
Not a thousand, that’s like a thousand to one.
Jill K DeWit:
Let’s just say… Give me the best time.
Steven Jack Butala:
Like years?
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. Where was the aha moment before me when you’re like, “Holy cow, I can’t believe I just canvassed this area and this is what came back.”?
Steven Jack Butala:
So as I mentioned earlier, I cut my teeth on tax sales, so I knew where there were big, huge pockets of property that were always in tax sales, and so in like 99 or 2000, I think it was like 99, I sent out a little test mailers, which I don’t recommend you do now, but little mailers like that for those properties, for those types of properties in that area. And we just didn’t have the tool. We didn’t know where the properties were physically. We didn’t have the tools.
Jill K DeWit:
But how much could you buy? I just want to know how much came back.
Steven Jack Butala:
I would send out let’s say 500 offers and probably get 20 signed purchase agreements and prices would all be like $500, and they just never… At that price, they couldn’t get a real estate agent to sell the property. They usually inherited it. They never saw it and don’t care, and they were tired of paying the taxes.
Jill K DeWit:
Isn’t that great? I’m only asking for the evolution here. You don’t have, so thank you. I want to interview you here. So, that was in the late 90s.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, let’s say early 2000, start there.
Jill K DeWit:
Early 2000s, so then when was there a shift where, and if there was a shift, what do you think happened?
Steven Jack Butala:
Without making this show two hours long?
Jill K DeWit:
Correct.
Steven Jack Butala:
What happened is there would be a wow and flutter, so there would be-
Jill K DeWit:
A wow and flutter?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. So there’s a heyday of success because that was a very specific product type, and so with the way we were selling property, we would buy 50 or 80 of those and you can’t just put 50 or 80 properties at the same time, or even the same formats-
Jill K DeWit:
True, next to each other [inaudible 00:18:43].
Steven Jack Butala:
So we were really always struggled in that environment with diversity.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s good.
Steven Jack Butala:
So what happened was I found out that there is an oil gas data company called RealQuest that I convinced them to provide data to us. Even though we were real estate investors, we weren’t in this highfalutin huge money backed industry, and they did. They allowed us to do it in a crude way.
Between that and using the CDs that the assessor would provide, pieced together mailers, the data set was nothing like it is now.
Jill K DeWit:
I can’t even imagine how much time this took to spend.
Steven Jack Butala:
And I’ll tell you, it was all self-taught. There was no YouTube, so you figured it out. Anyway, that solved the diversification problem, and that was the real light bulb moment.
Jill K DeWit:
So then you guys-
Steven Jack Butala:
Our mailer yield and the stuff that we bought and how we sold it was truly spectacular.
Jill K DeWit:
You were mailing places that you hadn’t driven to and been at the auction then after that.
Steven Jack Butala:
It took all the real work out of it too. We didn’t have to analyze auctions anymore. It was just an evolution of success.
Jill K DeWit:
And then, so that was in the 2000s. So 2010 through 15, let’s just say before Land Academy, I felt like we were doing fine.
Steven Jack Butala:
Really quickly, between 2004 and 2009, when 2009, the market really cooled off. We sold tens of thousands of properties and generated millions and millions of dollars on top of, and we were still doing tax sales at that time.
Jill K DeWit:
People don’t realize too, when these things happen, it’s a buyer’s time. You could grab some things. I mean, back then you were pivoting. There were house things to nab up and you did.
Steven Jack Butala:
So what Jill’s really getting at, or if I can paraphrase, is each little step of the way based on the market, we changed, we had access to data for the first time in the early 2000s and we utilized it and changed. And then as time went on, we would add, we just made changes based on the environment and the markets. That’s what mailer yield.
That’s where people get tripped up with mailer yield now. They say sentences like this, this is what Jill’s getting at, “I used to send out 6,000 letters in the Dallas market area and I would buy 14 properties. Now, I have to send out 15,000 to buy 30 properties. What the hell, man, is it over? Why is my mailer yield so bad? What am I doing wrong?”
Well, I’ll answer that fictitious person. You’re not adjusting to the market, whatever that means to you. You can’t continually do the exact same thing over and over in the same market or same environment and expect the same results forever. It’s just not how it is.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, I want to go with, let’s fast-forward to today, and this is, do you have more? Can I?
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s it.
Jill K DeWit:
So the point that I wanted to make today on this topic is I wanted you to understand the progression and what Jack just shared, but the thing about today is it’s going to take more mail for obvious reasons to get the offers back. So my argument is make the mail count, make the deal count.
What if it’s going to take you 5,000 units? Let’s just say this, to get one that you love, that you’re running to the bank for property. Just using that number randomly. And that mailer costs you, 5,000 units, I don’t know, 3000 bucks, 3000, $3,500 by the time you’re all in, data and postage and using O-to-O, because it’s like 65 cents roughly a unit to get that mail out.
So I’m not going to spend $3,500 on mail to buy a property for 2000 to sell it for eight. That’s my point. But I will spend that much money on mail to buy something for 20,000 to sell it for 80,000. Now, it’s worth it, and that’s where I think I see people still doing these little things. I’m like, what are you doing?
Then there’s all kinds of other things that we talk about around Land Academy and career path, such as I’m going to tell you, the bigger deals are easy to close anyway. That’s a whole nother topic.
Steven Jack Butala:
The fact is everyone stops talking about mailer yield, us included, after their second or third deal because they realize how much money is involved and how small in comparison. The return on investment for a well-thought-out mailer is staggering, staggeringly positive, and here’s the root of that.
Think of two sets of people, four people total. Set number one is a person who used to own a chain of restaurants. They sold them all and they’re looking for something new. They have a pile full of money and some time, so they get involved in land investing or house flipping or whatever, whatever we do in our little world. Their reaction every single time, because we see these people in career path, and get a chance to get to know them really in their history.
Their response to that is, “This is it? I have to spend $80,000 on mail this year. I’m going to generate about a million bucks. Well, with my restaurants, it took a year to open one. I had to spend a million dollars on a build out turn improvements and on and on and on. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Jack and Jill. Holy heck, why doesn’t everybody do this? This is the greatest thing in the world.” That’s set number one.
Set number two is somebody who’s just getting into the land business. They have a W-II job at Costco, and they have $1482 to spend on mail, and their question in 62 different ways is what’s going to my mailer yield going to be the first. The former restaurant owner never asks about mailer yield. They don’t care. They’re prepared to make mistakes learning. Send out 3000 here, 8,000 here, 4,000 here. Buy three or four deals, resell them and enjoy the money and the success.
The second set is prepping for disappointment, in my opinion. That’s why Land Academy is packed full of formerly successful people who are now adding this to their already successful life, instead of brand spanking new people who just are setting themselves up, in my opinion, for disappointment.
Jill K DeWit:
So it’s not that you can’t, if you have $1482, I would just say wait until you have $14,082, what would you say?
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, I would say we have a product-
Jill K DeWit:
Put your head down.
Steven Jack Butala:
… a little known product called Land Up Academy community.
Jill K DeWit:
That.
Steven Jack Butala:
And I would say join that.
Jill K DeWit:
We haven’t announced that yet, but thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, sorry. You know what?
Jill K DeWit:
This is good, actually.
Steven Jack Butala:
Usually, I don’t even know about this stuff, but this thing crossed my desk and I love this product. If you want to be in a room full of people every week that are making this incredibly successful, but you don’t have the money or the comfort level yet to get super involved in actually sending mail out or whatever, you just want to listen.
Jill K DeWit:
And learn and prep.
Steven Jack Butala:
You want to audit the class in college. That’s the product for you.
Jill K DeWit:
Prep for it. It’s coming.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m sorry, was I not?
Jill K DeWit:
No, that’s actually funny. I like it, coming in April. We’ll talk more. This is good.
Steven Jack Butala:
I thought it was already launched-
Jill K DeWit:
I love it.
Steven Jack Butala:
… and everything, Jill. I’m sorry.
Jill K DeWit:
You’re hilarious.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a look at one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar. Hey, if you don’t know it about it already, Jill and I own a commercial printing company called Offersthenumbertwoowners.com, they will do your mailer for you. That’s it. I have nothing else to say about that.
Jill K DeWit:
You hate Excel, you hate data, you hate downloading, you hate scrubbing it. You don’t know what you’re doing in scraping. What the heck is scraping? I got to do that to get comps. I’m so confused. They do that too.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take another question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community.
Jill K DeWit:
All right, Jim wrote, “I’ve heard that people are shying away from targeting infill lots. What are the pros and cons of targeting these areas? I’ve done some rural land and some infill lots and made money on both. Obviously, the area would need to pass the red yellow green test. I’m looking for anything else I should be considering. Thanks in advance.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Great question, Jim, and it leads directly into our next topic, so you know what?
Jill K DeWit:
We’ll just cover it here?
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m going to go right into the topic.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay, good.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s topic, there are three types of land to buy and two types to avoid.
Jill K DeWit:
Is this in 2024?
Steven Jack Butala:
In general, this is in 2024 and when times are hot, and they were a couple of years ago, these almost can be at times flipped, but not necessarily. Look, in the end, it comes down to your personality and what you like.
Jill K DeWit:
I like that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Here are three types of land that I think always work, now that you’re mentioning from a timeframe standpoint. The number one favorite is rural vacant land.
Jill K DeWit:
Timeless, like that Chanel jacket. You think I’m kidding.
Steven Jack Butala:
You know what’s in my calendar today?
Jill K DeWit:
You describe it in man talk and I’ll translate to girl talk.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s this really high-end secondhand store that made its way into my stuff to do today, made its way into my calendar.
Jill K DeWit:
It was optional.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, really?
Jill K DeWit:
I put optional. You don’t have to go.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’re supposed to go to My Sister’s Closet later, Jill and I, and shop old Chanel jackets.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m going to go look. That was just a, “This is where I’ll be today.”
Steven Jack Butala:
You can’t go wrong with rural vacant land and here’s why. If it has all the seven As or whatever, we’re up to, eight As-
Jill K DeWit:
Eight, yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
… of access and all of that, the number of users, the end users who you’re going to sell the property to is really large. It could be hunting people. They could be, jeez, people who want a rural homestead. There’s all kinds of uses. It could be turned into agriculture depending on the zoning, and so your bio [inaudible 00:29:34]-
Jill K DeWit:
Turned into a subdivision.
Steven Jack Butala:
So, it could be redeveloped so that always works. The second type of land that really works that almost in every case, and this is probably my personal favorite, is what I call specific use property. So in a city like Phoenix or really in any urban area, there is some type of master plan, and that’s what civil engineers do.
They get together with the city, there’s a budget and they essentially say, “Over here’s the cemetery, over here’s the hospital, over here’s where the subdivisions should go. Here’s the heavy industrial park,” and so what you don’t get is all mixed up… You don’t get houses next to chicken farms in general. In rural communities, it’s still like that. It is just open zoning.
So specific use property in a really urban area like this, you can pick out-
Jill K DeWit:
Commercial.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s 20 or 30 or 40, let’s say, pre-zoned properties for mobile home parks that are undeveloped. And so it’s really easy to identify those. The way that we do this and send everybody a letter and say, “I’ve got a buyer.” Or, “I am a buyer and I want to buy a mobile home. Your taxes are $82,000 a year on this, and I don’t know where you’re coming up with the money, but we’d like to take it off your hands for X amount.” And those kinds of mailers, those specific use property mailers are very successful. I started my entire career on specific use property in healthcare.
Jill K DeWit:
So that was two, rural vacant land. The specific use, these are the three types of land that you love. What’s your number three?
Steven Jack Butala:
And number three is as a wider category, but it falls into adjacent. So your property comes back and whatever’s happening on four sides of it or three sides of it is probably what’s going to happen with your property. So it’s very similar to specific use, but you don’t send out a mailer based on pre-zoning.
Jill K DeWit:
Got it.
Steven Jack Butala:
You just figure it out how it involves the use. I don’t want to complicate this.
Jill K DeWit:
Maybe it all comes back. Remember that time we had one, well, there was a marijuana. Two properties that were, I had no idea that it fell into this area in northern California that was already approved and not near… There’s all kinds of restrictions, and I had just landed in it that were two marijuana conducive properties and they were big. They were like 20 acres each.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s a perfect example of what I’m talking about. It’s not specific use property because it’s all zoned agricultural, but it’s all being used for blueberries, let’s say. So when you buy it or when you review it as an acquisition candidate, that’s going to be used as blueberries. And you probably know, by the way, that people-
Jill K DeWit:
Who’s going to buy it.
Steven Jack Butala:
… the adjacent people who are blueberrying are very logical person to sell it to. You can’t go wrong with those three pipes and they’re timeless.
Jill K DeWit:
Perfect. What’s the two that you don’t like?
Steven Jack Butala:
Under the two to avoid, which gets up to Jim’s. Question number one, infill lot by definition, an infill lot is a property that is in a subdivision, a non-master plan subdivision. They’re all over the place in the thirties, forties, fifties and sixties, all over this country.
You know that they’re not master plan because when you go look at it, there’s a subdivision of 20 properties and 18 of them are already done. 18 of them have houses on it, and the guy that has a two left responded to your letter. And so now your buyer pool is tiny and the use for that property is going to be a house.
And very, very, very often there’s an amazing raw supply and demand reason why they don’t have houses on them yet. It’s just because the market won’t support it. In general, if the market supported it, they would’ve been built on in 1974 or some version of that.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
So unless you can get them super cheap, look, we buy infill lots every year-
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill and I.
Jill K DeWit:
There are random things, like maybe Willie was holding onto it for the kids kind of thing. That could be but often it’s your way, what you just said.
Steven Jack Butala:
And markets change too sometimes. It’s very cool right now to be in a rural market because of the work from home internet phenomenon, which is here to stay. So there’s some opportunities there, but in rural markets, it’s hard to justify the price of the land because the houses are so cheap.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s it. You shouldn’t be buying infill lots where homes are selling for a $100,000. It doesn’t make sense. It’s like you go, wait a minute, I can’t sell this property for 20,000 like I’d like to because they can’t build a house for 80. It’s not going to make sense.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s below replacement costs is what she’s saying. And I don’t need to tell you that everything’s more expensive now that it was a year ago.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’re in a strange inflationary period and materials and labor, labor’s harder to get. Materials are more expensive. And so the replacement costs of building a house, a new house on a lot, there’s some extraordinary stuff that has to happen to make an infill lot model work. I’ll tell you, it’s rooted in very expensive houses that you see on the coast of Oregon or something, or California where there’s 2 million houses and you can buy a buildable infill lot for 30 grand. That’s a deal I would do. And so would you That’s the kind of deals we actually do.
Jill K DeWit:
But in general, the first one on the infill lot when it’s two, you can’t build a house for that kind of thing. Don’t do those. And what was your second type to avoid?
Steven Jack Butala:
Currently, farmed agricultural property. And here’s why. If you’re in this business at all or you read the news, there’s so much criticism. The center states, if you talk to a farmer, we have the opportunity to talk to a lot of active farmers in Scottsdale here because where Jill and I live, because they’re snowbirds and they come here and it’s their off season.
Jill K DeWit:
From other states.
Steven Jack Butala:
They’re not farming, they’re from Iowa or Illinois or whatever. And so they farm thousands and thousands of acres. Most of it is leased. They lease it from the landowner, people like us. And so because there’s leases, it defines the price of the property, of the acreage. So if you talk to anybody, they will tell you, “Oh, agricultural property right now where I farm is between $4200 and $5100,” depending on the crop that yields there.
Jill K DeWit:
An acre.
Steven Jack Butala:
And everybody knows that. The landowners know that. The farmers know that. And so for you to go in and do a mailer, we’re very used to doing every single month and try to buy that type of property that’s already pre-valued like a commodity for 20% of its value-
Jill K DeWit:
Good luck.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s not good. Plus what you’re doing is making a lot of enemies and it’s not the regular hate where people call and say, “Look, this is kind of silly.” They call, they’re all together banned together to not sell land there for anything less than they think it’s worth.
Jill K DeWit:
Just a waste of your time. That’s the real thing. So you’ve told me many times they all get together Sunday morning at the same coffee shop and hang out and talk. They’re not going to move, nor should they. That makes sense.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a look at another one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar.
Jill, you have something inspirational to share?
Jill K DeWit:
Yes. Today I want to talk for a few minutes about, I thought I had a topic. You know what? I’m going to talk a few minutes about not casual dating.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what I thought it was going to be.
Jill K DeWit:
At 41. I’m not going to talk about casual dating at 41.
Steven Jack Butala:
What’s the problem with that?
Jill K DeWit:
Well, you can use that for your topic during this minute. I’m not going to spend any more time on that. You know what? How about this, I’m going to talk a few minutes about and I haven’t because we haven’t recorded in a couple of days, but I was just finishing filling up career path, and I can’t tell you, have I talked about this recently? Tell me if I did.
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t don’t know the topic yet. Neither does anybody else that’s watching.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you. My topic is the frustration and sadness I feel when people should be in the room and they’re not putting themselves in the room. What is that? It goes back to you. I was just thinking about, I was talking to kid number two on the phone the other day, and his girlfriend has this same problem that a lot of women have, which is-
Steven Jack Butala:
I want to hear this.
Jill K DeWit:
… Women won’t apply for a position, this is totally true and documented. We look at a position in a company that we want to work and we won’t even throw our hat in the ring until we think we have mastered 80% of that, which is stupid. Men throw their hat in the ring when they have 20%.
Steven Jack Butala:
Get the job and learn how to do it.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. That’s how men see it. Women don’t see it like that. And it was funny, we were talking about another subject and I brought that up and he goes, “She does that.” I’m like, “Do you want me to talk to her?” Kind of thing.
Steven Jack Butala:
Wow. He’s actually listening to you, which is amazing.
Jill K DeWit:
Yes. Well, that’s another thing. But anyway, so I was thinking about that with career path and I’m thinking, I wonder how many people… I bet that was part of it. There’s probably a lot of people that didn’t throw themselves fully into career path, and they’re not fully throwing themselves into this land thing that we’re here queuing up for them because they don’t think they have all these steps mastered.
Don’t worry about it. Get in there, do it, try it, know you’re going to fail, know you’re going to break something, so what? We know how to solve it, we can help you get out of this stuff. That’s what it’s all about. Because if you don’t do that, you’re going to be on the sidelines forever. That’s the part that I get frustrated with is people that are, and you and I, aren’t those people.
Steven Jack Butala:
Is this nature or nurture, do you think?
Jill K DeWit:
For myself, I’m going to probably say nature. What do you think?
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t know. I don’t know because I never fully realized this topic until I met you because you made me aware of it.
Jill K DeWit:
What else did I make you aware of?
Steven Jack Butala:
I also don’t think it’s that seriously gender-specific. I just think there’s go-getters and there’s not, which is what my topic’s about after you.
Jill K DeWit:
But people get so far, but they won’t go the last 10%.
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t know if it’s nature or nurture. But it’s certainly personality type. It’s not gender.
Jill K DeWit:
So how is this inspirational then, I guess my point to anyone that is relating to this, stop it. Push yourself. It’s going to be uncomfortable and know that. Be ready for it. Everything was uncomfortable at one time. You have to take a step back sometimes ago, even when you started the job you have today, maybe it was even 30 years ago.
Maybe you’ve been in your same career for 30 years, but you know what? 30 years ago you were uncomfortable and look where you are today. You can do that again. We’ve all had to do that. I tell people all the time when they join Land Academy, “There’s always someone six months ahead of you and six months behind you.” Your questions are not stupid and people want to help. You just have to go for it and ask.
Steven Jack Butala:
You have to get in the right environment, because I think that we’ve all had experiences probably starting with school, where you’ve got people who are really encouraging, teachers who want to be teachers for the right reasons are encouraging you and encouraging your questions. Then there’s teachers who are usually just about ready to retire, who think everything you say is dumb. So I think that the message that sends to certain personality type is, I better have my stuff together before I walk in.
Jill K DeWit:
Which is not the case. It shouldn’t be.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s people like me who’ve never had their stuff together and you’re just going to walk in anyway, and it’s always Worked for me.
Jill K DeWit:
Is that nature or did you-
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t know. I honestly don’t know.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m going to argue you were born at eight.
Steven Jack Butala:
It always comes back. In our house, it always comes back to an Enneagram result. If you have never taken a Enneagram test, please look it up and take the test. I think it’s free, especially if you’re in a personal relationship and you live together with someone, both take it together and you’re going to find out what’s wrong with the other person.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m going to argue-
Steven Jack Butala:
With definitions and everything.
Jill K DeWit:
You came out of the chute challenging the doctor.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s probably true.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you. All right. What about you? What do you have to share with us today?
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, mine’s labeled here, people who succeed, and so rather than spend 10 minutes talking about and breaking down or deconstructing why the anatomy of what makes somebody succeed or what doesn’t. The real simple short version is you know if you’re going to succeed or not, you already know.
Whatever you put your mind to, and I hate, it sounds like a cliche, but if you work on it, you’re going to succeed at it. I’ll tell you, here’s an anecdotal personal note. I’ve been doing this buying and selling land, some version of it since the early 90s. What is it? It’s 2024. That’s-
Jill K DeWit:
Long time.
Steven Jack Butala:
30 years, I’m a lot less interested in hitting my financial goals, a heck of a lot less interested at this point in my life than I was in the beginning. In the beginning, I was unstoppable. I would stop for nothing because I took it personally and placed personal responsibility on myself. I wasn’t, not even in a relationship by any stretch. I was casually dating, if that.
So, it wasn’t like I was trying to set my kids up or I was motivated or scared or there’s no fear motivation factor. It was just like, I’m going to succeed at this. I had just a little taste of success buying and selling a piece of property and I made like five grand or something. I don’t remember the numbers. It’s in the Land Academy and that was it.
I knew I was going to do that for the rest of my life. I thought I was going to be a medical doctor and went down that path. We had luckily programs in high school and I was involved in that and hated it, but a different personality type, that would’ve been it. The light bulb that they needed and it was over. So if you’re going to succeed or not, and if you try to force it, you’re going to end up being disappointed.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s good.
Steven Jack Butala:
So just take a look at yourself.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s good. Thank you. This is a good show. I’m proud of this, this was awesome. Hey, join us next Wednesday for another interesting episode. You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Steven Jack Butala:
We are Jack and Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
We are Jack and Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
Information.
Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration.
Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
https://youtu.be/vx_iWL83WbQ
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Today, we had an interview with James Beckman Land Academy Member Interview.
Transcript: N/A
https://youtu.be/KK_cOBnMy0M
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Welcome to the Land Academy Show! Join Steven and land investor Sean in this episode as they delve into Sean's journey from a college graduate to a successful land investor. Inspired by an adjunct professor, Sean's initial success with a tax-delinquent mountain lot in Colorado marked a transformative moment, shaping his focus on land investing. This episode offers valuable insights and tips on land investment success. Like, subscribe, and hit the bell icon for more real estate wisdom from the Land Academy Show. https://landacademy.com/join/Transcript: N/Ahttps://youtu.be/5LxPzg1HgNsThanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
On this weeks podcast episode, Samantha Lathus, Land Academy Ambassador, joins Jill DeWitt to discuss the successes of our elite group of land gals, working with your spouse and why Samantha chose to quit her 9-5.Tune in as they share insight on land flipping and discuss deals (the good and the bad).Transcript:Jill DeWit:I am Jill DeWit.Samantha Lathus:I'm Samantha Lathus.Jill DeWit:And this is the Land Academy Show. Today is episode number... I don't know. Do you know?Samantha Lathus:I have no idea.Jill DeWit:Someone's going to fill that in. Well, as you can see, this is a very special show today. I am so excited and so happy that I have my sweet ambassador, Land Academy Ambassador, Samantha Lathus with me in my office today, and we are having a whole lot of fun. How are you?Samantha Lathus:I'm doing great. I'm enjoying the Arizona sunshine, getting out of the cold Chicago so-Jill DeWit:There we go.Samantha Lathus:... it's been really refreshing.Jill DeWit:Yeah, and please tell us a little more about the flight in. Please share with us for a moment, if you will, what Karl decided to talk to you about as you're boarding the plane.Samantha Lathus:I know. I know. So we get on the plane. He's like, "Do you know what model number we're on?" I'm like, "No." He's like, "Have you listened to the news in the last week?" I'm like, "No. What's going on?" He's like, "These are the same model that are losing their doors mid-flight." I'm like, "Oh, why are you telling me this now?"Jill DeWit:Now? "Wait. You mean the same plane that my whole family's on, my whole life, you and our two children who are right next to us?" Minor details.Samantha Lathus:He's like, "Just don't sit near the exit row."Jill DeWit:Like, great.Samantha Lathus:There we go.Jill DeWit:I just thought about that. People used to pay extra, because of the extra leg room, for that.Samantha Lathus:Yes, I wonder if people-Jill DeWit:Now it's going to be like, "I want to get some compensation if I sit there."Samantha Lathus:If you sit right there. Thanks.Jill DeWit:That used to be a good thing. "Do you know how to open and operate..." I'm sure, I feel so bad saying this, especially because I'm a pilot. My dad was a professional pilot and then I come from that background. I worked at American for years, but I got to say it, when they say, "Do you know how to open and operate the door?" And they're giving the little safety speech, I bet everybody's going like, "Doesn't it open by itself?"Samantha Lathus:Right.Jill DeWit:So yeah, "I'm not needed, right?"Samantha Lathus:Automatic.Jill DeWit:Exactly. Okay, so back to the show. This is going to be fun today. So while we are recording, the guys are in Jack's office recording, so this is going to be really good and nobody knows what each person's talking about, so I don't even know what order you're getting this, but you're getting one week of Carl and Jack talking and you're going to get, the next week, Samantha and I talking. And we're going to share, Samantha and I are going to talk about something informational first. Then we're going to talk about a deal. We're going to give some good deal chat, 'cause that's why we're here, this is what we do. And then we're going to wrap it up with something inspirational too for you. Just so we have a couple good things lined up.So let's dive in. Informational. We've been talking about this a lot. You and I talk about this all the time, but it's amazing to me. There's two things I've noticed. One is, over the last couple years we've had more strong women-Samantha Lathus:Yes.Jill DeWit:... Come into Land Academy, not just as couples, just on their own, and I love it.Samantha Lathus:Me too.Jill DeWit:What do you think?Samantha Lathus:I absolutely love it. When we were on the pro call the other day, it was funny, I noticed there was about 10 of us all meeting, and besides Carl and Jack,
This week on the Land Academy Show, Karl Lathus, Land Academy Ambassador, shares how he started flipping land by joining Land Academy and Career Path and how he’s managed to achieve such great success in the business.With the help of Land Academy, Karl and wife, Samantha really dedicated themselves to starting their land business the right way and their discipline and consistency in sending mailers is paying off.Transcript:Jack Butala:I am Jack Butala. This is a Land Academy show. Today, I'm here with Karl Lathus. You may know him as the Land Academy ambassador. He and his wife Samantha have been with us now, geez, since Career Path, for I guess over two years. He happened to be in town. His wife's in town, too. In fact, Jill's recording with her as we speak. Probably going to air on different Wednesdays. We'll see how it goes. I guess we've been talking about all kinds of other stuff except work, what I'm intrigued with is how'd you guys make this work for you? Or, was it just a natural thing? Everybody wants to know what the secret is.Karl Lathus:I mean, there's a lot that goes into that. I mean, I say discipline has a lot to do with it. Samantha and I are very disciplined when it comes to this business. This is a great business. Jack has set this up for us. We've learned from his teachings and through Land Academy, through Career Path. We did all that. Most importantly is we've taken those things that we've learned, and we've actually applied them. We've been disciplined with them. We consistently send out mail when we say we're going to send out mail. We consistently answer our phone when we're going to answer our phone. We do what we say we're going to do. We've learned all the subtle nuances that make this business profitable and doable and easy, and we focus on those. We don't get distracted, very often, from those. So, I think our discipline towards this craft, towards investing in land, and towards building this business has really been pivotal for us.Jack Butala:I mean, you came to this with entrepreneurial experience and corporate experience on your belt already. Right?Karl Lathus:Yeah. Absolutely. I own a construction company. I started that when I was 25 years old, and we built that business. I've said it a million times, but when I started that business, I couldn't afford extension cords. We couldn't afford to make a singular mistake. We built that business from the ground up, and it's been great. After that, we moved into real estate, buying and selling houses, flips, you name it, the nightmares.Jack Butala:How'd that go?Karl Lathus:Yeah. Well, I'm not doing flips anymore. I'll tell you that. We made money. There's money to be made there. I know you guys have made money doing it too, but I don't see you guys doing very many flips, either.Jack Butala:I choose life.Karl Lathus:Yeah. Right. We built a rental portfolio that we're proud of. We still do own and operate. When we really did come across this land and how this business works, it resonated with us, the data aspect of things. Samantha is just, as you know, just wonderful at that.Jack Butala:Yeah.Karl Lathus:I have so much faith in the way she aggregates our data and the way that she sends out our mailers. I have so much faith in that process that it really helps me do what I have to do because I do a lot of what Jill does. I answer the phones, and I use that. I'm that part of the business. It's nice to have faith in my partner who is really getting out the mail so consistently, and I have faith in what she says we could pay for the property. I know that that's somewhere where we need to be.Jack Butala:I don't think it's any surprise to anybody that we have a ton of married couples like Karl and Sam, and obviously Jill and I, in our group. Well, I did this for a really long time, for decades without Jill. It was a whole different... Do you run your construction company by yourself, entirely,
Considering buying property listed on the MLS? Are you still wasting time searching listings and bargaining with property owners?Tune in to this week’s Land Academy Podcast episode to find out why flipping property the Land Academy way is a better, more successful approach and requires a lot less work! We’ll teach you how to create the deals instead of chasing them.Transcript: N/Ahttps://youtu.be/tALtoBQ2_78Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Dive into the world of land business in 2024 on the Land Academy Show, episode 1988. Jack and Jill discuss the evolving land industry, the rise in buying and selling land, and insights into new Land Academy members. Explore responsible side gigs, entrepreneurial spirit, and the journey from failure to success in the land business. Get valuable advice, anecdotes, and success stories. Whether you're a seasoned investor or new, enroll in Land Academy for a chance to thrive in 2024.Transcript: N/Ahttps://youtu.be/nffweMAFaoIThanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Are you wondering where to send mail in 2024? On this week’s podcast episode, we share the tools and tips we give to our members when selecting the best areas to send mail. There is no secret list and we put a lot of thought behind this. Depending on how much you want to make and how many deals you want to do to get there, we’ll teach you the Land Academy way of testing different areas for the best possible resultsCatch episode 1987 to find out how you can access these tools and tips and start making money flipping land. We'll also cover how to tackle your biggest land business concern.Transcript:Steven J Butala:I am Steven Jack Butala.Jill K DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit. And this is the Land Academy Show.Steven J Butala:This is episode number 1,987. Today we are talking about where to send your land mailers in 2024. And a little later in the show we'll talk about tackling your biggest land business concern. We all have them, even Jill and I have them. It's going to be interesting to see what hers are, I know what mine are.Jill K DeWit:I have personal concerns and then I have land business concerns. Let's just be clear. I will share the professional ones today, I'll leave the personal ones for another day.Steven J Butala:Oh, I want to hear the personal one. No, they're going to work their way into the show I'm sure.Jill K DeWit:Oh, they probably will. That's true.Steven J Butala:Each week on the show, we answer questions from the Land Academy member Discord forum, review land acquisitions from our weekly member webinars, and we take a deep dive into two land-related topics by popular request.Jill K DeWit:Yep.Steven J Butala:Let's take the first question.Jill K DeWit:All right, Greg Rhodes, "Wrapping up my fourth year with Land Academy," congratulations. Did you see, I don't know if you read our newsletter, but that we highlighted all the first year people, we highlighted the five-year people. I was just... Sorry Greg, I want to pause for just a moment and just talk about that for just a second. The right people get in here and you're with us, man, and we're on this journey together. And as your business grows and your needs change and whatever it is, which we are right here with you, we've been that way from day one. "Hey, we need this product." "All right, I think we can do this." "Hey, we need help solving this problem." "Okay, we could do this." "Oh, hey, DataTree is not working, we need help with another alternative data solution." "All right, we got this." If I was on my own, I'd be-Steven J Butala:Oh geez.Jill K DeWit:I would not be successful.Steven J Butala:I'll tell you, that's what we want. That's what Jill and I want. We want this to be doing transactions with the same people forever. We are not in the business of onboarding-Jill K DeWit:Turn and burn.Steven J Butala:42 new people who don't understand the relevance of a deed in a real estate transaction. So thank you Greg, we're glad you're here too.Jill K DeWit:Same. Thank you. All right, so back to Greg's question. So, "Wrapping up my fourth year in Land Academy and each year has been more profitable than the previous, more than doubled my profits this year compared to last. I gave my," what a great note, "I gave my W2 boss my letter of resignation yesterday. That was exciting. Looking forward to keep building in the years to come."Steven J Butala:I thought he was going to say, "I gave my W2 boss the middle finger."Jill K DeWit:Maybe that was hidden in the resignation. It was drawn very lightly on the paper.Steven J Butala:Congratulations, Greg. We're super glad you're here and let us know, and this goes for anybody who's been a Land Academy member for more than a year, let us know if you have a new product idea, if there's something that you think we're better together. Jill and I have a whole big list, in fact we're meeting on this right after we record this,
Are you hoping to be more successful in your land business in 2024? On our latest podcast episode, we share how vital a schedule is to our business and accomplishments. It may sound like a silly task, but it’s January and if you want to meet your end of year goals, it’s important to map it out now so you can easily stay on track and adjust as needed.Transcript:Steven Jack Butala:I am Steven Jack Butala.Jill K. DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit, and this is the Land Academy Show.Steven Jack Butala:This is episode 1,986, and today we are talking about a couple of things. Number one, scheduling 2024 so you can hit your accomplishment and succeed. And then, a little later on the show, we'll talk about the laws that actually govern your land transaction. It's an interesting, funny, anecdotal story about some people that we sat next to at dinner last night, and I'm not sure that they understand-Jill K. DeWit:What they were saying?Steven Jack Butala:What's governing their real estate agent driven failure.Jill K. DeWit:That's funny. Exactly. I want to stop and say happy New Year.Steven Jack Butala:Yeah.Jill K. DeWit:So it's now 2024. As you can see, if you are watching us, we are coming to you from the Rig. We are traveling again. I don't know how many weeks we'll be gone this time, but probably this will be a little bit of a shorter trip than we did last summer, for those of you who are in our world and follow over that, but what's funny is, I got to tell you, we go from our home to this and it's like we couldn't be happier.Steven Jack Butala:Yeah.Jill K. DeWit:Most people would be like, "Are you kidding me?" I'm sure even our friends are like, "You guys are weirdos." You have this big beautiful home and it's warm and sunny here, and you want to get into that and drive somewhere cold and be in a little mountain town, in a little rig, in a sweet little RV park and I'm like, "Yeah, that's really what we were going to do."Steven Jack Butala:We're in Durango right now, by the time this airs.Jill K. DeWit:Who knows where ... we'll probably still be here.Steven Jack Butala:Yeah. Maybe we will.Jill K. DeWit:Yeah.Steven Jack Butala:Durango is a blast, by the way. I can't say enough good stuff.Jill K. DeWit:Yeah.Steven Jack Butala:Everybody we meet. It's just the nicest people in the world.Jill K. DeWit:We are learning the lay of the land here. We're going to go check out Pagosa Springs and Creede and all kinds of good stuff coming up. So I'm excited.Steven Jack Butala:Each week on the show we answer questions from our Land Academy member Discord forum, and we review land acquisitions from our weekly member webinars, and we take a deep dive into the two land related topics that are requested. If you want to sneak peek of our Discord forum, go to landacademy.com, it's free.Jill K. DeWit:Actually. It's hidden.Steven Jack Butala:It's what?Jill K. DeWit:It's hidden, by the way.Steven Jack Butala:Why?Jill K. DeWit:Because because of our ... you know what? There's some sensitive stuff going on in there.Steven Jack Butala:Like what?Jill K. DeWit:Everything?Steven Jack Butala:No. Come on. Seriously, I want to know.Jill K. DeWit:No, there's some really good conversations in there and I want our members to speak freely, so it's kind of blurred out right now. FYI, just so you know, I let him-Steven Jack Butala:Can you please let me in on it?Jill K. DeWit:Well, I just did.Steven Jack Butala:No, can you let me in on what are people doing deals with each other?Jill K. DeWit:Yeah. Yeah.Steven Jack Butala:Is that what-Jill K. DeWit:Yeah, there's APNs flying around and some really personal information flying around there, so I'm like, yeah, we close it back up. So just so you know, it exists. If you go there, you'll find a nice little banner on it saying "Not for you." Sorry.Steven Jack Butala:My goodness.Jill K. DeWit:I don't mean it like that,
Have you ever wondered how the experts in land investing became so successful? Don’t miss this week’s podcast episode as Jack & Jill share their personal journeys to living their best lives. They’re the perfect example of hard work paying off and don’t mind sharing what they’ve learned along the way, so you don’t have to make the same mistakes. If you truly have the desire to become a successful land investor with little work and a lot of pay, you’ll make it work.Transcript:Steven Jack Butala:I'm Steven Jack Butala.Jill K DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit, and this is The Land Academy Show.Steven Jack Butala:Today, we are talking about ... Well, we're going to hear about Jill's personal story, and a little later, we're going to talk about my personal story.Jill K DeWit:Can I pick ... Does it have to be the story of me, or can I just pick a story-Steven Jack Butala:You can tell us the story of what happened to you last week if you'd like.Jill K DeWit:Okay. Cool.Steven Jack Butala:This all came about, because a guy that produces the show, we asked him, "You post the stuff, you handle the whole thing." He's like, "Well, it really turns out, everybody wants to hear some version of your personal story."This is completely out of my comfort zone. I don't want to sit around here and talk about myself, but that's what they want. I think it's going to be pretty interesting.Jill K DeWit:It's what you want.Steven Jack Butala:I want to hear Jill's story. I want to hear what your version of this is, because-Jill K DeWit:My version of the story, and then you're going to give me the real story. It's going to be no, no, no, sweetheart, that won't really happen at all, but, okay.Hey, I want to pause and say Happy Almost New Year.Steven Jack Butala:Yeah.Jill K DeWit:This is it, we have days, as this airs, just a couple days before it's 2024. I was thinking about it today, I'm already starting to write ... There's some years, you're like, "I'm halfway to February and I'm getting the year wrong." I have no idea why, but I'm so excited about this next year.I'm actually already finding myself putting 2024 on things ahead of time. I'm doing the opposite, and I don't know why it's happening but it is. It's really funny. Are you doing that at all?Steven Jack Butala:No. Not at all. That never crossed my mind. What crosses my mind at this time of year is what am I going to do about next year? What worked last year? What worked next year? Honestly, I love this time of year, because you just get a restart button.More and more and more, it's not about money. It's just more about other stuff, which is a really nice place to be in, Jill.Jill K DeWit:True. I completely agree.Steven Jack Butala:Each week on the show, we answer questions from The Land Academy Member Discord forum. We review land acquisitions from our weekly member webinars, and we take a deep dive into two land-related topics by popular request.Jill K DeWit:All right. Josiah wrote, "I'd like a consensus on this. We're under contract for a 10 acre parcel adjacent to a major interstate accessible via dirt, two track road, in a rural area. We're struggling to find comparable properties that border the highway. In your view, does proximity to the highway negatively impact the value of a property like this?The property's physical address access matches up with the legal access," so that's good. We have physical and legal, so it's a two track-Steven Jack Butala:First of all, Josiah is a Career Path alumni.Jill K DeWit:Yeah.Steven Jack Butala:Incredibly successful member, and so for him to ask this question, first of all, it's super cool of you to do this. Thank you. We all learn from things like this. I do, for sure. I think everybody else does. He's not a new person who came up with his first deal here.Jill K DeWit:I have a question, though, I'm curious. A two track road, I'm assuming that it's adjacent to the interstate and I'm assuming fr...
Do you have the right personality to be successful at land investing?In their latest podcast episode, Jack and Jill discuss taking a break from land acquisitions during the holiday season and the 5 steps to completely succeeding in your land career.Both topics relate to personality, determination and ultimately, how badly you want to succeed at buying and selling land.The amount of time you dedicate to your land business is completely up to you, but whether you succeed is determined by the amount of work you put in.We think one of the greatest things about the land investing business is the opportunity to plan ahead so that you can continue to effectively manage your business while also enjoying the holidays and spending time with friends and family.Transcript:Steven Jack Butala:I am Steven Jack Butala.Jill K DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit. And this is the Land Academy Show.Steven Jack Butala:Today we are talking about taking a break from land acquisitions during the holiday season. Spoiler alert, is it a good idea or not? Jill's got some strong feelings about it. And then a little later on in the show, we'll talk about the five steps to completely succeed in your land career.Jill K DeWit:It's funny, as you were reading the topic for the first one, taking a break, it's almost like it sounds like we're promoting it. Yep, here's what we're doing as far as taking a break, and a lot of people do that. There's one person I like on social media. It's Marie Forleo. And she's very loud at letting the planet know her whole office and her whole staff takes a full two weeks off for Christmas. We have a very different world. We can't do that. I'm like, if we took two weeks off for Christmas, holy moly, what would I miss? I'm not kidding. Spoiler alert. We would miss a lot.Steven Jack Butala:Each week on the show, we answer questions from our Land Academy Member Discord forum. We review land acquisitions from our weekly member webinars and we take a deep dive into two land-related topics by popular request. If you want to sneak peek at all this, please check out our Discord forum. Go to landacademy.com. It's free.Jill K DeWit:What is our question here? Zane wrote, "Hey, all. What is the difference between the situs address and the actual mailing address? The addresses from my mailer are all the same, situs and mail, in most cases all in Ohio." That's funny. You want to explain it?Steven Jack Butala:Yeah. So in the simplest terms, and I'm really glad you asked this because a lot of people were wondering the same thing. This falls under one of those things where Jill and I are... We know what it is, but that's just because we've had so many years of experience doing this, so I'm glad you asked this very clear and simple question. And here's the answer. Situs address is where the land is. The mail address is where the tax bill gets sent. So, everybody gets a tax bill, everybody. It's a pretty cool system when you think about it. It's set up for us all to make a bunch of money. Probably your home address or your business address is where you get a bill sent so that you can actually old-school-Jill K DeWit:Pay the taxes.Steven Jack Butala:... tear it off, write a check, send it back in. If you're 182, that's what you're going to do. That's how you pay your taxes. That's how-Jill K DeWit:Property taxes.Steven Jack Butala:... it would go on forever. The reason, quite simply, is that most land doesn't have a post office address. Nobody lives there, and no one has applied for it. I didn't know this until I started buying and selling land. You have to apply for a post office address. It's not automatic. And so, what you have is two very clear addresses in every single dataset, a situs address, which is usually blank, and then a mailing address, which is a full-blown post office address where you get mail sent to.The reason Zane's asking this, I think, is it poses this interesting question when you're doing a ...
Tune in to Jack & Jill's conversation on navigating financial pitfalls associated with borrowing money – a practice we avoid. Wondering why? Discover a superior approach with an equity partner and ample funding opportunities within the Land Academy community. Let 2024 be a year marked by wise financial choices!Transcript:Steven Jack Butala:I am Steven Jack Butala.Jill K DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit, and this is the Land Academy Show.Steven Jack Butala:Today we are talking about Land Academy's really unique position to get members' deals funded. It separates us from everybody else out there, in my opinion. And our advice a little bit later in the episode on how to not get sucked into some of the financial tricks out there that we're all subject to, car loans come to mind, and we'll talk a little bit how that bleeds into or can bleed into-Jill K DeWit:Real estate.Steven Jack Butala:... our land businesses. Yeah.Jill K DeWit:That's true. Isn't that amazing? I mean seriously. Remember, I was just thinking about that. I remember buying a car back in the day, only brand new, because it was 0.9% financing and I'm like, "Well gee, duh." I'm sure that was all baked in somewhere, probably in the sticker price, but I'm like, all I heard was 0.9% financing. How can I not buy this car? How can I not do that? So, yeah, did it. But the good news is I'm not going to tell you what kind of car it was.Steven Jack Butala:Thank you.Jill K DeWit:Exactly.Steven Jack Butala:Because I'm having a good day.Jill K DeWit:Exactly. Let's just say there were little kids involved and so, anyway, and I did drive that car all the way through the whole thing and then for several years after it, so I did pay it off and then drive around a free vehicle for a while, which was nice. Not free, but paid for vehicle for a while. That was really good. That's always in my thing now. You know what? I can't do car payments. I would just like... I can't take it.Steven Jack Butala:Neither can I.Jill K DeWit:And that's a financial thing. "Oh, just come on. Look at the payments." Nope, not doing it.Steven Jack Butala:Well, we're going to cover all that. Okay, here's a spoiler alert. There's a few components to all of this, only one of which you have control over, and we'll talk about that later.Jill K DeWit:I can't wait to hear.Steven Jack Butala:Each week on the show, we answer questions from our Land Academy member Discord forum, we review land acquisitions from our weekly member webinars, and we take a deep dive into two land related topics by popular request.Jill K DeWit:And by the way, if you want some help, you want to learn more about us, you want to talk to somebody, easy, reach out to my team via support@landacademy.com.All right. So here's the question. Paul wrote, new member in the corrupt state of Illinois. I love this. My wife and I are retired engineers. I speak Excel fluently, so I'm definitely the data guy. I am also a member under another mentor, which I have learned a lot, but I realize he's only done a few deals and Jack and Jill are crushing it real time, so I jumped in on this opportunity. Yay. One difference in training is the other program has us sending neutral letters saying, "If you want to sell your land, please call." I got less than 10 responses from 1,500 letters. Jack and Jill have us send an offer in the initial letter, which seems much better to me, although I haven't mailed it yet. So what response rates are you all seeing?Steven Jack Butala:Boy, I'll tell you what, we've been doing this for a while, 10 years next year. I can tell you-Jill K DeWit:As Land Academy.Steven Jack Butala:Yeah, we've done 35 years really, but 10 years next year. Well, it's 30 years and 10 years. Geez. And I can tell you guys are all set up for this. If you've got technical backgrounds, you're retired, so you've got time, you've got a bunch of experience behind you, and I think that you made the right choice,
Have you put a pause on your land business this month? If so, we highly recommend reconsidering your end of year strategy. Regardless of the holidays, we know from experience that people are still buying and selling land this time of year.If you stop sending mail and answering the phone, you’re most likely going to miss a home run deal. You still have time to get those offers out and close on a really great deal before the end of the year!Tune in to this week’s podcast to learn more about Jack & Jill’s end of year strategies, December could be your best month yet!Transcript:Steven Jack Butala:I'm Steven Jack Butala.Jill K DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit, and this is The Land Academy Show.Steven Jack Butala:This is episode 1,981. And today, we are talking about first, our year-end checklist for our land business, and then a little bit later in the show, the biggest challenges we think we're going to face in 2024.Jill K DeWit:I just realized, we were talking this morning and I put notes on my phone and screenshots of some things. Should I have those with me now? Because I don't.Steven Jack Butala:No.Jill K DeWit:Okay, good.Steven Jack Butala:No, Jill.Jill K DeWit:All right.Steven Jack Butala:Just sit there and look pretty.Jill K DeWit:Okay, good. I made notes. You're like, "You've got to bring this up." I'm like, "Oh, sure." Now I totally forgot. Anyway, we're all good.Steven Jack Butala:Each week on the show, we answer questions from our Land Academy member Discord forum. We review land acquisitions from our weekly member webinars, and we took a deep dive into two land related topics by popular request.Jill K DeWit:By the way too, if you want to know more about Land Academy, please just drop my team a note at support@landacademy.com, or if you go on our website, go to landacademy.com, there's a place right on there you could schedule a call with Christopher, and he will fill you in.Steven Jack Butala:[inaudible 00:01:11].Jill K DeWit:All right, so here's the question. Stacey wrote, "What is the most recent adjustment you guys have made in your land business to the new real estate market we are in?" Love it.Steven Jack Butala:Very interesting question. You know what the point is here, I love this question. We're constantly making adjustments. I think that there's a sentiment maybe that's not just with the land business, but anything in life, where there's this huge learning curve, then there's this period of reward, and then it's like you can pat yourself on the back and you've made it. I've never experienced that third phase.Jill K DeWit:[inaudible 00:01:56]. You are always in the third phase, you just don't even know it. That's hilarious, really, seriously. What are you running around doing crazy right now, not a lot of anything? Packing for a trip, planning some over land adventures. What else you got?Steven Jack Butala:That's all true.Jill K DeWit:See. You don't even know you're in the third phase and you've been there for quite some time, sir.Steven Jack Butala:Spent a bunch of time on the podcast today.Jill K DeWit:Okay, that's good. You worked today. We'll call that done.Steven Jack Butala:This ties into what we're going to talk about today, what we're actually working on for year-end stuff, year-end checklists and all of it.Jill K DeWit:What's funny is I'm in other Facebook groups and I've seen this theme in other not even land groups, but other, let's just say general real estate investor groups that I'm in. And people are ... It's funny, I'm watching them pivot to things we've been doing the whole time. And one of them was someone pivoting from house flipping to not doing the remodel. I'm like, "Hello? We stopped doing that years ago." And they're just catching up. And the comment was something along the lines of, "I don't suck at buying them," kind of thing, "But now, I'm just reselling them to somebody else because I'm not hitting my numbers.
Abundance in 2024It’s Ok to Have more than you need…“Abundance is not something we acquire. It is something we tune into.” - Wayne DyerDo you have everything you need but want more? Don’t think of abundance as excess and instead think of it as opportunity, the ability to make choices now because of the choices you made in the past. Abundance gives you flexibility in your work/life balance and the security you need when making business decisions.Are you ready for 2024? If your goal is to become a better land investor in 2024, it’s time to assess 2023 and create a business plan for the new year. What does your land business look like today? What do you want it to look like a year from now? You now have 30 days to reflect and reset for your most successful year yet.Don’t miss our latest episode of the Land Academy Podcast where Jack & Jill discuss the laws of abundance and planning for the new year.Transcript: N/Ahttps://youtu.be/gxN41JDzUcQThanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
In this episode, we dive into valuable insights gained from the completion of Career Path 8, exploring the key takeaways and successes. Discover why Land Academy stands out as the most experienced and dynamic land investment member group on the internet. Join us to unlock the secrets of successful land investing.Transcript: N/Ahttps://youtu.be/-VGvGr2xPC0Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Welcome to another insightful episode of the Land Academy Show! Join Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit as they dive into essential tips for improving land due diligence with the 7th and 8th A's. Discover the truth about the real amount of money you can make in the land business. Whether you're a seasoned investor or just starting out, this episode is packed with valuable insights to boost your success. Don't miss out on the secrets to maximizing profits and navigating the world of land investments. Tune in now!Transcript:Steven Jack Butala:I am Steven Jack Butala.Jill K DeWit:I'm Jill DeWit. This is the Land Academy Show.Steven Jack Butala:Today we have a couple of topics. We're going to talk about first improving land due diligence. We've got the six As already. We have formally added the seventh and eighth A.Jill K DeWit:It feels weird.Steven Jack Butala:It does. I agree. But I promise it's good.Jill K DeWit:Do you know, as we're working on new content for 2024, I'm here ... Hey, spoiler alert. This isn't it. I've been dropping nuggets in our community about stuff coming in 2024. One of the reasons you're in our community and you're listening right now is because of our experience and who we are, the number of deals we've done, and how we can watch. We know the trends. We live the trends. We can spot things that are coming, we can adjust, and we can come up with things that are going to help you that nobody else has or knows about, because you don't have it unless ... I have to poke ... unless you have this. This is called gray hair. You'll never hopefully see my gray hair if I do this right.Steven Jack Butala:I've got enough for both of us.Jill K DeWit:There we go. We'll show his gray hair. Mine you won't see, but trust me, it's there.Steven Jack Butala:You want experience.Jill K DeWit:That's it. But my point today was the seventh and the eighth, they are not really the whole 2024 new content.Steven Jack Butala:No.Jill K DeWit:No. We got some stuff that is really important to professional land investors like you and us.Steven Jack Butala:We're adjusting with the business. Then, a little later in the show, we'll talk about the truth about the actual real amount of money that you can make in the land business.Jill K DeWit:It's not a billion dollars, and it's not 13 cents. It's somewhere very healthily in the middle. Each week on the show, we answer questions from the Land Academy Member Discord Forum, and we review land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar. We take a deep dive into the two land-related topics by popular requests, like I just mentioned. If you want a sneak peek on our Discord Forum, go to landacademy.com. It's free.All right. Let's see. Greg wrote, "I just closed on my first unintentional wholesale." I'm waiting to see, let me see if it tells him what he means by wholesale here because there's two meanings. "I sent out a photographer during the due diligence period, and he stirred up the neighbor accessing the property via right of way through the neighbor's land. He stirred up with the neighbor by accessing the property via the right of way, which was on the neighbor's property." Got it. "The neighbor suggested a double close and then made an offer to buy it right from me, like, "Let's just do it. I'll give you this.' I would have liked to have gotten more for it, but heck, since I didn't put any money down at all, I didn't put any money into it, we just did it all at one time. I'll take the proceeds with a check for $16,000."Steven Jack Butala:Let me paraphrase what happened here, which I think is-Jill K DeWit:I like it.Steven Jack Butala:... really, really healthy. Greg puts a property under contract for, let's say, I'm just going to use round numbers, $10,000, and it's in escrow. He orders a photographer to go out there because he's prepping to sell it on the sales side with maybe the real estate agent that he has, but probably not.
In this episode of the Land Academy Show, we delve into the essential factors for success in the world of land buying and selling. We break down "The Three Things That It Takes To Succeed At Buying And Selling Land" and share valuable insights on how to "Avoid Land Due Diligence Paralysis." Whether you're a seasoned pro or just starting out, these key elements are crucial for your success in the land business. Want to explore even more valuable content and insights? Head over to https://landacademy.com/discord/ to get a sneak peek of our exclusive member-only Discord community. Join the discussion and boost your expertise in land investment today!Transcript:Steven Jack Butala:I am Steven Jack Butala.Jill K DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit and this is the Land Academy Show.Steven Jack Butala:Today we're going to talk about a couple of things. Number one, the three things it takes to succeed at buying and selling land. And I'm going to give you a hint about my three. Jill's got three. I've got three. We haven't seen each other's.Jill K DeWit:We didn't share.Steven Jack Butala:Mine have nothing to do with the actual basic skills of buying and selling land.Jill K DeWit:Same here.Steven Jack Butala:Really?Jill K DeWit:We actually agree on that. That's going to be really interesting.Steven Jack Butala:And then a little later-Jill K DeWit:It's not like you have... I'll give you one hint on mine too. Mine does not have anything to do with buying and selling land and it doesn't have anything to do with how much money you have.Steven Jack Butala:The same thing. Wow, isn't that crazy?Jill K DeWit:Uh-huh.Steven Jack Butala:And then a little while later in the episode we'll talk about how to avoid land due diligence paralysis. We've all heard of analysis paralysis. I think this is an offshoot of that.Jill K DeWit:Totally.Steven Jack Butala:Each week on the show we answer questions from our Land Academy Member Discord Forum. We review land acquisitions from our weekly member webinars and we take a deep dive into two land related topics by popular request. If you would like a sneak peek of our Discord forum, go to landacademy.com. It's free.Jill K DeWit:And don't forget, if this is interesting to you, you want to talk to my team or you want some tips on getting started, just send us a note to support@landacademy.com. All right, here's our question. Paul wrote, "Hi, new member here in the corrupt state of Illinois." I have to share that. That is kind of funny.Steven Jack Butala:I like him already.Jill K DeWit:I have my own version of what I call my former home state. But anyway.Steven Jack Butala:We'll get to that in a second.Jill K DeWit:Yeah, we will, anyway. "My wife and I are retired engineers and I speak Excel fluently." I love that. "So I'm definitely the data guy. I'm also a member under another mentor where I've learned a lot, but I realize he's only done a few deals and Jack and Jill are here crushing it in real time. So I'm jumped on this opportunity." So this, again, this is in Discord. He wrote to the communitySteven Jack Butala:Recently, really, really recently.Jill K DeWit:This is good. "One difference in training is the other program had us sending neutral letters saying that if you want to sell your land, please call. I got less than 10 responses from 1500 letters." That's shocking. "Jack and Jill have us send an offer in the initial letter, which seems much better to me."Steven Jack Butala:Especially as data people.Jill K DeWit:"Although I haven't had anything yet. So what response rates are you all getting?" So I love this. We know it's funny. I have to say, first of all, it's amazing to me because in a neutral letter like, "Hey, I want to buy your house." The responses I have heard, because I've never done this, this is nuts because this is what happens.Steven Jack Butala:Because this is nuts.Jill K DeWit:This is nuts. Even right now,
In this episode, we discuss two new Land Academy members who are poised for success. Butala and DeWit dive into what it takes to thrive in the land business and share insights into setting up for success. Later, they explore the 10-step process for successful land flipping. Join us for unfiltered, no-frills discussions on land investing and wealth creation. If you're ready to learn about buying and selling land, you're in the right place. Production value isn't our focus; helping you achieve success is.Transcript:Steven Jack Butala:I am Steven Jack Butala.Jill K DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit. And this is the Land Academy Show.Steven Jack Butala:Today we are talking about two new Land Academy members who are completely set up for sex. Success. Set up for success.Jill K DeWit:Wow.Steven Jack Butala:Set up for success according to Jill and I.Jill K DeWit:I like the first one.Steven Jack Butala:I have a lot to say about that. And our second topic a little bit later in the episode is called Moving Through the 10 Step Process of Successful Land Flipping.Jill K DeWit:It's funny, I was watching somebody's show the other day, it was a YouTube thing, and I could see where they cut different things and they edited their stuff. We clearly do not cut and edit out bloopers. We go. The only cuts that you hear or see are when our team inserts a video, like when we do the-Steven Jack Butala:Something that's actually helpful-Jill K DeWit:Exactly.Steven Jack Butala:... is added. Not cut,Jill K DeWit:But you know what I'm trying toSteven Jack Butala:Say.Jill K DeWit:My point is it's clear that we are not that professional and we don't do that. We sit down and we go, we don't even have take one, take two, take three. It's kind of, turn on the camera. This is it. You better be good.Steven Jack Butala:Why, Jill? Why are we not so professional?Jill K DeWit:Why are we not so professional?Steven Jack Butala:Because we're here to buy and sell land.Jill K DeWit:That's true.Steven Jack Butala:We're here to get rich. And create wealth for ourselves.Jill K DeWit:To have a TV entertainment show-Steven Jack Butala:We're not here to have a fully produced Thursday night sitcom/... I'm seeing more-Jill K DeWit:That would fun.Steven Jack Butala:... and more and more I'm seeing on YouTube people being rewarded for fully produced, full-blown entertainment. And so if you're here to be entertained, if you're here to get wealthy-Jill K DeWit:This might not be for you.Steven Jack Butala:That's actually what this episode's about. If you're here to learn how to buy and sell land, or more importantly buy and sell land on top of an already successful career you have, you don't care about production value at all.Jill K DeWit:Yeah, it's true.Steven Jack Butala:You just care about our banter and-Jill K DeWit:Getting the answers.Steven Jack Butala:Yeah, getting the answers.Jill K DeWit:I understand.Steven Jack Butala:Each week on the show, we answer questions from our Land Academy member Discord forum. We review land acquisitions from our weekly member webinars and we take a deep dive into two land related topics by popular request. If you have or actually want a sneak peek of our Discord forum, go to landacademy.com, it's free.Jill K DeWit:Cool. Or if you just want to get some more information about how to get involved, be sure and send a note to my team via support@landacademy.com.So here's the question. Josh wrote, "Hi, I am a new member. My name is Josh. I live in Western United States. I've been a realtor for almost 10 years."Steven Jack Butala:Here's an example, because Jill has to edit her own-Jill K DeWit:"I grew up in the timber industry-"Steven Jack Butala:Whoever wrote this, it's me.Jill K DeWit:"I grew up in the timber industry and the rural land development world-"Steven Jack Butala:Development world.Jill K DeWit:
In this episode of the Land Academy Show, Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit discuss why they never struggle to find land deals. Later in the episode, they dive into the concept of the entrepreneurial rat race and explore how it relates to the traditional W2 rat race. Discover the truth about these rat races and how they can affect your entrepreneurial journey. As always, the show covers questions from their Land Academy member Discord forum and reviews land acquisitions from member webinars. If you're curious about their Discord forum, you can get a sneak peek at landacademy.com. Don't miss this insightful episode.Transcript:Steven Jack Butala:I'm Steven Jack Butala.Jill K DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit, and this is the Land Academy Show.Steven Jack Butala:This is episode number 1,975, and today we're talking about why we don't have any trouble at all finding land deals. A little later in the episode we will talk about, well, I'm wondering if are you part of the rat race, the entrepreneurial rat race? We all know what the-Jill K DeWit:The regular rat race is.Steven Jack Butala:... the W2 rat race is.Jill K DeWit:Totally.Steven Jack Butala:I've learned recently-Jill K DeWit:Or the education rat race, like people who are just like non-stop college students. I understand. I mean, I don't understand it, but I know that.Steven Jack Butala:I've learned recently and been researching, you'll learn the result of all this, the fact that this rat race thing is real and it's also primarily in our heads. So if you were running the rat race, here's a spoiler alert. If you were running the rat race in a W2 environment and you become a startup expert or you attempt a startup or an entrepreneur, you need to check and see if you're making that a rat race for yourself too.Jill K DeWit:I'm super curious. So is there going to be an entrepreneurial twist to this that you've done some research on?Steven Jack Butala:Yes, I have so much to say.Jill K DeWit:Well, that's normal. That does not surprise me at all.Steven Jack Butala:Each week on the show, we answer questions from our Land Academy member Discord forum. We review land acquisitions from our weekly member webinars and we take a deep dive into two land related topics by popular request. If you want to sneak peek of our Discord forum, go to landacademy.com. It's free.Jill K DeWit:Cool. By the way, if you would like some help getting started or you have a question that you want to see here, send a note to my team via support@landacademy.com. So Dave wrote, "Does anyone in the group have experience with raising and using private funds to purchase a large property? I'm looking at raising funds from a few acquaintances to purchase a good sized property over a hundred acres in a desirable mountain location that can be subdivided into 10 to 20 acre parcels. The preliminary numbers are pretty good, but I'm really just wondering about the logistics of how to structure the deal as far as setting up the fund entity, what kind of compensation I should build into the deal as the fund manager and anything else I should be aware of. I'm not soliciting for funds here, by the way. I already know who will be investing. I'm just asking for advices. I haven't done anything like this yet. Thanks in advance."Steven Jack Butala:This question goes to the very root of my soul. On around June or July of 2014, Jill and I were in a Los Angeles suburb on the beach wondering what we're going to do with the rest of our lives because buying and selling land and everything was going great and is going great, and that has been unchanged in an uninterrupted manner. So we're on vacation and I look at her and I say, "You know, what would you like to change in your life? What would make you happier next week versus this week? Where is this all going?" She said, "Geez, I'll tell you." She said, I'm obviously paraphrasing, "We have more deals than we know what to do with.
Join Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit in this episode of The Land Academy Show! First, they discuss the significance of researching Land Academy before becoming a part of the community. Second, they explore the essential factors that dictate when to add or reduce the offer price for land deals. Tune in for valuable insights and tips for land investors. Gain expert knowledge, a sneak peak at our Member Discord, and be part of the Land Academy community by visiting landacademy.com.Transcript:Steven Jack Butala:I am Steven Jack Butala.Jill K DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit and this is the Land Academy Show.Steven Jack Butala:This is episode number 1,974 and today we are talking about researching Land Academy prior to joining. And then-Jill K DeWit:And-Steven Jack Butala:Go ahead.Jill K DeWit:... when to add ... When's it appropriate to add money or maybe take away money from your offer price.Steven Jack Butala:Those are two fun topics, actually.Jill K DeWit:Fun.Steven Jack Butala:They are. I think that.Jill K DeWit:Yeah.Steven Jack Butala:I think researching something before you spend some dough on it-Jill K DeWit:Is important.Steven Jack Butala:Thank you, it is important. I also think that taking away and adding money, as crazy simple as it sounds, from your offer price or when you're selling the property, it's imperative to success. So, both of these things sound super simple but they're crazy important.Jill K DeWit:Mm-hmm. That's what I said.Steven Jack Butala:Each week on the show, we answer questions from our Land Academy member Discord forum, we review land acquisitions from our weekly member webinars and we take a deep dive into two land related topics by request. If you want to sneak peek of our Discord forum, go to landacademy.com, it's free.Jill K DeWit:Cool, all right. And don't forget, if you need some help or you're interested, questions, whatever it is, just send a note to my team via support@landacademy.com.Steven Jack Butala:Let's take a question.Jill K DeWit:All right. Greg wrote I have a place under contract to buy, about how to close on it. I sent... I have a place under-Steven Jack Butala:Here, how about I'm going to read it, okay?Jill K DeWit:I'm confused already with this first sentence.Steven Jack Butala:I got a place under contract to buy and I'm about to close on it.Jill K DeWit:Oh, that's it. There we go.Steven Jack Butala:I sent out the photographer to get some photos and, the right of way, right through the neighbor's place the photographer gave the neighbor my contact information. He's got to drive through the guy's driveway, the neighbor's not happy about it, the photographer's probably not happy about it. Don't talk to me, don't kill the messenger.Jill K DeWit:Call this guy.Steven Jack Butala:Call the-Jill K DeWit:Call Greg.Steven Jack Butala:And so he did. Now he wants to buy it, the neighbor wants to buy it. He's not real interested in having people drive through his driveway and it's in his survey.Jill K DeWit:Good.Steven Jack Butala:So, he's not debating whether or not there's right away which usually happens. His price isn't as much as I'd like to get but it's still a money maker and it could make a real long-term pain without the right of way. He suggested a double close on it and we're going for that, I'm excited to see what happens.Jill K DeWit:Everybody wins.Steven Jack Butala:Yeah, I would not double close on this.Jill K DeWit:Well, if it's already out there and disclosed and everything's fine with it, then, yeah.Steven Jack Butala:Why would you double close? He suggested a double close?Jill K DeWit:Yeah, don't rock the boat right now.Steven Jack Butala:Does he know the owner? Is he going to go around you on the deal and go talk to the seller and say, "You know what? How about I just buy it and cut you out?"Jill K DeWit:I'm assuming we're past that, we're down the road.
In this episode of the Land Academy Show, we've got an exciting lineup for you. Jill's got a fantastic topic to discuss - "The Land Academy Casino." And later, we're tackling the number one question that's been buzzing in Career Path. It's incredible to think that we're almost at 2,000 episodes! We also take questions from our Land Academy Discord forum and delve into two compelling land-related topics as per our audience's requests. If you're curious about what's happening in our Discord community, you can get a sneak peek at landacademy.com. For questions or if you want to become part of our community, reach out to us at 480-530-7383 or drop us a message at support@landacademy.com. Join us for another insightful episode!Transcript:Steven Jack Butala:I'm Steven Jack Butala.Jill K DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit, and this is the Land Academy Show.Steven Jack Butala:This is episode number 1,973, and today we're talking about The Land Academy. Well, here's the first topic. It's Jill's topic and I love it, The Land Academy Casino. And a little bit later in the show, we're going to talk about the number one question this week in Career Path.Jill K DeWit:Exactly. Every time you say 1,900 or whatever, I go, "Yeah, I feel it."Steven Jack Butala:Almost 2,000 episodes we've had. It's pretty amazing.Jill K DeWit:You know what's funny? I'm going to ask someone that next time because sometimes I'm on the phone with you, and you know that, and I'll have people say, "Oh, I've listened to them all." I'm going to go, "1,970-whatever of them?"Steven Jack Butala:My favorite is, "We've listened to you at X2 for a month straight"-Jill K DeWit:Can you talk faster?Steven Jack Butala:... "and now we have to listen to your Southern Georgia slowness."Jill K DeWit:Which neither of us are from-Steven Jack Butala:Which is on a Thursday call. Right, exactly.Jill K DeWit:That's good.Steven Jack Butala:Each week on the show, we answer questions from our Land Academy member Discord forum.Jill K DeWit:Discard, I like that.Steven Jack Butala:We review land acquisitions from our weekly member webinars and we take a deep dive into two land-related topics by popular request. If you want a sneak peek of what goes on in real time in our Discord forum, go to landacademy.com. It's free.Jill K DeWit:Oh, and by the way, if you want us to answer your question here or you just want some help getting involved with our community, you can easily text us at 480-530-7383 or send a note to my team via support@landacademy.com.Steven Jack Butala:Now, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community I just mentioned. If you want to sneak peek, go to landacademy.com. It's free.Jill K DeWit:So Greg wrote, "I'm purchasing a property through an estate. I got a signed purchase agreement back from the attorney of the estate of the deceased. It sounds like probate is open and there is a short certificate showing authority to conduct business of the deceased, as the deceased. The property owner died out of state." Hold, please. There we go. "My attorney is telling me that the seller needs to open an ancillary estate where probate is located and wait until that ancillary estate is closed before buying it. There's a risk if they don't open and close the ancillary estate that there will be a cloud on the title. Does this sound right to anyone?" I'd love to know how many people piped in on this or if they kind of-Steven Jack Butala:A lot.Jill K DeWit:... oh, I was going to say mic drop, I'm out. What?Steven Jack Butala:A lot. This is not the most interesting question there ever was. I have a lot of choices. There's probably 20, 30, 40 publishable questions that go on in Discord every time I sit down and do this each week. There's way more actual questions than that. I chose this for a reason. There's this concept out there of I'm doing business,
Join Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit in episode 1,973 as they discuss buying land locally and share insights into the perfect mailer responses from sellers. This conversation is a glimpse into the Land Academy community's Career Path program. Visit our Land Academy Member Discord Forum at landacademy.com/discord or reach out at support@landacademy.com with your questions. Don't miss these valuable land investing insights. Tune in now!Transcript:Steven Jack Butala:I am Steven Jack Butala.Jill K DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit, and this is the Land Academy show.Steven Jack Butala:This is episode number 1,973, and today we are talking about buying land in your backyard. Super, super good idea for a bunch of reasons. And a little bit later, Jill's going to talk about the perfect mailer response from sellers. We send out all this mail, how many people call back and say, "Yeah, sure. I'm going to buy it," how many people call back and say, "Go pound sand," and on and on and on, and what to really, from a reality standpoint, expect according to Jill.Jill K DeWit:Got it. And this came up because of what you're seeing in Discord more, or just Career Path stuff?Steven Jack Butala:This is Career Path. So Jill and I are now in the very beginning of instructing... Career Path I guess is closed, right?Jill K DeWit:Seven and eight, yeah.Steven Jack Butala:And we're instructing the eighth Career Path, about 20 people actually, and it's very, very interesting to really see in a real amount of serious depth and detail where people are in their careers. We have people in there that send three, 400,000 mailers out and we have people that are just starting their career out, and so when you get them all in one kind of Zoom room together, you can see... It's my way personally of keeping my pulse in a great way on what's happening out there.Jill K DeWit:I feel like Career Path starts like this: We have this and this and at the end... You know what I mean? We all kind of come together at the same point at the end. Does that make sense? You might be start Career Path thinking, "Wow. Spending $10,000 on a property for me is a lot. You want me to spend $100,000 on a property?" And then the end of Career Path, you're like, "I just got this back. It's $150,000. Let's do it." And it's funny because I can say, "Do you hear what you just said?" They're like, "Yep. Now I'm very comfortable dealing with those numbers."Steven Jack Butala:It removes a lot of inhibitions and concerns because when you co-mingle people who've been doing this really successfully with brand new people, the new people... We have a couple in Career Path right now that are fantastic at locating deals.Jill K DeWit:Well, and it's not like they're new, it's just a different dollar amount, different property type and things like that too.Steven Jack Butala:Each week on the show, we answer questions from our Land Academy Member Discord Forum, review land acquisitions from our weekly member webinars and take a deep dive into land-related topics by popular requests. If you want to sneak peek of our Discord forum, go to landacademy.com. It's free.Jill K DeWit:Or by the way too, if you would like us to answer your question or need some help getting involved in our community, simply send us a note to support@landacademy.com. All right. Greg wrote, "My friend is looking at buying some land-"Steven Jack Butala:I have to preface this question.Jill K DeWit:Okay.Steven Jack Butala:I kind of put this in here to get Jill's juices going because it's-Jill K DeWit:Looks like I already got your juices going this morning. Now is it my turn?Steven Jack Butala:It's a topic that's near and dear to both of our hearts.Jill K DeWit:All right. Okay. So Greg wrote, "My friend is looking at buying some land on Zillow. The seller has a realtor," Got it, "Anyone have success in buying from a realtor but not being represented by a realtor?
Join us for a candid conversation in this interview with Land Academy Ambassador, Karl Lathus. Get a peek into what it's been like for Karl and his wife as LA Ambassadors. Want to learn more about land investing and connect with our community? Visit our Land Academy Discord: https://landacademy.com/discord/. Have questions or want to be part of the discussion? Text us at 480-530-7383.Transcript: N/Ahttps://youtu.be/oArAv7cfYk8Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
In episode 1971, we dive into two intriguing topics. First, discover "What's New in Career Path" starting on September 27th, and stay updated on the latest developments. Then, we'll show you how to "Track Your Wealth Every Single Week" - a valuable skill for any land investor.Join the conversation on our Land Academy Discord (https://landacademy.com/discord/) and feel free to text us your questions at 480-530-7383. Don't miss out; hit that subscribe button and stay informed!Transcript:Steven Jack Butala:I am Steven Jack Butala.Jill K DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWitt and this is the Land Academy Show.Steven Jack Butala:This is episode number 1,972 and today we are talking about what's new for career paths starting on September 27th, which I think is a week from now.Jill K DeWit:Yep.Steven Jack Butala:And then a little later on in the episode, we'll talk about how to track your wealth every single week, which I think is imperative. We spend a ton of time, if you're Jill or if you live in my house, managing what you eat so you don't get too large or-Jill K DeWit:Or you're a foodie and you're just into what you eat anyway. That's hilarious.Steven Jack Butala:Or if you live in our house, you drive around town trying to get gas that's three cents cheaper than the place right down the street from you. We spend a lot of time on stuff.Jill K DeWit:That would be him. That's not me.Steven Jack Butala:We spend a lot of time on things-Jill K DeWit:On silly stuff.Steven Jack Butala:... and we need to spend as much time, I personally do, on tracking our wealth every single week or month or whatever makes sense to you.Jill K DeWit:That's good. I got to tell you, as we sit down right now, if you're watching us, you notice like, "Hey, I recognize that fireplace in the background. They must be home." Yes, we are home. As I sit down too, I'm looking, like, "Where's the camera?" I have to get myself re-acclimated here that we are back.Steven Jack Butala:It turns out, a real consistent, reliable internet connection is a huge luxury.Jill K DeWit:It really is.Steven Jack Butala:Jill and I were on a 99 day-Jill K DeWit:Well, it was 100. It was 99 nights, so 100 days. This is good. "Boy, it sounds like you guys kept track." "Yeah, we did." Because, you go away with your spouse 24/7 for 100 days and I mean 24/7, you're going to remember exactly when it ends.Steven Jack Butala:We lived about 10 yards from each other for 100 days straight in about 300 square feet. Maybe a little less.Jill K DeWit:But you know what, though? All of that... What were we doing? We were in our RV, if you weren't following us. We went all over, around the country, and this was really, a different time. Last year, we went South, hit Ozarks and Tennessee and some things, and this year, we went North. We always seem to head to Michigan, do fun family stuff, and then we goof off after. And this time, we really got to know Montana, we got to know Idaho, we got to know Wyoming.Steven Jack Butala:Utah.Jill K DeWit:Spent some more time in Utah. Definitely Colorado. We are totally drawn to Colorado. And you mountain town folk, we love you. We really identify with you.Steven Jack Butala:Yeah.Jill K DeWit:So, it's nice to be home and nice to have internet. Nice to have the room that we have here, but I think I speak for both of us when I say, we miss being on the road and we're just excited to do it again.Steven Jack Butala:The big question after these trips is, "Would you do it again?" That's what all of our friends here asked us. And I said, "Yeah, in two weeks I would."Jill K DeWit:Yeah. I'm tearing up as we put our sweet rig into storage. We have it in enclosed storage.Steven Jack Butala:It needs some light body work too.Jill K DeWit:Yeah.Steven Jack Butala:That was user error.Jill K DeWit:One of us, it's Jack, zero. Boulder, one. That's the score.Steven Jack Butala:I need an oil change. 8,
Join Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit, as they share their on-the-road insights. Delve into an engaging conversation about the land component of affordable housing, inspired by a recent career path alumni call. Jill also illuminates the evolving role of marketing in modern land flipping. Tune in to hear about their adventures in scenic Colorado and the liberating experience of life on the road. Don't miss this thrilling episode, and become a part of the Land Academy community by texting your questions to 480-530-7383.Transcript:Steven Jack Butala:I’m Steven Jack Butala.Jill K DeWit:And I’m Jill DeWit and this is the Land Academy Show from the road. Sorry, I had to just throw that in there.Steven Jack Butala:This is episode number 1,957 and today we are talking about the land component of affordable housing. It’s a in depth discussion that we had in the most recent career path alumni call.Jill K DeWit:Career path alumni.Steven Jack Butala:And then Jill’s going to talk about the role of marketing in this, what we call modern land flipping currently. How we do it now.Jill K DeWit:What I do now is not what I was doing five years ago.Steven Jack Butala:Exactly.Jill K DeWit:It’s going to be cool. I want to say too for a few minutes, like we are coming to you from the road, we happen to be in Colorado, and if you could just imagine as I look at the camera and I shift my eyes about four inches to the left over the monitors that I’m looking at, it is the most dreamy, beautiful tree lined blue sky view. It’s what? 70 degrees today?Steven Jack Butala:Yeah.Jill K DeWit:So we were on our bikes all day yesterday. We had to race home to not get in the rain yesterday. It was so flipping fun.Steven Jack Butala:We’re in Durango. By the time this is airs, we will not be.Jill K DeWit:True.Steven Jack Butala:And we’ll be out of Ouray also. We’re going up to Million Dollar Highway in our new RV. New to us RV over the next week.Jill K DeWit:Exactly. We’re loving it.Steven Jack Butala:I just installed this studio today, so we’ll see if it works. But I’m pretty happy with myself.Jill K DeWit:We’ll see if it works.Steven Jack Butala:I’m generally not happy with myself and I’m pretty happy with myself right now.Jill K DeWit:Why are you… I’m the opposite. I roll around. I am generally happy with myself, but if nobody else is, I don’t care. I’m happy with myself.Steven Jack Butala:That’s why this works, Jill.Jill K DeWit:I could look like, I don’t know what. I could be a disaster going down the street, but I might feel really good about myself.Steven Jack Butala:Your strange unwarranted positivity offsets my eternal negativity. So we’re always at zero.Jill K DeWit:Do you know what’s really nice? A lot of negative people say, “Oh no, I’m not negative. I’m a realist.” You don’t say that.Steven Jack Butala:No.Jill K DeWit:It’s really kind of funny. Exactly. I just want to add that this is us. This is us on the road. We’re going to be on the road for months now you guys. This is our first podcast on this trip, so this is number one of how many weeks we should start keeping… We should put that in there. Keep track of it’s episode 1957, but it’s episode one of this… What am I trying to say? This particular outing and our outing might be eight weeks, it might be 12 weeks, it might be 20 weeks depending how today goes. So you never know how this is going to end, but I just want to add, the whole point I’m trying to make is I’m buying and selling land all over the country. I’m not standing there. I’m not going there. I’m not seeing it. I’m not doing anything of that. Why do I have to stay in any one state or any one country?Steven Jack Butala:I love this thought, this methodology.Jill K DeWit:Yeah. I want to hit this home to all of you. If you want the flexibility of, hey, if you’re tired of going to office, I understand and you want to be your own boss and have your own life,
Join us in Land Academy episode 1970. Learn valuable insights on completing land improvements efficiently and discover why your brand is a game-changer in the land business. Don’t forget to explore our Land Academy Discord for more engaging discussions, and for any questions or to be part of our community, feel free to text us at 480-530-7383. Tune in now!
Transcript: N/A
https://youtu.be/R_PQh6__GR8
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Join us in Land Academy episode 1969 as we dive into two crucial topics for aspiring land investors. How To Get Your First Deal Done In Your First Month As A Land Investor. Plus, gain invaluable insights into the competitive landscape of the land industry with a detailed analysis of the numbers. Don’t miss out on these actionable tips and essential information to jumpstart your land investing journey. For more engaging discussions and resources, explore our Land Academy member discord at https://landacademy.com/discord/. Have questions? Text us at 480-530-7383.
Transcript: N/A
https://youtu.be/KcBgSSjfbWg
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Join us for Land Academy episode 1968 as we delve into crucial topics: "The Difference Between A Side Hustle And Your Career In Land Investment," and "How To Hire And Train A Transaction Coordinator Who Can Also Effectively Answer The Phones." Get a sneak peek into our Land Academy member discord at https://landacademy.com/discord/ and feel free to reach out to us with your questions at 480-530-7383. Don't miss out on these essential strategies for success!
Transcript: N/A
https://youtu.be/WSsL8OUrFaU
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Join us as we delve into the strategies that truly drive success in land academy. Additionally, we'll be reviewing Western Montana as a land acquisition candidate. Curious about our thriving community? Get a sneak peek of our Land Academy member discord at https://landacademy.com/discord/. For those eager to be part of our community or with questions, feel free to text us at 480-530-7383. Tune in now to gain insights and expand your land investing journey!
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: I am Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit. And this is the Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala: This is episode number 1,967, and today we are talking about How and Where the Real Money is Made with Land Academy. And then a little bit later on in the show, we'll talk about reviewing Western Montana as a land acquisition candidate, because Jill and I are here for about a week.
Jill DeWit: This is good.
Steven Jack Butala: And we're loving it.
Jill DeWit: By the way, speaking of Montana, this is one of the greatest things about what we're doing. Here we are on the road, in our RV. Who would've thought, could you even imagine, we woke up today. Not planned, and we have the Blue Angels literally doing practice maneuvers over our heads.
Steven Jack Butala: I was, I think, having that exact same thought about 10 minutes ago.
Jill DeWit: Like, what the heck? How lucky are we? And we just roll into this stuff.
Steven Jack Butala: That's really what it is. We didn't plan for this, but we're just driving all over the country right now, and we're falling backwards into fun stuff. It's not all fun.
Jill DeWit: Oh. Oh, come on. You know what? If anything, if you want to get closer to your partner, here's what you do. You start a company together, you get heavily involved in everything that they do. And then-
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. They have an opinion about everything you do.
Jill DeWit: ... and then you take it on the road, and then you put yourselves in really close quarters for-
Steven Jack Butala: Then you live-
Jill DeWit: ... an extended amount of time.
Steven Jack Butala: ... between five and 20 yards from each other for months on end, at a time.
Jill DeWit: Oh, gosh. Well, sometimes there's no yards together. Like now.
Steven Jack Butala: Like this minute.
Jill DeWit: I wish it was five to 20 yards all the time. How can we make that happen? I'm going to start following you in the Jeep, and you're going to lose me at some point. I'm going to be like, "Where'd she go?"
Steven Jack Butala: "What's happened?"
Jill DeWit: Yeah, I left.
Steven Jack Butala: Hey, as long as I know you're safe, you can go to another state if you'd like.
Jill DeWit: Oh, thanks. It's mutual, babe.
Steven Jack Butala: And Montana is not a small state, so that would take a couple of days, maybe.
Jill DeWit: There we go. That didn't take long.
Steven Jack Butala: Each week on the show, we answer questions from our Land Academy Member Discord Forum. We review land acquisitions from our weekly member webinars, and we take a deep dive into two land related topics, usually by request. If you want to sneak peek of our Discord Forum, go to landacademy.com. It's free. It's in the resources section.
Jill DeWit: Cool. Hey, by the way, don't forget too, you can always text us. So if you want us to answer your question, or you just simply want some help getting started in our community, send us a note. Text us at 480-530-7383. We read them all, and your question just might pop up here.
Steven Jack Butala: Let's take a question, Jill.
Jill DeWit: All right. Mike wrote, "Hi, everyone. Would any of you guys acquire a 7.6 acre property that looks good, but it has a cell phone slash radio tower with an outhouse on the backside of it. The land for the tower takes up about one acre, and it has its own access road. The previous owner signed a deal for the tower to indefinitely lease the space for a one-time payment.
Join us for a special rerun of an insightful interview with successful Land Academy members Karl and Sam Lathus in episode LA 1965. Discover their journey and learn from their land investing success story. Want to connect with other like-minded individuals? Get a glimpse into our vibrant Land Academy member discord at https://landacademy.com/discord/. If you're looking to be part of our thriving community or have any questions, feel free to text us at 480-530-7383. Tune in now to gain valuable insights and inspiration!
Transcript: N/A
https://youtu.be/ELiHqEFXj_M
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Join hosts Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit in the Land Academy Show - Episode 1964! They tackle Discord questions, review land deals from weekly webinars, and delve into two crucial topics. We make Buying and Selling Land Sound Easy, but..., and Working At Full Speed, But Doing It Ineffectively. Don't miss this valuable insight to elevate your land investment game. Subscribe and hit the notification bell to stay updated on the latest content and embark on a journey to create lasting success in the land business!
Transcript: N/A
https://youtu.be/37FO56UI2bY
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Welcome to Land Academy Show episode 1963! In this episode, we delve into fascinating topics about living and working in a place where you are constantly getting smarter, along with the transformative impact of AI on the real estate industry, backed by real-life examples. Join us for insightful discussions and don't forget to explore our Land Academy Discord for more engaging conversations. If you have any questions or want to be featured on the show, feel free to text us at [480-530-7383. Let's learn and grow together!
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https://youtu.be/09SIcqW-4GA
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Welcome to Episode 1962! Today, Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit talk about Land Investing in Low Growth Real Estate Environments and The Truth about Mailer Competition. As always, we address questions from our Land Academy Discord Forum, and land review clips from our weekly Thursday member webinars. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and join the discussion in our Land Academy community.
Transcript: N/A
https://youtu.be/IQwKwmjzl6E
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Welcome to episode 1961 of the Land Academy Show, where Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit delve into the fascinating topics of Why Sellers Choose to Sell Their Land for Less Than Market Value and How To Build a Life-Long Fortune by Consistently Investing in Land. Join us as we explore the motivations behind this decision and provide valuable insights. As always, we address questions from our Land Academy Discord Forum, and land review clips from our weekly Thursday member webinars. Get ready to dive into two popular land-related topics requested by our audience in this engaging episode. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and join the discussion in our Land Academy community.
Transcript: N/A
https://youtu.be/Kt2NoCsHRxk
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Join Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit for another episode of the Land Academy Show. In episode 1960, they dive into two interesting topics: The Stuff They Don't Teach You In High School About Creating Equity, and Why Land Academy Has Stood The Test Of Time. Discover valuable insights, funny anecdotes, and join their engaging discussion. Plus, they answer questions from the Land Academy member Discord forum and share land acquisitions from their weekly webinars. Don't miss out on this informative episode! For a sneak peek of the Land Academy Discord forum, visit LandAcademy.com in read-only format. If you have questions or want to be part of the community, simply text them at 480-530-7383. Tune in now!
Transcript: N/A
https://youtu.be/vD6b8StX6Jk
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Join Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit on the Land Academy Show for an exciting episode packed with valuable insights. In episode 1959, they are thrilled to host an exclusive interview with the mega-successful members Karl and Samantha Lathus. Get ready to learn how Karl and Samantha have achieved remarkable success in the land business and made it work for themselves. In the first part of the show, they share their secrets and strategies. But that's not all! In the second part, Karl and Samantha turn the tables and interview Steven and Jill, discussing their journey from failures to ultimate success. Don't miss Karl's mention of his own land deal review, which was featured in one of our recent clips and the outcomes discussed after the weekly member webinar call. Tune in now to gain invaluable knowledge and be inspired by these incredible stories of triumph.Transcript: N/Ahttps://youtu.be/s_ZB7gjvuy0Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Join Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit on the Land Academy Show as they explore the intricacies of mountain town real estate pricing from their current location in Colorado. Discover why these markets can be unpredictable and how you can profit from the opportunities they present. They also delve into the importance of being a business owner as the key to building real wealth. With their RV trip underway, Steven and Jill share their firsthand experiences and insights into small town real estate. Don't miss this engaging discussion filled with valuable land-related topics. Visit landacademy.com for a sneak peek of their member discord forum and text your questions to 480-530-7383 to join the community and potentially have your questions answered in future episodes.
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit. And this is the Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala: This is episode number 1,958. And today we are talking about why these mountain towns? Jill and I are actually in-
Jill K DeWit: Just outside of Aspen.
Steven Jack Butala: Carbondale. Carbondale, Colorado. Why these mountain town real estate pricing is so messed up, in Jill's, words. And then how you can ultimately profit from it. So it has to do with taking a look at land values versus housing values and things like that. And then a little bit later on, we're going to talk about how being a business owner is the only real viable way to create wealth.
Jill K DeWit: So we are coming to you live... Well not live. But we're coming to you from right between Glenwood Springs and Aspen, Colorado. I am wearing my Colorado sweatshirt today because I am lovingly supporting the Nuggets, who have just taken the NBA basketball championship title, if anybody knows. It was so fun to be here, in a sweet little local bar in Carbondale, and celebrate with everyone else their win here at Colorado. It's not technically our state, but right now it feels like it's our state. It feels like it's home to us right now. So we're having a good time. And I'm excited about this topic because this is so fascinating to me. So I'll save it. I have a lot to share and I'll save it for the actual show here.
Steven Jack Butala: Jill and I are in week one, maybe week two, actually, of probably what'll end up being a three, maybe four month national RV trip. We're in the center of Colorado right now. And so what we do, we tow a little Jeep around. And what we always do is drive to these little towns and look at real estate, not because we intend to look at real estate, it's just by default.
Jill K DeWit: That's who we are.
Steven Jack Butala: That's right. So we figured we'd talk about what we're finding and where there's just, we're looking for opportunity in finding it.
Jill K DeWit: It's amazing.
Steven Jack Butala: Yep.
Jill K DeWit: It's really amazing.
Steven Jack Butala: Each week on the show we answer questions from our Land Academy member discord forum. We review land acquisitions from our weekly member webinars. And we take a deep dive into two land related topics by popular request. I just mentioned those. If you want to sneak peek of what goes on discord, it's actually really interesting. Go to landacademy.com. It's free, in kind of a view only mode.
Jill K DeWit: And also, we pull questions from there, we also pull questions directly from you via texting to us. So feel free to do that. If you want to text us a question that we can answer here, live, or on our podcast. Or just want to get involved in our community, we read them all. The number is 480-530-7383. Check it out. So Michael wrote a question, "I am new and researching counties and zips. But I need funding for whatever I buy. I want to know what size property and what price point on the sell side would be attractive enough for a funder to go in with me and hold my hand in the process. Obviously, the split is negotiable. I'm just looking to learn the process,
Join Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit in the latest episode of the Land Academy Show as they bring you their insights from the road. In this episode, number 1,957, they dive into a fascinating discussion about the land component of affordable housing, drawing from their recent career path alumni call. Jill also sheds light on the role of marketing in modern land flipping and how their approach has evolved over time. They share their adventures from Colorado, where they enjoy the beautiful scenery and embrace the freedom of being on the road. Don't miss this exciting episode and discover how you can be part of the Land Academy community by texting them your questions at 480-530-7383.
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit and this is the Land Academy Show from the road. Sorry, I had to just throw that in there.
Steven Jack Butala: This is episode number 1,957 and today we are talking about the land component of affordable housing. It's a in depth discussion that we had in the most recent career path alumni call.
Jill K DeWit: Career path alumni.
Steven Jack Butala: And then Jill's going to talk about the role of marketing in this, what we call modern land flipping currently. How we do it now.
Jill K DeWit: What I do now is not what I was doing five years ago.
Steven Jack Butala: Exactly.
Jill K DeWit: It's going to be cool. I want to say too for a few minutes, like we are coming to you from the road, we happen to be in Colorado, and if you could just imagine as I look at the camera and I shift my eyes about four inches to the left over the monitors that I'm looking at, it is the most dreamy, beautiful tree lined blue sky view. It's what? 70 degrees today?
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: So we were on our bikes all day yesterday. We had to race home to not get in the rain yesterday. It was so flipping fun.
Steven Jack Butala: We're in Durango. By the time this is airs, we will not be.
Jill K DeWit: True.
Steven Jack Butala: And we'll be out of Ouray also. We're going up to Million Dollar Highway in our new RV. New to us RV over the next week.
Jill K DeWit: Exactly. We're loving it.
Steven Jack Butala: I just installed this studio today, so we'll see if it works. But I'm pretty happy with myself.
Jill K DeWit: We'll see if it works.
Steven Jack Butala: I'm generally not happy with myself and I'm pretty happy with myself right now.
Jill K DeWit: Why are you... I'm the opposite. I roll around. I am generally happy with myself, but if nobody else is, I don't care. I'm happy with myself.
Steven Jack Butala: That's why this works, Jill.
Jill K DeWit: I could look like, I don't know what. I could be a disaster going down the street, but I might feel really good about myself.
Steven Jack Butala: Your strange unwarranted positivity offsets my eternal negativity. So we're always at zero.
Jill K DeWit: Do you know what's really nice? A lot of negative people say, "Oh no, I'm not negative. I'm a realist." You don't say that.
Steven Jack Butala: No.
Jill K DeWit: It's really kind of funny. Exactly. I just want to add that this is us. This is us on the road. We're going to be on the road for months now you guys. This is our first podcast on this trip, so this is number one of how many weeks we should start keeping... We should put that in there. Keep track of it's episode 1957, but it's episode one of this... What am I trying to say? This particular outing and our outing might be eight weeks, it might be 12 weeks, it might be 20 weeks depending how today goes. So you never know how this is going to end, but I just want to add, the whole point I'm trying to make is I'm buying and selling land all over the country. I'm not standing there. I'm not going there. I'm not seeing it. I'm not doing anything of that. Why do I have to stay in any one state or any one country?
Steven Jack Butala: I love this thought, this methodology.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Join Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit in episode 1,956 of the Land Academy Show as they dive into the transformative journey of adopting a million-dollar-a-year mindset in just eight weeks. Discover the valuable lessons from Steven's personal mistakes that set him back a decade in his land career, ensuring you don't make the same errors. Tune in as they answer questions from the Land Academy member Discord Forum, review land acquisitions, and explore two engaging land-related topics. Don't miss out on this insightful episode! For a sneak peek of our vibrant community, visit landacademy.com. Have a question? Text us at 4805307383, and your question might be featured in our next podcast.
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewit, and this is the Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala: This is episode number 1,956, and today we are talking about changing to a million dollar a year mindset in just eight short weeks. And then a little later in the program, we'll discuss the mistakes specifically that I've made that set me back at least 10 years in my land career, much earlier on because I don't want you to do the same.
Jill K DeWit: And this was all before Jill, not all of them, let's just say, but there were several, and I am not one of them.
Steven Jack Butala: Oh my God, no. Quite the opposite.
Jill K DeWit: But there's people that say that.
Steven Jack Butala: What do they say?
Jill K DeWit: Well, heck, I got divorced, so I'm sure there's a version of, "I shouldn't have done this in my relationship stuff. I shouldn't have had done this family things," that could affect your wellbeing and all of that.
Steven Jack Butala: Those are normal, natural, healthy life things that I'm not going to talk about today.
Jill K DeWit: I thank you.
Steven Jack Butala: I'm going to talk about the stupid stuff I personally did to set myself back 10 years.
Jill K DeWit: I'm sorry, but you know what? You're catching up. You're doing just fine now.
Steven Jack Butala: It's good now. Each week on the show we answer questions from the Land Academy member Discord Forum, review land acquisitions from our weekly member webinars, and take a deep dive into two land related topics like I just talked about just a second ago by popular requests. If you want to sneak peek of our discord forum, go to landacademy.com. It's free.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. Oh, and by the way, if you would like us to answer your question or you would help getting involved with our community, all I've got to do is text us at 4805307383. We read all the text, and your question just might be answered here on the next podcast. All right, here we go, Stevens. Well, here's a question from there. Now, Steven wrote, howdy y'all, you price higher acreage parcels in areas that might not have like kind comps? For example, if a zip code listing... wait. If zip code listings... and you're in zip code listings, got it. And you go back to last 12 months for the sold only parcels, and up to 12 acres. Okay, I can't even read this. Let me try it again. For example, if a zip code listings and the last 12 months sold only has parcels up to 12 acres, but there are properties in your mail that are a hundred acres, how do you test your reason in this case? I guess he's saying, if I go back 12 months, I'm in the zip code and it stops at 12 acres, what do I do? Because I'm going to mail for a hundred acres. Excuse me, while I just have a little moment to work through that for myself.
Steven Jack Butala: Look, the fact is if you've ever been involved in any type of data analysis, forget about land, but just data analysis in general, it's imperative if you want to come out with a predictable outcome to have enough data. If you have a too small data set, your data set's too small. It's very, very difficult, if not impossible to predict the outcome. So that's one of the, I'm going to call it a challenge, but I really think in bitter end,
Welcome to the Land Academy Show with Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit! In this exciting episode number 1,955, we delve into the reality that not every land deal goes according to plan. Join us as we explore the unexpected twists and turns that can occur in your real estate journey. Later on, we’ll tackle the topic of building a buyers list for land and discuss the appropriate timing and strategies involved. With nearly a decade of podcasting and Land Academy under our belts, we bring you insights from our extensive experience in the field. We answer questions from our Land Academy member Discord Forum, review land acquisitions from our webinars, and address two land-related topics by popular request. Get a sneak peek into our vibrant community at LandAcademy.com, and if you have a burning question or want to join our community, simply text us at 480-530-7383. Stay tuned for a success story from Discord as well!
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m Jill DeWit and this is the Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is episode number 1,955, and today we are talking about how not every, but maybe any, land deals go as planned. Whatever. What goes as planned in your life?
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
Later in the episode, we’ll talk about when and where it’s appropriate to build a buyers list and when it’s not for land.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. I have a lot of experience here. That’s probably why you’re listening. Do you know what’s great? We’re going on… This is going to be… Well, heck! Next year will definitely… Will it be 10 years? I’m trying to think. When did we start the podcast? I have to go back and look, but I mean, quickly, we’re going to be rolling on 10 years of this podcast and 10 years of Land Academy, which is amazing! My point in saying that is because we speak of what we know, and in the years before Land Academy, holy moly! There’s 15 or so years of you doing this business before we even did Land Academy.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
So.
Steven Jack Butala:
We had the experience is what she’s saying. So you can see all this gray hair.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. This didn’t just happen since we started the podcast or since I came along! Since I came into the picture, more importantly. I didn’t do that. Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Each week on the show, we answer questions from our Land Academy member Discord Forum. We review land acquisitions from our weekly member webinars, and we take a deep dive into two land-related topics by request, which I just read. If you want a sneak peek of our Discord Forum, go to LandAcademy.com. It’s free.
Jill K DeWit:
And by the way, if you would like us to answer your question, they are rolling in now too, by the way. So cheers to you guys. Or you just want some help getting involved with our community, all you have to do is text us at 480-530-7383. We do read all the texts, and your question just might be answered here on our next podcast.
Steven Jack Butala:
Hey, before we actually answer this question, Jill’s going to read a success story from Discord.
Jill K DeWit:
Cool. So we closed on a two-acre property at the end of April for $7,700. Had our drone guy and signs out a few days later. Hadn’t even gotten the property listed with a realtor before we had a call. Had a full price offer. Two weeks later, closed for 30,000. This will never get old!
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s how you do it.
Jill K DeWit:
I love it!
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, that’s how you do it.
Jill K DeWit:
Yay!
Steven Jack Butala:
So you netted, geez-
Jill K DeWit:
What was the purchase price?
Steven Jack Butala:
After fees? Probably 8,000. She said 77.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, 77. She didn’t even get the realtor.
Steven Jack Butala:
Right. So.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s even better!
Steven Jack Butala:
So you made 20,000 bucks. You do that once a month, you’re going to make a quarter of a million bucks a year.
Jill K DeWit:
There you go.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s why we’re here.
Jill K DeWit:
I know. All right, so here’s the deal. So we got this message in from Jack. He wrote, “On a recent 4,000 piece mailer I sent through Offers 2 Owners, 3000 units went to one county and 1000 units went to another county. I received multiple calls from the 3000 unit mailer, but zero from the 1000 mailer county. Seems odd that I wouldn’t receive a single response from that county. Could it be something I did wrong?”
Steven Jack Butala:
No, and it’s very- Go ahead, Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
I was going to say, I’m just thinking by the time this is aired, he probably got calls from it.
Steven Jack Butala:
So that’s my answer too. So it’s very common to really wonder what did I do based on certain responses, but in the end, if you just wait maybe two days, it’ll all start rolling in.
Jill K DeWit:
That used to happen all the time on our weekly Thursday calls. People were like, “I think I did something wrong! I don’t think the mail hit!” And then the next day they’re like, “Oops, nevermind! My bad. Here they came.” It’s always at the very last minute you think too much time has passed and then it hits.
Steven Jack Butala:
This shows me you want to do it right. So congratulations. You care.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m hoping you got 3000 to an area that you know and you’re looking at other areas to branch out into.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yep. Today’s first topic is not every, or maybe any, land deals go as planned. This topic was generated from a discussion, a detailed discussion that Jill and I had in our last session with Career Path. Career Path is this thing Jill and I instruct where there’s a handful of people that get access to Jill and I for eight weeks, and we in-depth take a look at everybody’s situation and how to help them in their land business.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s our highest level of personalized coaching basically.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, exactly.
Jill K DeWit:
Is really what it is.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think it’s very natural. It’s very natural for the personality type that I have to want to put everything into a box, into a spreadsheet let’s say, and quantify it. In accounting, we call it budget to actual. So I want to budget everything out and then I want to write a line right next to it, what’s going to happen, that’s the actual, and then look at the variance. I’ll tell you, as much as I want to do that with a real estate deal, that’s just not how it goes.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s very, very insightful of you to know that much about yourself and to openly share that. So I appreciate that. That’s not how I do things at all. This is not bothering me at all. I know this bothers you. You would love to know exactly, it’s going to be bought here, sold here, this much, times 10.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yep.
Jill K DeWit:
But it doesn’t go like that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Buy a donut, you’re done.
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill’s, to her credit, just wakes up and she’s just going to see what happens. I’m pretty good at sending the mail out, making her phone ring, and then she’s just fearless. She just rolls with whatever happens in a real estate deal and she gets it done. She gets it across the finish line.
Jill K DeWit:
You know what’s funny, I can wake up though. I can wake up and go, “Okay, I’m going to buy one of these three properties I’ve been looking at today,” whatever it is. Say I’m working with a seller and we’re not on the same page. Or I’ll even say, “All three of these guys don’t realize it, but we’re going to get a deal done today,” and I will not stop until I make that happen.
Steven Jack Butala:
You’re going to hurt yourself if you go into this thinking that you can put it into a box and then repeat the box and then continue forward and just over and over and over. That’s what manufacturing is.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
Or how I perceive manufacturing. I was involved in manufacturing a long, long time ago as a teenager in my early twenties in the Midwest, and I mean, I just watched this happen. So as an outsider watching somebody stamp out a part or machine a part, especially on a computerized lathe or something like that where you know the raw material costs $3 and the stainless steel part that’s getting machined, they ordered 16,000 of them to go in some car somewhere or 16 million in some cases, and you’re making 150 bucks on it. It’s like that’s an accountant’s dream.
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
Real estate deals could not be further from that situation. They’re all different. You have to completely pay attention. Stuff’s going to change and happen all the time. There’s people involved.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
When a machine’s stamping or lathing something out, there’s no people involved in that.
Jill K DeWit:
You know what’s funny, at least our deals, there’s not as many people involved as there could be. We don’t have lenders involved and inspectors involved and fill-in-the-blank involved. That’s nice. But yeah, you’re right. You have to roll with it. Every day is kind of different.
You don’t even know how many calls you’re going to get back. You think you know. We joke-Not joke about it, but mailer yield comes up, we keep telling everybody, “Don’t think about mailer yield. Think about getting one! Think of a low number for mailer yield and you get something really good out of it that pays for your mailer, that’s positive mailer yield. So let’s not think about that.”But you can’t really accurately say, “All right, I know I’m going to get these four, eight, ten deals out of every mailer.”
Even in escrow, things happen. I’m just thinking about that too. It’s not a high percentage, but I’m going to say at least a couple out of a hundred that something goes wrong. Maybe it’s even me. Things not going as planned might not even be there was a problem with the property, it could be I changed my mind. I’m not loving this like I thought I was and now I don’t want to do it.
Steven Jack Butala:
I tend to associate risk with variables. So the more variables that there are in any situation or any business situation specifically, the more risk there’s going to be. When I look at the risk involved in buying a piece of land, we have control over who gets an offer from us. We have control over how much we offer, and we have control over the number of offers that we send out. Total control.
If I send out 10,000 offers at 20% of retail value, we’re going to get some response back. We’re going to get a predictable response back. I don’t know the exact numbers. And then I know from experience, because my business partner historically closes two to five deals in that situation, and we have control over what we pay over those for those deals. Complete control. So with our experience, we don’t pay too much. So that’s the good news.
The bad news is these deals, all land deals, there’s variables. Variables become, after you sign the agreement, then you send it to escrow and you start to find out maybe there’s some back taxes. Yeah, I can live with that variable. Or if I can’t, then I adjust the purchase price.
Oh, well, turns out one of these people that’s on the deed, they passed away three years ago. I can deal with that variable. It’s not something we’ve dealt with the entire time. There’s a couple of flaws in the piece of dirt that maybe it doesn’t have access or it has limited access, or we have to go do some stuff to get access. I accept those variables and I adjust the price accordingly. So that’s the good news.
The fact that these land deals never go as planned, it keeps a ton of people out of this business. There’s millions of real estate agents in this country. How many manufacturing companies are there? Geez, I’d bet millions. How many people buy and sell land like this?
Jill K DeWit:
Right. No, I was just thinking about when we were thinking of this topic, there was one property and one transaction that prompted this for me because it didn’t go as planned. We all went into it. There were first of all, A, too many of us involved in this transaction because it was a high dollar amount. So there were a few of us that all pitched in to take down this deal. It took way too long. It sold for much less than… We still got three times our money. So it’s not like we’re all hurting, not crying poor here and made a mistake, but it didn’t go as planned. We were like, “Ah, man. God, it took too long. How many agents did we have involved? How many times did we have to talk about it? How many hurdles did our buyers have to, perceivably in their heads, overcome and that we had to talk them through?” It just was a pain!
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m going to ask you a couple questions.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Because this is not a negative topic, although it was written that way. Whoever wrote this topic is a pretty negative person.
Jill K DeWit:
Hm, I wonder who that was!
Steven Jack Butala:
As a percentage, if somebody signs and sends you an agreement back or they call you and say, “Yeah, I want to do the deal. What’s the next step?” And you look at the deal and you agree in the first 30 seconds that you look at it that you want to do the deal. It has a percentage. How many after that point, that light bulb point, do you think just don’t go as planned? To get them closed, I mean, on the acquisition side, not on the sales side.
Jill K DeWit:
On the acquisition side?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, acquisition side as planned, 85%.
Steven Jack Butala:
I was going to say 90, but yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
I was going to say 90 too, but I was being conservative!
Steven Jack Butala:
85, 90%. You buy the property and then-
Jill K DeWit:
On the acquisition side, because I’m the one that’s controlling that.
Steven Jack Butala:
From the moment you own it, again, that’s light bulb moment. You own it.
Jill K DeWit:
This is a good point.
Steven Jack Butala:
As a percentage, how many are not, that don’t go as planned on the sell side?
Jill K DeWit:
This is where it all goes sideways!
Steven Jack Butala:
Really?
Jill K DeWit:
Well, I want to say… That do not go as planned?
Steven Jack Butala:
How many go as as planned? Like, “Hey, I bought this thing for 30 and I know it’s worth 60 or 70 and I sold it pretty quickly.”
Jill K DeWit:
Okay, so I’m going to say 75% go as planned.
Steven Jack Butala:
I was going to say 85, 90.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m feeling pretty good about that because I already have a number. I know that this is where you taught me this. I love it at this. I’ll take this. I love it at this. I can do this and I’ll settle for this.
Steven Jack Butala:
How many times have you lost money on a real estate deal? That’s really doesn’t go as planned. That’s my definition of, oh, wait a minute. I really missed something.
Jill K DeWit:
I got one two years ago. I think I broke even. I can’t remember, but it was really close.
Steven Jack Butala:
One deal.
Jill K DeWit:
I know.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is the point I’m trying to drive home. Yes, stuff goes sideways. You make sure that you get the deal back on track. You’re the deal maker.
So I think this is great news. It keeps a tremendous amount of people out of the business. Really, really low startup costs. And you go into it with the right attitude, and I’m going to fix this no matter what goes on kind of entrepreneurial spirit, you’re going to get out of it just fine. Worst thing that happens is you do a price reduction and you don’t make as much money as you thought.
Jill K DeWit:
There you go. That’s it. I’m going to go look that up. I think I’m going to make a little separate thing about that. That was Lancaster, California.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yep. I know exactly which deal you’re talking about.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, dumb dumb.
Steven Jack Butala:
I approved that deal personally because it was in LA County.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, we knew that guy!
Steven Jack Butala:
If it was one county over, which the county line was like 500 yards from that property. If it was in I think San Bernardino or Riverside County, I would’ve not done it. But for whatever reason, it was in LA County, it was super cheap, and I made a mistake.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m like, “Oh, okay. Yeah!”
Steven Jack Butala:
You still got of it.
Jill K DeWit:
Who cares? It’s funny.
Steven Jack Butala:
Hey, if you have the right attitude and the right entrepreneurial spirit, you’re going to smash this. Most of you are who are in Land Academy already.
Jill K DeWit:
You know what? That’s the whole point here.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yep.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s really good. If you can roll with these punches. That’s why people who come to us that have deal experience or even owning a business experience, you know how to roll with the punches and not give up and just say, “Well, we’re closing up shop!” Kind of thing.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, this thing doesn’t work. No, it works!
Jill K DeWit:
It does. You got to stay with it.
Steven Jack Butala:
You already know that because you’re successful at other stuff. Let’s take a look at one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar.
Jill K DeWit:
Thinking, thinking, thinking of what I want to share right now.
Steven Jack Butala:
Hey, if you want to hear our whole story, go to LandAcademy.com and download the ebook. It’s free. It tells starting from the early nineties when I was buying and selling long-term care facilities all the way up to right now and the things that we went through and the tools that we didn’t have back then.
We didn’t have Google Earth. Jill and I had an amazingly difficult time trying to find property just based on a legal description. It wasn’t difficult, it was just really time-consuming because there was no tool online that you could go type in an assessor’s parcel number and find it. We’ve since then created those products, most of them, and bought our own printing company so that we wouldn’t have to deal with a lot of that.
So you get all of that. It’s a good story and it’s a real easy read and it doesn’t cost anything. Check it out at LandAcademy.com and look at the ebook.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you. That was great.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take another question posted by our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. Again, if you want a sneak peek at it, go to LandAcademy.com. It’s free.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. Patricia wrote, “Hi guys! I recently joined Land Academy in April.” Yay! Congrats. “Although I’ve been buying and selling land for the past two years, I’ve just now been able to take this on since my wealth has grown over the past two years as a result of my land flipping. So I’m listening to the education sections, which we can always benefit from, whether learned or need to be learned, and they talk about Title Mine and Infill Reports, but neither are available any longer. Sounds like great programs. What do you use in place of Title Mine and Infill Reports?”
Steven Jack Butala:
So I’ll tell you a story, a story about Jill and I, and Jill and I decided to, from the moment that we released the program to the public, the Land Academy program, it took us about a year to put together part-time. From the moment we released it, what we learned, and I was shocked about this, I don’t know if you were, but we learned that our members wanted more tools. They wanted more programs, more access to people like us that have done a bunch of deals and more tools.
So one by one by one, upon our members’ requests, Jill and I rolled out tools. Some of them survived and thrived, like Offers 2 Owners and ParcelFact.com. Geez, those are thriving. Financially, they’re thriving and everybody loves them. They all rave about it. Both members and non-members. Some of them didn’t work. Title Mine’s a great example.
People were coming to us saying, “I bought this property in Tennessee. Can you guys close it? I can’t find an escrow agent.” And so we said, “Sure, we’re going to open this thing called Title Mine.” It just got misused. Many of these programs worked great. They just weren’t used by our members the way that we intended them.
So they would give us all the deals that they couldn’t close themselves, the real problematic ones, like people are dead and there’s all kinds of medical liens and mechanical liens and real problematic properties. So we looked at each other and said, “I just don’t think this is worth it.” We knew this because we’ve done a million deals.
Jill K DeWit:
They’re messy.
Steven Jack Butala:
These aren’t deals that are going to close anyway.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s not any title company or escrow company that’s going to close it.
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
So, we said, “It’s just not worth it.” And in the end, we’re not doing anybody a favor and nobody wants to hear, “Yeah, this is probably an unclosable transaction,” or, “Maybe it’s closable, but-”
Jill K DeWit:
We’re not the people to do it. We’re not attorneys!
Steven Jack Butala:
But financially it’s not going to matter. Buy for five and sell for eight and it’s going to cost you $9,000 for us by the time we get it closed?
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
So we decided not to do it. Infill report, where can you go get that? There’s no replacement for good old-fashioned, get a local title company and find one you like.
Infill Reports was a partnership situation that Jill and I put together with a guy in Los Angeles, a super, super nice guy who had a tremendous talent for analyzing – When an infill lot would come in, analyze it and say, what can you do with it? Does it have access? Yes. Can you put a mobile home on it? No. Can you put a house on it? Yes. What are the setbacks? And all the details, nitty degree details of infill reports.
Jill K DeWit:
It was a great product.
Steven Jack Butala:
And again, by the time we got done with it, by the time we’ve got done with a given infill report he did and we put the time in and all, we were charging a thousand bucks. That price point did not work for most people.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. It was an awesome product. I kind of miss it too.
Steven Jack Butala:
Right. I’ll tell you what has worked and people just want more and we’re giving them more, is advanced level education. I thought this would’ve been the exact opposite. I thought everybody wants tools and nobody wants to talk anymore because that’s who I am. That’s not who most people are.
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
So now we have Career Path, which is crazy successful. We do it two or three times a year depending on which year Jill feels like she wants to do two or three.
Jill K DeWit:
Thanks!
Steven Jack Butala:
We do now a program that we’re going to release here in next week actually called Land Academy Pro, where you get access to the same people that do my mailers and the same people that close your deals. The very same exact people, the same database template that we use, the same everything. We’re going to see how everybody responds to the price point, but it’s way cheaper than learning all the stuff yourself and hiring people. You get access to the people that we’ve vetted for years and years and years. We’ve already gotten a huge positive response to that.
And Man Plan. What we’ve learned too is that not everybody joins Land Academy because they want to be a land investor. They just want to have access to some people that have figured out how to seemingly comfortably make a bunch of money in life and have a good relationship. So ManPlan.com, I anticipate, and the price point there is going to be very, very, very low. So those are real positive things too. If we terminated a program, we terminated it because it just didn’t work out for our members.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. I’m going to throw in there though, by the way, Title Mine is going to be… It’s basically included in Land Academy Pro.
Steven Jack Butala:
Right. Exactly.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s kind of funny. Title Mind is kind of coming back in a different way.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, that’s a way to say it.
Jill K DeWit:
It is.
Steven Jack Butala:
Great way to say it.
Jill K DeWit:
So yeah, really cool.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s second topic, when and when not to build a buyers list.
Jill K DeWit:
So I was going to talk about this for a minute because I… Can you scroll that up? It just helps me to see that. I did this… Maybe not. Thank you. Back in the day.
Okay, so I would have buyers call me. This was me personally taking the calls and selling our own property, and they were asking about certain properties and maybe that they loved everything about this one, but instead of five acres, they wanted 20. Or they really hoped it was in closer to fill-in-the-blank.
I thought, okay, hold on a moment. I’m clearly canvassing this area. I’m in this county. Or even all over the country. We’ve always and forever had mailers hitting different states, different sizes, different whatever. So I would say, “Look, I always have new stuff coming in anyway.”
I would do two things. One, I would tell them, “Get on my buyers list which is on my website.” I’ll put their email on there so you get notified when I get things. Number two, I would try to keep track of it and try to queue things up for them. When I talk to them and they’re like, “I’m really serious. I just wish it was twice as big. Fill in the blank.”
So I started making notes of this. Especially people that were repeat buyers, this guy loves this, this guy wants these. Then I would go out and keep my eye out for any 40-acre in this part of the state with this attribute and queue them up for them. It never worked out.
Every time I’d say, “Hey, you gave me a list of criteria, here it is. This is the one. I just got this in. It’s going to fit your thing perfectly.” They’d be like, “Ah, I don’t know. I don’t like the way the sun bounces off the trees on that rock,” or something stupid. I’m like, what? They didn’t feel it or they would come up with some other thing and I realized what a waste of my time.
So in the land world, this does not work. This is a huge waste of time. And I see people doing it all the time. It’s so funny. I’m watching social media, they’re like, “Hey, does anybody have any properties in fill-in-the-blank county that are with a well between five and 10 acres? I’ve got a guy.” I’m like, “Oh, this is funny.” How much time is going to be wasted on that?
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, now you’re representing somebody else in the acquisition and potential sale of a property, which you need to be a licensed real estate agent for. It’s totally different. Here’s the thing, before Jill finishes, because she’s got, I’m sure-
Jill K DeWit:
I was going to wrap that up.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, okay. Go ahead.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, and then I’ll pass it to you. So I see people doing it all the time and I’m like, “This is not what you should be spending your time on. I have other solutions and other ways to do it and then go for it.”
Steven Jack Butala:
I think that you can really quantify it like this. When people have, or your customers have really, really similar interests, then you can establish a list, and when you get a product in, like a piece of land or a certain gauge of stainless steel, whatever business you’re in, then you can send out a list or send out a note and say, “I got another one in and all of you guys wanted the last one. So whichever one of you want it, it’s here.”
So that’s just not the case with land. What they’re doing is dreaming. Jill, you have an example. Buying houses that need to be renovated are a great example when you should establish a list.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s different. So yeah, here’s back to the land thing, when and when not to build a buyers list. For land, no bueno. Don’t do that. Don’t go there. It’s dumb.
The only thing I would say is do collect emails. If you’re selling your own property, it’s really beneficial. And we’ve done this over the years, I mean throughout the years I should say, I still have it going on, my collected buyer’s list. If I’m going to wholesale any property, I just send it out as a spreadsheet. State, county, APN. If I’ve got an attribute in there or something I need to tell them about the property, it’s listed, and my sales price. And it’s a good sales price, not a make-me-move, not a retail dumb number. Just because I’m reaching out to other professionals. That’s a great thing.
But again, I’m not building a list. I have emails collected that they have opted in to be and get notified, and they do get notified.
Steven Jack Butala:
She’s not servicing clients or customers.
Jill K DeWit:
Nah.
Steven Jack Butala:
She’s collecting a list and exposing people to products.
Jill K DeWit:
Here’s all the stuff I just got in. If you want it, great. If you don’t, fine. You know?
Steven Jack Butala:
Why? Because they have similar interests and they’re not end users. These people, they’re people who are going to resell it and somehow, maybe it’s on terms, maybe it’s for more, take a long time, two years to sell it for cash.
Jill K DeWit:
Right. Now, when to do this that I have been really successful is when we have done House Academy, and the way that we buy them and the way that we sell them to other wholesalers. We’re selling to someone who’s going to pull the dumpster in the driveway and they’re going to do the renovation and all that good stuff.
Steven Jack Butala:
The rehabber.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s their game. When they find us or we connect basically, and I tell them, “Here’s what I got,” and it’s gone. They’re like, “Text me please. When you get another one in this zip code,” because those guys are serious. Those guys really… And they mean it. “I’ll take any three bedroom, two bathroom in this zip code in this school zone north of those railroad tracks with no pool and a garage. I’m buying it.”
Steven Jack Butala:
For less than $200 a square foot or something like that.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s easy and we can do that and I can buy it. I can queue it up like that. I can get that precise. Really easy to do. That’s a good buyers list and it’s a short buyers list. Usually it’s like 10 people and they all get an email.
Something comes in, not even an email, it’s a text. I’ll text. Actually what I do, I’ll tell you truthfully, this is House Academy. I text them, I email them and I phone call them. I blast them three different ways and it’s first come first serve and they know it. They’re like, “Can’t wait to go. I’m driving there now, Jill. What’s the lockbox code?” All right, here you go. Let me know what you think.
Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s another circumstance that it really makes a lot of sense to build a buyers list. We have a person in this most recent Career Path that stumbled across a specific-use piece of property that is for a 15-unit apartment building, and it’s right between two existing multi-unit buildings, two existing apartment buildings.
It’s very quick and easy to accumulate a list of all the people who own apartment buildings in that county and just send them a note, send them a letter or send them a text that says, “I’ve got this property, and it’s off-market.” Everybody loves off-market property. We love off-market property. We’ve made a career out of buying land that’s off-market, creating a real estate deal for ourselves where it’s not a deal until we call them or send a note.
It’s going to be very easy for her to establish that list. And then once she talks to a few people, let’s say there’s 10 or 12 of them that respond. During that conversation, they’re going to say, “Hey, if you ever come across any more multi-tenant land in these eight counties, please call me first.” So it’s real easy for her now then to send out a mailer in those eight counties, real small strategic surgical strike mailer, and expose these people that own these apartment buildings to those pieces of dirt.
You got to be careful. It can backfire because it’s what Jill said right from the beginning. Yeah, I don’t like the way the sun shines on that one. But let me wrap this up with this topic with this, our way’s the right way. We’ve proven it. Buy a piece of land-
Jill K DeWit:
And tested it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. You buy a piece of land as cheap as you possibly can, within reason, and then let the real estate agent that you choose go do his job. Let him get it on the MLS, make it look fantastic, put maps in there and all the features that it might have, water, all kinds of whatever. Make it look as good as you can on the internet and the right buyer will find it. It’s way better. Then you don’t have two or three or four jobs in life. You have one. To find and purchase undervalued land.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Then everybody else does all the work.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a look at another one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar. Jill, you have something inspirational to share?
Jill K DeWit:
Yes. Today I want to talk about the top three traits that I’ve noticed in successful people. This is coming up because we are wrapping up… By the time this airs will be our last Career Path for group six, as a matter of fact.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, sure. Yeah!
Jill K DeWit:
I’m just thinking about that and that’s going to be a little sad! It’s always sad when we say goodbye, but we don’t all just go, “Well, see ya!” We all get together once a month so we’re not gone. But anyway. But we’re not spending the same amount of time together as we are every week right now.
Every group is different, and there’s phenomenal people in every group and there’s often some that just stand out like, wow! That person is going to kill it. We know.
I was thinking about this individual, we’ve talked about her a bit, and I’m like, what is it about her that makes her special and what can I share with everybody else so they are aware of this and can try to mirror this? One is no fear.
If I tell her, “Here’s what you should do. Call this person, find out this, this, and this and this,” she’s immediately on the phone. It’s not having to gear up for it or having to think about it or wrap her head around it or whatever it is. It’s like, okay, doing it.
That kind of goes into number two, which is she follows our advice without hesitation. She doesn’t question it. She’s like, “I know you guys-” Well, clearly you know what it is? It’s like, “Clearly you guys know what you’re talking about! I’m going to, no fear, do what you tell me.”
The third thing is she’s constantly building. She’s constantly pushing herself. She’s constantly changing her deals. She’s constantly sending more mail. She’s constantly adding a zero. And I’m like, “Oh…”
Our discussion the other day ended with, “You realize we’re not going to hear from her again.” I said, “Yes. That’s what happens.” People come into Land Academy and then they go into Career Path and they go off and become wildly successful and then they go dark. They’re like, “I don’t need you!” Kind of thing. It’s kind of funny, but it’s good. It’s positive, and we know that. It’s like when your kids leave the nest and they’re like, “I got this, Mom.” It’s a positive thing. So that’s it.
Steven Jack Butala:
You’re supposed to graduate from college too.
Jill K DeWit:
You are.
Steven Jack Butala:
Not just stay there.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, you are. My main thing, of all the three things that I would pick out is the top one… No fear, follow advice, and constant building. I’d say the number one for me is no fear. You have to just do it. What would be your number one? Of those three things what do you think is the top?
Steven Jack Butala:
Tony Robbins has long said this is the one number one reason why people don’t reach their potential and it’s emotion. Because what she does and what you’re describing is just mechanically get through it.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m not going to sit around and worry about what the assessor thinks about me because I have a bunch of questions about a property in this county. I am going to listen to two people who have done 16,000-plus deals, go out and talk to the other apartment building owners. Just mechanically do it and you’re going to do incredibly well.
The people that I’ve seen that just do so well, they don’t know when to quit. There’s no off switch.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
They sleep however many hours they do and then they get backed up. They don’t give themselves any reason or excuse to not get something done. My kids need me to do this. My husband wants me to make dinner. I’ve got to get a master’s degree. Successful people that I’ve been exposed to, I’ve never heard them… I don’t think they think about it, let alone say it. So where there’s a will.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s good. Good point. Thank you. Jack, do you have something Man Plan-ish? ManPlan.com-ish, I should say. That’s a mouthful. To share with us today?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. I’ve been running across people that have statistical obsession recently and I’m very, very aware of what that’s all about because I had it and sometimes I still have it. I’m analyzing something. It’s a version of analysis paralysis, but it’s a little worse.
Analysis paralysis, you can get over. Where you’re just analyzing and analyzing and analyzing. Am I pricing this mailer right? What else can I be doing? Can I do this more?
We learned this in school. The problem with formal education, one of the problems, or it was for me anyway, thank God that chapter of my life is over, is that unlike a job when you’re done at three o’clock or five o’clock or whatever, you’re done. In college, oh man, I really probably should study more for this exam. Oh no, I should do this over here instead.
So analysis paralysis is in my mind a psychological extension of that. Of, oh Geez, it’s just not done. Well, the mailer’s not done yet. I see this a lot with the computer designers and programmers, because no computer program is ever going to be released bug-free. It just doesn’t happen. How many updates do you do on Windows every single month?
Jill K DeWit:
Good point.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s just not done yet. It’ll never be done. Artists are like this. The painting’s never done. If you’re a true artist, somebody made you stop. I’ve heard animators say this too, like Disney animators say, the little section that they’re working on, “The only reason that I released this is because they told me I had to be done with it.” They had a deadline.
Jill K DeWit:
I love this! What version of Jack are we on right now? Blank.0.
Steven Jack Butala:
19.0.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh! I thought you were going to say one for every year!
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, yeah! Yeah. 58.0.
Jill K DeWit:
How about – You know what we’re on Jill? This is Jill 102.0!
Steven Jack Butala:
No, it’s over. Statistical obsession.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, it’s over? Oh, this is as good as it’s going to get?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, great!
Steven Jack Butala:
Actually, I’m going backwards now.
Jill K DeWit:
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Wait, time out! Are you telling me I get to expect no…
Steven Jack Butala:
No improvements. Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
No updates of any kind?
Steven Jack Butala:
No improvements.
Jill K DeWit:
For the rest of my life with you? Oh!
Steven Jack Butala:
There won’t be, I’ll tell you this, no improvements at work, but socially there will be.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. Got it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Will have improvements.
Jill K DeWit:
That would be bad coming home and saying, “Baby, this is it. This is as good as it’s going to get. Today is the height of my everything!”
Steven Jack Butala:
I’ve been saying that since I’ve met you!
Jill K DeWit:
Just so you know-
Steven Jack Butala:
And she just refused to believe it!
Jill K DeWit:
-It is really downhill from me. I mean, really downhill from here. You just can expect this – See this body? It’s all going to fall apart more than it already has! I’ve just stopped caring!
Steven Jack Butala:
Most women, this is Man Plan right now.
Jill K DeWit:
I know!
Steven Jack Butala:
Most women-
Jill K DeWit:
Now I’m going to eat whatever I damn want!
Steven Jack Butala:
Most women believe they can improve their man, even if they’re in their eighties. Oh, he’s going to be fine tomorrow. He’s an idiot today! He’s going to be fine tomorrow.
Jill K DeWit:
That is kind of true.
Steven Jack Butala:
And this is what I’m going to do to make sure.
Jill K DeWit:
We see potential.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m going to do this, this, this, and this to make sure he’s better tomorrow.
Jill K DeWit:
Every day we see potential in our man!
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s hopeless, ladies. It’s totally hopeless.
Jill K DeWit:
There we go!
Steven Jack Butala:
Statistical obsession is worse than analysis paralysis because I’ve noticed that people ask the same questions over and over and over again until they get the right answer. And then they ask a different question over and over and over again until they get the answer that they want. Then it continues and continues and continues.
The opposite of that is Jill. Jill says, “Let’s send a bunch of freaking mail out and see what happens. And whatever happens, I’m going to make something happen. We’ll buy some property. Trust me.”
Jill K DeWit:
Watch me.
Steven Jack Butala:
You send out 15,000 mailers at 20%, we’re going to buy some dirt. She takes it on. A person that’s got statistical obsession is going to say, “Oh, I’m going to send out 15,000 mailers and I’m going to buy three properties, and if I don’t, I’m going to break down and have a nervous breakdown because I only bought two. I’m supposed to buy three.”
It’s a Rain Man thing. It’s worse. It’s worse than analysis paralysis. So you have to just prepare yourself, and it’s not just land or real estate or anything. I think this is a personality thing.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you for bringing this up. I think this is prevalent in our group because you know who you are, data people.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
This is your thing.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s right.
Jill K DeWit:
Not my thing.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think you put a lot of completely undue pressure on yourself, and I think, I’m sure that this stops a lot of people from continuing on in whatever they’re trying to pursue in their life, whether it’s relationships or accumulating the wealth that you know that you are worthy of.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, do you think the people that in our group who are hung up on mailer yield are only because they want to do better than the next person?
Steven Jack Butala:
Uh-uh.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think they want to implement. It’s a budget to actual that I talked about earlier.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think, “Jack, you said it’s every 5,000 units and I got 8,500. I had to send out 8,000 units.” I see this in Discord all the time. “I had to send out 8,000 units instead of five. I thought it was supposed to be five. In fact, three years ago you said it was 2,500.”
After that, their personality scenario takes over. They either blame themselves, they blame me.
Jill K DeWit:
Their mom.
Steven Jack Butala:
In the end, there’s something going on below the surface that is not allowing them to chill out and say, “Yeah, but I made $82,000, so my mailer yield’s a little bit different than I thought.” So what? It doesn’t fit into that box that I’m so trying to chase. Worse is, “I married this girl and her hair was long and now it’s short and that’s it.” Statistical obsession. You’re just stuck!
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
It makes you stuck!
Jill K DeWit:
Wow! Okay. I’m learning new information.
Steven Jack Butala:
It doesn’t make you stuck. You stuck yourself by glomming onto a couple of statistics, mailer yields is just an easy way to- That’s just scratching the surface. But you thought these five things were going to happen in a marriage and none of them happen, and these other things over here happen. That’s the way life is.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
You have to embrace the fact that it’s all going to change three weeks from now. Geez, if you’ve ever had children, wow. You have to know that the kids that when they were five are different than when they’re 15. And if you’re trying to keep them five, I’ve seen people try to do this. They want to keep them little!
Jill K DeWit:
Yep.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s totally selfish.
Jill K DeWit:
I understand.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s the condescending tone on the way down to make me stop.
Jill K DeWit:
No, I’m just going to say, are you upset?
Steven Jack Butala:
No!
Jill K DeWit:
Are you okay? All right.
Steven Jack Butala:
No, not at all!
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’ve had analysis paralysis early in my career really bad. But obsession is, you have to really look yourself in the mirror and chill out.
Jill K DeWit:
Hey, don’t forget, you can reach us for questions and help just by texting 480-530-7383.
Steven Jack Butala:
Join us next Wednesday for another interesting episode. You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill K DeWit:
We are Jack and Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
We are Jack and Jill. Information.
Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration.
Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
https://youtu.be/thXP-h_O_fo
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Join Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit in this captivating episode of the Land Academy Show! In episode number 1,954, we delve into the topic of surrounding yourself with successful individuals, featuring Land Academy member Kevin Farrell. Discover Kevin’s remarkable journey and his invaluable contributions to our community as a long-standing member, Discord manager, and consultant. We also explore the intriguing subject of undoing term sales. This episode holds a special place in our hearts as we bid farewell to Kevin’s active role as a moderator and consultant, while celebrating his continued dedication to the land business and Land Academy. Stay tuned as we discuss our plans for a fitting replacement. Don’t miss out on this insightful discussion! Plus, as always, we answer questions from our Land Academy member Discord forum and review land acquisitions from our weekly webinars. For a sneak peek into our vibrant community, visit landacademy.com. Have a burning question? Text us at (480) 530-7383, and your question might just be featured on our next podcast episode.
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit, and this is the Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is episode number 1,954, and today we are talking about how to surround yourself with successful people like Land Academy member, Kevin Farrell, and a little later on the episode, we’ll be talking about undoing term sales. I have to say, this episode is near to me because Kevin’s been with us, Kevin Farrell, has been with us as a Land Academy member since we started, pretty close to since we started. He’s been active in the live events. He’s a Discord manager, Discord moderator, has been since long before we even had Discord, and really active in there, and the icing on the cake is that he’s held a consistent weekly on demand consulting calls for people that are stuck at some point in their land investment career, and he’s retiring from his active role as a moderator and a consultant, but certainly not leaving the land business or Land Academy, but geez, what an amazing compliment. Jill and I have arranged for, and we’ll talk about it in a second, a sort of attempt at replacing him, but we’ll talk about it in a minute.
Jill K DeWit:
Is this near and dear to your heart because you’re thinking about doing all these things?
Steven Jack Butala:
No. No, I’m not.
Jill K DeWit:
I thought that’s where you’re going. I’m like-
Steven Jack Butala:
No, I just really like Kevin.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, who doesn’t?
Steven Jack Butala:
And I like his contribution and I think he deserves a-
Jill K DeWit:
We’re going to talk all about that.
Steven Jack Butala:
He deserves an episode.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. I have a lot to say about this, too, and I’m going to, but I thought that maybe that’s why you brought all this up. You’re talking about, boy, that sounds attractive.
Steven Jack Butala:
No.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay, because I’ve had those jobs.
Steven Jack Butala:
No, no, no. The retirement part sounds attractive.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what-
Jill K DeWit:
Yes, it does.
Steven Jack Butala:
There we go.
Jill K DeWit:
There we go. No, no, no. Not that you want to take over and be the moderator and you want to do all the consulting. I know how that goes.
Steven Jack Butala:
Each week on the show, we answer questions from our Land Academy member Discord forum, review land acquisitions from our weekly member webinars, and take a deep dive into two land related topics by popular request. If you want a sneak peek of our Discord forum, go to landacademy.com. It’s free.
Jill K DeWit:
If you would like us to answer your question or would like help getting involved with our community, simply text us at (480) 530-7383. We read all the texts, and your question just might be answered here on our next podcast. Greg wrote, “Okay, folks. I’ve been feeling like it’s pretty slow on the acquisitions, although inventory has been moving, but I’ve been mixing it up and thought, man, not much of a response from my recent mailers. I haven’t gotten a message from PATLive since April 4th, so it’s been about two weeks. I logged into PATLive, checked my detailed bill, and it turns out I’ve had 34 calls since April 4th, and I haven’t received any messages about them. I called PATLive, they can’t find anything wrong and none of their emails are reaching me. So then, I called my web host, which is Bluehost, and they’re claiming they did some maintenance on my DNS server, and maybe this is why they’re not going through. They’re going to try some things, but now I have some catching up to do.” Poor guy. What was your response?
Steven Jack Butala:
I think there’s a deeper rooted issue here, and look, these things happen all the time. Jill and I have owned businesses and owned several businesses now, but geez, I’ve owned some version of a business since the early 90s, and stuff happens all day every day, and the difference between why Jill and I are pretty consistently successful is because we roll with this stuff and laugh about it, which is what I think you’re doing, too. Congratulations. I think you’re doing the right thing. You’re not blowing your top. I’ve seen many, many, many people get incredibly frustrated with all the detail related stuff that goes on in a business, so good for you. I think you handled it great.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, I just feel so bad, and I’m glad you figured it out. The good news is, your mailer was doing its job, the calls are coming in, the people are there. Now you got to circle back around and kind of play catch up a little bit. That’s kind of fun.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what everybody said in Discord. Congratulations. You have 34 potential deals.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. Call them back now and make it happen.
Steven Jack Butala:
And maybe question Bluehost.
Jill K DeWit:
And maybe change your server.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s first topic is why it’s important to surround yourself with successful people like Kevin Farrell. Kevin, like I said earlier, just a few seconds or minutes ago, Kevin’s been with Land Academy since pretty close to the beginning. He’s an active presenter at the live events. He’s a moderator on Discord. He holds paid consulting sessions for our members who may be stuck, and all we get is positive responses from the people who talk to Kevin, and he’s really helped a lot of entrepreneurs move forward in our group in a really successful way, and he came to us retired, as a retired person, and now he needs to just take a step back from a time standpoint about Land Academy. Certainly not, like I said, buying and selling real estate, but as a moderator.
Jill K DeWit:
And the consulting calls. I love Kevin. The thing about it is, Kevin just has a real calm, cool way, and he’s done what we wanted him to do, which is take the Land Academy model and tweak it to what works for him, and then what he’s been doing on the coaching calls is help other people tweak it to what works for them kind of thing, help people figure out their niches and overcome hurdles and things like that. Do not worry. That doesn’t mean coaching is going away. We have a backup plan and we will announce that soon, but we’re just going to be changing. Kevin Farrell will be passing, not the moderator torch, he’ll still be there, too, but passing the consulting torch onto some other individuals, which is going to work out great. Sometimes, too, is somebody going to replace us sometime?
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, sure.
Jill K DeWit:
Now that I think about it, I’m just thinking big picture, it’s not a bad thing.
Steven Jack Butala:
No, it’s great.
Jill K DeWit:
It really is.
Steven Jack Butala:
People retire.
Jill K DeWit:
People retire, people move on, people want to do different things, people want to take breaks. I totally get all that. Life happens. Totally get all that. It makes me think of, we have a lot of members, every year we have a healthy handful of members that life gets a hold of them and they have to shift their focus, and then they come back to Land Academy, which is really kind of cool, so I’m waiting to see how this goes with Kevin because he’ll still be like, he’s still in our community. He’s not going anywhere, but it’d be kind of funny if six months from now he’s like, I miss those calls. Can I do it again? To which we’ll say, heck yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Exactly.
Jill K DeWit:
Bring it. We know you’re still doing deals. It’s hard. This is one of the things about this business, too, is you can dial it up, you can dial it back. I could be retired, and do sort of retired basically, and do one deal a month, make-
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh geez.
Jill K DeWit:
… make a million dollar a year living, supplement my whatever I’ve got going on-
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s a nice supplement.
Jill K DeWit:
… with [inaudible 00:07:48] dollars. Right? Exactly, and do one deal a month so you don’t have to work that hard. I learned this a long time ago when I was just starting with you and learning this business. Back then, there were other, not many, but little investors in our pool, if you will. This was many years ago, 15 or so years ago, and it was interesting. There was times that I talked to these guys, they’re like like, “Yeah, I keep trying to really retire,” but they’re like, I can’t. Even if you think you’re going to turn off your phone in this business and you think you’re going to hang up your hat, the phone’s going to ring. You’re going to have a mailer that you sent 10 years ago and they’re going to call you and you’re going to go, “Well, shoot. I have to do that deal.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
I know that’s going to happen to us and I welcome that. I’m ready for it. Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a look at one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar. Hey, if you don’t know by now, Jill and I own a commercial printing company specifically for sending blind offers to real estate owners. It’s called offers2owners.com. Just recently, we added a product to it called, Concierge Data. A lot of people are not interested any longer in doing their own mailers. They want to sub that out just like they’re subbing a lot of parts of their business out this day and age. Check us out, offers2owners.com. Ask for Aaron. He’ll hook you all up. Let’s take another question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. Again, if you want sneak peek, go to landacademy.com. It’s free.
Jill K DeWit:
Arturo wrote, what percentage of buyers are A) real estate professionals, B) getaway dreamers i.e. a family cabin, C) other buyer types, and what percentage of sellers are A) mom and pop single property owners, B) real estate professionals, C) other seller types? What was the response here? I’m kind of curious what people had to say. Does it matter? Was it, does it matter?
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s the Jill response.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s my response.
Steven Jack Butala:
And actually, I agree with that.
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t know. I’m not going to change anything. I’m a little, I don’t know. I’m not going to market anything differently or do anything differently, so I’m kind of curious why this question came up.
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t know. Honestly, I didn’t look at the responses. I was just massively intrigued by this. Here’s my answer to the first one, what percentage of buyers are real estate pros or getaway dreamers, end users and C) other? It depends on the type of real estate, and we have a tremendous finite amount of control, an infinite amount of control over what type of real estate we buy. Right now in career path, there’s a person buying a specific use and fantastic deal piece of property for 20 plus thousand dollars that’s only zoned for a multifamily, right between two existing very successful apartment buildings. As a percentage, that’s a small percentage of the acquisitions that we would do, and to your second question, who’s going to buy that? Somebody who’s going to build an apartment building. We all know how that’s going to end.
You have a crystal ball on that real estate deal. 95% of the risk is gone. She’s buying it for I think, what, $27,000? It’s probably two, $300,000 piece of property. That’s wholesale, and she knows who’s going to buy it. It’s the people who have developed apartment buildings in that county. Super predictable, super simple stuff. While she didn’t seek out that type of zoning in that mailer, she did what we teach here at Land Academy, and she mailed to everybody, everybody that owns a piece of vacant land for less than 20% of what it’s worth or more, and that’s how it came out. To answer your first question, you have control over buyers. Yeah, that is the buyer. The buyer is, that’s a specific use property. If it was agricultural or geez, recreational, then that’s a much, much wider percentage, but Jill’s right. You throw it on the MLS or in commercial real estate, you know what’s going to happen. As far as sellers go, this is all you.
Jill K DeWit:
Meaning who I’m buying the property from, those sellers? What percentage are mom and pops? It’s all over the… You know what? Honestly, who I’m dealing with, are the mom and pop single property owners, really.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what everybody said.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s the whole thing. That’s why. I’m not reaching out to real estate professionals because that means somebody got there first. That means if my mailer landed in the hand of a real estate agent, I’d say, “Well, have a nice day.” Somebody else got there first. See ya, kind of thing. I don’t want to talk to them. I want to talk directly with the seller, and those people that just own those properties. They may not own single properties. They may have been collecting them over the years and they may have 10, they may have more, interested in maybe all of them, depending what they’ve got.
I guess the whole thing is, I only would care about… There’s two things on this whole question that I care about. One is, when I’m buying property, I care about whose selling it to me and I want to make sure I’m buying it from the owner. Nobody else in the middle of the way, not a wholesaler, not someone holding a contract, not a real estate agent. Nope. They got there first. They’re taking money out of the deal and I’m not interested now. I want to deal right with the sellers. On the sell side, who do I want to sell it to? Darn near anyone.
Steven Jack Butala:
Anybody who’s got the dough.
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t really care. The only thing that I might think about, like you said, is when there’s a really unique property with a specific use, I do want to make sure that myself or whoever’s selling the property for me properly conveys that, and they post it in the right place. The example you gave, it’s a real estate, it’s going to be a developer, it’s going to be somebody that does apartment buildings. Where’s it going to need to be? LoopNet and those kind of environments, and it’s going to need to be with that kind of a commercial broker. I’m not going to call the residential person that says, “I’m just learning land. I’ll sell that for you.”
That’s not the person that’s going to sell it for me. I want to make sure it gets to the right place. Also, if I had a real specific use, like it’s a recreational duck hunting property or something like that, and it’s 40 acres. I want to make sure that whoever’s selling it for me gets it in front of those people, in the right Facebook groups and all of that, where the hunters are because they’re going to want it. Who is doing that, by the way, is probably a mossy oak or whitetail property guy. That’s one of their specialties.
Steven Jack Butala:
When you send a mailer out, Jill’s exactly right, probably 90 plus percent, you’re going to get a man or a woman who say, “Yeah, we’ve owned this property for, it’s mom and pop.” There’s a smaller percentage, obviously, a much smaller percentage of corporate owned properties or it’s an entity other than Jim and Sally Smith. The truth is, after a lot of years of doing this, that sparks a red flag. Why is this company selling it? What happened here? Is there something wrong with it?
It causes us to dig deeper, to find out what’s going on maybe, and maybe it’s like, you know what? I owned this company since 1964 and I have these three properties left in this LLC, in this county, and by the way, here’s the other two. Take a look at them. I’d love to sell it to you because I’m just kind of done. What you don’t want when it’s in an LLC is, oh, I bought this and I found out there’s all these flaws and I can’t use it and I’m just going to dump it on you. That’s what you have to be worried about, and I think that’s what you’re asking here.
Jill K DeWit:
Cool.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s second topic is ongoing term, undoing, excuse me, term sales. That was a freudian slip. Ongoing term sales.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s what they are. Never ending. Oh my goodness.
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t know where to start on this topic. I’m going to ask you to start. You know what? Our group is packed full of people who are recovering still from doing term sales.
Jill K DeWit:
Let me paint the picture. There is a thing, and we have done it in the past, too, so I know of what I speak, that is very attractive to buy a property and instead of selling it quickly for double, you could sell it for three, four times as much by doing seller financing. Let’s just say, I bought a property for $4,000. I could sell it right now for 10 cash, be done, move on, or I could sell it for $19,975 and take, I don’t know, $3,000 down and $250 a month for however many months that is. Very attractive. A lot of this is going with people, the thought process is, wait a minute, Jill. I’m going to quickly get my money back done. I like that, and then I’m going to get two 50 a month and I don’t have to do anything.
It’s just passive income. That’s the term. Well, Jill, if I have 10 of those, now I’ve got $2,500 a month, I have a hundred, I have, do the math. That much money a month, passive income. Again, we have done this. It’s never really passive income. If you think that every single person, or even if you think that 90 to a hundred percent of these people are going to have no issues, they’re going to pay on time, they’re going to set up a payment system with you, it’s autopay and you’re just going to walk away and spend your time on the golf course, you got another thing coming because it doesn’t go that way. It’s a different buyer.
There’s two things that happen. One is, A) you’re not going to get your money back fast. Sure, I got my initial investment back, but I can’t put that into something else right away, so that’s going to kind of slow me down, making a million bucks. Making a million bucks at 250 a month, takes a long time versus cash, and then doubling that and doubling that and doubling that. Okay, and we’ll get to that in a minute, so that’s the one problem. And then two, it’s these buyers that you’re working with, it’s a different person, it’s a different mindset, that can only afford 250 a month, and sometimes things happen. They lose their job, their paycheck changes, they get a new job.
Steven Jack Butala:
They lose interest.
Jill K DeWit:
They lose interest, they forget, they don’t want it anymore. Stuff happens. Here you are with this property that hopefully, you didn’t record any kind of major thing that you have to undo, and there’s a right way to do it and a wrong way to do it, and that’s not what this is about, but hopefully you can easily turn around and resell the property, but before you even do that, if you’re like me, you’re going to try to chase this person and try to help them out, get them back on track, because you don’t want to undo this. I feel bad. They’re $7,000 in and I don’t want to have to redo all this. Anyway, I always try to help them out. You can see where I’m going here. The people that have really taken this to the next level, like you before me, always have a staff of people to manage these payments, manage the customers, make sure it goes through smoothly. It’s never that easy.
What’s happened now is, people have, and like I said, we have done this and realized too, wait a minute, what am I doing? This doesn’t make any sense. The reason you would do term sales and take a step back is, let me paint this picture. You buy for four. Remember, I started with four grand, and let’s just be easy. I’ll buy for four, I sell for eight. I do it again. This time I buy for eight, I sell for 16. I buy for 16. I sell for 32. Maybe even then, I start splitting them up and do a couple 16s, 32, before I know it, in six months, I could be looking at $100,000.
Steven Jack Butala:
Hundreds.
Jill K DeWit:
Very easy.
Steven Jack Butala:
Hundreds.
Jill K DeWit:
Even more than that. I’m being so conservative, it’s not even funny. In six months, you could have $100,000 in your bank, which you would not have at 250 a month, by the way, starting with four grand. And then you go, oh, and then you can start making different decisions. You can easily, and then just keep going up from there. You could split off and go, hey, I like this size. I like buying for 20 and selling for 50. That’s a great market for me. It’s really easy to work with. I do one of those a week. Think about that. Now you’re making 120 a month with those numbers, selling one property a week. Am I really worried about these term sales? I’m way past what I can do, and I screw one month. I only sell two this month and I sell three next month. So what? I still made more than $50,000 a month not working that hard and not having to babysit anybody.
These deals are done. You buy it, you sell it, it’s done. What we’re talking about undoing these term sales is, I want you to think about them and let you know if you’re in this situation, you didn’t do anything wrong. I think it’s great that you learned that by the way. You have learned so much, and I appreciate how… You taught me how to do this a long time ago. I really appreciate that knowledge in getting to know that and understand those customers, and we don’t do that anymore. We’ve moved on and there’s a lot of people in Land Academy that have come and continue to come to us from those situations because they’re kind of stuck there. You kind of go, all right, I’m at $25,000 a month. It’s not passive by any means. I need to do more and I don’t want to take on another 25,000 this way. I don’t have the bandwidth. A lot of people come to us to help undo this and make some changes. Now, I’m happy to talk about how to undo this. Do you want me to continue or you want to jump in?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, let me intervene and then you can end on that.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
Undoing it is by joining Land Academy.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s deconstruct both of these business models. There’s a cash model and the terms model. There’s some very key similarities to both of these models. You got to buy a piece of real estate cheap. You learn how to, in both models, from any source on the internet or anybody who’s done it several times, how to buy inexpensive property, inexpensive land. That’s your job, on the cash side and on the term side. You send out a bunch of mailers, you understand that process. You utilize the power of the mail and you buy a piece of real estate. In both cases, what you end up doing with that real estate and your involvement in general on the cash business model, which is the Land Academy model is over. You’re onto buying the next deal.
Why? Because you spend a couple hours finding a really qualified real estate agent and you shove that deal off to that person, especially if you’re in Land Academy Pro where our people literally handle the deal for you, get it done, and kind of take it from there within a reason. I’m oversimplifying, but what you become within the cash model is an acquisition expert. Now, think about what happens in the terms sale model. Congratulations, you bought a great piece of real estate. It’s closed and you own it. Now, if you own a collections company or a note servicing company, you are crazy qualified for what’s about to happen in that deal because you know how to service notes already, you know how collections goes, you got to get on the phone, you have to do all kinds of stuff.
You become inadvertently, doing four or five things that you have to be great at on term sales or get the people around you after you make $25,000 a month or whatever it all adds up to, to take that crap off of your back, so that you can actually go do what really matters, which is buy cheap real estate, undervalued real estate. You have to ask yourself, what do you want? Do you want all this responsibility or do you just want to be really good at buying undervalued land, and then outsourcing it off to real estate agents or whomever to get the deal closed and make a ton of money? It’s going to take you years, years and years and years to make a hundred thousand dollars a month in term sales, if it ever happens at all.
In fact, it wouldn’t. I would’ve quit because it’s grueling to deal with these people, and you have the recension rate and the default rate on term sales is insane. I’ve heard 50%, but when we were doing it, it was closer to 90%, and then you got to resell a property. Some people’s, that’s their business model because they want to own every piece of land that they’ve ever purchased perpetually and forever, and if that’s your business model, then you should learn how to do term sales. What Jill and I prefer to do is buy one or two or three properties a month, maybe sometimes as many as 10, make 50 to $80,000 a property, in many cases, much more than that, and it’s not hard to do the math. You buy five pieces of property, and make $55,000 net. That’s a quarter of a million dollars a month times 10 months. That’s two and a half to $3 million a year. You choose which one you want. How do you undo it, Jill?
Jill K DeWit:
Well, you choose. You know what I choose? I choose getting wealthy faster.
Steven Jack Butala:
I choose [inaudible 00:26:24]. Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
And not working that hard.
Steven Jack Butala:
You know what I forget?
Jill K DeWit:
It’s just two things.
Steven Jack Butala:
You know what I forgot, too, is that it costs the same amount to buy these pieces of property, so from a cash requirement standpoint, you’re still buying a property for 10 grand and then you want it back $250 a month at a time, or you want to go and sell it for 25,000 immediately.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, hold on. What if I have limited funds. I can only afford to buy one at a time.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s it.
Jill K DeWit:
I got to wait to save up to buy a second one, versus if I turn around and sell it, now I can buy two, and I sell that. Now I can buy four.
Steven Jack Butala:
Listen, there’s nothing that makes sense about term sales.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Unless you own a collection agency. I’m not selling you anything here. It doesn’t make sense.
Jill K DeWit:
Here’s what you do to undo it. You know what, the first thing I do? Again, been there, done that. I’ve called every single person that I had and said, how much money do you have? Not kidding. Total truth time here. I called every single person on payments and said, we’re going to make a deal.
Steven Jack Butala:
Stop the madness.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, let’s get this done. How much do you have?
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill, that’s brilliant. I forgot you did that.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, I did. I called him, and I’m like, “This is your lucky day. I know you think you owe me 9,000 on this, but you don’t.”
Steven Jack Butala:
How’s a thousand sound?
Jill K DeWit:
Do you have four? It was something like that.
Steven Jack Butala:
I do remember you doing that.
Jill K DeWit:
Yep.
Steven Jack Butala:
And we were both really on the same page about that-
Jill K DeWit:
Oh yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Like, just stop it.
Jill K DeWit:
I know. It was-
Steven Jack Butala:
We were buying all these deals-
Jill K DeWit:
Who cares?
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s like, we could sell this property for 14 grand.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, we long got our initial investment back kind of thing. So I’m like, I don’t really care, and they were thrilled and I was thrilled. I just wanted to give it forward and just say, move on. You know what? It was a great way too, to quickly have a lot of cash, so think about this one. If you do this, you’ve got all these properties out there, you call every single person, you got 10 even. Let’s just say you got 10 of them, and you call all these people and you cut them a deal and that averages $2,500 and they’re out. You just got 25,000 bucks and what could I do with 25,000? Watch me.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yep. I’ll buy it into a quarter mill.
Jill K DeWit:
I’ll buy one for $25,000 to sell it for 75 in 30 days. Now, I got 75. You’re like, oh, I hear you. Now, I don’t really care about these terms. That’s what you do. And then, do two of them. Now, I got 150. Next. You see where I’m going.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s our whole business model.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. Call them up and undo it. My other thing would be, that’s the best thing. You could like, oh, I’m going to sell them to somebody else and give them the notes and everything. I don’t even want to go there. That’s just, I don’t know. I don’t know if you’re really helping that person. I think the nice thing is to cut a deal with all these sellers or all these buyers, actually. These are your buyers, and get all the cash you can and do it the Land Academy way.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yep. Let’s take a look at another one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar. Jill, you have something inspirational to share?
Jill K DeWit:
I’m sitting here thinking about just people that can’t seem to get off, they can’t seem to S-H-I blank or get off the pot, and I see it in Facebook so much. I see very vocal people that talk about big things and big goals, but they’re not doing it, and I’m sitting here going, what’s going on here? They’re all into the action, not even the action. They’re into the preparation part of it and they’re not taking any action. Sorry, I’m a little distracted here.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m getting ready for my talk.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay, thank you. Let me know when you’re ready and I’ll have mine. Thank you. Let me back up, but totally threw me off.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s my fault, sorry.
Jill K DeWit:
I just couldn’t do… With all the flashing, I get a little-
Steven Jack Butala:
Sorry.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay, my inspiration is, my line is a thousand books does not replace taking action. I see a lot of people really vocal in Facebook, Instagram, whatever, all over social media that have a lot of stuff to say, and they’re talking about, you should do this, you should do that, you should do this, and they have a thousand books, a hundred maybe a thousand books, so much hours and time under their belts of reading and preparing and talking and giving speeches, but they’re not actually doing anything. It’s frustrating to me and I’m trying to figure out, and I want to have this conversation with you for a few minutes.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
Because I’m struggling. I’m not that way.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, let’s start with how you are.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. Well, one of the things I love, and I put that quote in here, which is, we have a person right now in a career path who, his saying is, “Watch, I’ll do it Jill and Jack. I’ll do it. I’m really good at fixing things while I’m pedaling the bike.” I’m like, that’s really good. That’s kind of how I do it. I’m like, you know what? I’m just going to figure it out. I’m going to do it and I’m going to figure it out. I might make a mistake, so what? I’ll fix it, but if I don’t take any action, I don’t get started anywhere, then nothing’s getting done, and that’s what I see these people doing and I’m frustrated. To answer your question, I’m not that person. I read books later on. You know what’s funny? I find myself reading books confirming like, oh, I did well on that one. Oh, I sucked on that, but it’s way after the fact. Like, oh, note for next time. I’ll handle that situation differently, but I’m just going to just run with it.
Someone says, here are a thousand raffle tickets, “Jill, go sell them.” All right. I don’t even know what they’re for. I’m going to figure that out in the car, wherever I’m going to think where I can find a thousand people who can afford whatever these raffle tickets are. You know what? I’m probably in the car on the way to the mall. I’ll tell you right now, and on the way to the mall, I’m going, what are these anyway? And how much are they? What have I got to sell? Like, ooh, I got to, okay. They’re expensive. I’m going to stand in front of Nordstrom, or something like that. As silly as it sounds, I’m going to be on my way doing it, seeing myself doing it, and just standing up there and winging it. But I’m taking action. I’m frustrated because I see people book calls to do what we do and people will show up on member calls. I see people asking great questions, but they’re not diving in.
Steven Jack Butala:
I have long said that you are underutilized. Your talent is… We have a great life. We make a ton of money, way more money than I ever thought I would ever make, ever, and a lot faster, and it continues to get greater, but that’s in mind. I have long said that you are underutilized here.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Your talent, your liquid raw talent to what you just described. I know you would go to a mall and sell a thousand tickets to something. I just know that’s who you are, which leads me to this point. We all went to school at one point. Some of us went to college, and what you get back, I don’t know why this is, I’ll never understand, but the feedback that you get in high school and college from instructors and administrators is, “Well, it looks like you’re pretty good at math, but you suck at this thing over here, so you need to try harder,” and to which I respond now in my 50s, I didn’t respond this way then.
“That doesn’t make sense to me. Shakespeare doesn’t make sense.” “Yeah, well, you’re not trying hard enough and you need to get back in there and you need to get an A.” “Why? Why do I need to get an A? It doesn’t make sense to me. Physics is, yeah, I get it, but I don’t care. I’m applying a reason here and I’m applying logic and I’m applying what makes sense to me and this thing in math and computers really makes sense to me.” “Yeah, yeah, but you got a C in gym, and by the way, you’re the first person who got a C in gym in the history of all academia. There’s something wrong with you.” We’re hardwired to deal with that. To which I say, malarkey.
I don’t believe. I think that’s awful, and I think that you need to, people. This is why Jill and I start every career path with a personality test, and we all know what we’re good at and what we suck at and what we want to do and what we don’t want to do. What Jill wants to do, for whatever reason, is what she describes. Who knows? I don’t know why, and her personality tests all reflect that. What I want to do is analyze data, get really wealthy, and I want it to all make sense and have a good life. Is that so bad, third grade teacher? Yep, I don’t want to ever talk about Shakespeare again or any of that. I don’t know where this came from, this common British type education where in air quotes, oh, now you’re educated because you can quote Shakespeare even though you don’t care about it.
I think it’s some version of that’s still left over. When common sense doesn’t apply, there’s no amount of books that are going to help you take action. That said, you need a source of inspiration. Maybe it’s Land Academy. Everybody needs a source of inspiration for us to get off of our butts and to actually do something, or maybe in the back of your head, you just know you’re never going to do anything anyway, you just like being involved in a group like Land Academy and listening to other people do really well at it and it gives you hope. That’s fine. As long as you’re standing in the mirror saying, yep, this is it. This is what I want.
Jill K DeWit:
You’re accepting of it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yes.
Jill K DeWit:
You’re accepting of it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yourself, not your wife.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. I don’t take that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Not your kids. I know you don’t.
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t like, no, I wouldn’t. I won’t accept that.
Steven Jack Butala:
You don’t-
Jill K DeWit:
I’m going to make you do it.
Steven Jack Butala:
You only accept peak performance out of me, and you only accept it out of yourself, and largely, not so much-
Jill K DeWit:
It’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
… to a much lesser degree, out of our kids. What I hear you saying is, you’re applying that now to mostly Land Academy members, which I love. It’s one of things I love about you.
Jill K DeWit:
I have trouble with this.
Steven Jack Butala:
I know. I love that about you.
Jill K DeWit:
You came to me and said, “Do you want to get rich? Well, I’m going to push you to do it, doggonit.” If you’re listening and this is you, you need to do it, doggonit.
Steven Jack Butala:
Books don’t help.
Jill K DeWit:
They don’t.
Steven Jack Butala:
No, and if you’re not a linear thinker, by the time you’re 40, you’re not going to learn to be a linear thinker. If you’re not a ultra organized peep. Jill and I walk around the house right now, and we’re getting ready for a four-month RV trip, and we laugh and joke with each other and high five each other about how organized we are. She’s got stuff to do, I’ve got stuff to do, and we’re in our element pairing down the crap that we’re going to bring and buying GPS units or whatever she does to make herself happy to have a fun trip, and we’re ultra organized. It’s a contest almost. We haven’t said it that way, but that’s what it is. I don’t care what you do or where you get your inspiration, just be honest with yourself about it.
Jill K DeWit:
Whoever brings the least amount of crap wins.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yes.
Jill K DeWit:
Right now, it’s me.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yes, it’s true. Well, I have all this freaking audio video equipment on my side.
Jill K DeWit:
Wait a minute. His is all like, he’s got, but mine’s like, mine fits in my purse. That’s what’s so funny.
Steven Jack Butala:
And when the stuff she pulls out of her purse doesn’t work, guess who is responsible for making sure we do the Thursday call?
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t know. Last time I did a live thing on my cell phone, it didn’t go too bad, but yeah, you’re good. This is awesome. Thank you. That was really good.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m going to finish on this.
Jill K DeWit:
Good stuff to say about that.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m going to finish on this.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
You will never, ever reach your potential if you can’t get over failing at stuff.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think it’s the funniest thing in the world when I spill a glass of milk. Jill, not so much, but it’s not to an unhealthy level. I think when a checkout clerk screams at you for some reason that you didn’t do anything wrong, my first and only real reaction is to laugh and say, “Okay, well I hope you have a better day.”
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
Or if I did something wrong to upset you, how about I undo it right now?
Jill K DeWit:
There you go.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s all. And you have to run your business like that.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. Jack, do you have something manplan.com ish you’d like to share?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yes. ManPlan. manplan.com is a company I’ve been writing for my whole life and preparing for. It’s really just like this at the end of these episodes where we talk about life and how to accomplish your goals. In a lot of cases, I think a lot of men, a lot of people, but in particular a lot of young men want to get rich, and ManPlan is to tell you how to do that and keep a happy woman and all the other stuff that your dad probably never really sat you down and talked about.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, I’m listening now.
Steven Jack Butala:
My topic today is money habits that keep you poor. I’m going to start off with a run through this list. Number one, you have no spending discipline. I don’t even need to follow that up.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Number two, you have lack of earning power. In this eight unit list, this is my favorite. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of Suze Orman. She kind of gets up on stage. I think she’s retired now. She’s older than me, gets on stage and says, after listening to many people’s woes about passive investing and Wall Street products and I can’t afford this and we want to buy a new house and we can’t do it, her answer often is, “Sounds like you don’t make enough money. That’s a huge problem.” My dad never told me that. My dad never said, yeah, you suck at this. You should go make more money. He said, “That’s life. Figure it out.” Lack of work discipline. We were just talking about that. You have to have a calendar. I don’t care what you do. I don’t care if you’re a surgeon, a plumber, or a mother of two. You have to have a calendar. Moms have badass calendars most of the time.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’ve noticed.
Jill K DeWit:
Very badass calendars. Exactly. It’s the only way we can keep our heads above water.
Steven Jack Butala:
Lack of financial literacy. That’s a whole chapter in my ManPlan program. Financial literacy is not something we get anywhere. We don’t get it in high school. Home economics, which I’m sure they don’t have anymore. I took home economics.
Jill K DeWit:
I loved home-
Steven Jack Butala:
Did you?
Jill K DeWit:
Yep.
Steven Jack Butala:
They teach you hot to bake.
Jill K DeWit:
Learn you how to write a check.
Steven Jack Butala:
Write a check and keep a budget.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
And the budget module is maybe half of one sit-down day, half of an hour, but at least it’s something. I went through all kinds of formal education, accounting, accounting education, and no one ever said, this is how your personal budget should go.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
And this is how much you can afford… If your paycheck is X, this is how much house you can afford. What you do here, splattered all over the internet is, there’s no affordable housing, which what they’re really saying is, there’s no affordable housing for you. Why? Because you don’t make enough money. You’re not cool enough. Number five, you’re not paying yourself first. You know who gets paid before you? The federal and state government, right out of that paycheck. Is that what you want? It’s not what I want. Impulsive buying. I’ve never suffered from this. Have you?
Jill K DeWit:
Having that be a problem?
Steven Jack Butala:
Going and buying a Corvette on a Sunday because you’re bored.
Jill K DeWit:
No. Well, not when I couldn’t afford it. No, but big picture wise, no.
Steven Jack Butala:
Number seven is my second favorite. Second to lack of earning power. You don’t make enough money. Number seven is, broke people are influencing you, so you’re hanging around with people who are broke and crying poor and have all kinds of issues. That’s not what happens here at Land Academy.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t know how long we’ve been doing this. Geez, it’s almost 10 years with Land Academy. I’ve never once heard somebody stand up and be real loud about, I just don’t have enough money. I don’t know how to do this, but in my personal life, when all growing up, it’s all you ever hear is, yeah, I don’t have any money, so I can’t go with you guys. It’s Friday night, I know. Crying poor is not good. You’re hanging around with the wrong people. Number eight, and we’re all victims of this, and it’s unfortunate because you can’t really get ahead without it.
You’re selling your time for money and it’s your only income. That’s a fancy way of saying you have a W2 job, you make 82 and a half thousand dollars a year. You pay rent. You live with a couple of stinky people and you’re selling your time for money and you’re looking around constantly saying, I got to get out of this and I just don’t know how. We’ve all been there. That’s what Land Academy is. The first step to changing anything is to realize what’s going on around you and then want to change it, and habits are bad. Habits work both ways, and you want good habits, not bad ones.
Jill K DeWit:
I love it. That was awesome. Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
She says that, but she wasn’t listening to a darn thing.
Jill K DeWit:
I listened to the whole-
Steven Jack Butala:
If you’re watching this-
Jill K DeWit:
… thing.
Steven Jack Butala:
She’s completely doing something else.
Jill K DeWit:
No, I’m not. I was listening to the whole thing. Hey, don’t forget, you can reach us for questions and for help by texting (480) 530-7383.
Steven Jack Butala:
Join us next Wednesday for another interesting episode. You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill K DeWit:
We are Jack and Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
We are Jack and Jill. Information.
Jill K DeWit:
And Inspiration.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s by undervalued property.
https://youtu.be/LFWB1_qLO_0
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Join Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit in episode 1,953 of the Land Academy Show, where they discuss adjusting purchase prices with sellers on the phone and the importance of deciding who to call back. They also share their experiences operating a land business while traveling and the freedom it offers. If you’re interested in learning more, visit landacademy.com for a sneak peek into the Land Academy Discord community. Have a question or need assistance? Text them at (480) 530-7383, and they’ll read and answer selected questions on upcoming podcast episodes.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit. And this is the Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is episode number 1,953, believe it or not, and today, we are talking about how to adjust the purchase price with the sellers right when you’re on the phone with them and then a little later on we’re going to talk about deciding who to call back. Sellers-
Jill K DeWit:
Sounds like the Jill Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
It is. This is the Jill Show today.
Jill K DeWit:
These topics came about this week from Career Path. Hey, by the way, in case you can’t tell, we’re back in town. Yay. We’re back in Arizona right now, and it’s so good because sometimes life’s just easier. Some things are easier, especially during Career Path time. It’s easier to be home. We put so much energy into that. We’re really focused and it’s so nice being at my own desk.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s a lot easier to pull off Land Academy with an internet connection.
Jill K DeWit:
There is that. But it’s funny, I’m going to say it again on the record, is, doing my land business from the road, piece of cake. That’s no problem. It’s the Land Academy part and the video content and all that stuff that we’re doing that that makes it easier with really good internet. So, I don’t want to worry you and have you think that you can’t just get in an RV and have a great land life. And I was thinking about that-
Steven Jack Butala:
Or both.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, hold on a moment. I want us talk about this for a second, please. You’re moving me along. You’ve got somewhere to go?
Steven Jack Butala:
No.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. So, I was thinking about this-
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, of course I do.
Jill K DeWit:
…this morning, about just operating land business from the road at the volume of the deals that we do and the income that we make from the land company is so flipping easy to do on the road. I could do it anywhere. Especially now, where we have other people answering the phone. I’m only reviewing the deals a couple times a week. I sit down, do my deal review, and that’s it. It’s so nice.
And then my team, I say, yes, no, find this out, don’t like this price, whatever it is. And then, I go back to… This is after about 20 to 30 minutes, and then I go to you and go, “Okay, great. Let’s go water-rafting now or let’s get on our bikes now.” We can do that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yep.
Jill K DeWit:
So, I just want you to know what’s possible, and you could do it too.
Steven Jack Butala:
We have people, and I don’t-
Jill K DeWit:
I need to grab-
Steven Jack Butala:
…like to brag like this or-
Jill K DeWit:
Can you carry me while I grab a Kleenex?
Steven Jack Butala:
Sure.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
We have multiple people reporting that they are in a very healthy way leaving their jobs or their spouses are leaving their jobs, now more than ever, for some reason. And I’m not trying to sell anything here. It’s a moment of triumph for Jill and I because I still remember the first time I- Well, the only time I left my job to do this full-time, and so does Jill. And when people are inspired by the fact that Jill and I are in some three month RV trip buying and selling land and it sparks them to send out more mail and ultimately quit their job or accomplish whatever it is that they’re trying to accomplish by being an independent land investor, it’s a trophy for us. It’s a trophy moment.
Jill K DeWit:
I agree.
Steven Jack Butala:
Not that we matter, what matters is you, but it really is a pat on the back for us. And it’s an inspirational for us to continue to do this.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s true. You matter to me. You do matter.
Steven Jack Butala:
The next few minutes I do.
Jill K DeWit:
You are important.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’ll see how it goes in the next two hours.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
Each week, we answer questions from our Land Academy Discord forum, review land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar, and take a deep dive into two land related topics that are by popular request. If you have a question and you’d like us to answer it on air or you need help getting involved with our community, text us at (480) 530-7383. We read all of the texts we get and if we like the question, we’ll answer it right live on this podcast.
Jill K DeWit:
Yep.
Steven Jack Butala:
Now let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. If you want a sneak peek and you’re not a member, go to landacademy.com. It’s free. But first, let’s listen to a Land Academy member, Lacy’s, recent success story.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. So this could either come from Discord or come from texting, by the way. So I just closed another deal. Buy for $48,000, sold for $90,000.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s why we’re here.
Jill K DeWit:
Love it. The buyer spotted the broker putting up a for sale sign in front of the property and wanted to buy it right away. There was an issue with some squatters on the property, which caused the deal to get pushed back a week. This was also my first time working with a Land Academy funder and it was a great experience. The broker was really happy working with me and he offered me another great deal. I’m excited to close more deals. Yay.
Do you want me to read this too?
Steven Jack Butala:
Sure.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. So Kevin, our moderator, wrote some follow up. He’s like-
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, this is the question now.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, excuse me. I’m sorry. Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
That was just a independent isolated celebration. Sorry.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, okay. Now we’ve got a real question. Is it from Kevin, our moderator?
Steven Jack Butala:
No.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s from Kevin, our former career path attendee. Kevin the pharmacist, I think.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay, cool. All right. So Kevin wrote, “Hi. So, I’ve got this potential deal where the owner wants to sell three parcels, however, one of them isn’t connected to the others anymore and is landlocked. It’s cut off by a railroad and a highway on the other side. Essentially useless property. Seller wants to get rid of all three parcels. I’m sure I had all assigned a $0 value to the landlocked one, but I would still have to deal with possessing it. And what’s the-
Steven Jack Butala:
I love multi APN deals-
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
… as much as Jill does.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
What you’re about to do is get a free property, because the seller knows that too. So, in fact, we just reviewed yesterday, on the Thursday call, somebody who had, I don’t know, I think it was in Oklahoma, eight or nine APNs for $2,500 each. Craig, he’s probably going to make a couple hundred thousand dollars in the entire deal. Here’s the beauty of multi APN deals. You’re going to deal with one seller, if they’re all in the same county. You’re going to deal with one Escrow and one deed. So you’re going to buy all these properties, these APNs, in one swooping transaction, and then, you’re going to take your time selling them. Very, very often, what ends up happening is the entire cost of the deal, you recoup on the first sale. And now, so now you’ve got the multiple APNs that are sitting in your inventory with zero cost associated with them. So, it’s all profit, which tells me to slam them into bucket two, because now, instead of selling them for wholesale value, a lower than retail value, I’ll sell them for maybe retail, maybe slightly above retail, depending on the market and the properties and all of that. Because I don’t care if it takes a year. I’ve made all my money back. I don’t believe the concept of useless property-
Jill K DeWit:
There’s no such thing.
Steven Jack Butala:
… is exists.
Jill K DeWit:
I agree with that. There’s no useless property.
Steven Jack Butala:
And I kept this in here for that reason. All property has some value. We have many, many, many case studies, both from Land Academy members and Jill and I, where we will take an accessless property and create it, whether we do it through easements, other properties, or whatever. So-
Jill K DeWit:
You sell it to the person, the neighbor. It’s funny, we’re like, well wait a minute. It has access, cause there’s a highway. Well, it’s probably got a highway with a guard rail and that kind of a thing. Just because your property’s next to a highway doesn’t mean you can just carve out a driveway. Could you imagine the freeway going through town and there’s just one driveway. They don’t let you do that. That’s the whole point here. It’s funny.
Steven Jack Butala:
So no, I don’t think it’s useless at all.
Jill K DeWit:
No.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think there’s, again, we have case studies of people selling accessless property very profitably. I built this company before Jill was involved buying and selling land in the desert without access, and knowing that and disclosing it.
Jill K DeWit:
I would love to hear one county, if you could find one, that would say, “Nope, we’re not going to let you have access to your property. No.” That’s the bottom line nowadays. You may have to go to court to do it. Somebody may have to go to court to do it, not you, but it’s possible to get access. Just no one’s going to say, “Nope, got to buy a helicopter,” kind of thing. It’s not going to happen.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is a great question. My final comment is, always ask your seller if they have any more property they want to sell.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill works that into every conversation with the seller. They received an offer for one of the properties that they have. They might have 20 properties, maybe they want to sell it out to you if they like you.
Jill K DeWit:
What’s interesting is sometimes, people don’t even realize that. The sellers don’t know. Like, “Oh, well I have this one, too. Would you even be interested? It’s like two states over, and it’s a lot bigger.”
I’d be like, “Yeah, what is it?” So, you don’t know until you ask.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill’s first topic today is called-
Jill K DeWit:
Our first topic today.
Steven Jack Butala:
… How to adjust the purchase price with the sellers running the phone.
Jill K DeWit:
So, let me explain the situation here. So, you did everything that we told you to do. You really did a really good job trawling for an area. You have a really good price picked out. You spent your time doing the red, yellow, green test to make sure that you’re picking a good area, and then you download the data and you scrubbed it great, and you spent your time pricing it, and the mail goes out, and you even tested for a reason. Let me go back here, too. You did everything right. You tested for a reason, which is before you hit the final button, you know, that the mail goes out. You’re spot checking and saying, “All right, if this one came back, would I buy it at that price?” And the answer was yes.
So, the seller calls you back. Well, there’s two situations. A seller calls you back, you look at the property, and you realize you could’ve either, “Oh shoot, this one’s too high or this one’s too low,” because you uncovered something. And it doesn’t mean you did anything wrong, at all, but there’s just times that you’re like, “Ah, darn, I wouldn’t pay this much for this one.” Because are you going to sit and go through? You’re sending out 4,000 units, let’s just two, because you’re doing it right there. Are you going to sit and go through and spot check every single flip in one? Nope. And I don’t want you to, but there’s times when things come back and you’re like, “Shoot, I need to adjust it down,” or, “Maybe I need to adjust it up.” Things come up.
So first of all, when you’re adding money, that’s easy. So, let me give you a scenario. So, the call comes back. The seller says, “Okay, you’re nuts.”
And you’re like, “Yeah, I know. I’m used to this. I’m ready for it. They don’t like my price.” But maybe there’s a valid reason.
They’re like, “No, no, no, you don’t understand. Here’s what’s going on in this area.” All right, tell me more. And usually, you’re going to find this out in the first handful of calls that are coming in, when you get a lot of people that are like, “You don’t know what’s going on.” I want you to pay attention to those. And if you have Pat Live or somebody else that’s answering the phone for you, but they’re like, “I want to sell, but not your price.” I hope you’re calling those back, I want you to call those back, and still find out what’s going on. So, you’re not missing it by you not capturing that first phone call.
If you are taking your own calls, you’ll get it. Or, when you’re calling back, you will uncover this. So, what will happen is, they’ll tell you that, “We just all got rezoned for fill in the blank, and now our properties are suddenly worth more money. Now we’re all allowed to have a horse property or agriculture or this situation.” Who knows what it is.
Steven Jack Butala:
Something changed.
Jill K DeWit:
Fill in the blank. Exactly. Or, it could even be something like, do you know who just moved in down the street? Or who is coming to our town? Or what’s happening in our town? We are now getting a college. We are now getting something like that. You’re like, “Okay, I need to know that.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Or freeway’s coming in.
Jill K DeWit:
Right! Or something like that. So, I love these situations because it’s so easy to add money. When you know this and you find this out, you’re like, “Oh, that’s a no-brainer, let’s talk about this.” And then, you do your due diligence, everything like you normally do, and now you’re going, “All right, now I’m paying, instead of paying $8,000, I’m giving the guy 18, because I thought it was going to be buy for eight, sell for 30, but it’s going to be, buy for 18 and sell for 60. That’s going on.”
So, I love those. And that’s how you adjust that situation. Those are easy, those are fun. Everybody loves getting more money.
Steven Jack Butala:
Everybody wins.
Jill K DeWit:
You’re excited. It’s great. And now, by the way, I hope what you’re doing this too, you now know what’s going on in that area. You have inside information, and I hope that while you’re doing all this, you were going, “All right, we need to download all the data. I only did up to 10 acres. Now I need to go up to 20 acres and I need to go to 40 acres because I’m going to kill it in this town.” So, that’s how that goes.
So, what happens in the other situation? Which happens. I don’t want you to go, “Well, I goofed,” and walk away. The other situation is, the call comes in, either you get it, or you realize when you’re looking at the property, about to call them back. Either way, you look over here doing your due diligence. You’re like, “Shoot, I offered eight. I really wish I offered three. How am I going to tell this guy I only want it for three? I still want it, but I only want it for three.”
So how do you know this, Jill? What are you talking about? Well, you offered $8,000 for all these 10 acre properties, whatever it is in this area, and you got a few that came back and they’re all excited, by the way, and they’re ready to sell. And you’re like, “Oh, home run.” And you go, “Shoot. Now I know why they’re excited. I over-offered on a handful of these.” Which could happen. Again, you can’t know that. It’s not perfect. But, being good on the phone, you can solve a lot of stuff and still get these deals. And yeah, it’s harder, and yeah, you got to practice, but you can do it.
So, here’s what I want you to do. The situation is again, they called back. $8,000. You look at it and go, “Shucks, it’s further from the town. It’s a dirt road. It’s not paved. Power is really far away.” Whatever it is, there’s not as much going on in this little part of the county or this zip code as that one, but I still like the property. It has all the As, except for the price, right? That’s the last piece. So, you need to adjust the price.
So, this is where I want you to call the seller back. And you do this, you’re either on the phone uncovering it, or, if you’re really, really, really, really good and experienced and know the area like the back of your hand, or you’re doing that after you did your due diligence. The call came in, they said, “Done, we’re going to sell this to you.” And you go back. Now you sit down and really look at it and you’re trying to find something wrong with it, and you didn’t cover, the price was wrong. So, you need to go back and say, “Here’s the deal.” And what I want you to do is give him two reasons, not 30. So, we’re going to call him back and go, “Hi Mr. Smith, nice to talk to you again. We talked yesterday about your property. Here’s the scoop.”
And talk to him like it’s your best friend. It’s like your brother. That’s how I do it. I went and looked at this a little bit further. I called the county. I checked a couple things out. I thought it had A and I thought it was closer to B, whatever it is. And saying, “Because of that, I still really want the property. I want you to know, I still like it, I’m not killing the deal. Because right now, their first thought is, “Shoot, they don’t even want to buy my property now.” But you’re doing this because you do want the property. Don’t do this on every one. Do it when you really still want the property, but it’s just the price. Say, “I still like the property, I can still make it work for me.”
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s great advice.
Jill K DeWit:
But-
Steven Jack Butala:
Make sure you want the property first.
Jill K DeWit:
Make sure you want the property. Don’t just call everybody. Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
You should be saying something to yourself, like, “Love the property, not so hot on the price.”
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Love the property. It’s got all the six As. Really don’t want it at $33,000 at 28 or 22 or 20 or 19-
Jill K DeWit:
Or 10.
Steven Jack Butala:
Works great for me.
Jill K DeWit:
And it could be a crazy number. I’ve done some crazy numbers that, like, “Shoot, I really like it, but the only way I can make it work is that, fill in the blank, 30 became 10.” And that’s a hard conversation. But, like I said, so you call him up, Mr. Smith, calmly, nicely, professionally, respectfully. Say, look, “this is the number that works for me. I know I offered you 30, but again, it doesn’t have this and it’s not nearby this. So, because of that, the number that makes sense to me now is 10. If that works for you, great. I will open Escrow immediately. You will get a call from my team in the morning and we’ll get this done quick, kind of thing. And let it sit for a minute. Let them think, let it marinate, let them whatever. Usually, you’re going to get two responses. Well, there’s three. One is, are you flipping kidding me?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. It’s the same response that you would get from a woman on a first approach.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Go pound sand.
Jill K DeWit:
Are you flipping kidding me? You want me to go to dinner with you, dressed like that?
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s number one. That’s the usual for me.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, we’ll go to dating, then we’ll get back to this. And then, the other one is, “Eh, maybe I see potential. If we get him a haircut and maybe get some new shoes, maybe we can work with this.”
Steven Jack Butala:
So she’s already trying to change her man.
Jill K DeWit:
No-
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what happens with women.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. That’s what happens. And then number three is-
Steven Jack Butala:
I can work with this maybe.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, and number three is, “I’m so hungry. I haven’t had a date in 90 days. Hell yes. I don’t care what happens. I’m just going to get a free meal out of this.”
Steven Jack Butala:
All kidding aside, seller’s calling you back. So, somewhere, there’s a seller in there. What’s probably incorrect is your approach, just like with women.
Jill K DeWit:
No, it’s not your approach, it’s the property.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, no-
Jill K DeWit:
The property has some problems.
Steven Jack Butala:
Hold on a second, I’m trying to make my point.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
The seller’s the seller. It’s the circumstances in your approach that they haven’t gotten their head around it yet. And if it’s just price, then that can be discussed.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s the whole thing.
Steven Jack Butala:
Be a lot easier, if on the initial approach to a woman, she would say, yeah. Like what Jill just said, “Yeah, I’m available. That’s why I’m sitting by myself at a bar dressed like this.” But they don’t say that. Or a seller should say-
Jill K DeWit:
How am I dressed?
Steven Jack Butala:
… Some version of that. The seller should say, “Yeah, I am a seller, but not at this price.” And some of them do.
Jill K DeWit:
Right. All right, so back to the situation-
Steven Jack Butala:
But for some reason, in many, many cultures… Not all of them, but many subcultures all over this country, confrontation is part of the initial contact. Further east you go in this country, confrontation is, for whatever reason, necessary.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. So back to the situation. You dropped the bomb, there’s three responses, right? One is, “What, are you kidding me? Are you nuts? I was all set on 30, I signed the thing, whatever it is.” I know, I hear ya. I get it. That’s just the best I can do. So, tell you what… I’m going to tell you all three and what to do.
So this is one, they hate it, they tell you, go jump in a lake now. Then you’re like, “All right, tell you what, please hang onto my letter. If anything changes, I’ll still be here. Let me know. I wish you all the best.” And let it go. Let it go. And you’re like, what? Do I try to negotiate with them. Maybe I try to meet them in the middle? Mm-mm. You told them what you want to do. They don’t like it. Let them go. Watch how many come back to you.
I’ve had $10,000 become $1,000 because I just couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t do it. And the guy finally called me back, it took him like three weeks, and he said, “I’ll take your stupid $1,000.” That’s after he slept on it, called the whole family, nobody else wanted it. And he realized that, maybe I was right, and if you wanted to get rid of the property, that was just the only way to do it. Yep. So that’s scenario number one.
Scenario number two is, “All right, this is not what I was expecting. I know. And I feel bad. I need to talk to my wife and-”
“Great, sleep on it.”
“How about I’ll call you tomorrow at noon? Is that a good time for you?”
“Yeah, that’d be great.”
“All right. I will call you then.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
And do it and follow up, and there’s a really high percentage of those guys, after they sleep on it, talk to their wife who’s going to definitely say, “Get rid of the dumb thing.” That’s usually how that goes. Like, “get that car out of the garage. It doesn’t run, anyway.” Just kidding, but that’s not us. So anyway-
Steven Jack Butala:
We have some non-running cars in the garage right now. You just don’t know.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, great. Isn’t one of them orange?
Steven Jack Butala:
No.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
No, one of them’s red.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, okay. Oh, that one. Yeah, we got it. Yeah. That’s a real situation for us, then. This is good.
So, anyway, you call him at noon and the guy says, “All right, what’s the next step?” And that’s where you go, “Great, I’ll cross off that number. Write 10, please send me that purchase agreement and I’ll get Escrow rolling right now.”
And then, the third situation is, the guy goes, “I thought the 30 was too high. I knew this was coming. I knew it had those problems. I knew that it wasn’t, whatever. They were waiting for you to figure out the flaws and waiting for you to figure out that you probably offered too much. And so, right there on the phone, they’re like, “All right, 10’s the best you can do. I can take the 10, let’s get this done. How fast can we do it?”
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill’s unknowingly… Now she knows it. When we started out together, she was unknowingly putting deals together that were never meant to be done.
Jill K DeWit:
Thanks.
Steven Jack Butala:
And when you engage, this is just a sales 101 or a Dale Carnegie 101, the more time that you engage somebody, regardless of how much they think they’re not a seller, that’s tiny little steps toward getting a deal done. And that might involve dramatic confrontation in the beginning. In fact, it often does. People call back and there’s a seller in there somewhere. They might be angry, not so much at you, although they’re saying they’re angry at you. They’re angry about the fact that they’re not going to be able to use that property they bought 15 years ago-
Jill K DeWit:
Maybe.
Steven Jack Butala:
… With the way that they intended, or somebody passed away, and they’re angry about that. And this is in a long list of stuff.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
These are all real examples, and a long list of stuff that they have to do to settle an estate, and you’re going to be the brunt of it for a few minutes unless you turn it around. And if you can’t do that, if you’re like me or not interested in doing that, find somebody like Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s a really good valid point before we finish this part and go on here to the next part, which is, sometimes they’re mad. You’re right. Even though they’re coming on the phone mad about your offer and all that, but you’re right, they bought this for their retirement property and it didn’t pan out. Now they can’t afford to do it. They didn’t get to it. They’re kicking themselves.
Steven Jack Butala:
Somebody passed away.
Jill K DeWit:
Having it for 10 years and not doing what they thought they were going to do, and it’s their own thing and they’re just-
Steven Jack Butala:
Or didn’t appreciate out.
Jill K DeWit:
… taking it out on you.
Steven Jack Butala:
The real issue is, for me, would be-
Jill K DeWit:
Sometimes.
Steven Jack Butala:
… this property didn’t appreciate the way I thought it would.
Jill K DeWit:
And it’s sad. I feel bad for them. I’ve had those. Those are conversations you have all the time. I say, “I get it. Hey, I have some of those.” I mean, not really, but-
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s a lot of rural-
Jill K DeWit:
That happens.
Steven Jack Butala:
… a lot of rural land in this country, and people, when they’re younger, based on somebody’s advice, or maybe they just bought it as an investment and it just didn’t appreciate the way that they thought. I’ve had people say, “That property is worth a million dollars to me.” We all know it’s worth-
Jill K DeWit:
To them.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
To them.
Steven Jack Butala:
We all know it’s worth 10 grand, but in their head, they’ve been telling themselves for 25 years, and maybe their spouse, “We’re going to retire on this thing. The money, not on the actual land. This is our lottery ticket.” And so, when they get an offer from you, they’re coming from all different types of places, and they’re not happy about the fact that you’re about to pay them 10 grand for a property that they’ve been saying to each other, when they get ready for work in the morning for 20 years, we’re going to retire on that property, that’s our ticket, so…
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, they’re angry. Maybe not at you, though.
Jill K DeWit:
Yep.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a look at one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar. If you don’t know it by now, Jill and I own a full-blown commercial printing company called Offers to Owners. Offers2owners.com. We just released and are now full-blown providing service for this product called Concierge Data. We will do your entire mailer. You just tell us exactly where you want to send mail and fill out the form, and actually give us a call and we’ll walk you all the way through it, and get your mailer done for you. Check us out, offers2owners.com.
Jill K DeWit:
Can I just add little note tag on that? If you don’t have access to really good data, you don’t have Data Tree like we all do in Land Academy, this is your ticket to get it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
So if you call Concierge, if you’re listening and you’re learning and you want to do everything the way we do, you call Concierge, they will pull the data for you. You don’t have to pay for that. You don’t have to have a subscription. It’s kind of an a la carte thing to try this out and get some mailers out there, see if this sings to you, and then join Land Academy, FYI.
Steven Jack Butala:
Since this turned into a little commercial segment, if you’re in another land group and you’re frustrated about, “Yeah, I’m doing a lot of deals, but not making enough money to quit my job,” check us out. Consistently now, our Career Path program is packed, and I mean it, 50 to 80% of the people are from other land programs because they did everything that they were instructed to do and they’re making 50 or $80,000 a year.
Jill K DeWit:
And now they’re ready to really level off-
Steven Jack Butala:
They’re ready to make this their career.
Jill K DeWit:
And we’ll help you with that. Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take another question, posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. Again, if you want a sneak peek, go to landacademy.com. It’s free.
Jill K DeWit:
Cathy wrote, I just did my first mailer with Concierge Data and I am reviewing it now. Is it common for two thirds of your potential universe of records to disappear after scrubbing?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yes.
Jill K DeWit:
Using Data Tree, I found a grouping of zip codes with a potential size of 4,600 records. It was just rural vacant land, zero square foot living space, and then matching my lot size and acreage. Everything that I picked out and the other criteria that Jack told me to do. When it came back, I have only 1300 records left. Is this common?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yes. To that degree, potentially no. Here’s the thing about Concierge Data. You have complete control. If you’re actually, and it sounds like this person is, pulling records from Data Tree and you’re staring at the records, please go into chapter four and actually review who’s in that dataset. All counties are different, so there could be a lot of houses in there that our guys are pulling out. There could be a dramatic number of properties in your data set that are owned by the Bureau of Land Management. You know, don’t want to send a federal, you’re wasting money on a stamp. So, they’re helping you by reducing this size. What you need to do, when this happens, you want to send out a 5,000 unit mailer, comes back at 1300 records. What I would recommend is to go back into Data Tree, just like you did, or instruct the Concierge Data guys to do it, to expand the zip codes that you’re sending mail to. And you should do this yourself. Don’t ask these guys to do it because you know where you want to send mail. They don’t. And get your mailer up to four or five or 6,000 units or whatever you end up wanting to do.
This is a good thing. They’re saving you a ton of money. Data’s cheap. When you send data to Concierge Data, they haven’t spent any money yet. You don’t want to send out a 5,000 unit mailer where the majority of the records, two-thirds of the records in this case, would’ve been wasted money on mail. Mail’s expensive, data’s cheap. So, this is a good thing. And now you’ve got 1300 records that could potentially yield the sale and an opportunity to expand into different zip codes, have them do the same thing and get your mail to the size that you want. This is a natural, normal part of doing a mailer.
Jill K DeWit:
Mm-hmm.
Steven Jack Butala:
Scrubbing and making it your own. That’s the steps toward being really successful at this. There’s a lot of moving parts to a mailer, and it can seem overwhelming in the beginning, but you’ll get it.
Today’s second topic is called Deciding who to Call Back. Bye, Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
Ha ha ha, that’s funny. So, the scenario is you sent out the mailer. You have 30 calls back this week, right? You sit down, you’re reviewing them, and you’re picking out the ones you want, picking out the best properties. So, it was either maybe somebody on your team or, more likely, somebody like Pat Live took all these inbound calls. Who do I call back? Do I call them all back?
So, in a perfect world, I would call them all back, and I would want to call them all back. Let’s just say that-
Steven Jack Butala:
I did this all wrong when I started.
Jill K DeWit:
I know. You want to call them all back, even if you’re saying, “Hey, thanks very much, I really appreciate this, but no thanks. Have a nice life.” Because that’s really what goes on. Sometimes these properties come in, you’re like, no. Let me give you an example. It’s a cliff. I’m not seeking out cliffside property. My market is going to be a small handful of people who climb rocks, and that’s not what I’m looking for.
Steven Jack Butala:
Do you need to own the land where you climb the rocks?
Jill K DeWit:
I know.
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t think so.
Jill K DeWit:
Right? We have done that and sold that because we’ve got them before on accident. It happens when you buy a bulk group. But anyway. Another story. We should do a podcast on that, by the way.
Steven Jack Butala:
Mm-hmm.
Jill K DeWit:
So, you don’t need to call them all back. You could just let it fade away. If they call you back though, if they call again, then I will politely say, “Hey, thank you. I appreciate your calling. I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you. Actually, that’s not the kind of property I’m looking for. I didn’t realize it was a cliff.”
And they’re like, “Yeah, I get it. All right, thank you. Bye.” That kind of a thing. So, that’s who you want to call back, but you don’t have time. You don’t have the energy. You really don’t. And, if you’re going to do this, right, I mean your time is really valuable.
So, who are you calling back? The ones you want to buy. So, the calls come in, let’s just say Pat Live. There’s, there’s a handful of people that you need to call back and talk about price adjustments, like I talked about earlier. There’s also a handful of people that are ready to go. So, say they came in.
I’m going to start with the easy ones first. The calls came in, you looked them up, you love it. You’re like, “I like the price. They’re ready to go. All I need is a purchase agreement. This is awesome.” So, that’s an easy call. You’re calling them up to say, “Hi, my name is Jill, I’m the owner. I got your message. Sounds like we’re on the same page here. That paper I sent you? Yep. Page two. You got it, the purchase agreement. If you don’t mind, just sign that, you could take a picture of it on your phone right now and send it to me. All up in Escrow today. This is going to be awesome. Hey, by the way, how are you going to want to get paid?” I do something like that and get them all excited. Or tell them how fast we can close. “Hey, by the way, I’ve got the greatest agent on the planet here, and I can do this in 12 days. How’s that sound?”
“Yeah. Oh my gosh. This is awesome.” And then, there you go. Next thing you know, you’re opening Escrow, putting those two together, and just babysitting it.
Steven Jack Butala:
My answer’s really different, but it’s not my topic.
Jill K DeWit:
No, it’s not your topic.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s it?
Jill K DeWit:
No, it’s not. It’s my topic. So then-
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill, you’re a crack up today.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, seriously, then… I’ll let you have your moment. Let me finish mine. So, then, the other ones who to call. Basically, you’re calling back the ones that you love, the ones you want to buy. That’s the whole goal here. So that, I covered the “No thank you” people, the people you don’t want, you don’t have to call them back. It’s okay. I’m giving you permission. Number two, the ones that are ready to go, you’re ready to go. Oh, hop on those. And then, the number three group is, I don’t know, I got to talk to them about it a little bit. Maybe there’s something there. I need to adjust the price that we talked about in the beginning. That’s the reason, or I’m needing to uncover a little more information about the property. Those are the ones you call back.
You are dying to go.
Steven Jack Butala:
No, no. Are you through your list?
Jill K DeWit:
That’s it. But we’re going to talk more about it, so I’ll come up with some more things.
Steven Jack Butala:
When you’re new, call everybody back, and that’s it. It’s all percentages. This whole game is all, it’s Moneyball, it’s all percentages. The more people you talk to, the more deals you’re going to do and the more experiences that you’re going to get. If you are interested in fast tracking your career and accumulating a lot of money, the two things that you can do, and they’re sometimes the most difficult. They’re the two most difficult things to do, and this entire career is number one. Send a ton of mail out, recklessly send out mail. Make sure it’s priced right. If you need somebody to look at your mailer or check it out, find some of your peers in Land Academy. That’s number one. Recklessly send out mail. You will be incredibly successful. Number two, talk to everybody. I don’t care how livid they are, I don’t care what names they call you, talk to them, embrace them, and flip them. Flip them to get them to do what you want them to do.
This notion of, so, there’s two things that are very natural to brand new people to do, and I understand them. It’s a innate human thing to want to be more efficient, spend less money on mail. In a perfect world, I would send out 300 mailers and do five deals, and I would spend $150 on mail or whatever. The dollars end up being on that, and that’s it. That’s just not how this works. How it works is exactly how I do it in chapters three and chapters four of Land Academy 3.0. And that’s just the truth of it. It’s not what everybody wants to hear.
The second thing you can do is talk to everybody and be the most amazing personality that you can possibly be on the phone, regardless of where, how they’re meeting you. Half of them are going to be angry, especially early when the mailer hits. Some are going to say, yeah, “I do want to do the deal, but not this price.” And then at the end, you’re going to get some signed purchase agreements. And if you do this consistently and get used to it, again, nobody wants to get yelled at, no one, but this is part of it. Call them all back, send a huge amount of mail out, and call them all back and just embrace it.
Jill K DeWit:
So, you would sit down-
Steven Jack Butala:
I did.
Jill K DeWit:
And call people and say, “Hi, I just want to tell you, I don’t want to buy your property, because I’ve had this, that’s accidentally LA County and it’s the canal.”
Steven Jack Butala:
If you’re new, I want you to call everybody back.
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t.
Steven Jack Butala:
I want you to call the people who hung up, the caller IDs.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, I do want you to call those back. Hold on a moment. So, I want to be real here. We’re not going to call back the ones that we know we don’t want, that they’re-
Steven Jack Butala:
You mean the actual dirt?
Jill K DeWit:
Yes.
Steven Jack Butala:
Okay. Well…
Jill K DeWit:
You looked it up, Steven, and it really is a canal. I seriously have had that. I’m like, “How does this poor person get stuck with this?”
Steven Jack Butala:
Okay, maybe not that, but I’m just saying-
Jill K DeWit:
Or like undivided interest. I’m not going to call and say, “You only own half the property. I just want to let you know that.” I’m not going to call them.
Steven Jack Butala:
I stand corrected by my female life partner.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Does that make you feel better?
Jill K DeWit:
Yes. I don’t want you to hear, call everyone back, because then you’re really going to get discouraged and it’s a waste of time.
Steven Jack Butala:
If the property sucks. I get it.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. Thank you. But the point is, here’s the point, and here’s the beautiful thing about when to call, deciding who to call back. What’s nice is this is a situation where Pat Live or somebody else took the calls. Maybe you even took the initial calls, right? You got all the information and now you need to sit down and you do your due diligence. So, you have done your due diligence, and now you’re ready to go. This is so great. These are fun phone calls. You already know it. You’ve looked at it, you’ve felt it, you’re excited about it. You see the river, you see the whatever it is. You’re like, I want to get these deals now. So, you’re calling these back and how do you decide who you want to call back? You’re calling back the people that you want the property, and you’re calling them back because you’re either a, ready to go or there’s one or two things you got to uncover or get on the same page about, and that’s it. And those are fun calls, and they love hearing you. They love knowing that, “I’m the owner, you’re talking to me, and there’s not an agent. There’s no broker. You and I are making the deal. Whatever you and I agree on, that’s the price that you’re going to get paid.”
And they’re like, “Let’s talk. Let’s go.”
Steven Jack Butala:
This whole episode is the real gritty, honest business that goes on when you’re talking to sellers. I did my job, so Jill’s got a bunch of opportunity to close deals.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
I did my mail job and she’s really getting into, and I really appreciate it, the reality of what goes on and what you can expect.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you,
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill, you have something inspirational to share today?
Jill K DeWit:
Well, we’re going to do another little thing from our acquisition.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, let’s take a look at another one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you,
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill. You have something inspirational to share, finally.
Jill K DeWit:
I do. I am having a little brain fade, I wrote this down.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill’s inspiration that she asked me to script is called this, and it’s in quotes: “Yes, this deal is profitable, but do I really want to do it?”
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, now I remember. Okay, here’s the point to this inspirational thought. There’s going to be a time in your career when you are moving on to bigger and better deals and doing numbers and you’re getting real comfortable about it. And there’s going to be deals that come up that you sent out maybe 30 days ago or maybe three months ago or maybe three years ago, that people call and go, “Hi, I’ve had your letter on my fridge for a year now and I’m ready to go.” And it’s like, back then, you were buying for $3000 and selling for $10,000 and you would’ve jumped up and down for this deal, so it’s profitable.
Steven Jack Butala:
I just got one of those today.
Jill K DeWit:
And you do.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today I got one.
Jill K DeWit:
So you still, there’s value there, but you know what? You’ve moved on. So, this is a fun, awesome conversation to have with yourself because you are telling yourself, “Do I even really want to spend the time on this to make seven grand, because I now know, I can spend the main same amount of time and make 70 grand?”
Steven Jack Butala:
Yep.
Jill K DeWit:
Why would I do this? And it’s tough. It’s a tough conversation because it’s hard to turn it away. You go, “Why would I not do it?” But then you go, “Shoot, but it’s pulling me away from another deal that I could be doing where I make 70 grand.” So, my inspirational thought is, just be ready for this. You will come to this point where you’re going to find yourself turning down deals that you would’ve jumped up and down before because, even though they’re profitable, they’re not as profitable as what you’re doing today. You like that, Jack, do you have something that you want to share? Can maybe manplan.com that you’re going to share with us?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. Here’s my advice, after 35 years of buying and selling real estate. You’re going to put yourself at a massive advantage, massive advantage if you first unlearn what you think about real estate and relearn it from people like Jill and I and people like other more senior members in Land Academy, specifically on Discord.
Number one, you don’t know what you think. Number two, it’s going to take you, depending on your experience, between a year and two years for this to really, really kick in. If I sat here and said, the internet is packed full of get rich quick, real estate… There’s five or six phrases everybody uses. I catch our marketing people sometimes while asking us to do these phrases because it’s this endless, endless loop of, “These are the things that people click on, and so we should be doing it so we get more clicks.” And you know what, Jill and I have years of doing this Land Academy thing now, and we reject all of that. So don’t listen to all the noise. You’re not going to get rich quick doing this. You’re going to get incredibly wealthy from a stabilized standpoint after about 18 to 24 months of doing this.
If you go through Discord, and even if you’re not a member, you’re welcome to do this, and I encourage you to do this, there are many, many comments specifically in a success story where they say, people say, “Last year was my first year of buying and selling land. I did four deals. I made $38,000. This year, and it’s only the first quarter, or it’s May, I made 138 or 338 because I literally learned how to do this.” And so, you have to go through the pain of doing every step of the way and many, many, many people, there’s a learning curve here, don’t make it past that first mailer.
And so, here’s my advice. If you really are serious about this and you want to be wealthy, be patient. Take it step by step. And I know this stuff is not what you want to hear. I did a piece way back in the day called 24 Month Millionaire. Everybody wants to hear about that. Nobody wants to hear what I’m saying right now, but unfortunately, this is the truth. This is man plan stuff. Yeah. Go to manplan.com if you’re interested in listening to an old man and a bunch of other people talk about how to get really wealthy, slowly.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you. Slowly.
Steven Jack Butala:
Find somebody like Jill too to work with because, or if you’re a Jill, find somebody like me to work with.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
It just takes half the load off, and then you can really focus on what you’re good at, which whether it’s being a salesperson or being a data person.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. Hey, by the way, don’t forget, if you have a question you want us to answer, or you need any help getting involved in the Land Academy, all you got to do is text us (480) 530-7383. We read them all, and we appreciate you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Join us next Wednesday for another interesting episode. You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Steven Jack Butala and Jill K DeWitt:
We are Jack and Joe.
Steven Jack Butala:
Information-
Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration.
Steven Jack Butala:
… to buy undervalued property.
https://youtu.be/6_aEXtKFYeY
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
This is episode 1,952. Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit delve into the topics of Your Ideal Land Transaction & Working Backwards from Your Land Investment Goals. You can visit landacademy.com to have a glimpse of the Land Academy Discord community. If you want your question answered on air or need assistance with community participation, send us a text at 480-530-7383. We review every text we receive, and if we find your question interesting, we’ll feature it on our upcoming podcast episodes.
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
And I’m Jill Dewitt, and this is the Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is episode number 1,952, and today we’re going to talk about setting goals in land investment, a reverse engineering approach. You want to start at the end and work your way forward so you make sure you get there, and we’re going to talk about your ideal land transaction, explained.
Jill K DeWit:
This’ll be good.
Steven Jack Butala:
You want to do deals that, you know, you planned for.
Jill K DeWit:
Mm-hmm.
Steven Jack Butala:
You don’t want to just send a bunch of mail out. That’s what this is all about today, both of these topics.
Jill K DeWit:
Yes.
Steven Jack Butala:
You don’t want to just do stuff and see how it goes.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, “Let’s just blast this county, this state. Let’s just leave everything in, see what comes back and I’ll just figure it out. I’ll wing it.” I mean, that’s one way to do it, but I prefer making it easy and we’ll talk about that too.
Steven Jack Butala:
When the cameras are turned off and the weekend starts, which is about two hours from now for us, I just want to see how it goes. But not in my land career, I don’t.
Jill K DeWit:
No.
Steven Jack Butala:
I want to know exactly how it’s going to go.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s a good point. Just see how it goes. I want to pause and tell the story that you just talked about from our neighbor here at this-
Steven Jack Butala:
Okay, sure.
Jill K DeWit:
So we’re at this sweet, sweet park just outside Estes Park.
Steven Jack Butala:
RV Park.
Jill K DeWit:
Uh-huh, an RV Park, and Jack was talking to our neighbor who sounds like they just, on a whim, signed up to be a park host in Estes Park. Is it Rocky Mountain National Park or Estes Park?
Steven Jack Butala:
Estes Park. Right up there.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay, but not Rocky National Park. Anyway, they’re going to be a park host for like eight months and they just decided to do it on a whim.
Steven Jack Butala:
Said they’re both 67, he and his wife, and he was in the auto industry, I think as an auto mechanic.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh.
Steven Jack Butala:
She’s a retired teacher and they lost a very close friend of theirs a couple years ago and then they said, “That’s it. We’re done working.”
Jill K DeWit:
Oh.
Steven Jack Butala:
And they’re full time. They sold their house. They sold everything.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, that’s so good.
Steven Jack Butala:
From Virginia.
Jill K DeWit:
All I heard out the window was him say, “I don’t want to be a statistic.” I’m like, that’s flipping cool. I agree with that.
Steven Jack Butala:
I have to say-
Jill K DeWit:
And I remember you saying, “That’s why we’re doing this stuff.”
Steven Jack Butala:
As a man-
Jill K DeWit:
Mm-hmm.
Steven Jack Butala:
People pull in and within the first five minutes that they’re here, you can see how much of a man they are. How they hook their stuff up, how they back their rig in, all of it. And that guy put me to shame. Usually that’s not the case. Usually I’m like, “I can handle all of this.”
Jill K DeWit:
We did come back last night and you said this, “This man’s serious. Look how perfect everything is.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Then we’re talking and he’s opening all of his storage and everything’s all perfect in there. He’s got a whole work chest. Pulled things out and he’s got screws. I’m jealous. Now I got to up my game.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh yeah, there you go.
Steven Jack Butala:
My stuff’s all falling out and I’m trying to clean everything out-
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly, just kind of kicking it and closing it. That’s how Jack rolls. Oh my gosh. Thank goodness our company… Well, no, our company started a little taped together too. That is how you roll.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s getting better.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Our land company’s not taped together because that’s what Jill does.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s right. See, this is our life. He starts… Well, even the land company started before me. It takes a woman or somebody else, someone organized to come along and just kind of like, “All right, let’s now put everything in place.”
Steven Jack Butala:
We’re taping late today because Jill just got done with the mobile notary coming to sign a deal we made $100,000 on. We netted out a 100,000 bucks on it, which is how it’s supposed to go. In fact, this is a great segue into this because we planned on that. We didn’t just send the mail out to every single landowner haphazardly pricing it just to see what’s going to come back. We plan on making $100,000 a deal.
Jill K DeWit:
There you go.
Steven Jack Butala:
Each week we answer questions from our Land Academy Discord forum, we review land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar, and we take a deep dive into two land related topics by popular interest. Hey, if you have a question and you would like us to answer it on the air or you need help getting involved with our community, text us. This is new for us at 480-530-7383. We read every single one of the texts that we get, and if we like your question, we’ll get it on live-
Jill K DeWit:
Live on our podcast.
Steven Jack Butala:
The next week, most likely.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Now let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. If you want to sneak peek, go to landacademy.com. It’s free.
Jill K DeWit:
All right.
Steven Jack Butala:
But first…
Jill K DeWit:
Uh-oh.
Steven Jack Butala:
We need to celebrate with Yuri who’s been a very loud, in a positive way, active member in the Land Academy group, and he’s-
Jill K DeWit:
You found this in Discord? Just kind of pause everything and give a little shout out?
Steven Jack Butala:
Two massive checks this month that go, and he will be done this year.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh. So am I reading that or are you reading that? Oh, okay. So Yuri, congratulations. This is a shout-out from Jack and I to you. This sung to Jack today, so I’m going to read this out. He said, “Just close on two of my best deals so far. Buy for $30,000, sell for $130,000 and buy for $25,000, sell for $140,000. Total profit, $215,000 before closing costs. 2022 was my first full year sending blind offers, and prior to that I had zero real estate experience.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Amazing.
Jill K DeWit:
“Here is a picture,” you guys can see it on Discord, “Of my office for the weekend.” What was it? Was it on the ocean?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, he’s on the Pacific Ocean.
Jill K DeWit:
There we go.
Steven Jack Butala:
In a hotel room.
Jill K DeWit:
There we go. “Thank you Jack and Jill and Kevin.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Kevin Ferrell, who’s a-
Jill K DeWit:
Moderator.
Steven Jack Butala:
… Our moderator on Discord.
Jill K DeWit:
Yay. All right, so here’s the question from Dan. Dan wrote, “I have an easement question for you all. I just bought two adjacent 20 acre properties. They have a shared pond and in a great duck hunting area. There is a road that cuts through the corner of one of the properties for access. My broker says if I sell them separately, they will sell faster because we can set the price a bit lower for each and then end up making more altogether.” True, true that.
Steven Jack Butala:
I love that.
Jill K DeWit:
“The only issue is that the second parcel only has access across the first parcel. It’s only about 200 yards through a flat field along the north property line from the road to the second parcel. Can I just write up a simple document granting an easement across the north 30 or 60 feet of the first property to the second property and record it, or would you reach out to an attorney for this? Seems like just a simple cut and paste wording of legal description and copying similar easement wording from another deed would be the easiest and the quickest. Thanks.”
Steven Jack Butala:
A lot of people weighed in on this, which is one of the reasons I chose it, and they all said some version of what I’m about to say. You need to get a lawyer. It’s not going to be expensive. Maybe $1,000, probably less. You’re going to rerecord the deed that contains the easement, which is the deed where they drive across it to get to the second property.
Easements are recorded in the deeds that are being crossed, are being traveled on, most of the time. Sometimes you’ll see an easement recorded in the recipient or the property that’s the beneficiary of the actual easement, but not very often. It’s different.
Jill K DeWit:
Usually the legal description on the one giving up access will say, “This is the property except for the 30 feet here and the 200 feet here along this side,” and those dimensions and everything so everybody knows where the easement is.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is not something that you want to do yourself.
Jill K DeWit:
No.
Steven Jack Butala:
At all.
Jill K DeWit:
I was going to say a version of this, which is my number one resource is the county. I’d be like, “Hey guys, what’s involved to do this?” “This form, this form, record this.” “Can I do it myself?” “Well, yeah, but…” “Okay. Who would you recommend?” “Oh, Bob Smith. He’s just down the road. He does all this for everybody around here.” That’s what I would do.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s a good situation.
Jill K DeWit:
“Who’s the attorney?”
Steven Jack Butala:
Very often you don’t own both properties and you’ve got physical access but not legal access and you’ve got to deal with another property owner to get an easement to the property that you own.
Jill K DeWit:
By the way, occasionally stuff like this, you don’t need an attorney but you do need to know someone that knows the ropes, like someone involved with the county that does surveys and things like that. So for me, sorry, my answer’s different. I would call the county first and find out what’s the process, because like I said, maybe the local survey guy can do it and he does that for everybody and gets it recorded.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s a good situation to be in because you have all control and that’s what you want.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, and I agree with this, by the way. He didn’t say how big they are, so I’m assuming they’re big enough. It’s not one acre and one acre. Oh, 20 acre properties.
Steven Jack Butala:
Two 20 acre properties.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay, good. Now we know. So this is not going to mess with anybody’s view or anybody’s enjoyment of their property. Now one property’s going to be 19.9 when they’re done or something like that.
Steven Jack Butala:
9.5. Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
So, all good.
Steven Jack Butala:
20 acres is a great amount of property to shoot a 12 gauge at a duck pretty safely, I think.
Jill K DeWit:
There you go.
Steven Jack Butala:
If they’re square and you’re hunting, then… Yeah. Nevermind.
Jill K DeWit:
If the ducks are square?
Steven Jack Butala:
No.
Jill K DeWit:
If the duck are square stick-
Steven Jack Butala:
If the properties are square.
Jill K DeWit:
I took Jack the other day in Fort Collins into an underground arcade area. I did Skee-Ball, Jack did shooting, and I think you could have used a square animal to hit.
Steven Jack Butala:
I could have used a non-moving screen-size animal smiling.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s what was needed. I said, “Hit the bucks, not the does.” He’s like, “Well, you got a buck and you got two does.”
Steven Jack Butala:
So you get negative one.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, exactly. I’m like, “Oh, sweetheart.” You were out of practice, in your defense. That was pretty darn funny. I have the video for that. I’m going to send that with to my team here soon.
Steven Jack Butala:
First off, we’re going to talk about this.. Setting goals in a land investment, it’s a reverse engineering approach. So we’ve said this millions of times. You want to start at the end. In fact, we’ve institutionalized it now with what we call the equity planner. We start out, and we just went through this in Career Path and second by second walked everybody through in the career path class about how to use the equity planner to plan for how much money you want to make a month, and obviously a year, how many deals do you want to do. Jill and I like to do two or three deals a month and make $100,00 each deal.
Jill K DeWit:
Or more.
Steven Jack Butala:
Right.
Jill K DeWit:
Like deal funding.
Steven Jack Butala:
That ends up being three to $4 million a year. That’s a real good comfortable place for us, for some reason. It’s not a lot of work. We’ve got all everything in place. And so knowing now that we want to make $100,000 a property, there’s a very specific way at the end. We know if we want to hit our goals at the end, we move our way back and we only hunt for or fish for properties that are going to make us $100,000. We don’t buy properties for $5,000 and sell them for 10. I’m not knocking that. I built the company on that actual business model. Exactly what I just said.
Jill K DeWit:
Heck, even lower than that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Right.
Jill K DeWit:
Buy for 1,000, sell for three and do a lot. I mean, back in the day we were doing a lot of little deals. Just getting rolling and getting going and then figuring everything out. That’s why you’re here. I look at it this way. I love your equity planner. This is the equity planner that you as a Land Academy member have in our stuff, that you can sit and put in for the year. You know what else this is? Your 24-month millionaire.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
We haven’t talked about that in a while too, but that you wrote and put in there and shared with our people what it looks like and how hard you have to work, which is not that hard. That’s the whole thing.
Steven Jack Butala:
Know what? We’ll talk about that next week. I mean, you just gave me an idea for a topic next week and we will.
Jill K DeWit:
Do you want me to write that down real quick?
Steven Jack Butala:
I’ll do it.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay, good. Okay, so the equity planner that we have, I love because I don’t see things month to month like you do. I don’t pay that much attention. I’m not the accountant, clearly, but I do know about hitting your goals every month. I’m in sales. I’m very familiar with that one. Hero to zero. We all know what that means, but I’m very familiar with the big picture stuff. I love the big picture and I love backing it up, and here’s the reason why.
What Jack’s explaining is thinking about your goals. What do you want to make for this year? I have a good example. We have a sweet couple in the Land Academy and they want to three X her salary from last year. It’s going to put them about $3 million this year. It’s like, okay, $3 million. Great, but how hard do I want to work? How much time do I want to put in? How many deals? How comfortable I am?
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s 10 X, but okay.
Jill K DeWit:
And how much are… Okay, yeah. I love it when you correct me,
Steven Jack Butala:
Sorry. And derail your thought process.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. Those are two of my favorite things. Okay. Oh, boy.
Steven Jack Butala:
Sorry.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s okay. So anyway, you put in your number and you think about… Let me just make this very simple for everyone. I want to make $1 million this year. Got it. And I want to have some wiggle room in there. Okay. So let’s say our goal is $100,000 a month, right? So it’s 1.2 if I did it every month, but I’ve got some wiggle room. I know if I screw some things up, I’m going to get a million this year. Awesome.
So now my goal is $100,000 a month. Okay, but how much time do I have to put in it? Not a lot. I’m still got a day job. My partner’s available full time, but I have a day job. Okay, got it. So let’s say you’ve got enough bandwidth to do a deal a week. All right? Got it. So this is not nuts. Think about this. $100,000 a month, you’ve got the bandwidth to do one deal a week. Great. So what does the deal need to make? $25,000 each. That’s nothing.
Steven Jack Butala:
Easy. That’s crazy.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s really not hard.
Steven Jack Butala:
Crazy easy.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s buy for 30, sell for 60, and you’ve even got your cushion of fees and things in there. And buy for 30, sell for 60. I’m going to argue you can sell it even more. If you’re buying something for 30, it’s probably worth 90 nowadays. So there’s even more of a cushion for you. So that’s really what this is about. Setting goals like that and then working it backwards.
And when you look at it and go, “Oh, I can do a deal a week.” What if I don’t even want to work that hard? I only want to do one deal every two weeks. All right, now they each got to make 50. That’s still not nuts. Buy for 30, sell for 90, and there’s my cushion in there too. I’m going to make at least 50 on these deals and do two deals a month, and you’re going to make a million. That’s how I sit and look at it and think about it.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s exactly what the equity planner is, and there’s all kinds of variables that you can put in there.
Jill K DeWit:
You can take it even smaller down to how much mail do I need to send?
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what it’s for. What it does is it spits out all the answers for you. You got to send out this much mail, you have to troll for properties that exist within those parameters.
Jill K DeWit:
Correct.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you want to buy property for 30 and sell for 60 like Jill’s talking about, then you set your parameters to troll for areas to send mail where those types of values are prevalent. In the southeastern California desert, you’re going to buy properties for 5,000 and sell them for 15, maybe 10, maybe less. So you’re not going to hit your goals of $1 million a year unless you double the number of properties that you buy and sell, which is fine.
Jill K DeWit:
And some people might like that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
“I want to buy for 10 and sell for 25. That’s my sweet spot. I’ll make $15,000 on every deal. I love those.” That’s nothing wrong with that.
Steven Jack Butala:
$15,000 a month for my first year.
Jill K DeWit:
Do it, then I’m going to do two a week or something like that. That’s fine.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, and then next year rolls around and you reset your goals and maybe increase it because now you know how to do it. Now you know the process of buying and selling land.
Jill K DeWit:
What’s great about this is too, you hit your goal this year, so now next year when you look at it, you go, I can either do the same amount of work and increase the value of these properties, right? So I can probably double my money by just going for higher dollar amount properties, or I could do that and then scale back my work, whatever it is. Maybe I want to make the same amount of money, but we’re half as hard.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, right in the title-
Jill K DeWit:
And that’s okay too,
Steven Jack Butala:
Right in the title is it’s a reverse engineering approach. You have to start with the end.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
You have to start what your goal is and work it all the way back and then troll four properties like that and when they come back, when the sellers are calling you and or signing offers, you’re planning. You have an idea of what’s going to happen instead of just seeing what’s… Let’s just see how it goes.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s amazing.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s the point. You don’t want to do that.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m sitting here thinking about, where else can we do this? If I had any kind of a retail thing, you can’t do that. “Oh, I’m going to work half as hard and pay somebody to do it.” Great, because they’re going to do half the job you do. So we got to think about that and now you got to pay a salary. So that doesn’t work. What if I was even a real estate agent?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, you can’t.
Jill K DeWit:
I know, because I’m the real estate agent. I’m dependent on what I find. I’m dependent on what other people are doing.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s no cost of goods sold in this business unless you actually buy something to resell it. So in a convenience store, you stock the shelves and then you resell. As you’re reselling it, you’ve got that cost, you have to obviously factor in the six-pack that you’ve just sold and collect the revenue and on and on. In manufacturing, same thing. That’s a cost of goods. You got an order, you got all the cost of goods sold.
The cost of good sold in this business is the actual piece of dirt, which you have complete control over buying because you’ve reverse engineered what’s going to happen to it. You’re only buying it for $30,000 because you are very, very confident and your peers in Land Academy, Jill and I concluded, are extremely confident that you can sell for 60 or 80 or more. So you have complete control over your sales price. Well, reasonable control over your sales price and complete control over your acquisition price. You don’t have to do the deal.
Jill K DeWit:
You have control over your sales price. You either say yes or you say no. Sometimes I say no.
Steven Jack Butala:
And then the variable is-
Jill K DeWit:
I’m like, “Nope. Too low.”
Steven Jack Butala:
… How long do you want to wait? How long do you want to wait to sell the property?
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, I know what it’s worth. Oh my gosh. That’s a whole nother podcast, by the way. I’ve swapped out brokers quite a bit recently because we are not on the same page money-wise. Their first thing is, “Let’s lower it.” I’m like, “Uh-uh, you’re not doing your job.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Start at the end. Work your way back.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Ask everybody in Land Academy, “Am I doing this right? Does this make sense to you? Is it realistic? Is it unrealistic?” Ask us. We’ll tell you. That’s what that texting number is that we gave you in the beginning. Oh, text us questions. The number again is 480-530-7383. We’re not selling you anything.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s pretty cool.
Steven Jack Butala:
We answer your questions.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s pretty cool. Okey dokey. Now let’s take…
Steven Jack Butala:
A look…
Jill K DeWit:
At one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday closed member webinar.
Steven Jack Butala:
O2O just got a brand new look. Jill and I, if you don’t know by now, own a full-blown commercial printing company called offers2owners.com, and we just completely rehabbed the entire website, and so you can see exactly where you are. Added a ton of features. It makes it a lot easier to get your offers in the mail. We have relaunched, and it’s so popular we’ve had to staff two additional people. Concierge data, where we actually do the whole entire mailer for you, with the exception of pricing it at the end. So check us out. Offers2owners.com.
Jill K DeWit:
Yep.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take another question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. Again, if you want to sneak peek, go to landacademy.com. It’s free.
Jill K DeWit:
Christian wrote, “I have a question about appraisals. If you buy a property for much less than its market value and then go into a contract with a buyer getting financing and there’s an appraisal required, will an appraiser see the original purchase price and have an issue? The property is selling from market value. Just wonder how appraisers see a much lower prior purchase price from just a month ago. Also, the property only needs to appraise for what the loan amount would be, correct? They don’t actually care what the purchase price is as long as it had appraises for the loan amount or more. Thanks.” That’s a good question.
Steven Jack Butala:
I love question and I have a story to tell.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
Back in the day, around 2009, 2010, it was very difficult to sell land because of the huge economic downturn that was happening and the massive devaluation of real estate that happened over the spread of maybe three years. In fact, Jill and I had to retool our entire land operation and we began and traveled down this path and ended up successfully buying houses in a very blue collar area of Phoenix for 20 to $40,000 in selling them for 60 to 70 to $80,000. Same business model, different product, and we adjusted and it ended up doing very well.
Jill K DeWit:
Different property type, yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
We had two back to back properties that were financed by different lenders. One was HUD or FHA, the federal government. Federally insured loan, and another one was just a private lender like Bank of America. They weren’t exactly those lenders. Well, the federal government was, I’m just saying Bank of America. It wasn’t that lender. It was a commercial bank.
The appraisal came back with the commercial bank. Of course, we bought it for, I don’t know, 40 and probably selling it for 80, let’s say. And the appraisal came back at 80. Really quickly. With the FHA deal, the appraisal came back for our purchase price and it stuck with the property for six months.
Jill K DeWit:
Interesting.
Steven Jack Butala:
So we had to hold the property for six months, put it back on the market and quietly say amongst ourselves, let’s say, not in the listing. And we weren’t loud about it, but FHA and HUD were not going to be a lender on the property again.
Jill K DeWit:
Cash.
Steven Jack Butala:
It depends very much on a lender. This is a very intelligent question, and actually it’s something that I don’t think we’ve ever talked about it. Or cash. Those houses were never cash.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
They’re always 3%.
Jill K DeWit:
We bought cash.
Steven Jack Butala:
Bought it for cash. Sure.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
So it depends on the lender. Incredibly depends on the lender, and it seriously depends on the appraiser.
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
So you ask the appraiser before, “How much does the purchase price…” I’ve always wondered, what if you inherited the property?
Jill K DeWit:
Right. Well, here’s the funny thing too because you know this would never happen, but we would pass properties back and forth among companies, really for a dollar or $10. I have filled out, not kidding, Arizona affidavit of property values and what’s the value? $10. They’re not going to say, “It’s worth $10,” so we know that doesn’t count.
Steven Jack Butala:
Every property that I’ve ever had appraised as a buyer, and they’ve all been houses that Joe and I have purchased where we had financing, which I think is about two.
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
Our entire lives together.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
But in my previous life, buying a primary residence, the appraisal came back at exactly the number that I was purchasing. I’ve always wondered that.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s funny. How does that happen?
Steven Jack Butala:
I just don’t think that’s okay.
Jill K DeWit:
I agree.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s a racket.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s stupid.
Steven Jack Butala:
And this is why I developed this out of frustration, and I can say the same crap about real estate agents and escrow agents and survey people.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh my god, title companies. Don’t get me started.
Steven Jack Butala:
All of it.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh my gosh, is a racket.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s why after a decade of massive frustration and buyers and sellers, because I wasn’t the buyer or the seller, I came up with this business model.
Jill K DeWit:
Tried to remove them all.
Steven Jack Butala:
And I did away with everyone. Every single person that’s involved in the process except me, the buyer, and the seller.
Jill K DeWit:
And the seller.
Steven Jack Butala:
And we didn’t used to, but now we get title agents involved. It’s because we are buying assets that need title insurance. But geez, we put the screws to them too, because we have a transaction coordinator. Can’t put anything past her. She’s been in that business for 30 years.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
So the questions at the end are, “Also, the property needs to be appraised for what the loan amount would be, correct?” No, the property needs to be appraised for the sale price because there’s going to be a down payment involved. So it’s not just the loan amount. Used to be if you’re going to buy $100,000 property and I’m going to take an $80,000 loan out, used to be that you could get an appraisal for 80 grand and lender would be like, “I don’t care.” But no, that’s not the case anymore. They want your skin in the game and they want the property to not be overpriced. The second question at the end is-
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, I have one thing to add after this.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, well, you know what? I was just going to add on is the way that we typically buy and we sell is I’m not going for top retail or resetting the market, by the way. So if I’m buying something for $20,000 and I’m selling it for $70,000, it’s worth it because it’s probably worth 80 or 90. So for someone to really get it appraised at $70,000, everybody feels good about that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Mm-hmm.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s right.
Today’s second topic is your ideal land transaction explained. What I really mean by this is the first thing in marketing that you learn about, marketing online specifically, is creating a model. It’s called an avatar. Creating a model of your customer. What age is your customer? What part of the country are they in? Maybe they’re an airline pilot, maybe they’re a nurse, maybe they’re an accountant. Who is that customer that you are trying to attract for whatever product you’re going to deliver or service?
Well, the same thing needs to happen in a land deal. You need to really create that perfect kind of land deal to get you to that year-end goal that we talked about earlier. Let’s take a look at another one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, I thought we were going to talk about the whole topic.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, sorry, I should have said that. Yeah, you’re right.
Jill K DeWit:
Are you all done?
Steven Jack Butala:
No.
Jill K DeWit:
That was it. I was so… Well, that was a big, big script oops. Who’s in charge of the script? I’m so confused.
Steven Jack Butala:
By the end of this year, we will have done our 2,000, 2,000th freaking podcast.
Jill K DeWit:
Wow. And you think he’d get it down.
Steven Jack Butala:
That I could read a Microsoft Word document on a screen below a camera.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh my gosh, that was so good. I’m like, “Well, that was our topic. You got three sentences. See ya.” That was great.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh my God.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m like, what the heck? Okay, so let’s go back. Let me just see if I can save this. Here’s how I think of my ideal land transaction explained. So he’s right. It starts with thinking about who’s your buyer and queuing things up. You know who my buyer is? The majority of the people buying the property. That’s who my buyer is. So when you’re trolling, this is how I see it, and you’re going on Zillow, you’re looking at areas, you put in five to 20 acres, maybe five to 10 acres. Let’s just narrow down a little bit. And you put in anything selling between 70 and $80,000 because you’re going to try to buy them for 20. These are all great. And you’re trolling around and you’re seeing areas that have a lot of yellow dots because that means they’re sold.
That’s your buyer. Who are those people in that area? So for me, I’m simplifying it, starts with my ideal land transaction. I want it to be easy. I want it to be hard. I’m not here to reset the wheel. I’m not here to buy the most beautiful rock climbing property for the small niche of people that want to buy and own their own rock. They’re out there, but it’s not as many as everybody with an RV that can roll upon it and love it or hunt on it or fill in the blank. So it starts with that. So you pick it. This is my notes that I wrote to myself. My ideal land transaction is pick it, mail it, buy it, be ready, meaning have it ready to go, and market it, and beautifully, and make it easy because it should be.
So many times people come to us with properties that have all these flaws and they’re trying to overcome these flaws. I’m like, why? Doesn’t make you any more of a land investor. It doesn’t make you any more special or important because oh, I can pound my chest that I got through this, I got through that, and got through that. Well, I’m over here doing a lot less work and making the same or maybe even more money because I’m turning more deals in the same time that you’re taken to undo some of these issues and problems. So my ideal land transaction is just that. Beautiful, simple, everybody loves it, I’m in an area that’s not too busy and also part of my be ready was while I’m buying it, I’ve got my agent picked out who’s going to sell it. I’ve got photos, I’m ready for it. It’s all just kind of unfolding perfectly. That’s how it should be.
Steven Jack Butala:
I started in real estate in the early ’90s, brokering nursing homes. Very, very, very specific. Very specific product type, and there was a finite database about that back then. 12,000 properties that were skilled nursing facilities in the entire country. What did I do? I manually input them into a database, contacted every single one of them and found out who was interested in selling. They were largely, and still are, largely mom and pop run. Believe it or not, my clients were publicly traded or on their way to be publicly traded nursing home companies and they had to buy deals. They lived and died by their acquisitions, both the number of acquisitions and the quality of their acquisitions. So what did I do? Extort the hell out of that. I made it work to my advantage.
Excuse me. So I had an interview sheet and I would talk to the director or the vice president of acquisitions at each one of these five companies, and I would say something like this. “How many beds? What’s your ideal bed?” Some nursing homes are real small. They’re 20 or 30 beds. Some are really big, 300 beds. They would usually say, “120 beds with one single nursing station instead of two because the staffing’s better,” and go on to create a profile of their ideal transaction.
Jill K DeWit:
Cool.
Steven Jack Butala:
And then have me go contact all the sellers
Jill K DeWit:
That had that exact type.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
Mm-hmm.
Steven Jack Butala:
And so it made it easy. I did a lot of deals and made a lot of money.
Jill K DeWit:
Did you find a certain percentage of them, like more than 50% wanted the same thing?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay, so that makes it even easier. So that way then, if you knew that the majority of the people wanted between a 100 and 150 beds, one to two nursing stations, whatever it was-
Steven Jack Butala:
120 beds, one nursing station, a skilled wing. I don’t need to go into it.
Jill K DeWit:
But then you could go out and probably find 10 and then queue it up to all of them.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, God.
Jill K DeWit:
And let it be first come, first serve.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. That would be the fastest way to kill your career. We’re getting off track here.
Jill K DeWit:
See, I didn’t know that. I’m asking some questions because I don’t know.
Steven Jack Butala:
You don’t want to have eight clients and heaven bid against each other. They’ll never take your call again. You need to represent the person.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, hold on a moment. I do that with my sellers. I don’t do one seller at a time and say, “Are you in or are you out?”
Steven Jack Butala:
You represent yourself. There’s no chance of you losing yourself as a client.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, excuse me, I forgot. You were a real estate agent.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
My bad.
Steven Jack Butala:
I was a licensed Michigan real estate broker.
Jill K DeWit:
Forgot. I forgot who I was sitting next to. Yeah, I’ve never had that role.
Steven Jack Butala:
The point to this silly story that Jill just wrecked is they defined their ideal transaction. Did they come off of it? All the time. It’s 120 beds. It’s a singles nursing facility, but it’s-
Jill K DeWit:
You cue it up.
Steven Jack Butala:
But it didn’t have a Medicare wing to it. Well, that’s fine. We’re going to-
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, you didn’t say that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, you started talking.
Jill K DeWit:
I know you. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I mean they didn’t say that. Not me.
Steven Jack Butala:
I did a lot of deals. So what you want to do in your land situation is create that avatar. Create the what the perfect property is for you and why, and it better involve what Jill just said. Who you’re selling it to. Again, we’re starting from the end. The end of the entire real estate deal for you is when you sell it, when you sign your name.
Jill K DeWit:
Like today.
Steven Jack Butala:
Sign the deed, just like Jill did today, and in your head, you should be saying some version of, “The person who bought this property is exactly who I thought was going to buy it for just about the price that I thought we were going to sell it for, and I bought it for a hell of a lot less.”
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
So create that avatar. It might be farmland. You might like that. It might be like Dan earlier with this question, duck hunting property that isn’t buildable at all.
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
He’s just going to sell it as duck hunting property. There’s all kinds of very specific avatars that you can target and do very, very well with. Jill and I fell backwards into, a couple years ago… More than that, a few years ago, into an incredibly priced property that only had the single use, which was to build a motel on it.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
And boy, we made a ton of money on it. It wasn’t in our avatar. We just looked at it and said, “We have to buy this.”
Jill K DeWit:
Mm-hmm.
Steven Jack Butala:
And so maybe what’s involved in your avatar is the greatest financial real estate land deals you can possibly… And then any use. And then because you’re great at marketing, you can find a specific use property. You can find a database full of people just like nursing homeowners or people who need to buy it and work it backwards that way. My point is, you don’t want to just see what happens.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you’re brand new and you’re like, “Well, where do I start?” I don’t know, if I want to buy hotel property, nursing homes or farmland.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s a good point.
Steven Jack Butala:
Spend a ton of time asking those questions in Discord. Utilize your peer group that we’ve created. Ask those questions on a Thursday call or happy to answer those. I love answering those questions. And do a lot of research. Find out. Google some stuff. Google some crazy stuff. What’s the most profitable type of land?
Jill K DeWit:
I always go with what’s the easiest? I got to be honest with you. I’m serious. Why wouldn’t I? I don’t want you to fail.
Steven Jack Butala:
See, what you see as easiest is different than what some people say is easiest. I have to tell you, I agree with you.
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t want a special use, have to undo this probate thing. What? I’m not going to seek that out. No.
Steven Jack Butala:
A lot of it’s geo geography based. If you are going to mail Wayne County, Michigan, which is downtown Detroit, inner city Detroit, you’re going to get a lot of very, what I will call non-economically viable infill lots. If you want to get a duck hunting property in Wayne County, Michigan, that’s not going to work. So this is my point, through all this research, it will come to you that the vast majority of the properties in Western Washington state are recreation properties. They’re not to be developed for subdivisions. So a lot of the geography helps you down this path and if you’re new, you’re going to have to spend, just like Yuri did earlier, a year learning, and then the next year you’re probably going to make two or three or $400,000 if you want to. If you work it right.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. Let’s take a look at another one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill, you have something inspirational to share?
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, I was thinking about this week because last week was our Land Academy Ladies monthly get together and as you and I were talking about it afterward, I realized, holy moly. This is Land Academy Ladies 2.0, by the way. 1.0 was a couple years ago and then I stopped for a year, year and a half. It was getting to be a lot. I felt like we weren’t moving where we wanted to go. It was felt like it was getting a little stale, I’ll just say. Seriously. And so we stopped. Bur what was funny was later on, looking back at that group, every single woman that showed up and really contributed in that group went on to do really, really well. But I didn’t realize it at the time.
So here we are again. We just started in 2023 Land Academy Ladies 2.0 now, and I can already see such a difference and I can’t figure out why. I mean, I don’t have a real concrete answer, but some of the ladies in this group are just amazing and the topics that we’re talking about, the way we’re coming at it, maybe part of it is me. I’m re-energized and I’m excited about it and I can’t wait to see what some of these gals are going to do. I already know what some of them are going to do. There’s one in there in particular who’s in Career Path that just is-
Steven Jack Butala:
She’s killing it.
Jill K DeWit:
She is, and I don’t even think she realizes. She comes up with all these questions like, “Okay, look at this.” What’s great about her is, M is your first initial, she asks questions, she asks really good questions, she takes notes and she acts on them. In between office hours and our call, she’ll say, “Talked to the seller. I got that done, that done, and I’m waiting for a call back.” Because she’s just on it.
Steven Jack Butala:
She has no ego.
Jill K DeWit:
She’s not afraid.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what it is about her. She has no ego and no pride, which I think are two amazing qualities.
Jill K DeWit:
I think she’s got pride.
Steven Jack Butala:
She mechanically goes through the motions of buying and selling land and asking for help all around her when she doesn’t-
Jill K DeWit:
Doing a great job. But she’s asking smart questions though too. That’s the thing. She really thinks about it, puts thought into it.
Steven Jack Butala:
How did I imply that she wasn’t asking smart questions?
Jill K DeWit:
I’m just saying she asks a lot of the right questions. So I just want to make sure I’m giving her extra love because I appreciate that. Because you know why? There’s people that ask a lot of questions and then it gets to be redundant. Like the same questions.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh.
Jill K DeWit:
You know what I mean? They don’t learn from things. She’s really good at asking a question, learning from it, and then asking a better question after she’s moved forward and done these six things, which is really, really good. So maybe that’s why… This is my topic, please.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m not saying anything. If you’re listening or watching to this, have you noticed that I’m just doing nothing? I’m getting in trouble for it. “This is my topic, please.” What did I do?
Jill K DeWit:
There were some zingers in there. I’m like, “I didn’t imply anything.” You’re good. But the point I just want to talk about for a few minutes was who you are. And my group is pretty small right now. I’m a little surprised at how small it is. Land Academy Ladies, in case you were not sure, is for any female person who is involved in the Land Academy company, whether or not you are the direct member.
So if Jack was the member, I’m his partner slash spouse, whatever kind of thing. I’m not the direct member, but I’m helping the business and I’m doing things too. You are welcome to join Land Academy Ladies. All I have to do is send a note to support@landacademy.com and they will get you the invite. We meet once a month on Tuesdays, couple hours after the advanced call. Jack, now I would love to hear what you have informational to share with us today.
Steven Jack Butala:
My contribution today is called the right and the wrong ways to save for retirement. Two case studies and one of them is ours. Guess which one, the right way or the wrong way is ours.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m not going to guess. I’m not saying anything
Steven Jack Butala:
I belong to or I subscribe to, I don’t know what to call it. It’s not a group, it’s just an information source on the internet.
Jill K DeWit:
Therapy.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s the equivalent of, if you’re old enough like me to know who Dear Abby. Dear Abby would have a column in a newspaper and people would write in and say, “My husband’s the biggest jerk there ever was and I don’t know what to do,” And she would give them advice. It was mostly social stuff like that. This very specific, let’s call it a column, it’s not, it’s an internet website resource, is all about financial advice. And this person wrote in and said, “Help, I’ve saved $5 million toward my retirement and I’m heading into retirement,” and absolutely going to be a victim of the required minimum distributions that are associated with all the investment vehicles that he’s accumulated. 401k, Roth IRAs, and on and on and on.
Because he was a lifetime educator, either a teacher or an administrator, and I’m not sure. I’m sure the school districts for wherever he worked were matching his 401k. He was getting amazing tax advantages on the way in so that he wasn’t being taxed on the money that he was making by putting it in these investment vehicles. And at the same time, she was getting unknowingly feed to death by the people who have signed contracts with these school systems’ Wall Street.
So he didn’t have to pay taxes on the way in, but Wall Street people continue month after month after his contributions were taking fees and still are taking fees. So at his retirement age of 65 or 67, I can’t remember in the article, he’s now ready to take money out and he only can take a little bit out. The government tells him how much he can take out and it’s taxed.
Jill K DeWit:
Sucks. Sucks. He created a situation where he has a very few choices. He has all this money, supposedly did it all right, and he’s a victim of RMD, required minimum distribution. That’s case study one. So he’s going to get pounded. You know what the columnist answered? Well, you have a very bright 20 year future ahead of you in giving your money away.
Because then it’s not taxed.
Steven Jack Butala:
This boils my blood.
Jill K DeWit:
Was that the whole point?
Steven Jack Butala:
This boils my blood, this topic.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
You, listener, like us, either own a business or you’re on your way to owning a business where you make tons of money. You deduct your expenses first, like your own salary, the people who work for you, marketing, mail costs and on and on and on. And then what’s left, your net income, gets taxed. So we have a lot of control over how much tax we pay, unlike this poor victim of 401k and on and on and on. We own our own businesses and so we are going to pay our taxes up front and we are left with all kinds of after tax money because we buy and sell tons and tons of land. We buy some, we have choices. We can buy three deals every year or 30. We can spend a ton of time on this or not spend a ton of time on it.
We have complete control and we have piles and piles and piles of after tax money sitting in vehicles, which I deem to be risk-free. Checking accounts that have a high yield interest rate, certificates of deposit, and most importantly, more freaking land. What’s better than have a bunch of land that’s for sale? When it comes in, it comes in. So you don’t have to be one of these victims. This poor guy probably was the greatest teacher there ever was. Hopefully he’s got awards on his shelves for being the best teacher ever. He just didn’t really spend a lot of time researching about money. That’s what this is for.
That’s what Man Plan is for. If you don’t know about manplan.com, this is the kind of stuff we talk about, regardless of what your age is, we have not launched it yet, but go there, sign up, so you don’t have to go through this kind of crap in your life, regardless of your age. That was a rant. I should have said that beginning
Jill K DeWit:
Noted. When the elbow came my way when I started to ask one question, noted.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, did it?
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. That’s okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, that was automatic. I don’t even recall that.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, thanks. That’s great.
Steven Jack Butala:
Do you have any questions, Jill?
Jill K DeWit:
Nope. Nope, not at all.
Steven Jack Butala:
Are you enjoying the piles of after tax cash that you have for your retirement?
Jill K DeWit:
I’m doing just fine. I’m not worried about anything.
Steven Jack Butala:
Half of the piles of cash, you’ll generate it.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you. Yeah, I’m pretty good at that.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you have a question or if you’d like us to answer on air or you need any help getting involved with our community, text us at 480-530-7383. We read every single text and if we like your question, we’ll get it on the air.
Jill K DeWit:
Love it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Join us next Wednesday for another interesting episode because you are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill K DeWit:
We are Jack and Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
We are Jack and Jill.
Information.
Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration.
Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
https://youtu.be/R3v0c5fK-Ro
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
In this episode of the Land Academy Show, hosts Steven Jack Butala and Jill K DeWit are on the road in Boulder, Colorado, discussing how to build a 10,000 unit mailer and how to build due diligence confidence, which are hot topics for their Career Path members. They also talk about how they are able to run their land business from their RV, but have to find office spaces to run their podcast, and Career Path live video sessions. Steven and Jill suggest renting independent office spaces or hotel conference rooms, and mention that there are office shares in almost all tiny towns all over the place. They then answer questions from their Land Academy Discord forum and review land acquisitions from their weekly Thursday member webinar, before taking a deep dive into two land related topics by popular requests.
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit. And this is the Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is episode 1,951 and today, we’re going to talk about how I build, how Jack builds, a 10,000 unit mailer. And we’re going to talk also about building due diligence confidence. These are two topics that came from…
Jill K DeWit:
Career Path.
Steven Jack Butala:
Career Path.
Jill K DeWit:
Yep.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’re mid-session in Career Path Number Six, and these are hot topics, both of them, for…
Jill K DeWit:
Totally.
Steven Jack Butala:
… During the office hours for Career Path members.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. So I want to just make a note too, for those of you who are watching us, we are on the road. I would show you our beautiful background, but with the light outside, it’s actually a bright Colorado day right now. So you wouldn’t really see it. But my view is beautiful. So we happen to be Downtown Boulder, looking out over the mountains on the front range and it couldn’t be more pretty.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s right out of a postcard, the whole thing. And Jill and I are having an absolute blast.
Jill K DeWit:
Yep. So for those of you who are tuning in and listening and you’re here because, “I want to do it from the road too,” sometimes you have to do this kind of a stuff. So I’ve talked about it before. Running our own Land business from an RV is totally a piece of cake. I can do it with my laptop, I can do stuff on my phone, I can do things on my tablet. No big deal, running a Land business. Now, running Land Academy and a podcast and all the-
Steven Jack Butala:
And Officer Owners and Parcel Facts.
Jill K DeWit:
… And doing Career Path with the video live stuff we have to do, that’s a whole different ballgame. So for those things, we find these office space environments and it’s great, because you could rent it for a couple hours, rent it for a day, whatever you need. I just want you to know all your options.
Steven Jack Butala:
It turns out there’s an office share in almost all tiny little towns all over the place. I’m shocked at how many… Not the chains. Not the WeWorks.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s all kinds of independent little offices. You can rent a room.
Jill K DeWit:
It doesn’t have to be a hotel conference room.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
We’ve done that.
Steven Jack Butala:
They have that too.
Jill K DeWit:
We’ve done that. So yeah. Now I’m like, “Oh.” And here’s the reason why, because we don’t want to go home. We picked up a new rig. Well, we did the podcast… Did we do the podcast from the rig last week? I think we did.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. That’s right. You saw the podcast from the rig last week. So we were going to head home after that, right? And then Jack very nicely says, “I don’t need to go home. Do you need to go home?” I go, “I kind of need to go home.” So I’m having contacts shipped to me here. That’s the only thing I’m running out of that I can’t get. But other than that, we’ll just see how it goes. So who knows where we’re going to pop up next week?
Steven Jack Butala:
This is the first time… I was telling Jill yesterday.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is the first time in my entire life ever that I don’t have anything to complain about.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Or worry about.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, boy. Do you have this in your relationship? Probably the roles are reversed. It’s probably the woman that has a lot to B-I-T-C-H about. But in our scenario, not to throw you under the bus, but one of us rolls a little better with the punches, and I think it’s because one of us doesn’t, that one of us has to. So we’ll just leave it at that.
Steven Jack Butala:
You know what? We’re getting it done though.
Jill K DeWit:
We are getting it done.
Steven Jack Butala:
We couldn’t do the Thursday call last week, now that I’m thinking about it.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, that’s right. We did have to cancel last week. We’re going to do it this week.
Steven Jack Butala:
Because of network issues. Now we’ve got it all figured out, I think,
Jill K DeWit:
Sheesh. And the internet here is better than at home.
Steven Jack Butala:
Each week we answer questions from our Land Academy Discord forum and review land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar, and take a deep dive into two land related topics by popular requests. I just mentioned those. Let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. If you want a sneak peek, go to landacademy.com. It’s free.
Jill K DeWit:
Lacey wrote, “Hi, I had a question regarding downloading data from DataTree. Are we downloading the data per zip code within the county, or for the entire county?”
Steven Jack Butala:
Boy, that’s a-
Jill K DeWit:
Best practice, check.
Steven Jack Butala:
… leap right into our topic. It completely and entirely depends on what your goal is. If you are trying to build a mailer, like I’m going to talk about in a couple seconds here, then I personally like to go run the red, green, yellow test by zip code and pit all those adjacent zip codes in a county against each other. Pick out the best ones that have… And if you have questions about what are the best ones, please go to Land Academy 3.0, chapter three and four. And then build a data set from there. So for instance, if you’ve got one section of a county that’s got eight zip codes in it, three of them really work. They pass the red, green, yellow test. You discard the other counties. And you keep working your way around the county until you’ve built a mailer that satisfies you from a numbers standpoint, and a performance standpoint as far as the red, green, yellow test goes.
Jill K DeWit:
So per zip code.
Steven Jack Butala:
Per zip code, but you need to build a mailer.
Jill K DeWit:
Right. So yeah, you don’t need to get the whole county and then pick out the zip codes, because now you’ve wasted all that. That’s the whole point of running the red, yellow, green test. You’re making sure that you’re picking the hot zip codes. And then what Jack’s mentioning, he’s going to talk more about is, well, great, what if the zip code only yields 300 units? What do I do then? That’s how you’re building your mailer.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s just get into it.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay, good.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s first topic.
Jill K DeWit:
It sounds like this. I’m putting my fists up. Let’s get into it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s first topic is how Jack builds a 10,000 unit mailer. Well, it’s exactly what Lacey’s asking. I troll around the country, or troll around a state or a region, and I find properties or areas of properties that I believe, based on how I input my equity planner, how much money I want to make per deal. Do I want to make $80,000 a deal? Do I want to make $20,000 a deal? Do I want to buy for 20 and sell for 40? Buy for 60, sell for 160? What do I want? Based on those parameters, I go in and troll around the country all the time. And I find places that seem like they might work. When that happens, I go into DataTree and I download the zip codes. These adjacent zip codes, they have to be adjacent. This is important because the red, green, yellow test is relative. What goes on in Kansas-
Jill K DeWit:
I mean, I can’t [inaudible 00:06:30] I was just going to say.
Steven Jack Butala:
… Does not go on in Alaska.
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t do one in Oregon and one in Kansas and one over here, because I pick the top ones…
Steven Jack Butala:
Apples to oranges.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. Got it.
Steven Jack Butala:
It has to be relative and adjacent and relative. And so what ends up happening… And this is the norm. This is not an exception. I find five or eight zip codes, two or three work, let’s say. Some number like that, maybe two. I find out that those two zip codes in that pocket of adjacent zip codes really work. They pass the red, green, yellow test. But I find out it’s only 700 units. Well, I want to send out 10,000 properties. I want to send out a 10,000 unit mailer. So I continue to do the same thing. And the more diverse these pockets of zip codes that I create, diversification is a… Finance diversification is a 101 rule. It’s very safe. You diversify risk that way. So if I end up in five different states with clusters of zip codes, they pass a red, green, yellow test, and now I need to continue to build a up to… I want to build a 10,000 unit mailer. I don’t do mailers for less than 10,000 units. In fact, it’s closer to 25,000.
Jill K DeWit:
Do they all go out at the same time?
Steven Jack Butala:
No.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
I asked my partner about-
Jill K DeWit:
There you go.
Steven Jack Butala:
… How many would you like to go out every week?
Jill K DeWit:
Well, that’s a point that makes sense too. I want to pause for just a second and say, “Why are we doing that much? Am I doing that much every week? Is that what I should be aiming for?” Maybe, depending where you are in this business and how big your team is. But for most individuals just don’t want to sit and have to do this every week. Some do, but some don’t. Maybe you don’t have the time to do that. You don’t have the time to spend every Monday to sit down and pick a county, do your things, and get a mailer out. Some do. Again, some don’t.
So if you don’t, or you just don’t want to do it that often, like Jack here, he’d rather do it for the whole month. Sit and do 10,000. But he’s got this state, five zip codes. This county, five zip codes, right? Of the 12. And this county over in this state where he’s got six of the 15 zip codes that pass. And then this one and this one and this one, maybe it’s four different regions, if you will, to make up the 10,000. Then do your download and la, da, da, da, da, and-
Steven Jack Butala:
And then [inaudible 00:08:51] your mailer.
Jill K DeWit:
… Space it out. Space out when the mailer hits.
Steven Jack Butala:
Or better yet, send it to Concierge Data and [inaudible 00:08:57] to owners after you’ve got the data all done and you like it and it’s 10,000, 11,000, 15,000 units-
Jill K DeWit:
They’ll space it out.
Steven Jack Butala:
… Send it over. They’ll space it out. They will process the order and release it when you ask them to. So if you say, “Every Monday, I want 2,500 to go out until it’s gone and let me know.”
Jill K DeWit:
Yep. That’s beautiful. I’m trying to think of questions to ask you.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is the norm. This is not… Well, here’s another one.
Jill K DeWit:
I have questions.
Steven Jack Butala:
Okay.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay, so this is great, Jack. If I do all this data in bulk like this, how far can I space it out? I’m assuming six months is too long because the data may change. How current do you want my data to be?
Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s what happens.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is a great question.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
And you know what the answer is? I don’t know. Six months is probably okay. You don’t need to refresh your data for six months, and maybe even a year. You could stretch it out for a year, but date is cheap. Your time is not. Your time is expensive, and the mail’s expensive.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
So what ends up happening is this. You’re going to send out 2,500. You’re going to ask O20 to send out 2,500. They’re going to send them out. Two weeks later, you’re going to get a bunch of opportunity. People are going to call back. And now your system’s moving forward. So if you think of this, and picture a calendar while I say this, the first Monday, 100 units go out. Two weeks later, you’re going to get responses from that. But the next Monday, 2,500 units go out, two weeks later from that. So you can see how there’s a lag. You don’t want that. You don’t want to stop ever releasing stuff into the mail because you’re going to stop your deal flow.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s the key.
Steven Jack Butala:
And at some point, you are going to say, “I have too many deals.” If you send out 2,500 to 5,000 a week, you are going to generate some amazing opportunity, and it’s going to be too much for you, if you’re new, to handle. If you’re scaling or you’re coming to us from another group, you know how these deals go, how much time they take. You’ve got some experience. And so you know if you can handle 15 deals or five deals or three deals or one.
Jill K DeWit:
I got to tell you, though, that’s the best scenario. I’m still going to say this. I don’t care. If you have too much deals, boohoo. I’m serious. You know why? Because you’re not going to make any mistakes and you’re going to pick the best ones.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what it is.
Jill K DeWit:
When you have 10 deals, oh my gosh, I’d buy them all if I could, but I can’t. I don’t have the bandwidth, the money, the time, whatever. Then so what? You’re going to pick the best ones. And then space them out. And I’ve had those conversations too, by the way. It’s easy to tell a seller, “How fast do we need to do this? Because I need to budget this out, if you will.” And if you say, “Can I do this in 30 days?” And they say yes, you can do that. I don’t like it. Too many things can go wrong. But back in the day, I did have those conversations when I really did. The difference is, now you don’t have to do that because if it’s money, it’s all in bandwidth that you might not be able to handle it. But if it’s only money, for a lot of people, it’s money. That they’re just like, “I don’t have the budget to buy for $20,000 properties.” Well, I do.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let me ask you question.
Jill K DeWit:
Hit me up. Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
When are more choices bad? Not just with real estate, but in life? Give me one example, please. Because I can’t think of one.
Jill K DeWit:
Hmm. [inaudible 00:12:31]. Not jewelry, not men. Let me tell you the [inaudible 00:12:36]. It’s not jewelry, it’s not men. It’s not real estate.
Steven Jack Butala:
Cars?
Jill K DeWit:
No, I thought about that with cars. I do have a little trouble with cars because then I want to buy them all. I don’t know.
Steven Jack Butala:
But you do want more choices-
Jill K DeWit:
But you want more choices.
Steven Jack Butala:
… Because now you have control. If you have more choices about all the stuff that Jill just mentioned, you are going to, invariably, in my opinion, if you have the right personality type to do all this, you will invariably make the best choice. And it’s the same thing with deals. If staring at 20 deals and you only want to do one or two a month, which is fine, you’re going to pick the best two. If you have a universe of 28 deals versus 19 deals, chances are, there’s a better deal in there than 19 or 15 or 10. That’s why it’s so important.
Jill K DeWit:
Or four. That’s the problem. People don’t realize, when you have too little and you’re looking at… Here’s what happens. The opposite… Sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt you, but when you have three or four deals and people don’t send out enough mail, this is the problem. You send out 2000 units, right? And you get 20 calls back or 30 calls back, and you’ve got four that passed your test, not 14, four, now you’re looking at the lesser of two evils like, “Well, maybe this one over that one,” and that’s where you’re going to get in trouble.
Steven Jack Butala:
Which taps into Jill’s next topic. And so I don’t want to get too ahead of ourselves, but if you have 20 deals that you’re looking at and you only want to get two, you’re going to make great decisions, because you have more opportunity and more diversification. Those things are universal concepts in everything. More diversification is better. Always. More options. More choices are always better than less choices.
Jill K DeWit:
In your 10,000 unit mailer, I’m going to argue too. So here’s what you’re doing, you’re in DataTree, you’re filling in your parameters and you’re stacking up, right? Are you going to download in one bulk?
Steven Jack Butala:
No.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay, so you have one per county.
Steven Jack Butala:
Or zip code. Let’s say-
Jill K DeWit:
Well, no. No, I mean… Let me back up here. So I put in state, county, and my six zip codes, and I’ve got 8,000 units. I have to download that and then go back and do 2000 from my other area that I picked out.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay, got it.
Steven Jack Butala:
You have to do separate downloads, because here’s why. That’s a great point. I should have been more clear on that.
Jill K DeWit:
Because does just-
Steven Jack Butala:
[inaudible 00:14:58] data-
Jill K DeWit:
… Zip code pick up the right thing? Or does it have to be the state, county?
Steven Jack Butala:
So if you go state, county, and then you have five zip codes in there, you’re going to do fine, because the county, it’s at the county level that the assessor data is generated on the back end of DataTree, and every county’s very different. Even counties that are adjacent in the same state might handle their assessor data very, very differently. So you do not want to cross counties. You want to have one county, multiple zip codes. Then download. If you haven’t reached a 10,000 unit, let’s say it’s 2,500, you’re going to do another… Start over. And you’re going to go to another county-
Jill K DeWit:
Download that one and then keep adding.
Steven Jack Butala:
… Find the zip codes, and build it until you get to the numbers that you want.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. Then I’m going to argue, tell me if I’m wrong here, because this is data 101 questions I want to ask for everybody.
Steven Jack Butala:
Sure.
Jill K DeWit:
So I have three different files. Do I put them all in one big file, so I scrub them all at once and save time?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yes.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
And you put the raw data in one big file. This is a normal mailer for me.
Jill K DeWit:
Cool.
Steven Jack Butala:
And then I start to build the mailer, or I send it to 020.
Jill K DeWit:
Cool.
Steven Jack Butala:
In my case, I use Concierge Data now because I train the person, Daniel, who runs Concierge Data and I know what he’s capable of and what he’s not. If I send him the data file and it’s done and… He does it right.
Jill K DeWit:
Scrubs out.
Steven Jack Butala:
And he sends it back to me.
Jill K DeWit:
What are we scrubbing out? We’re scrubbing out city of fill in the blank. And things like that.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’re scrubbing out people who-
Jill K DeWit:
Bad zips.
Steven Jack Butala:
… Own properties, like the US government. They don’t need a letter from you. You’re just wasting money on mail.
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s all in the program.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. I’m just giving little tips like, “Well, what are you scrubbing?” So I think that answers all my questions.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a look at one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar.
Hey, if you don’t know it by now, Jill and I have a full-blown commercial printing company, specifically to send offers to owners. In fact, that’s the name. Offers2owners.com. About four or five, maybe eight months ago, we added a product called Concierge Data. Everybody loves it. It allows you, including me, to completely outsource your mailing operation. Check it out. Go to offers2owners.com. And give them a call. There’s an 800 number there. You’ll get my number, my right-hand guy, his name is Aaron, and ask him all kinds of questions. Tell him I sent you.
Let’s take another question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. Again, if you want to sneak peek, go to landacademy.com. It’s free.
Jill K DeWit:
Michael wrote, “I know the answer to most of the questions about mailer yield is, don’t worry about it, just send more mail. Nevertheless, I can’t help but feel that I’m doing something wrong. I just calculated my numbers for last year and I sent 40,000 offers to 29 counties and acquired only seven properties.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Only seven properties?
Jill K DeWit:
Right. “And it looks like all my mailers one to one state. Starts with a G. How do I debug my process? Am I offering too little? Most of the year I was targeting 35% of retail. Now I’m backing off to target 30%, my picking areas that are too hot. Has anyone been in this situation and figured out a way to debug your process? I’m not sure where to start.”
So is that your math at the bottom right there?
Steven Jack Butala:
Mm-hmm.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m going to-
Jill K DeWit:
Will you scroll down?
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m going to deconstruct this for everyone. I’m going to reel off a lot of numbers, but this is incredibly important. This question, every once in a while we get a question… This is a fantastic question, and I need to deconstruct this so that everybody understands this business model. Again, this is very important. I’m going to throw a lot of numbers out. So if you need to get a paper and pencil and really digest this or listen to it more than once, I get it. I would have to.
40,000 mailers times 62 cents is approximately $26,000. That’s how much he spent on mail last year. And it yielded seven acquisitions for him. That’s for every 5,700-ish mailers that he sent out, he bought a property. So one of the top questions we get, “Well, how many mailers do I have to send out exactly to buy a property?” Well, here’s your answer. And this is a person who is reasonably new in this business and his learning curve’s a little different. The numbers are real different for Jill and I. But that’s because we’ve been doing it for 25 years.
So his mailer yields about 5,700. For every 5,700 mailers he sends out, he gets a property. That’s not failing, sir.
Jill K DeWit:
Nope. Give me more numbers.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s incredibly succeeding. So if he nets… If he bought for 10,000 and sold for 20,000, that’s netting 10 grand. He made $10,000 per deal, times seven transactions is $70,000. Well, he spent $45,000… I’m sorry. He spent $26,000 on the mailer. So if I subtract 70 grand, minus 26,000, he made $45,000 a year, that year, which is a return on investment of 182%. How is that failing?
Jill K DeWit:
I agree.
Steven Jack Butala:
Tell me another business-
Jill K DeWit:
That’s the bottom. That’s the bottom-
Steven Jack Butala:
… Tell me another business that where you can make 182% return on investment. Would Jill and I buy a property where we net 10 grand on it? No. Would I have bought one 15 years ago? Sure. I would’ve bought as many as I could. If he nets $20,000, not 10, so he buys for 10 and sells for 30, he’s going to… And multiply that buy seven, that’s $140,000 a year that he made. Subtract the cost of the mail. You end up with about $115,000 of profit, after you subtract the mail costs. That’s a 464% return on investment.
Jill K DeWit:
How is that failing?
Steven Jack Butala:
Show me where you can make that.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Can you do that on a convenience store? Hell no.
Jill K DeWit:
Nope.
Steven Jack Butala:
Gas station?
Jill K DeWit:
Nope. Pizza joint? Nope.
Steven Jack Butala:
Really. Please, if you’re on YouTube or anywhere else, I would like you to type in where you get a return like that without going to Las Vegas.
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you net $30,000, buy for 10, sell for 40. Multiply that, $30,000 by seven properties, subtract your mailer cost, 747% return on investment. If you net 40, buy for 20, sell for 60. Now we’re approaching a regular Land Academy deal.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Multiply that times seven. Subtract the mail. 1000% return on investment.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s amazing.
Steven Jack Butala:
$50,000 per deal. 1300%. $70,000 per deal. Now we’re approaching Jill’s criteria. Yeah, $70,000 per deal times seven deals is almost half a million dollars minus the mail cost is 1875% return of an investment.
Jill K DeWit:
These ROIs are hilarious. It doesn’t even seem real.
Steven Jack Butala:
Stick with me because it gets better at the end, and this is not the end. Let’s skip to $100,000 net, which is what Jill and I… We try to make on every deal. It doesn’t happen, but we shoot for it. It ends up being 80, 70, 90, whatever.
Jill K DeWit:
Who cares?
Steven Jack Butala:
$100,000 times seven deals is $700,000 in profit. Subtract the mail cost, and now you’ve got almost a 2800% return on investment. Here’s the kicker. Let’s say you don’t have the money to buy these things. So you do deal funding on all of these. Now I can’t calculate your return on investment because you didn’t spend any money. You spent our money, and got 50% of the profit. Please type in a better business model. Because I’ve spent my entire professional life building this business model, and if there was something else better to do, I would do it. We’re choosing to teach this for a reason because we want to fund your deals. We want to be partners with you. We didn’t start Land Academy to make money. We started it to create partners for ourselves. And this is a fantastic example. These are real numbers. I didn’t make this up. He posted this in Discord, and he thinks he’s failing. And he’s smashing it.
Jill K DeWit:
I agree.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s second topic. It’s called Building Due Diligence Confidence by Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. So this came up in Career Path this week. And it was really interesting because I noticed people that were talking about all these deals. Like this person, even the seven that came back, I’m sure there was a pause. There’s always a pause, especially when you’re new, just doing a deal. And then for other people, when you’re in a new area, there’s a pause too. There we go. Thank you. I don’t why I need to see that. But it sure helps when I can see the topic. It’s all good.
So anyway, I wanted to talk a few minutes about due diligence and building confidence and getting good at it. Right? So this came up the other day. Someone’s like, “I have all these deals. I have 20 deals and I’m struggling picking the deals.” Right? And I understand that. Like I said, when you’re new and or in a new area, you don’t want to make a mistake. I don’t want to buy for 20 and get stuck with it. I don’t want to buy for 20 and sell for 25 and then buy… Because I made a mistake and by the time I back out, my escrow fees and a broker and all that stuff, I barely break even, kind of thing.
Have I had that happen early on and made mistakes like that? Yeah. And have I watched that happen? Yeah. So it’s fine. So you’ve got to build confidence. And my main thing in here is, you have to really know what to look for, and I want you to prioritize the six A’s. So I did this last week on Career Path. I had Jack, myself, and another couple, I had them look at the six A’s and I had them put them in order what they think was the most important. Because this is to help you build confidence.
Okay. First of all, what are the six A’s? The six A’s, jack came up with four. When I met Jack, he had four. And then now it has grown to six. I added one, you added another one. So maybe it might be seven at some point. We’ll see. So the six A’s are the things that you look at to make sure you’re making a good decision when acting and moving forward and buying a property. Okay? And I’m going to give you my order of preference, and then you can tell me what you think they are right now. I’d to go off the top of my head to remember. But number one for me is alive.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s my number one. And if they are not… I need to write them down. If I’m not speaking to the seller or I’m not speaking to the person that has the power to sell the property, I am wasting my time.
Steven Jack Butala:
Absolutely right.
Jill K DeWit:
Doesn’t do me any good to say, “I think dad has a deed somewhere. Dad passed on. Mom’s got the will. I’m sure we can all do this.” Well, hold on a moment. We need to really make sure that it’s in the right name. You do have the authority to convey it. Fill in the blank. Doesn’t matter about the property.
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t want to gloss over this. It’s the reason that alive is the number one A for both of us because it’s a huge misconception in our business that, “Well, my dad willed it. It says in my will.”
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
“I’m willing everything-”
Jill K DeWit:
Well, dad told me.
Steven Jack Butala:
… “To my only child, son. And here’s my will and I own the property.” So that might be true with a car, that might be true with a piece of furniture or a bank account or all kinds of gold or all kinds of stuff. But it is not true with real estate. If somebody passes away and the property’s in their name and not in their heir’s name, there’s a lot of hoops you got to go through. And in some states, it’s nearly impossible. Arizona’s one of them.
Jill K DeWit:
Mm-hmm. Exactly. And the reason I’m going through this right now is I want to convey to you the important things on my list in my order, because I want you to have this in your head when you’re making these decisions, and so you have the confidence to do this. So that’s my last. I got one more. Hold on a moment.
Steven Jack Butala:
So alive.
Jill K DeWit:
Alive is number one.
Steven Jack Butala:
Alive is both of our first.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. Number two is affordability.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yep. It’s got to be cheap enough.
Jill K DeWit:
So I’m going through my list. Again, you’re doing your due diligence. They’re alive. I got the right person. Is it a really good price? Do I feel really good about it? Am I buying this for $3,800 and I think it’s worth 20? It’s that kind of a deal. Yeah, I feel really good about it. And everywhere I look, 20’s on the low end. If I screw it all up, I sell it for 20. I might sell it for 28. I don’t know. Based on all these other properties that I’m looking at for sale and have sold in the last six and 12 months, things that are moving in this area, all of that. So that checks that box.
Steven Jack Butala:
I agree, by the way, so far.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you. Okay, great. Now I’m feeling good now. I’ve got my 10 and of my 10, now I’m down to five, let’s just say. Probably even seven. Let’s just say you started with 10, now you’re down to seven. All right. Well, now what’s important next? What do I really need to look about? Access. Can we get to it? Can my buyer get to it?
In a perfect world, I would love physical and legal access. What does that mean? Physical means… It doesn’t have to be paved, by the way. I don’t care about that. But can I get there? Hopefully two wheel drive. Hopefully my Prius will go out there, because by the way, my agent might drive a Prius. Or their Lexus, or fill in the blank. My agent might not be in a Jeep like me. But hopefully two wheel drive. Four wheel drive, I can even handle too. But can they get to it? That’s physical access. Okay?
And then the number two part of access, part B is legal access. If it is really on a road, now I know I got it. And I can see from Google Earth where the indent is and the driveway kind of thing, maybe it even has an address. Not often. But sometimes it will. Now I really know, locked in, I’ve got legal access. What if I’m not sure? But you know what I’m going to do now? I’m going to call. I’m going to first ask the seller.
Steven Jack Butala:
You’re going to find out. You get to the bottom of it.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, I’m going to dig deeper. It’s going to pass my phase one and move to phase two. If I can see physical access, I’m going to move it forward onto my next level of due diligence where I’m going to really uncover, is it real? Do I have an easement? Something like that. And I’ll work with the seller in the county and plat maps to figure that out.
Steven Jack Butala:
Now, if it’s on a county road, on a corner of two county roads, you can very safely assume and move forward to phase two diligence because it’s got access.
Jill K DeWit:
Yep. So let’s just say my 10 went to seven, went to five. So now I’m-
Steven Jack Butala:
Can you explain what those numbers are?
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. So I started with 10 properties.
Steven Jack Butala:
10 people responded to a mailer.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. I have 10 signed purchase agreements.
Steven Jack Butala:
Excellent, Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
And of those 10 now, because I need to feel good about my due diligence and making sure I’m not making mistakes, I’m running through these six A’s. So I went from 10, of the alive test, then I went to seven with affordability. I just checked all the access situation. Now my 10, I’m down to five properties that passed those three tests. This is how you build your confidence and you don’t make mistakes.
Steven Jack Butala:
Absolutely.
Jill K DeWit:
Now what’s next on that? Well, let’s attribute what the heck is great about this property? Is it on a creek? Is it near Estes Park? Is it fill in the blank?
Steven Jack Butala:
Does it have a farm across the street that should be on a postcard,
Jill K DeWit:
Right. Is it itself a farm?
Steven Jack Butala:
Do you get a good feeling?
Jill K DeWit:
Maybe it’s zoned agriculture.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yep.
Jill K DeWit:
That could be an attribute.
Steven Jack Butala:
Maybe it’s got an old mobile home on it.
Jill K DeWit:
Right. Or a well. Fill in the blank. Now it’s not always there and it’s not always a deal killer, but I’m looking for that. And that really will make a property stand out. And when you look at these attributes too, what you’re doing right now is figuring out who’s going to buy your property. When you’re looking at it and you go, “Oh, look at this creek. Oh my God, some fly fisher is going to love this property,” now you already know who you’re going to market it to, who you’re going to sell it to, and you know what you’re doing. So you’re going through those attributes. So let’s just say of my five, I’m down to three. Let’s give it a real good-
Steven Jack Butala:
This is a good way to do this.
Jill K DeWit:
These are real good realistic numbers. So of my-
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, they are.
Jill K DeWit:
Really, I started with 10. I had 10 signed purchase agreements. Now I’m down to three. You know why? Because I don’t want to make mistakes. I have five that passed the test. But you know what? I want to feel really good about these. So now with those attributes, I got three that I know right away how to sell them. Done, done, and done. And then I have two other A’s. And then in order is, for me, the number fifth A is adjacent.
Part of that was built into my attributes to where I’m looking around to see what’s around there. Adjacent is, what’s going on with the neighbors? What are they doing? Is there a lot of property for sale or not a lot of property for sale? And what’s next door? Is there a ranch next door? Well, this is beautiful because this shows my buyer what’s possible. And when there’s a ranch next door, I know they got power figured out, they got water figured out, they’ve got all this stuff figured out. So adjacent, it’s just for me, a little boost. A little like, “Huh. All right.” And my three stays three. I’m going to feel good about… So my I lumped together adjacent and attribute often.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, I do too. They go together.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you. So my three is still three properties I’m moving forward with. And then the last thing on the list is acreage. And acreage was usually solved right away. Acreage is like, “Did I get back the properties I mailed for?” Meaning I was mailing for five to seven acres. I had a real small thing in there. And this property’s 5.3. Perfect. So that’s an easy… But it’s a last little thing you just want to make sure. Am I getting what I wanted out of this mailer? So that’s why that’s the sixth one for me.
Steven Jack Butala:
In general, acreage, larger is better. In general. That’s not necessarily the case in a real urban area. You could have an incredibly valuable piece of property that’s a quarter acre or less.
Jill K DeWit:
Correct.
Steven Jack Butala:
Why, Jill-
Jill K DeWit:
Why am I doing all this?
Steven Jack Butala:
… Wouldn’t you have 10 options to choose from when you start running down all the A’s?
Jill K DeWit:
I did have 10.
Steven Jack Butala:
I know. Why wouldn’t you? What would you do wrong to not have 10 to that-
Jill K DeWit:
Wait, start with 10 and end in 10
Steven Jack Butala:
No. Hold on.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
Just hold on a second. Okay? You started with 10 and you ended with three.
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
What if you started with three?
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, I hate that.
Steven Jack Butala:
What would happen?
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, that’d be awful.
Steven Jack Butala:
You would end with zero.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. You know what, I would?
Steven Jack Butala:
Why would you start with three?
Jill K DeWit:
Or I’m desperate and I end with one and I’m like, “I think this one might work.” And then I’m scared and I’m making risky decisions.
Steven Jack Butala:
So hold on a second, all right?
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Because this is the problem.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you don’t have confidence, you’re getting deals back.
Jill K DeWit:
Yep.
Steven Jack Butala:
And you’re looking at one deal and you’re trying to jam all five or six A’s. Is it six A’s now?
Jill K DeWit:
Six.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jam all six A’s into this property, and it’s not working. Well, you-
Jill K DeWit:
You don’t have enough.
Steven Jack Butala:
… you’re not dealing… Can you hold on a second?
Jill K DeWit:
Sorry.
Steven Jack Butala:
You did not force yourself to utilize the mail the way that you should to create all 10 of those opportunities, or better yet, 20. And then you end up with three, because now as a percentage that the three of… You really picked the best three out of those 20s. Maybe it’s 3., you have started with 30 properties and you ended with three. What’s your guaranteed way to start with 30 instead of 10?
Jill K DeWit:
Send more mail.
Steven Jack Butala:
Send more mail.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
Because just in the question earlier, we proved that sending out 40,000 mailers yields seven deals in a year, and you’re in the thousands of percent on a return on investment. So why wouldn’t you guarantee that? What are you going to forego? What’s the problem? Why wouldn’t you send out more mail?
Jill K DeWit:
I feel like I’m in trouble.
Steven Jack Butala:
Because it’s expensive.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh.
Steven Jack Butala:
It costs money upfront, and that freaks people out. I’m going to actually-
Jill K DeWit:
Well, what doesn’t?
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m going to talk about this in a… That’s what I mean.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, hold on a moment.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what I mean.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, let’s just back up for just a second. Let’s be honest. Everything’s going to cost money to get started. And you know what? If now’s not the right time, you don’t have the money, wait till you do.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s right.
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t care.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s exactly right, Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
Wait until you do. So that’s a whole ‘nother subject.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, that is my information/inspiration talk in a few minutes here.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. Whew. Scared me. I was getting in trouble. My main thing is, I wanted to show you how to go from 10 to three, and Jack is right. So you saw how I was very confidently making these decisions. When you go from 20 to three, you’re making really good decisions too. So when you’re starting out, to hit home what Jack was saying, the more mail you send, you have… I would love for you to have 30, 40 awesome, great sellers, [inaudible 00:37:09] agreements, emails back saying, “Yes, yes, yes,” phone calls. You know you have 35 that you love, right? Or you think. You have 35 people that, let’s just say, they’re on the same page with you, price wise. Now you’re going to do what I just did and you’re going to work it backwards. And if you’re new, you’re going to end with three, and you’re going to feel like, “That was amazing. I know I can’t lose.” But when you get going and you build up this confidence, your 30’s going to be 10. Or whatever it is. You’ll make sure that you make those decisions.
Steven Jack Butala:
Maybe it’s one.
Jill K DeWit:
Right decisions.
Steven Jack Butala:
Maybe you get one property in all of those 30 that you’re going to make $100,000 on, and the mail costs 20 grand.
Jill K DeWit:
Maybe that’s it. There’s a lot of people-
Steven Jack Butala:
What’s the ROI on that? It’s staggering. Honestly, that’s what we do. We send out hoards and hoards in mail, and we only buy the perfect properties that we believe are risk free.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s the point here too. That’s my final point is, if anything has changed with our business model and how I personally pick properties right now, versus how I was doing it five years ago, I’m getting pickier.
Steven Jack Butala:
And I have one more point about this. And it’s, I think, super important, about affordability. If you buy property for too much money because you’re trying to ramrod this… You didn’t start with 10. You started with two and you bought them both, and they weren’t priced right. They were too expensive. And you go to sell them and it takes you a year to sell them, you’re going to give up on this business. You do not want to put yourself in that situation. Affordability is really important. If you watch the Thursday calls… If you’re a member, go back and watch the old Thursday calls. Geez, there’s hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them in there, where we review people’s deals on a weekly basis. And what we always say, almost without exception, not completely, but almost without exception, we say, “You know what? Love the land. It’s got three of the five or six A’s. And you have it priced at $15,000. If you can get it to $5,000, I would buy it.”
And so affordability… For me, just about any property, even if it doesn’t have any of the A’s, is going to be worth 500 bucks. Most of the time, not all the time. So you can forego some of these other potential flaws that land has if you buy it cheap enough. And you’ll build your confidence that way. You’ll build your due diligence confidence by making sure you’re sleeping great at night because you bought it so cheap.
Jill K DeWit:
There you go. Thank you very much.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take another look at another one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar.
Jill, you have something inspirational to share.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. I was thinking about this. As we’re driving around Colorado right now, all over Colorado. Let me tell you. Pretty much all up and down the front range, we’ll say that. It’s pretty flipping and cool and it’s so beautiful. And everywhere I look, I have these breathtaking, awe-inspiring, for me, views. And it could be… Maybe it’s a mountain. Maybe it’s just a rolling field. Something like that. But I was thinking about it and I realized, I really am a land person. And it really helps me in everything that we do, that I can see something there, and properly convey that to my broker and to my buyers. Right? Because that’s the whole point here. Why am I doing this whole thing anyway? Why am I in the land business? Is it here to collect land to have for my portfolio so when I die, I have 8,000 acres?
No. That is not the point and why I’m in this business, right? No, we’re here to buy and sell land. And it sure helps if you’re a land person. How do you know if you’re a land person? It’s what I just said. If you walk around going, “Oh my gosh. It’s so beautiful. So I can see someone’s cabin there. I can see my cabin there. I can see me on that creek. I can see me riding a horse over this whatever ridge. I can see…” You see the trees and the beauty that’s there. That helps.
But what if you are not a land person? Which what’s interesting to me is because I grew up in Southern California. I did not grow up in the Rocky Mountains. I grew up in-
Steven Jack Butala:
Disneyland.
Jill K DeWit:
… In it. Well, I mean, we’re talking suburbia in it. There was no land. If you had a quarter of an acre, you had a lot of land. So most of the places where I grew up, it was 0.12, kind of thing. And so I just think it’s kind of funny that it doesn’t matter where you’re from, by the way, whether or not you’re a land person or not. And I want to talk just for a few minutes about what to do if you’re not a land person.
Steven Jack Butala:
I can’t wait to hear this.
Jill K DeWit:
I know.
Steven Jack Butala:
Because I have a simple answer.
Jill K DeWit:
Well…
Steven Jack Butala:
But I’m going to go after you.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh. Well, [inaudible 00:42:21]. That’s hilarious. So, well, I would like you to go first.
Steven Jack Butala:
Okay.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s a sentence that I say to Jill in our social life about 10 times a week. “Sweetheart, this is wasted on me.”
Jill K DeWit:
Oh.
Steven Jack Butala:
A good bottle of wine, absolutely wasted on me. I can tell the difference between a $3 bottle of wine and a $20 bottle of wine.
Jill K DeWit:
You can?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. But after that-
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, I can’t.
Steven Jack Butala:
$3 and 20? Sure. After 20, at $2,000, I can’t. It’s wasted on me. Jill is a total full-blown foodie. She’ll seek out restaurants. We go there.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
I indulge her. But the entire time, I remind her, “Sweetheart, this is wasted on me. I’m not a foodie. I’m happy to eat a-
Jill K DeWit:
A burrito from Taco Bell.
Steven Jack Butala:
… “Can of Spaghetti-Os and a couple of Budweisers.” That’s just how I am. I was born that way. And she says sometimes to me about classic cars. She doesn’t like classic cars. She loves sports cars. The new ones with the heated seats and stuff. So it’s wasted on her. These classic cars that I mull through constantly.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s a passion that I have. I’m a total car person. And if I had an airplane hangar, it would be filled with classic cars. It’s wasted on her.
Jill K DeWit:
I am a car person. But I just want Apple CarPlay and heated seats. You’re correct.
Steven Jack Butala:
If looking at a piece of land as an acquisition candidate and reselling it for more money doesn’t make sense to you, then this is wasted on you. In fact, you wasted almost an hour listening to us.
Jill K DeWit:
Wait, you don’t think people could develop this?
Steven Jack Butala:
No, because I think a lot of people love money.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh. Well, there is that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Everybody loves money. More money’s better. But one of the things that I learned in school, in college, with a business professor, he said this, “If you’re not interested in what you are going into business for or where you’re working in your career, you will ultimately fail. You have to be interested in it.” Here’s an example, and this is an example he used back then. If you don’t like working on cars, then don’t buy an oil changing franchise. If you don’t like pizza, don’t buy a pizza place. If you don’t see any value in owning a convenience store, and I don’t, you’ll ultimately fail, because you’re just not passionate about it.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill and I built, I built, an eBay empire. We’re the largest seller of land on eBay. I love auctions. I love land. And it worked out great. I don’t like customers. And customers on eBay are real rough. There’s a lot of non-paying bidders. People win. They make up all kinds of reasons.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
So Jill and I wound down our land business… This is a huge mistake on my part. Wound down our land selling business on eBay and cranked up selling diamonds and silver and gold and all kinds of stuff. And we ultimately hated it because all we were doing was-
Jill K DeWit:
Different customers.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s it. And so in the end, we sold it, and we took it-
Jill K DeWit:
With a lot less margin.
Steven Jack Butala:
We got out of it okay. But we just had no passion for it. I could care less about diamonds and all that stuff. And unless Jill and I are shopping personally for it, then that’s fun. But as a business, no. So ask yourself if you’re a land person.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, you know what? I have a solution to end this on too. If you’re not, because you know what? There are plenty of people in Land Academy that are not here because of land. They are not here because of land people, but they are here because they know what’s going on and how much profit there is to be made. So there’s a lot. There are people in Land Academy that just are happy to be the bank and trust you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, sure. That’s not doing land deals.
Jill K DeWit:
But I’m just saying, if you’re not a land person, you can partner with somebody, who’s really good, like me. You know what? If you found me and you’re like, “Jill, I don’t really care…” This is not a bad scenario, by the way too. This is kind of my dream scenario. Not that you’re not my dream.
Steven Jack Butala:
[inaudible 00:46:30].
Jill K DeWit:
Not that I’m not sitting next to my dream person.
Steven Jack Butala:
My goodness.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m sorry. In second place, not first place, because you are my first place.
Steven Jack Butala:
Great recovery, Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
Yes. In second place would be an investor that leaves me alone and just says, “Here’s $500,000. Go.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, then you’re in the financing business.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, there is that.
Steven Jack Butala:
And you’re not in the land business.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay, that’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
Which is great. I know many, many people who love the concept of finance and eat it up. Loans, debt and equity financing, all of it.
Jill K DeWit:
You know what’s funny about this whole topic? I came up with this topic this morning on our drive in to the office today. And I really thought in my head, “I’m going to come up with some ways to tell people how to become land people.” And in the end, I can’t.
Steven Jack Butala:
Don’t do it.
Jill K DeWit:
I know. Yeah. I really can’t. Because you’re right.
Steven Jack Butala:
How great do you think I would be as a chef if I could eat Spaghetti-Os and Budweiser?
Jill K DeWit:
Oh my gosh. No. You’d suck. That’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what I’m saying.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. You’d suck. No passion. You wouldn’t care. Spices, shmices. You’d be sending it out. “Here’s a steak. Eat it.” Oh, that’s true. Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
And then what? I hire somebody else?
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. And then you can’t even really effectively-
Steven Jack Butala:
[inaudible 00:47:40] can’t control it.
Jill K DeWit:
… Accurately… So yeah. Okay. Well, I’m eating my words today. So what if you’re not a land person? Well, it was nice knowing ya.
Steven Jack Butala:
I really think that’s the answer.
Jill K DeWit:
I guess you’re right.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m sorry, but I’m not sorry.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you for bringing that up. My whole topic is just like, “Whoop. Okay. Not where I thought that was going to go.” Thank you. All right, Jack. Your turn. What do you have informational to share with us today?
Steven Jack Butala:
The name of my topic is, your company’s revenue is more important than its expense. So business 101, you’ve got revenue, money is coming in. In our business, it’s the sale of real estate that we bought. We’ve got expense, like the cost of the land. You have to buy the land, you have to pay yourself a little bit of a salary so you can pay your rent.
Jill K DeWit:
Escrow fees, brokers.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, yeah. Mail.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. Mail.
Steven Jack Butala:
None of that is going to happen without revenue. And none of that is going to happen if you don’t send any mail out. And this is a huge topic that we spent a lot of time on last week in Career Path Office Hours. It baffles me to this day. And you can see it all over Discord about the lack of understanding, and it’s not understanding, but it’s the lack of buying into, hook, line and sinker, buying into sending out mail. And yup, it costs money. And yes, you incur expenses before you incur revenue. But you will not… This entire episode is packed, starting [inaudible 00:49:11] with all the questions and the topics. If you don’t send a ton of mail out and believe in those ROI statistics and have some confidence in your due diligence and everything… This is a summary of the whole episode. You will not generate revenue. This hit me like a ton of bricks because I watched several years ago, Suze Orman, who’s a financial expert. I don’t know if you know who she is. If you’re under 40, you probably don’t.
Jill K DeWit:
You might not. If you’re over 50, you definitely do.
Steven Jack Butala:
She’s prevalent, or has been, or was prevalent in our generation, and she’s kind of famous for yelling at everybody. And she’s famous for saying, “Yeah, you don’t make enough money. You’re sitting here asking me what you should invest in-”
Jill K DeWit:
And how to retire.
Steven Jack Butala:
… “How to retire. What are… These investment vehicles over here? Is this one good? Is this one good or is this one good?” And she’s just famous for looking at people straight in the eye in the audience and saying, “This is not going to happen for you, because you don’t make enough money. And what I want you to do, instead of spending all this time researching what vehicle you can get 7% in before tax versus 5%, how about you go make a bunch more money? Change your career, get a second job.” And so that’s the whole thing with this. If you send out, an example earlier, send out 40,000 mailers and you buy seven properties, there’s a massive difference if you buy seven properties or 12 properties.
Jill K DeWit:
Or, and if you buy [inaudible 00:50:39]-
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s the same amount of work.
Jill K DeWit:
… You were going to make 10,000 a deal or make 45,000 a deal.
Steven Jack Butala:
You need to be really, really, really conscious of your company’s revenue. Like Jill just said, forget about the expenses. In fact, the ROIs are so attractive that, just forget it. Send out as much mail as you possibly can. If you can’t afford to send out mail, which I understand. Everybody’s been there. Find a partner that’s going to financially back you, or wait till you have the money. Or don’t do it at all. Don’t do anything in your life that costs upfront money. And that might mean you’re not an entrepreneur.
Jill K DeWit:
You know what I tell people often when they’re starting out on this? You need to pick something. Pick a criteria, put your head down, stick to it, and do 10 deals, let’s just say. If you do 10 deals, you’re making 15 grand, a small amount of money. You’re making 15 grand a deal. And you put your head down, you spend a year at that, and you come up for air and go, “Now I’ve got $150,000. Now I can start making different decisions.” I think that’s kind of where you’re going with that too.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s right.
Jill K DeWit:
You need to get the revenue up. Have that money there. Put it aside.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s right.
Jill K DeWit:
Have that there, and then now you can go, “All right, I worked a lot of the kinks out. I know what I’m doing now. Now I’m going to do some stuff.”
Steven Jack Butala:
If you get the right amount of mail out and take the amount of time to get educated through Land Academy or wherever else you choose to and learn how to send mailers out correctly, and execute mailers themselves, the revenue will seriously follow. To the point where the percentage of expenses as a percent of revenue, which is a very common accounting way to analyze things, is staggering in this business. It’s staggering, the return, the percent, the net income that you make as a percent of revenue, if you send the mail out. Again, there’s no business that I know of that shows you the rewards like this one. Renovating houses? Forget it. Everybody comes to us with their tail between their legs after renovating two or three houses. She’s stopping me.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Is it too much?
Jill K DeWit:
No, it’s good. No, it’s good.
Steven Jack Butala:
All right.
Jill K DeWit:
I think we’re…
Steven Jack Butala:
Join us next Wednesday for another interesting episode. Jill just shut me up. You are not alone in your real estate ambition. We are Jack and Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
We are Jack and Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
Information.
Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration.
Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
Out.
https://youtu.be/j8-p_cqNXjc
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Join Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit on this episode of the Land Academy Show, where they discuss their four-hour investment work week from the road and how mailer yield is a direct result of who answers your phones. They also talk about their new RV and how they are able to conduct their land investment business while on the go. Tune in to learn how you too can be a successful land investor while enjoying the freedom of the open road. Plus, they answer questions from their Land Academy Discord forum and review land acquisitions. Check out landacademy.com for more information.
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit, and this is the Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is episode number 1,950, believe it or not. And today, we are talking about our four-hour investment work week from the road. We’re in our rig right now. And how mailer yield is a direct result of who answers your phones.
Jill K DeWit:
Two really important topics, I got to tell you. Let’s go back to topic number one for a second. I just want to cover these things. For those of you who are watching us, watch this. I can extend both arms and I’m not hitting a wall, and I’m not sitting at a kitchen table.
Steven Jack Butala:
We have a new RV and-
Jill K DeWit:
It’s over there.
Steven Jack Butala:
… Jill’s delighted.
Jill K DeWit:
Yes, we have upgraded everyone. So yeah, for those of you who are in our RV world, we went from 24 to 38 basically. And now that we’re in 38, okay, already 38, we feel like, wow. We’ve been two nights, by the way, in our 38. And what does Jack say today? “Do we need a 43 or 45?”
Steven Jack Butala:
No. You knew that was coming.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m like, “What?” We don’t need bunk beds. We don’t have kids. We don’t have pets.
Steven Jack Butala:
And we have these work stations.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, we have kids, but they’re not allowed to come with us. We don’t allow overnight guests. I’m just kidding. So kind of-
Steven Jack Butala:
This a happy wife moment for me.
Jill K DeWit:
Wow. And you too. Thank you very much. And it’s a whole different ballgame. So yes, as you can see, that’s that’s going to tie into our topic today because everybody’s like, “What do I need to know to do this from the road like you guys? You guys are in an RV.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Might be the back of a boat.
Jill K DeWit:
You’ve had two years in your little RV, and we did a good thing. I’m very proud of our two years in our little RV. I think we fared very well. We stayed together as a couple. Our companies held on.
Steven Jack Butala:
Sure. All valid points.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
There were moments where we didn’t, we weren’t sure about us.
Jill K DeWit:
It was touch and go, and the companies were fine. It was us that was touch and go, but now we’re in a much different situation, and we can really spread out. And that’s what we’re going to talk about today. I did a show, a live thing last week. It was live webinar, which we also streamed on YouTube and Facebook at the same time. It was great. It was so much fun. And here from the road and the whole topic was as a land investor, can you really do this from the road?So the four-hour work week is one part of it, and then doing it from the road is another part of it. Putting it together, it’s amazing. And that’s what we do now. The land company, the whole Land Academy part of it, that’s not a four-hour week.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is it. Are you going to go into the topic?
Jill K DeWit:
I guess I am. I will stop now.
Steven Jack Butala:
Each week we answer questions from our Land Academy Discord forum. We review land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar, and we take a deep dive look into two land related topics that are usually requested on the Discord channel or through some venue by our members. Let’s take a question posted by one of our actual members on the Land Academy Discord online community. If you want to sneak peek, go to landacademy.com. It’s free.
Jill K DeWit:
Andre wrote, “I got my first signed purchase agreement in an email. I believe I can sell the lot for three times the purchase agreement price.” Awesome. Because Andre did it right. “I would like to talk to a few agents in the area about what they think it could sell for. Any tips on how to approach the agent and what questions to ask?” Sure. Really easy. I love this and I like that too. That’s sometimes part of my due diligence also like, all right. I think I know what’s going on. Sometimes I know. And sometimes I’m like, I think I know what’s going on. I just want to confirm it, A. And B, I want to find an agent anyway. I want to kind of see who I connect with and see how smart these guys are. Why not bust out the calls now? Why wait?
I’d rather have them lined up. So what you want to do is you want to call them and be a little bit, you don’t want to say, I’m staring at a purchase agreement, and it’s for this amount. You don’t want to share any of that. You want to just skip along the top, “I just got this property.” Let them assume you own it, number one. “I just got this property and I want to see what you could sell it for.” “Great. Okay. Awesome. I assume you own it. You’re calling me to sell it.” You got their attention. And then I want you to say, this is what I do, because I don’t want to hang on to it forever. I’m not going to do a long thing with them. So I want you to say, “I want to get your opinion on it and there’s no fire. I’d like to know what you could sell it for. I don’t know, between 30 and 90 days kind of thing.”
That’s what they, “Great. Where is it?” “Okay, it’s off I-42 or whatever.” Wherever it is. “You want me to email you? Do you want me to text you the APN? What do you want me to do?” Okay. And then they take over. “All right, I’m going to be at my desk in about an hour, so why don’t you email me. Here’s my email. Great. And then I’m going to be in that area on Tuesday afternoon, and then I’ll get right back to you.” Awesome. That is what your initial phone call should be. That’s it. And let them go do, and by the way, do that with three people. Okay? Because it may take more than three, but I want you to have a conversation with three, because if four don’t answer the phone at all, you can’t get with them. They’re not your guy anyway. Because if you can’t call them about selling a property, people can’t call them and reach them about buying a property.
So you want to get those responsive agents and those agents that are excited about this property. And in a perfect world, they’re going to come back with, they’re going to follow through, like you just said. You’re going to text them or email them. They’re going to reply. “Okay, got it. I’ll let you know Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday morning. I’ll get, you know what I think.” And you’re like, “Great.” And then of those three that you connect with, probably two will get back to you and one of them, hopefully you’re really going to connect with, and they’re going to go, “I love this. I just sold one just like this about four months ago, but it wasn’t even as nice as this. So here’s what I think. I think if we list it for 72, we’ll probably get at least 60, 65.”
That’s how it should go. And you’re like, “Awesome.” And then at the end of that, you’re going to say, “Great, I appreciate that. Okay, give me a couple weeks to finalize everything on my end.” Which is code for I haven’t closed on it yet, but they don’t need to know that and say, “I’m going to call you back and inside a 30 days. Watch for me.” And they’re like, “Great. I will.” Done.
Steven Jack Butala:
Andre is brand new or relatively new. He’s plastered himself all over Discord.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, good.
Steven Jack Butala:
And he’s asking all kinds of good questions.
Jill K DeWit:
This is great.
Steven Jack Butala:
In fact, the second question later in this episode is from him too. So you’re doing exactly what you’re supposed to do. You sent some mail out. Sounds like you got a great property here among a group of properties I think that you’re buying or potentially buying and you’re asking questions. Here’s a basic rule of thumb about when to start reaching out in a local community about a local property that you think you should buy. There’s always this risk of you don’t control the property.
Jill K DeWit:
What are you asking?
Steven Jack Butala:
You’re asking a lot of questions from local people about a local property, and you don’t control it. You just got a purchase agreement back. That doesn’t mean it’s signed, sealed, and it’s over.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
So you always have to ask yourself, is this property good enough for me to open escrow on and then start doing, getting people’s valuation opinions? And that’s a sometimes yes, sometimes no. And you did the right thing. You’re asking this community. I would even go further and try to find somebody who knows the local area and start asking them questions within our group within reason.
Jill K DeWit:
Which is what he’s kind of doing.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. Well, he’s reaching out. He’s not saying where it is or anything.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
We have a would you do this deal section in Discord. If you’re comfortable, you could post it there. People are going to say, “Heck yes.”
Jill K DeWit:
I answered his question was just about approaching an agent and what to ask.
Steven Jack Butala:
I know. You don’t want to give away the AP on because the first thing they’re [inaudible 00:08:28].
Jill K DeWit:
You do.
Steven Jack Butala:
Where it is. Where is it? Not if it’s not under contract and [inaudible 00:08:31].
Jill K DeWit:
Well, I have a signed purchase agreement.
Steven Jack Butala:
I disagree.
Jill K DeWit:
All right. And you’re allowed to.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s why there’s two people on this show and co-founders.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s hilarious. If you are in any way nervous about that, yes, open escrow, get an escrow number.
Steven Jack Butala:
My goodness, Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
And still make the phone call. No big deal.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s first topic is called mailer yield is a direct result of who answers your phones.
Jill K DeWit:
Actually, that’s the second topic.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, sorry.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah,
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s first topic is called-
Jill K DeWit:
There we go.
Steven Jack Butala:
… four-hour work week, land investing from the road.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you very much. Because this is the one I really want to deep dive about, and the reason is this was a hot topic last week. So much so there were between one and 200 of you that showed up to listen to me and watch me and ask me questions live last week about this topic. This is interesting. I’m curious. I should have asked, is it more about the four-hour work week or is it more about doing it from the road? I think it was more about the four-hour work week. What do you think?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yes.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. Because you were there, you watched, you heard. Because the questions were, but there were several of you that said, “I’m on the road too. I get you guys. I love it. This is what I want to do.” We have people in our, it used to be with Jack, it was back of a boat. When we first got together, he is like, “I always wanted a business where we did very well. We didn’t have to work that hard and we could do it from the back of a boat.” And you did that. And now we transfer to wheels, doing it on wheels and doing it on the land. But still, we’re not stationary, if you will. We are for a few minutes, but that’s about it.
So I want to talk about what really goes on and how the heck I can do this and we can do this in a four-hour work week. And a lot of it is stuff you’ve put in place. I’m going to give Jack some credit here. We have a lot of systems. We have a great team, and we’ve had to work to get to this point. But I will … So to jump in any moment.
Steven Jack Butala:
This whole topic of four-hour work week, first, let me preface this. I hate little sayings like this. I hate it. That’s a four-hour work week. Oh, you can passive income and you don’t have to do anything. That’s just not the case. This is a result of years just right, years and years and years. Your first year of land investing, you’re not going to have a four-hour work week. It might be closer to 80 if you do everything right, but you can’t achieve at some point four-hour work week. So this entire buying and selling of land the way that we do it is a result of me trying not to work and me surrounding-
Jill K DeWit:
It’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
… myself, Jill included, with somebody who is really efficient, wants the same stuff that I do, and all of our top managers are just like that with a couple of exceptions. There’s no fibbing or no embellishing, let’s call it on any of that. A four-hour work week in buying and selling real estate or land specifically is very, very accomplishable. Honest to God I think it’s four hours between the two of us if the truth fits.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. Three and a half, 30 minutes. That’s really how it goes. Three and a half hours to me and 30 minutes to Jack, which is not, it’s not … It’s true. It’s not. It’s funny, but it’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s how it plays itself out. If you’re starting out or you’re scaling, let’s say, you do, if you’re between one and 10 deals, you do the first deal. You buy it for four, $10,000. You sell it for 25, and you’re either going to say, “Are you kidding me? I can do this 200 times a year. What do I have to do?” Because, or you’re going to say, “It doesn’t make any sense to me and I don’t like it.” So there’s a why in the road there. And you’re going to kind of choose which way. Once you go down the path where the light bulb went off over your head and you want to start, I want to do 200 deals a year. Then you start to say, or if you’re me or like me, you start to say stuff like, Hey, I got that deal done and geez, I hated you in a mailer.
I’m going to get somebody, I’m going to figure out who can do a mailer out there for a lot less money and a lot faster. And I hated talking on the phone that whole time. I had to talk to the real estate agent. I had to talk to the seller. I don’t want to do that. I got to get somebody else to do that. In my case, I found a partner who likes doing that. And so step by step by step, you get yourself to where you’re doing nothing, and it’s very, very, very profitable. But you still have a conductor’s baton in your hand, which is thus the four-hour work week. Which is why, and this is my final point here, I can’t stand when people talk about passive income because I just don’t believe it. The only passive income that I know about is interest income where you put money into not even the stock market because you’ve got to check that, interest income and a CD or something like that. That’s passive.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s right, and that’s fair. That’s really good. So I’m going to back up and explain a little bit. I started to talk about this in the intro too, about the land investing part. You can and you should get to this point. The Land Academy stuff, everything else that we do, that’s not a four-hour work week, and that’s okay. And I want to talk about too, what equipment I need. What do I need to do this from the road? So first of all, you wanted the four-hour work week like we do. How does this all start?
First of all, what do you got to do day one, you got to set your acquisition criteria. Like Jack talked about. You got to think about, how hard do I want to work? How many deals I want to do? What do I want these deals to yield? Kind of thing. And that’s my acquisition criteria. Got it. That’s minutes, right? Next you got to do is where are these properties? I got to figure out where they are so I know where to send my mail. That’s called trolling. This is all Jack’s side of the sheet, by the way. So this is the front end stuff that he does. Feel free to interrupt me or add or change. I know you do.
So that’s Jack’s stuff, and really he does have it down. And I joke about the 30 minutes. You know what it is. In truth, he’s always trolling. That’s the thing about Jack. And that’s the thing about Land Academy, why people are with us, because we’re really focused. We’re investors with you. I’m an investor first. We both are. That’s our core bread and butter, our business. And we try to stay ahead of everything to make sure we have the latest and greatest data, make sure we’re spotting trends in areas, and learning to even identify trends so we can come back and teach you and show you how to do this. So you too, your business will thrive like ours.
Cool. Watching somebody bigger than us roll by on their way out of town. Okay. So anyway, that’s our thing. So Jack’s part is that, so he is always trolling. I say 30 minutes, but it’s 30 minutes here, 30 minutes there for him. I think he loves it. He’s always on his phone looking at areas. We know our acquisition criteria or we know what’s within our threshold, let’s say. And I’m going to say our current acquisition, our acquisition criteria is pretty much always what’s the hottest. Am I right?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
So it’s going to change.
Steven Jack Butala:
It changes all the time.
Jill K DeWit:
We see a lot of things selling in the $75,000 range. Now I’m going to tailor my stuff there. If I see a lot of things selling in the $110,000 range, I’m going to tailor it there. I usually don’t go too small because I don’t want to swim in that pool kind of thing. I don’t want to deal with that. It’s going to be in the healthy pool where I know I’m going to make a good profit. I’m not going to jump up and down for $9,000 profit. I will jump up and down for $90,000 profit. That’s the stuff I look for and above.
So that’s the first things you’re thinking about. And think about this, and as I go through this, I’m going to tell you what equipment you need. What do you need to do this? A phone. That’s it. A phone. You don’t even need wifi. You, your phone has internet. You have your hotspot. You have whatever. You can be sitting there at a restaurant or waiting to get on a plane or at lunch and bored and you could be trolling and going, “Huh, we just drove through that area. I look at this, I just noticed some things.”
And I look on the other side of the ridge. I noticed this, jotting down on my phone the ZIP codes. I’m going to look those up later. So that’s a little bit of what you need to do. Then you come back. Now you’re settled. Whether you’re in a hotel room, whether you’re on your boat, whether you’re in your rig parked, you’re going to spend a little time again on your phone looking deeper. But now you’re going to get your laptop out and start really looking at these areas and looking at how many properties for sale. This is all part of the trolling that we teach in Land Academy. And I’m going to go along faster because I have a lot to cover.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s 10 steps to buying and selling a piece of land successfully, converting whatever it ends up being. Buy for 30, sell for 100. There’s 10 steps that have to happen. The vast majority with the exception of one or two, can be outsourced by, and you have two choices here. They can be outsourced to people who work for you, which is at this age and with our experience level, our first choice. Or they can be outsourced to unrelated third parties.
Jill K DeWit:
Right. Which is the next phase after you troll and you’ve got your ZIP codes and all that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Is that what you’re going toward here?
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. So yeah, thank you. So we’ve got that part out, right?
Steven Jack Butala:
Trolling is something that I don’t think you can outsource. You have to decide where you’re going to [inaudible 00:18:27].
Jill K DeWit:
That’s what I’m saying. So I’m saying I’m going to identify in the four-hour work week, who does what and what you need.
Steven Jack Butala:
Okay, good.
Jill K DeWit:
So yeah. Are you asking me to speed it up a little bit?
Steven Jack Butala:
Uh-huh.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. Because I can go for a long time on this. So all right, I will-
Steven Jack Butala:
I’ll keep you on track.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. I’ll try to go at a healthy pace. So the next step, okay, that that’s something you should do, right, four-hour work week. Focus on that. Now you’ve got your stuff. You run what we have what we call a red, yellow, green test. You’ve done this at your computer. You’ve really zeroed in on the areas. You’ve zeroed in on what’s hot. You know exactly what size. You know exactly where to hit, where do you want to do it. The next step is outsource this piece. That’s what Jack was getting to. Whether you have someone on your team that you have trained or they’ve learned from us, or you use our people which is our concierge data, which you get through offers2owners.com. Offers and the number two owners dot com.
And you say, “I need these six ZIP codes. I want everything from two to 10 acres.” Fill in the blank, and then all the little criteria that you want in there. I need that data pulled. I need it scrubbed and I need it. I need comps in there. I need it ready to go so I can set the pricing. How great is that? And it’s that fast. So I mean, now you’re off doing whatever you want. Again, this is a four-hour work week. Let them do all that work. Queue it up for you. Now you get back, it’s 24, 48 hours later. You need to review that. You set your pricing, what percentage you want to come in at. I want to price these at 25% of that number. I want these at 22% of that number and these at 18% of that number, whatever.
Steven Jack Butala:
They’re examples of how to price.
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
Please don’t price your mailer that way. It’s very, very customized.
Jill K DeWit:
It could be 33. Yeah. Whatever you want.
Steven Jack Butala:
Could be 75.
Jill K DeWit:
It could be whatever you need. Whatever you’re going going for.
Steven Jack Butala:
Pricing is not why we’re here today to talk about this.
Jill K DeWit:
No, but anyway, you’re going to give them percentage. You’re going to check them. I want you to eyeball them. Spot check them, and let them do the work, by the way. And then this is outsourced again. Are you handwriting any letters? Nope. Are you doing all that? Nope. You already have set up like we do a company, Offers 2 Owners is our company, our direct mail company because we got tired of people that not, I didn’t have to … I’d explain it all the time. They didn’t get what we’re doing, and it wasn’t as cheap. So we created that for you. So anyway, the mail goes out. So again, four-hour work week. I didn’t do that. I haven’t done really done anything yet. He did. I kind of haven’t.
Steven Jack Butala:
Which is the way it should be.
Jill K DeWit:
I like that. Exactly. Now, here come the offers. Oh, oh, wait a minute. I’m on the road, Jill. What do I do? My phone. The phone, the stuff’s coming back. So what? Don’t do it. If you’re new, I want you to learn how to do this. I want you to understand about these sellers and things like that. But in a perfect world, you’re not taking the calls, and we’ll talk about more about that in a minute, the value of a live person versus Google Voice. But you’ve got something like PATLive set up. So you’re on the road. The calls are coming in, the mail hit. Yay. The mail’s going somewhere else. You’re not even dealing with that. And that’s more on another show. You have that outsourced. But at the end of the day-
Steven Jack Butala:
She means a UPS store or a PO Box, not necessarily the USPS PO Box, but someplace where your mail is going and it’s either getting scanned in and getting to you, or it’s being physically packed up and put into a FedEx package, which is how we do it. And we get all the mail for all the companies in one place, and especially when we’re on the road here, we receive the package.
Jill K DeWit:
There we go. So that would be it. And then the phone calls, which is the majority of it, honestly, especially in the beginning. The majority of it’s phone calls, and that’s PATLive or some other unrelated third party that’s answering the phones for you. And at the end of the day, you’re getting a report of here’s the 12 calls that came in today, and you get to look them over and go like it, like it.
Steven Jack Butala:
You get to listen to them.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, that too. Pick the ones you want. And then the next four-hour week, next day, that night, whatever you is best for you. Now you’re calling these sellers back and putting together the deal. I’m going to skip along the top. I’m not going to go through any great detail about-
Steven Jack Butala:
Or deciding you don’t want to do it.
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
You’re going to see if there’s a deal there-
Jill K DeWit:
That’s what I’m saying.
Steven Jack Butala:
… through real seller.
Jill K DeWit:
You’re doing your due diligence, calling back and doing the deal.
Steven Jack Butala:
That is not something you can outsource.
Jill K DeWit:
Correct.
Steven Jack Butala:
That is the massive magic sauce that Jill brings to this entire situation is hurt calling, returning these calls and creating a deal very many times where there wasn’t one when the per person picked up the phone in the first place.
Jill K DeWit:
Sometimes that’s true. And what Jack’s saying is it would be a situation like the message to us is go jump in a lake. Your number’s nuts. I want to lease this. So that’s good. You want to sell. So the next day, well then I, first I do my due diligence and the next day I’m calling back and going, “We need to talk about the price.” This is me. Whatever you and I work out, and that’s a whole nother conversation.
Steven Jack Butala:
She’s a deal maker.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you. So what tools do I need? Phone and a laptop. There we go. Now we’ve got some deals. Let’s just zip along here, four-hour work week. I’m opening escrow and letting them do their thing. I’m putting escrow with thew seller. I’m still going to manage it a little bit. A couple times a week, either myself or my staff. For you, it’s going to be you in the beginning kind of babysitting, at least two times a week touching all these people. But again, you could do this on the four-hour work week. You got three deals you’re working on right now. That’s two, six phone calls a week that you could do to make sure, “Is everything going okay? Do you need anything from me? Did you get in touch with this seller? Okay, we’re waiting on title. Got it, thanks. Talk to you on Thursday.”
That’s it. And then eventually, now we’re wiring the money in 10 days from now. Again, phone and a laptop. And now you own it. And by the way, on this time while you’re waiting to own it, remember we talked about the question that Andre had. You’ve already got an agent lined up because one of your rest stops was calling a couple agents in these areas and lining up who you like and getting an idea of the price. So when it closes, you’re picking up the phone and going, “All right, ready, go. Get those pictures done. Or get the drone shot if you don’t have them already, get that baby listed hopefully by tomorrow. Let’s go.” And you’re not doing it. Four-hour work week. They’re doing the work. They’re getting all the stuff. They’re writing the posting. You just sit back. And again, you’re rolling around while these properties are being sold.
And then you’re going to get, at the end of the day, you got to, oh look, we got a offer on this one. Awesome. I need to sign this. Excellent. If you don’t know how great DocuSign is, you’re not using it all the time. There you go. So we DocuSign the sales agreement from the broker. We’re cruising around. We’re three states over by now. We’re working on trolling and sending mail for another area while this one’s being sold. Are you following me here? And then the last piece that will need something from you will be a physical signature when you sell it on that deed. How great are these mobile notaries? So they will come to you. I showed a picture on my live thing. So there’s two options, by the way.
Mobile notaries are awesome. They will absolutely come to your RV. They think it’s the coolest thing too, and they’ve probably done it before. “Yeah, come on in. You want a cup of coffee?” “Sure.” And we’re going to do the signing right here and send them on their way. Takes five, 10 minutes. That’s it. And they’ll overnight them back to the title company. Don’t even think about it. The other option is now with the online notaries, there are, I’m not going to get into detail now, but you know it exists. If you’re really remote or it’s something hard or whatever it is, you can do an online notary where you’re holding up your ID. You’re on your phone, literally on your phone, holding up your ID documents have been scanned in for both of you. And you click a button, that you acknowledge it, and then that goes to the title company.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is all outlined in several different incredibly detailed ways in Land Academy 3.0, which is the most recent program. It’s flow charted and color coded.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
And so what I say in the program, and I’ll say now, is that in the beginning you need to do all this stuff yourself so that you can make really, really good choices about who to outsource it to after your 10th deal. So you need to really learn and self-learn. That’s what this group is about, is to talk to as many people as you can within our group, utilize Discord. Please join our Thursday calls and ask all these questions and details about this reality to describe it. But what it all adds up to eventually, if you’re into it and you want to go through the learning curve, it ends up not working very hard and making a lot of money.
We are in our second or third now week in Career Path. Career Path is a program that Jill and I have we’re people have taken this very seriously. They want it to be their career or it already is, and they’re scaling way up, and they have a surprising amount of healthy, detailed oriented questions about how can I stop working so hard? Which is I started out with that notion. How can I stop working as hard and make more money? And the answer is outsourcing and being a good conductor.
Jill K DeWit:
And knowing what you should be working on.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is very possible. It’s very likely if you have the right personality and the right organization skills, and we have multiple hundreds of hundreds of current members that are doing it.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy. I’m sorry.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s right.
Steven Jack Butala:
We need to take a look at a deal.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take another one. Let’s take a look at one of our favorite land acquisitions. So when you’re on the road, you don’t necessarily have all the same equipment.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. You might get a little confused.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a look. Yeah. One of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar.
Jill K DeWit:
We also have a team that can edit, which is nice too while we’re on the road. Okay, so where are we? We did that one. So it’s just the topics that we’re versing. We don’t just leave that, yeah, leave that whole page up right now. Okay, so I’ll start in there on the thing and then you do … So you did that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s do a question, and then we’ll go back right up to here.
Jill K DeWit:
What about this 020 thing? You want to do anything or just skip it?
Steven Jack Butala:
No. Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. All right. So where are we going to start up? I’m sorry.
Steven Jack Butala:
Right here. I’ll do it.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take another question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. Again, if you want to sneak peek of all this, go to landacademy.com. It’s free.
Jill K DeWit:
Cool. Okay. Andre wrote, “I have a few signed purchase agreements.” We went to the first one. Now he’s got several. I love this. “What’s the next step for getting deal funding? Do I need a memorandum? How do I protect myself? When do I open escrow? Things are moving, but I’m a little lost at this point in the process.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Which is totally natural and normal and I understand it. And especially if it’s working for you like this, you’re going to have questions because you don’t want to screw it up.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
What followed Andre’s question below this is multiple responses to who to talk to. Multiple people who are in our group to fund deals have responded.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. How much money do you need?
Steven Jack Butala:
And I’ve seen the good funders that we have in our group, will probably take Andre under their wing and say, “This deal’s great. This deal sucks. Let’s do this together. I’ll fund your stuff until you have enough money or you don’t need a funder, and experience where you don’t need a funder anymore.” I put Andre in here for a reason. I’ve never talked to him. I don’t even know about him until I was writing the script, if you can call it that. He is a perfect example of self-teach. He’s self-taught. He watched Land Academy 3.0 probably 100 times like most people, got a mailer out, got a bunch of responses. What the hell do I do next? And that’s very natural and normal, and he’s doing the right thing. He’s reaching out on Discord and utilizing all the tools that Jill and I put together for a new person to succeed, including using other members to get deals done.
Jill K DeWit:
Are we going to answer the question or is that the answer to the question?
Steven Jack Butala:
That is the answer.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
I mean, you want to answer it, go ahead.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. What’s the next step to get deal funding? Reach out. If it’s me, you go to landfunding.com and you just fill it out. It’s tells you exactly what I need. State, county, APN, purchase price. If you have a PA, attach it. What do you know about the property? Things like that. All this stuff. So I can go and look at it and go, oh yeah, it is a good deal, Andre, happy to do that with you, kind of thing. So do I need a memorandum? Nothing yet.
Steven Jack Butala:
No. Your funder will put it together.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
Because everybody’s different. Our memorandums different than everybody’s.
Jill K DeWit:
They’ll have a sweet little, hopefully like we do. Ours is like a two page. One page? I think it’s one and a half page, something like that, agreement where just spelling out what you’re doing, what I’m doing, who’s going to be on the deed, how it’s going to go. That’s kind of it. So how do I protect myself? That will cover that.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’ll cover it.
Jill K DeWit:
When I open escrow? Anytime you want. Open. I’m a fan of opening escrow as soon as you’re doing the deal. I don’t know who’s going to-
Steven Jack Butala:
Well said.
Jill K DeWit:
… fund it yet. Let’s just get it open, because I can change that. You can call your title company, Andre and say, “Just put into my name for right now.” Who’s a buyer? And then in six days when you and I get the deal together and I say, “Okay, here’s what it’s going to be.” Then you just say, “Hey, we’re going to update the purchase agreement because we’re now going to put it in this name.” Okay. They don’t care.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you’re brand new, I don’t know, Andre, if you are or not. If you’re brand new and that process is intimidating to you, which I understand. Then do it with your funder, and I hope that you get the right funder in the beginning. You might not. You might go through a deal and the funder’s not your personality type.
Jill K DeWit:
Have a couple.
Steven Jack Butala:
But please understand this and Jill’s great about this. Me, not so much. But please understand that, these first few deals are going to be painful like anything. That’s the first time you ever do it. It’s like, yeah, I can improve on this, I can improve on this and I can improve on this. Believe me, the first deals that I did, I’ll do a show on this sometime. The first four or five deals I did were an absolute train wreck, but I made money, and you will too here.
Jill K DeWit:
So different for me.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s just going to be a car crash of a disaster.
Jill K DeWit:
So different for me. Oh my God. My first field deals were fun. I learned a lots. I’m like, I get better.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill’s great about this stuff.
Jill K DeWit:
I never call them a train wreck. It’s a like let’s tell me your first few relationships.
Steven Jack Butala:
Profitable train wreck. That’s going to be the name of my next e-book.
Jill K DeWit:
Great. I love it. Okay, awesome.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s second topic is called mailer yield and how it’s a direct result of who answers your phones.
Jill K DeWit:
Let me lead off with this. As Jack has mentioned, before it was me and before there was a team, let’s go back, but let’s go way back. Let’s go back to the ’90s. The ’90s. This person to my left was a one man show and so-
Steven Jack Butala:
Sad but true.
Jill K DeWit:
As you were figuring this out.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s the profitable train wreck.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. Yeah, I understand the point now, yes. You had no one to bitch with or about or two or whatever you want to call it. So anyway, one man show figuring out there’s money in this. Like what just happened? I bought this property off eBay. I dress, I own it. I did what the guy told me. I own it. I sent it in recording now and then I go out and got better pictures, and then I wrote a beautiful description, learned about the area, put it back on eBay and sold it for three times or whatever it was.
Steven Jack Butala:
Twice.
Jill K DeWit:
Twice. Sold it for double what I paid for it. Okay, there’s something here. So that’s the backstory. So the point I’m trying to make is he was answering the phone back then. So he was the one when … Then he figured out this whole thing. Fast-forward past that, that him going out and finding a property just to test this. Fast-forward to years later figuring out I’m just going to canvas areas and send out these offers to all these people. Didn’t even know I’m coming. Let’s see what happens. And by golly, it worked and still works and you get calls back now. So the point of today’s second topic is these calls are coming back from these sellers that you sent out offers to you like what we do. And you who answers the phone makes a difference. Think-
Steven Jack Butala:
No, no, no, it’s not. Makes a difference. Who answers the phone-
Jill K DeWit:
It’s critical
Steven Jack Butala:
… is an absolute non-optional critical piece to this entire business model. Hold on a second. I’m going to drive this point home. You know the band Journey, and you know Steve Perry. Every single [inaudible 00:35:50]. If you don’t, then you have bigger … Land Academy is not your first problem. For a very long time, most people don’t know this. I only know this because I’m very, I grew up in the ’70s. Journey didn’t have Steve Perry, and they cut a lot of records and they were pretty good. The composition was great. These guys can sing. Same thing with Van Halen. Well, one day they cut a record and Steve Perry’s on it and it’s an international smash hit. Five or six of the songs, the ones that we share all the time. It’s 2023. We can’t walk in a bar without hearing those same songs.
Jill K DeWit:
Or a hockey game.
Steven Jack Butala:
Or hockey game. So they got to lead singer. They got somebody to answer their phones. That is the completion. Jill completed this business model.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
So we’ve had many people in a Career Path and we may or may not have people in Career Path right now who are very technically oriented like I am and believe that this is not a component that’s necessary. They believe something like this. “Okay, Jack, you say he is got to send out 5,000 letters to get a deal or 7,500 to get a deal. Well that’s great. I’m not going to do that. I’m going to send out 25,000 letters. No one’s going to answer the phone, and I’m going to get a couple of purchase agreements signed back and I’m going to go on my merry way because the numbers still work.”
I’m telling you it doesn’t work that way. You have to answer the phone. There’s so many things involved. When Jill answers the phone or she returns the calls that when PATLive … Am I taking over your topic here?
Jill K DeWit:
No, it’s fine.
Steven Jack Butala:
When PATLive actually answers actually answers the phone and then Jill gets those messages and returns those calls, she creates deals. And at the same time, she’s learning about a new area. She’s talking to all these people and putting the deal together and she’s deciding and maybe it’s subconscious whether or not we’re going to send another mailer there. Does she like the people that are the other end of the phone? Do they act like New Yorkers? Do they act like they’re from Arkansas? You choose which one where you’d rather do a deal. And so there’s so much-
Jill K DeWit:
Or how to work with them.
Steven Jack Butala:
… much stuff involved. I was just talking about this in the Career Path. If you’ve ever been to business school or taken any online classes, from zero to 100, there’s a critical point in every business where you deliver something to a customer in exchange for value. In most cases, it’s money. In healthcare, it’s that bedside delivery of sitting down with a patient or somebody who’s … whatever they need and delivering that with the care that they need. Most doctors really dismally fail at that. They’re just technical people. They made it through medical school. They didn’t make it through psychology school.
This is the critical point of customer delivery. Your customer is that seller. The person who buys a property, the real estate agent’s going to deal with that. And the property, you buy it so cheap anyway that there’s no real value added to talking to a buyer, in my opinion. There’s a huge amount of value for somebody like Jill where she’s sitting and talking to a seller and meeting that person from where they’re coming, whether it’s their price or the fact that their spouse may have died and they’re making this sometimes difficult decision to sell property, and they don’t understand value or the process. She’s delivering all that. So this person who in your case, if you’re new, you’re going to answer the phone or who the deal maker is absolutely critical to this. I know because I had Jill’s job, and I didn’t do it right for a very, very, very long time.
Jill K DeWit:
That was the point I was going to make.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, sorry. So I did take your topic over.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s okay. Who would you rather talk to? Him or me?
Steven Jack Butala:
Or who would you rather listen to right now? You see that stupid speech I just made?
Jill K DeWit:
Or me. Yeah, exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill, you get it.
Jill K DeWit:
No. That was beautiful and I love it. And thank you very much for saying that. And some people incorrectly even think that Google Voice will do the job. Think they have a great voicemail. Please don’t do that. That’s it. I just want to just hit this home. You need to have a live body, preferably nice, sweet, people can relate to them, and someone who can control the conversation because the goal here is in three minutes or less to calm everybody down if they’re hot or just figure out where they’re coming from. That’s it. Do they really want to sell and does your price work for them? And if not, what price does? Not retail. Let’s be honest here. You know who I am. I know who you are.
I’m just a sweet little investment company. This is all I do. So whatever deal you and I cut, it’s our deal. I’m not an agent. I’m not a broker. And I’ve got cash ready to go. I love your property. What number would really make you okay with all this and make you happy, and that would work for me too? So your goal is, all right, Jill, I know you offered 18. I got to pay off this stupid thing I’m staring at. Make it 25, and you can have it. All right, let me call you back tomorrow. I’m going to see if I can make 25 work. That’s it. That’s how these things should go.
Steven Jack Butala:
We have a couple personality, basic personality types in our group. Hundreds and hundreds of successful people. They have one of two basic personality types. Number one, they have some type of lifelong corporate sales or they don’t know it yet if they’re young and new. They don’t know it yet, but they have Jill’s personality. They’re very successful and they’re a pleasure to deal with and pretty quiet about their success in general, which just one of the things I love about Career Path, because we get to know those types of people. And they’ll say stuff, “Yeah, that’s great, that’s how you guys do it.” But this is how I answer the phone and why this works so well, and why we’re trying to scale from $100,000 a month to $500,000 a month. And then there’s the second type, which is more my personality, where they are obsessed with mailer yield, how to get a mailer out, how to price it.
And I have to tell you along the comments that I said earlier, all of that and all the money that’s associated with let’s say setting out a 10,000 unit mailer, which is going to cost you six grand will be wasted unless you have somebody on your team or you can muster up the spirit, which is honestly what I did before Jill and I joined forces. That you can just act your way through it. It will all be wasted and you’ll eventually quit because you’re not getting, we can talk about mailer yield and all of that stuff till we’re blue, until the person on my right makes a deal out of my mailer, makes steels out of my mailer.
Jill K DeWit:
So that’s the downside. That’s what can happen. We’ve had people where they’re like, “I had a mailer. I had a mailer flop.” I’m like, “What do you mean you had a mailer flop?” Because I don’t care if you overpriced it or under-priced it. Who’d you talk to? What’s in those things? “Oh, I didn’t talk to anybody. Nobody left a message. It was a flop.” I’m like, “Are you flipping kidding me? You didn’t call them back?” “Well, no. They hung up.” What the heck? I can’t. Let’s go back through your list, shall we? I’ll bet I can get something in there and I can have, I’ve done that. So you know what? This is my thing here too. You need to be available or somebody does and take these calls and work with these people and talk through this stuff. I seriously do not believe. Because the best thing that could be … here’s the two. You think you have a mailer flop. It’s usually you think, “I price it too low. Everybody hated me.” So what?
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s right. My [inaudible 00:43:25] thinks that.
Jill K DeWit:
So flipping what? You had 35 phone calls this week. Then you need to call some of them back. You have 30. Even if you had 35 sucky phone calls, you got their stuff out of them. Because some of them said, “Take me off your list.” It’s reference number 12345. Great. Go look at 12345. He was hopping man on Tuesday. So what? Let’s look at it. Let’s call him on Friday. You know what? I looked at your property again and I realized it might be worth more than I offered you. And I want to talk about that. Great.
Steven Jack Butala:
Beautiful example, Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s it.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is how you create a deal out of anger. Great example.
Jill K DeWit:
I would absolutely take that call, wouldn’t you? Sure. You’d be like, “Yeah. damn right, that’s too low. Let’s talk.” Okay, great. Well what did I miss? And next thing you know, you’re having a great conversation about this person and you’re putting … about this property and you guys are putting a deal together. That’s it. So that’s the thing. And people say, “I did it too low.” All right, now we can recover from that one. Okay, here’s the other scenario. Oh boy did I overprice. I offered everybody retail plus 10%.
Steven Jack Butala:
Which has happened.
Jill K DeWit:
This has happened.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’ve done that.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. Well, fantastic. Now everybody loves you. So instead of the 13 or every many, the 30 calls you had this week, you had 200. You had 200 people that love you more.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. More chances to do sales now.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. So what?
Steven Jack Butala:
Might take more than four hours a week [inaudible 00:44:54].
Jill K DeWit:
This is true on that. But you know what? That could be your business model. I don’t know. I think that that would be a time waster, so I don’t want that to be your business model. But anyway, you goofed. So what? Go back through those 200, get a VA to help you. Go through and say, I don’t need to know which ones have access. I need to know this about this one. I need to know this about this one. And then you can look at them and go, you know what? Of these 200, I really like these 20. I’m going to call these people back and I’m going to have that tough conversation.
Steven Jack Butala:
That could be your business model.
Jill K DeWit:
It could.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m not recommending this is your business model.
Jill K DeWit:
No. Because it’s a lot of work.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s too much work.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s too much work. But that could be someone’s business model. Do a VA to screen them and then you call back that these have all the six and a half, seven As that we’re come up with another one now. Anyway. And you call them back and go, “Hi, my name is Jill. And yes, I got your voicemail or I got your message. You talked to someone on my team the other day about your property. We need to talk. I looked over your property and it is fantastic. And I know you were all excited about the $225,000 I offered.”
Steven Jack Butala:
I laugh because I’ve done this.
Jill K DeWit:
And I realized when I was going, when I originally sent out the offer to you, I thought it has this, this, and this. And I realized it doesn’t have those. But again, I do like it. So that 225, I can’t do, but I can do 25 and if that works, I am ready to go. And then them give them a minute, and we’ll talk more about that. And we have talked more about that. And I do talk about that all the time with Land Academy. How to go from $225,000 to $25,000? You can do it. And I’m going to tell you, they probably expect it. They know. If you offered retail plus 10%, they probably know something’s wrong. Or they think you know something that they don’t know. Is Amazon moving in next door? And you’re going to tell them, “No, Amazon’s not moving in next door. That’s not what happened.” I really goofed, but here’s what I can do.
Steven Jack Butala:
You should teach a class.
Jill K DeWit:
I do teach a class. Thank you very much. So anyway, that’s how you recover from that one. Now we’re going to go into dead horse territory if we talk about this before. I think you guys got it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a look at another one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar. Jill, you have something inspirational to share.
Jill K DeWit:
Yes. After all that, this is all from this week. I had some really valuable, awesome, interesting conversations between Career Path and the live webinar that I did. It was so much fun. And one of the little takeaways that I was thinking about the webinar that I did, was the one or two people that jumped up and joined Land Academy while I was doing the webinar. And because I had a special going on at that moment. And it was sweet because one of the persons said a version of, “I just found you guys. I’ve actually been on the road. I’ve listened to 10 hours of your podcast in the last two days, and I get it and I am in.” And I love that. And I do a version of that. And so my inspiration, my note to myself was digging in on what sings to you.
When you find something like that and it really makes sense to you and you’re passionate about it, I do that too. And I encourage you to dig in. When something is too hard … you know wat? I’ll give you a story. I’ll give you a backstory here. Kind of like where we are with this RV, this whole process. We’ve been trying to get a bigger RV for at least six months I’m going to say, maybe longer.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, geez. Yeah, about a year.
Jill K DeWit:
That we’ve been thinking about upgrading our RV. But nothing made sense. He liked it. I didn’t. I liked it. He didn’t. The deal worked for him, not for me or vice versa. It was too far. Everywhere, there was something that wasn’t … We knew we needed a bigger RV, and we knew we both were on the same page about that. We kind of knew the manufacturer. We were still kind of open.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, we agreed on that.
Jill K DeWit:
We kind of did about the quality. We kind of agreed on the research. But the actual rig and the dollar amount and the floor plan and the size, none of that we were sure about. This rig, we owned it. We traveled three states over and owned it in seven days.
Steven Jack Butala:
We both just admits [inaudible 00:49:40].
Jill K DeWit:
From finding it.
Steven Jack Butala:
It checked every box.
Jill K DeWit:
I think this is the one.
Steven Jack Butala:
Every single one.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. So that’s a version, that’s what happened to us where it just clicked. So maybe you listening now, maybe it’s Land Academy, maybe it’s something else. But I just want to talk a minute about trusting your gut and your head knowing that this is right, this clicks and just going for it. And when something clicks and it connects with you, and then as you move forward in the process, as everything starts to fall into place, then you’re on the right path. And I want you to keep on going with it.
So found the rig. He liked it. I called. I knew who to call. It was a sweet girl who made this sweet video showing the rig. It was her phone number. She answered the phone. Okay, I like this girl.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s a great dealer.
Jill K DeWit:
And we can communicate.
Steven Jack Butala:
Here we go.
Jill K DeWit:
So that’s another like, huh, it’s all going in the right direction. Things are falling into place. Now we’re talking money. I’m like, “All right, here’s the deal. I’ve got this trade-in.” They’ll take our trade-in. Okay, there’s another positive thing in the right direction. And the last thing is how much is the difference? What was the gap?
Steven Jack Butala:
And it was acceptable to me.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. I said, “How close can you get to this?”
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s be honest. Jill wouldn’t have cared what number that was.
Jill K DeWit:
I do care. I do care. But there was a number that we need to get to. I’m like, “How close?” And then we had a number that we together agreed upon. If it’s in this range, we’re moving forward. And then it was. Like I said, so that’s my thing. So whatever it is that you’re moving forward or you’re doing, whether it’s Land Academy or something else with your life, trust your gut, trust your head and those extra steps there’s green light, green light, green light. Keep on going.
Steven Jack Butala:
I have an anecdote too, and it’s not as positive.
Jill K DeWit:
Are you just going to undo what I just did?
Steven Jack Butala:
No, I’m going to be very realistic about this.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay, go ahead.
Steven Jack Butala:
Because there’s something that you said within all those words that you just said that’s really, really important to, that’s really important to understand. It has to sing to your head and to your heart. So when I was very young, starting out, long before I even knew that I was going to be involved in land or real estate or anything, I knew I wanted to be wealthy. And so that thought, it was in my soul and in my head. That thought can lead you to not the best decisions. That same thing with a girl. You meet a great girl. It’s all, everybody’s on their best behavior. Yep. This sings to me. I’m going to dig in on this. And then day date number two or three or four, it’s just again, it’s a train wreck without the profit. So you got to make sure that there’s a balance between your head and your heart and define-
Jill K DeWit:
And your gut.
Steven Jack Butala:
And yeah, and your gut. And define what sings to you because you can’t just say, I really like how that girl looks and she’s singing to me.
Jill K DeWit:
Two out of three.
Steven Jack Butala:
I really want to be rich, so hold on a second.
Jill K DeWit:
I like this girl. She’s pretty, but boy is she expensive. Hold on.
Steven Jack Butala:
I really, really, really want to be wealthy and selling cocaine sings to me. See what I’m saying?
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, that’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
You don’t want to just follow either your head or your heart.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
It needs to be both or have a … Women are better at having feelings. If it’s the right feeling, then there’s a chance it might sing to you eventually, but still your head has to say okay too.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, I agree. Jack, so hopefully didn’t bring mine down. You didn’t bring it down. That was actually good. Thank you. But so what do you have information to share with us today?
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m heavily into the research/writing portion of pre-launching a company that I’m going to launch later this year called Man Plan. M-A-N P-L-A-N.
Jill K DeWit:
You are launching?
Steven Jack Butala:
Pretty much. Well, we’re both going to do it, I guess. I guess we’re going to do it together. We don’t know yet, but I hope it’s both of us.
Jill K DeWit:
I may be invited, I may not. It depends on if it sings to his head and his heart and his gut.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s a lot of derogatory things I could see right now.
Jill K DeWit:
Right now it might be zero out of the three.
Steven Jack Butala:
Substantial portion of Man Plan is about helping people, helping each gender understand each other and helping people convert those feelings of, let’s say I want to be rich to, how am I going to be rich? We all covered that we want to be that way, or wealthy I should say. Now how am I going to do it? There’s a lot of concepts that I’m reading about, a lot of great material out there that’s non-schlocky, that’s not self-help stuff. It’s actual real concepts like, hey, consider this. Another great example of, and I’ll define self-liquidating debt because it’s new to me. I just learned about it this week. Another great example is I just read the sentence. Middle class people who can’t break the veil of getting out of the middle class into an upper class and I only mean wealth by that, pay their taxes first and then they pay their bills. Wealthy people pay their bills first and then after all that expense, pay taxes.
That sung to me. So there’s all kinds of things that I’m researching and I’m inadvertently plugin Man Plan here. If you want to go to Man Plan now and type your email address in and get notified as this thing gets released. It’s available to do that. Self-liquidating debt is a really cute name for something that we’ve all known about. I’ve always known about this as a recovering accountant, but I never heard this phrase. So we’re all familiar with debt, and all of us are mostly familiar with how bad it is. I go buy an expensive car, brand new. We’ve all made that mistake. And then I got to pay all these fees and all the stuff that’s associated with it, and it’s always worth less than what I owe, and you never get out of that.
That’s just tertiary debt. It’s terrible. Same thing with the mortgage. Sometimes you get out of that okay. More often than not, this day and age, I really think if you do all the math, not so much. If you go and buy an apartment building and you utilize a rational amount of debt at a great rate and the deal works and the debt service coverage is okay and all of that, this is the stuff we’ll talk about in Man Plan. It’s okay to take some debt out on that because it’s self-liquidating.
The actual first month’s rent that you collect out of that new apartment building if you do the deal right, covers the debt. And then is it really debt? It’s tied to the building, not you, if you do it right, if it’s non-recourse debt. So there’s no damage in doing self-liquidated debt. So I guess my big picture point is here, and maybe this isn’t … Oh, it’s informational, not inspirational. Jill’s inspirational. I’m informational. Think about this stuff when you start … before you sign your name about what’s really, really happening. Tertiary debt’s bad debt. Self-liquidating debt can be great. It can be a great tool to move you through the cycles of wealth.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
She just fell asleep.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, I totally zoned out. It’s all right.
Steven Jack Butala:
Join us next Wednesday for another interesting episode. You are not alone in your real estate ambition. We are Jack and Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
We are Jack and Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
Information.
Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration.
Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
https://youtu.be/s3VkH16o8XM
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Welcome back to the Land Academy Show, Episode 1949. Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit delve into the anatomy of an online membership community, as well as share their journey from chasing pennies to making millions buying and selling land. Along the way, they share some banter about their creative process and everyday life. The show also features Q&A sessions from their Land Academy Discord forum, reviews of land acquisitions from their weekly Thursday member webinar, and deep dives into land-related topics. Check out landacademy.com to learn more.
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit, and this is the Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is episode number 1,949, and today we are talking in depth about the anatomy of an online membership community like Land Academy, and a little later in the episode we’ll talk about how Jill and I went from chasing pennies to making millions buying and selling land.
Jill K DeWit:
Cool. Is it autonomy or anatomy? What is the proper word that we’re doing here?
Steven Jack Butala:
Anatomy.
Jill K DeWit:
Anatomy, okay. Got it.
Steven Jack Butala:
What did I say?
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t know. I don’t even know. I looked at it because it’s not the topics…
We sit down and we brainstorm. We come up with these ideas, and then when I finally sit down to record, they’re all changed.
Steven Jack Butala:
We agree on everything, theoretically, Jill and I, and then I change it all.
Jill K DeWit:
Totally.
Steven Jack Butala:
And I don’t tell her about it until the camera’s turned on.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. Exactly right. I get to roll with the punches. You have no idea how hard this is.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s not the only situation where that happens.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, no. Everyday life. Every day.
What kind of car are we getting? Oh, we’re getting this now. Great.
Steven Jack Butala:
Each week… Moving on, Jill. Each week we answer questions.
Jill K DeWit:
Throwing your partner under the bus. This is “throw your partner under the bus” day. I like this. Sorry.
Steven Jack Butala:
Do you ever see that one classic Saturday Night Live? Where…
Jill K DeWit:
Bring it.
Steven Jack Butala:
He says…
They’re sitting there, they’re doing the newscast, and he sits there and looks at the camera, and doesn’t like what she’s saying, and he says, “Jane, you ignorant slut.”
Jill K DeWit:
Yes. I knew you were going to go there. That’s your favorite episode. That was 1970 something.
Steven Jack Butala:
I know.
Jill K DeWit:
I know exactly what you’re talking about.
Steven Jack Butala:
Each week we answer questions from our Land Academy Discord forum, we review land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar, and take a deep dive into two land-related topics by request, that I mentioned just a few minutes ago.
Let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. If you want to sneak peek at the channel and you’re not a member, please go to landacademy.com and check it out. It’s free.
Jill K DeWit:
Aaron wrote, “I have a property under contract to buy and it’s the Land Academy Style Purchase agreement, so we know, and in escrow. I was at the two yard line waiting for the seller to turn docs to title when the seller went silent. Fast-forward a couple of months and I find out another flipper is marketing the property. I believe they’re acting as a wholesaler. I believe this particular group teaches that a contract is a contract, and advise recording memorandums if sellers try to back out. Now the seller wants to sell to me since I’ll pay cash right now and get it done. I’ve had it under contract this whole time and it’s already still an escrow with the title company ready to complete it and close in a couple of days. Any advice on this one? I’m pretty sure I have a buyer and I should make $70,000 a minimum on this, by the way.”
What a mess.
Steven Jack Butala:
Close it. That’s my advice, and everybody else on discord said the same thing. Just get it done. You
Jill K DeWit:
You were first in line. We can go back to the dated thing and that’s not bad advice. If anything comes back, it’s really on the seller. He’s the one that was being weird and playing the games.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think that there’s a bigger issue here, and I think that in every real estate deal, in every environment, there’s a chance that stuff’s going to go sideways. It happens to us all the time. Probably 20, 30% of the deals, stuff happens. There’s more taxes than you think, availability for the seller to sign is not as easy as we all thought. So okay, 10%. The real issue is that I think you should have that conversation, and I know Jill does, have a conversation with the seller, real person to real person and say…
Jill K DeWit:
“Dude, why’d you do this?” Or just, “You goofed yourself up here.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Just during the process of they’re agreeing to sell the property to you, and you’ve got the price down and it’s in escrow, I think it would be very appropriate, in a Jill-style way, to tell the person. People send out mail all the time. “I really want to get this deal done with you and if, for whatever reason, anyone reaches out, another buyer reaches out, let’s just get this deal done together. I’m good for it.”
What do you think about that?
Jill K DeWit:
Is there a way to say this? That you could say, I didn’t hear that. “Oh, hi. Hello. Whatever you just said, let’s start the conversation over again. So you’re calling me back now ’cause you’re ready to close. Yep. Done. Let’s do it.” Is there a way to do that? That’s what I would do.
Steven Jack Butala:
You’re the expert.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. That’s really what I would do. And then I would ding-dong buyer. The whole point is, too…
I talk to people a lot. They’re like, “Oh, I’ve got these… I sent out this mail. I have these offers back. I have 20 staring at me. I’ll get to them.” I’m like, “You guys, time kills deals so you need to act on that.” And I’ve even had it the other way where if you give me too much time to think about it, I might find a better one and I want to put my money over there instead.
Steven Jack Butala:
We have our transaction coordinator that works directly for Jill, she’s been with us for years, can close deals in seven days.
Jill K DeWit:
With title insurance. And that’s the world we’re in right now. It’s not the last summer where it took them two months to close deals in some areas. They have laid off title agents and they’re looking for work. They’re willing to come up with some great rates for you, too, by the way, as an investor and close them much faster.
Steven Jack Butala:
That needs to be shared with the seller also. It’s like, “Hey, you’re going to have your money. You’re going to be cashed out of this thing in seven days. We just did it last week.” That would motivate me. That would motivate me to adjust my sales price for some reason.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
And in the buyer’s favor/.
Today Jill and I are going to talk about the anatomy of an online membership community like Land Academy. This topic came up because we are now in career path number six, and Jill and I are constantly talking to members, and to each other, about how we can improve our membership community. And so over the years we added Discord and we improved Discord over landinvestors.com.
Jill K DeWit:
We’re going to make that even better, too. We’re looking at bringing in a Discord pro to clean that up and make that better.
Steven Jack Butala:
And that’s just one example. We are launching in about eight weeks, for Career Path alumni only, Land Academy Pro where we share the actual staff that Jill and I use, to buy and sell land. We share Jill’s transaction coordinator and we share my staff on offers to owners for you to get your mailers done.
And it’s on a schedule, so you have a schedule. We were telling the Career Path people you can’t miss. A very common issue that comes up for people in Career Path, or really anyone in general, is procrastination and not sticking to a mailing schedule to reach your goals.
So Jill and I listened to that and said, “How do we do it?” Well, the truth is we have people that work for us who make sure we stick on that schedule. That’s their job.
Jill K DeWit:
I’d like to go back to the… It’s just now coming to me.
The whole reason you put this in here. Jack was asking me, “What would be key… If you, Jill, were part of an online community, what would be the one thing that would keep you there? Why would you be there?” And I said, “Well, I have some great examples. I happen to be in an RV group on Facebook, and I love having this group, it’s at my beck and call, that I’m constantly laying in bed, trolling through the conversations, picking up little nuggets of stuff that may or may not apply to me someday, but at least I know how to solve it. Like ‘Hey, our slides weren’t working. What did you guys use?’ Kind of thing.”
And I now have a lot to know, I’ve learned a lot about this particular model, and what’s recommended, and what’s not recommended to use on the slides and things like that. But the main thing is for me, I love reading all that, and being part of it, but knowing that they’re there and I don’t abuse that.
So I was just telling Jack this morning, “So I joined this new group, we’re changing our rig out and I’m all in the new group learning about the new brand and everything that we’re doing, and I don’t want to abuse a community. So I’m going to research, I’m going to read to soak it all up, get to learn the tone of the community first of all. Then, like I said, I’ll use the search function to try to find my answer first, because there’s often content, so much content, about the topic du jour, or what you need that day is already in there.” I’ll use that.
Then, if I don’t, then I will really nicely reach out and go, “Okay, now I need you guys. What do you do about this?” And knowing that they’re there for me is what keeps me being a part of this. It’s not about the money, not about the cost. If it was like a thousand dollars a month, I might think twice about… I don’t know, it depends on the value I get back. Actually, I might pay that depending on what’s involved, but just having them there is what sings to me in an online membership community.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think it’s really difficult, if not impossible for me anyway, to be in a community without like-minded people. And the reason that this topic really came up is because we had the…
Again, we’re in Career Path. We had the first session of Career Path. I think there’s 15 or 18 people in there, more than that actually. 15, 16. Some of them are couples. So there’s probably 20 people in there. And we went in the first session, we would go around the room, everybody explains who they are, how many deals they’ve done, what they want to get out of Career Path so Jill and I can custom tailor it for the next eight weeks. And we were very, this time for some reason, very, very, like minded.
Jill K DeWit:
You know what that is? It’s a community inside of the community, which is really cool. That’s what Career Path is. There’s Land Academy as a whole where we have people doing all different kinds of deals, all different money amounts, all different, whatever, and then we have, “Oh, we’re here to hit it home” people.
Steven Jack Butala:
So that’s the whole point. We all have a common goal. We want to make more money.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s a lot of people in Land Academy. I think that’s how a lot of people find us, too, because they’re like, “All right, I realize you guys are the ones that know how to take this home. You guys are the ones that know how to automate this stuff. You guys are the ones that don’t have to work that hard, you guys know how to… You guys long time ago stopped buying for $1000 and selling for $3000 or $99 a month.” And I know that’s coming up in a minute, but…
Steven Jack Butala:
I belong to a group called Mobile Home Park University, which is the mobile home park version of Land Academy. Will I ever buy a mobile home park? Probably not. But I just love hanging out with these people. They’re very like-minded, and we don’t just talk about mobile homes, we talk about all kinds of stuff: financing or managing, having managers, and dealing with managers, and dealing with residents and all of that.
Jill K DeWit:
Is that what keeps you from doing… I have nothing against buying and owning a mobile home park, but I know you do, and I bet that’s it. It’s probably the people part of it. My land doesn’t yell at me.
Steven Jack Butala:
Look, I can go… That’s a show.
I can go spend a couple million dollars cash on a mobile home park and then I can get it back $10,000 a month at a time. That doesn’t make sense to me. And that’s the reason I don’t buy a mobile home park. It’s not so much the people, or the tenants, or any of that.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m still back on my thing. You know what I love on my land and my land loves on me back. That’s good.
Steven Jack Butala:
So communities, you have a lot of choices out there. Ever present more communities to choose from. I really would recommend you get to know yourself first and then if you’re part of a community that you feel like you fit in, we all need that. We all need to be part of a community where we fit in or multiple communities.
Jill K DeWit:
Isn’t it funny? Remember the first community we had that was Success Plant.
Steven Jack Butala:
Success Plant.
Jill K DeWit:
So we launched Land Academy in 2015, and the very first thing our new customers said is, “Well, we need to communicate.”
I’m like, “Okay.” So we made Success Plant. You made it. I was off.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill went on vacation.
Jill K DeWit:
I did. For the week.
Steven Jack Butala:
And I bought an eight pack of Red Bull and built the website.
Jill K DeWit:
You did.
Steven Jack Butala:
Called Success Plant.
Jill K DeWit:
It was very nice.
And then it became Land Investors and now it’s Land Investors/Discord. Super cool.
Steven Jack Butala:
So if you have any suggestions about how to make Land Academy better or how it would work better for you, please let us know in Discord.
Jill K DeWit:
Please send them to… Let me just make up some other site.
Steven Jack Butala:
You know what else I understood and I’m listening, is “We want a community.” This is what multiple people have said to me over the years. “We want a community where it’s not just necessarily about land, it’s about being successful.” And that’s what Man Plan is. If you go to manplan.com, M-A-N-P-L-A-N and put in your email.
I will, with Jill, she and I are going to release a whole program that’s much, much less expensive than Land Academy, but it’s about being successful and surrounding yourselves with other successful people.
Jill K DeWit:
You know what? I can’t wait to do this.
Steven Jack Butala:
And we’re going to make fun of the other gender quite often, and that’s a two-way street.
Jill K DeWit:
It is. I look forward to that. That’s going to be fun. I know that we’re going to offer something great for the Land Academy community right out of the gate, so there’s going to be a lot of people in there, right out of the gate. It’s going to be awesome.
Steven Jack Butala:
I guess you could put it in the self-help space, but it’s not. It’s more for professional people that want to…
In Land Academy we constantly are preaching about have a schedule, have a calendar, have goals, understand it in great detail what your goal is at the end, and then work it backwards, and to create a schedule for yourself to make sure that happens. And people, for some reason, people don’t do this with their other stuff in life.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
They don’t have a plan. It’s man plan.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a look at one of our favorite land acquisitions from the weekly Thursday webinar, member webinar.
Let’s take another question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. Again, if you want to sneak peek at our Discord channel, please go to landacademy.com. It’s free.
Jill K DeWit:
Michelle wrote, “I have a seller who reached out wanting to sell 0.93 acres he bought at a tax sale. There is no road access or document easement that I can easily access. He’s eager to sell. I may be able to get it for $1,500. It’s nearly next to “Blank” River in Oklahoma, but not in a flood zone. Only one adjoining neighbor. The county was not helpful on it. So, about the access, the seller said there’s a lane that goes around the community, and an offshoot that goes right to the corner of our property.” So, physical. “The group next to us are an investment group that owns that property. So I would notary close on this one…”
Oh, oh, there’s more to it, sorry. “I would notary close on this one, but I’m likely to pass. But what’s your advice?”
So for 1500 bucks for an acre, if it’s worth it, I would roll the dice and probably do it.
Steven Jack Butala:
So would I. I would not notary close. I would get title insurance.
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t know, for $1,500…
Steven Jack Butala:
And I would send somebody out there and see if they can get to it, if they’re crossing over, obviously crossing over anybody’s property. Jill and I built this entire company…
Actually, honestly before Jill and I joined forces, I built this, the entire company, on accessless property. I don’t recommend doing this all the time, but I guess we buy property without access once or twice or three times a year.
Jill K DeWit:
Usually there’s one or the other, physical or legal. So it sounds like this one probably has physical access. The very first thing I would do right now, too, Michelle, spend $200, $250 with drone, and have someone go out there.
Steven Jack Butala:
Me too.
Jill K DeWit:
And take all kinds of pictures, get you drone footage driving up to it, and pictures going up to it so you really know what this is.
Steven Jack Butala:
And ask the drone person if they can get to the property.
Jill K DeWit:
You’ll find out.
Steven Jack Butala:
And make sure you give them good GPS coordinates.
Jill K DeWit:
Give them your list of photos, what you want. “I want this angle, that angle, this angle. I want to know how far… I want pictures of the sweet little town.”
You’re going to give them everything that you would give them as if you were going to list it yourself, and market yourself, and you need the photos ready to go. So worst case scenario, you get it and you don’t like it. You’re like, “Oh, okay, I’m glad I didn’t spend any more money on this. So what? I’m out 250 bucks. Big deal.” Best case scenario, you’re like, “Oh, I see what’s possible, and I see how great this is, and now my photos are done.”
Steven Jack Butala:
So it’s back tax property, and if you close with a notary, you will not find out if there’s any flaws in the title, or a clause in the title at all. With title insurance some stuff’s going to come up and there’s a chance that…
Jill K DeWit:
You’;; still have to pay more to get title.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s a chance that they won’t insure it because it’s back taxed property, depending on how long the seller purchased it. So you want all that stuff to come out because…
And I’ll tell you, I’m saving it best for last year, how much freaking money are you going to make on this thing?
Jill K DeWit:
That’s what I was just going to say. If it’s a buy for $1500 and it’s worth $20,000 then worst case scenario it’s worth $20,000 then I would go down that path.
Steven Jack Butala:
If it’s a buy for $1500 and sell for $5000, I would just move on.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you. Glad we’re on the same page. It’s so nice how often we’re on the same page.
Steven Jack Butala:
When the camera and the mics are on. We’re always on the same page.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, isn’t that funny how that happens? Oh, I don’t know. I am sure if you’ve been listening and/or watching us for a while as three of you have, you can tell like, “Oh, somebody’s pissed today.” Or “Oh, somebody’s hungover today.”
Steven Jack Butala:
If you go way back to the beginning where it was just audio. This is show number what?
Jill K DeWit:
1949 or whatever.
Steven Jack Butala:
Almost 2000 shows. So back in the beginning, we didn’t know what we were doing. We don’t really know what we’re doing now either, but back in the beginning, we really didn’t know what we were doing. And it was… Jill’s always…
Jill K DeWit:
Patient.
Steven Jack Butala:
Looked at this podcast as my doing.
Jill K DeWit:
Hobby.
Steven Jack Butala:
And she believes that she’s gracing my presence by showing up, and doing me a huge favor to sit next to me on my podcast.
Jill K DeWit:
Well it’s partially true. Because It started as your podcast. I was the fill-in.
Steven Jack Butala:
Not so much anymore, but…
Jill K DeWit:
I’m still the fill-in. Nobody else will show up.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill and I are in a relationship and…
Jill K DeWit:
Kidding.
Steven Jack Butala:
When she’s mad about stuff, other stuff, which happens because we’re in a relationship, one of her ways to punish me is to just not really be okay on the podcast, or show up late, or all that.
Jill K DeWit:
Please. Hilarious.
Steven Jack Butala:
Tell me I’m wrong.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, that’s funny. All right.
Steven Jack Butala:
We all have our stuff.
Jill K DeWit:
Let’s see. Let me look at your eyes today. Go ahead.
Steven Jack Butala:
My two five-year plus managers from Land Academy are in town here in Scottsdale from Los Angeles, and we have been doing, I’ll call it research, together in front of glasses.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s second topic is called…
Jill’s going to talk to us about how we moved from chasing pennies to making millions buying and selling land.
Jill K DeWit:
So I love this. This came up from Career Path the other day, again, and we just had our first session the week of April 10th, and one of the things as we’re talking about why are you here. We’d go around the room and say, “Who are you? Where are you located physically? What do you want to get out of this? And number goals and level of experience” basically.
And I wrote down some fun comments that people made, and one of them was, “I’m done chasing pennies.” I’m like, “Oh, I get that. I really get that.” And what’s funny is that we were talking about this morning, and for a while that was us. So I really, really understand and appreciate that, and I wanted to talk with everyone about going from the mindset of, “I don’t need to work this hard for $399. I can do the same amount of work, maybe less, for $39,000.”
Because that the truth. That really is it. And I know that there’s people that are in Land Academy and listening right now because that’s where you are and you’re going, “It seems like a big leap.” But when you really sit down and think about it, and decompose what it’s going to take, and then, I guess, hang out with those people, you start to see that that’s really possible, and you can do it, too.
There’s no reason why anyone right now listening to this should be chasing someone for their $99 payment this month, because they can’t seem to keep on track with their debit card balance. That’s nuts. You don’t have to do that. And the thing about it, too, is how rich are you going to get then? How long is it going to take you to get…
If you have, I don’t care if you have a hundred properties. Think about this, and I know a lot of people that have been in this situation, us included, that had in their portfolio, had many, many people making $99, $149 a month on these payments, and you’re hoping to, gosh, recoup this in, I don’t know, three to five years. That’s a heck of a long time to, fingers crossed, babysit these people and get them to pay. And then those of you listening know what I’m talking about, the percentage of those that actually do follow through and pay are not really high.
We talked about this too with something the other day. It’s not funny when you have to keep reselling the property over again. You don’t want to do that, re-posting and reselling it. So we understand. We’ve been there. And what I wanted to share is for us…
It was really Steven before me, he was the number one real estate person on eBay. He had an eBay empire. There were properties closing every single flipping hour and there was a $299 or $399 doc prep fee. There were properties all over the country, $1, no reserve, 30-day auctions, let her rip. He had a huge office building and a staff to manage all these properties. So…
Steven Jack Butala:
Did you find that attractive about me?
Jill K DeWit:
Not really. I did.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill’s not impressed by money. It’s very interesting.
Jill K DeWit:
No, it’s cool, but I just want to go have fun. Your office was nice. It was really cool. “This is your office?” And, “Why is it all glass? Everybody can see in here.” It was like a fishbowl, but it was cool.
Anyway, that’s when I met him. He had this eBay empire, and then here comes 2007, 2008. You know what happened. And I’ve heard people talk about recently, too, Facebook marketplace taking a turn like eBay did, and if you had all your eggs in one basket. You’re in a pickle and what do you do? You got to pivot, man. So that’s one of the main things that we’ve learned over the years and we teach at Land Academy is you need to have more than one place that you’re marketing, selling, working on these properties so you’re not dependent on something if it just changes gears real quick on you.
So, going from that environment to where we are now, it can happen really fast. You just have to… Like I said, I think, spend some time with people that are doing it, and that would be the Land Academy community, by the way, follow us, ask some questions and you can do it, too. And it starts with day one, stop buying properties for $500, start buying properties for $5,000.
Steven Jack Butala:
You have complete control over how much money you make when you buy and sell land, the Land Academy way. So let that sink in for just a second. I don’t want to sound like your father, but I know I am. Complete control over how much money you make if you follow Land Academy at 3.0. We don’t send mail to properties that…
We don’t send mail to small properties, anymore, that have no access, that we want to buy for $100 an acre. I built the whole company back then on that model, which is not something we do anymore with intent. We send out mail for properties where we can buy between $20,000 and $30,000 and $40,000 and we know we’re going to sell them for $80,000 or $90,000. Why? Because I need to make sure that we make more than a million dollars a year.
It ends up being closer to $3,000,000 the way that we’re doing it, because if we net $80,000 or $70,000 and do one deal a month, which Jill can do in her sleep, we make a million bucks. We, pre-tax net income, make a million dollars. Then let’s say we want to do a deal every week, not every month, because it’s just as easy. We have the fixed-cost staff anyway. Now you’re talking about some serious real money.
That’s 50 deals, 50 times $80,000. It’s a lot. There’s your 3 or $4 million. So you have control. How do I have control? You have control where you send mail, you have control for how much you’re going to offer, because you already know how much you can sell it for during the process of sending through the mailer, and you know where the money is. There’s tons and tons of people on our Land Academy Discord, Jill and I included, that’ll fund your deal if it’s any good. And so if you want to make more money, send out more mail.
Jill K DeWit:
The right mail.
Steven Jack Butala:
That is not what other groups teach. You also have complete control over where you learn how to do this and what methodology you choose. Some of what I call our “healthy competitors” out there in the education space like to do terms deals. Other people like to do what isn’t commonly known now as wholesaling, where you don’t have to put the money… The attractant to both of those, it’s not a lot of money up upfront. I’m not a big fan of those.
Jill K DeWit:
I want to make more money and not work that hard.
Steven Jack Butala:
I want to control a deal. I want to buy the deal for cash and sell it very quickly for cash for a lot more.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, like the question earlier in this podcast, someone else came along. That could’ve all gone sideways, even though trying to buy it and close it, not only do you need to buy it, close it, and you own it. Now you just have total control, but you need to do it faster in some situations
Steven Jack Butala:
You have total control…
Jill K DeWit:
I will still run to the bank. On rare occasions I will run to the bank and get stuff done.
Steven Jack Butala:
A very popular thing that you see in social media about any wealth education environment is no money down. And those other groups, it’s true, there’s no money down. You don’t have to put any money into wholesale deal. There’s something really bad about it that doesn’t sit right with us and it never has.
Buy the property. There’s no money down here either, because if the deal’s good, we’re going to fund the whole thing and split it with you.
Jill K DeWit:
I have a question for you, because you and I don’t have any trouble with this at all. You and I, we never have had any trouble throwing around these big numbers, but I know some people have trouble talking about like, “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe I can buy this for $30,000 and I’m going to try to sell for $120,000.” Even like $30,000, that’s a car. But you and I are like, “Nah, here you go. I don’t think about it.”
What is it? What do you think it is? Is it a learned thing? Is it past experiences? Why are we so good about it? Because Lord knows we’ve been poor.
Steven Jack Butala:
Somebody in the live event said that for you to be successful in a Land Academy environment, you have to understand and agree with the laws of abundance.
And so if the thought of writing a $30,000 check for a property that you know is… Well, you’re pretty sure, pretty confident… That’s what Discord is for, by the way, and that’s what the Thursday call is for. We’re going to tell you if we think, pretty quickly, if you can sell it for $80,000. So honestly, here’s the truthful, painful, truthful answer to that. You are not right for Land Academy.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, ’cause you don’t have a stomach for it?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. I don’t see any risk in this and neither does Jill.
From minute one, when we started working together, we were right on the same page and wanted to get rich together, and had no issues. I don’t look at writing a check for a piece of land, or a house, even when I know it’s worth more, as any risk at all. I don’t see any risk in it.
Jill K DeWit:
Agree.
Steven Jack Butala:
I see a lot of risk in writing some checks…
Jill K DeWit:
Stock market.
Steven Jack Butala:
Or buying a convenience store and then getting your money back $12 at a time.
Jill K DeWit:
How about a pizza joint? See any risk with that one?
Steven Jack Butala:
We’ve proven that there’s risk in that.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank goodness the land thing took care of all that.
Steven Jack Butala:
In Career Path, again, we went around the room yesterday and everybody…
There’s nobody in the Career Path, I can tell you with confidence that sees any risk in this at all, they just want to know how to do it and how we do it.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s it.
We know it’s nice, too. We’ve been around. We have enough examples, and it’s not just us. That’s what’s great, ties back to our original topic, which is a community. When you spend some time, just spend an hour within the Land Academy community, and start seeing the deals and reading. I think you can read success stories right now in read-only format on landacademy.com. You can troll through there and see some of the deals that people bought, what they bought for, what they sold them for.
You go, “All right, it’s not just Jack and Jill. I see 20 other people in the last seven days, have looked at those numbers. Some of those are even better than Jack and Jill’s. Good for them.” I’m like, “Yep, that’s true.”
Steven Jack Butala:
“That’s great, Jack. It sounds like it’s all peaches and cream and you can just make as much money as you want. And why isn’t everybody doing it then?”
And here’s why, here’s how you fail at this. Here’s why you fail and why people fail at it. They’re not Jill. They don’t have a dynamic personality. They have a mechanical engineering, dry, low voice, and talk on the phone. No one’s going to sell you their property.
Jill K DeWit:
You could hire that.
Steven Jack Butala:
You have to grow a dynamic personality or find a partner. Think about starting a band. If you’re the guitarist, and you’re writing all the songs, and you’re very talented, the first thing you do is look for an amazing front lead singer. Jill’s the lead singer. I’m the guitarist. You need a dynamic show person, or you need to become that person. I can do it. I had Jill’s job and it was successful. I hated it.
Jill K DeWit:
I was going to add, because we in our live event this was a common theme a few years ago, which was just add a zero, add a zero. It’s like, “Okay, I’m going to add a zero.”
And so you can baby step your way up. And if you’re not comfortable going from buying from $1000 to buying from $10,000, buy for $5,000, then buy for $10,000, then buy for $20,000.
Steven Jack Butala:
And get a personality,
Jill K DeWit:
Then buy for $40,000
Steven Jack Butala:
Take a public speaking course or join a group.
Jill K DeWit:
Then fire your partner and get a new partner. Just kidding.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s right.
Jill K DeWit:
Fire yourself.
Steven Jack Butala:
Fire yourself. I love that. That’s a show.
Jill K DeWit:
Ooh, that is true.
But you can baby step your way up to where you are comfortable. And I promise you, when you look back and see that, “Wow, I just plopped down $65,000 on this property. I didn’t even think twice about it.” Look how far you’ve come. You did it. Now it’s not scary at all. And then you start throwing around some big numbers, buy for a million. And I actually don’t like those, because they just take too long. I don’t have the patience.
There’s often a special-use commercial property is why you’re buying for a million, when it’s worth two and a half or something like that, and it’s zoned a certain way, and everybody’s got to have a traffic count and all this stuff. I lose interest. No, I don’t like it. What bucket is that? Three?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. Bucket three property.
Jill K DeWit:
There you go.
Steven Jack Butala:
Bucket one is buy for $30,000 sell for $80,000 quickly. That’s the bread and butter. Bucket two is buy for #30,000 list it for retail at $140,000. Might take a year. I’m okay with that.
Jill K DeWit:
Because you hope you end up with it anyway.
Steven Jack Butala:
Bucket three is you’re going…
Jill K DeWit:
That’s him.
Steven Jack Butala:
Bucket three is do some stuff to it like minor split it, clear it out, deforest it. There’s all kinds of things to… I’m not a fan of bucket three, but I am a fan of bucket two.
Jill K DeWit:
You love bucket two. You know what’s funny about that?
Truth time, we have a property in bucket two right now that’s in Prescott, Arizona that I’m actually thinking about, “Maybe we should build on that dumb thing.”
Steven Jack Butala:
I was thinking that too. Or put a mobile on it.
Jill K DeWit:
Didn’t they put a well and a septic there?
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t know.
Jill K DeWit:
I think it has something.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s got the greatest view there ever was. We bought it for next to nothing. And it’s total bucket two property, and I honestly don’t want to sell it. And it’s priced that way.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s exactly what happens. Oh, my gosh. Everybody thinks that Jill must be the sentimental one. Nope. I’m like, “Sell it. Rip the bandaid off. I’ll get another one. It’s fine.”
He’s like, “Oh, did you see the view? Did you see the waterfall?”
Steven Jack Butala:
I bought and sold a bunch of property a really long time ago, and realized that that’s what I want to do. And just exactly what Jill’s describing, didn’t make a ton of money on it, but the light bulb went off over my head, and I immediately sought out people who owned a lot of property, and found them, sent them faxes, or back then I just found them. Most of them were licensed real estate agents. So they’re easy to track down. And I called them and said, “I want to buy…”
Jill K DeWit:
That was 2005.
Steven Jack Butala:
“I want to buy all your property.” It was like 2000, actually. “All of it.”
And we put a deal together and I was writing, back then, quarter million dollar checks, 80, 90, a hundred thousand dollars checks for 80 or a hundred properties. And the returns on that were staggering. The first real big deal, I remember I did like that, a multi-unit deal, it was $87,000. It was a ton of money at the time. Still a lot of money. And I got back $2.1 million over time on eBay.
Jill K DeWit:
Hence the office building, and the staff, and all that’s involved.
Steven Jack Butala:
So that’s why I’m not, to answer your question now, I’m not gun shy at all about writing checks for dirt, especially with Jill, because some stuff goes sideways she will dynamic, sorry, personality, her way out of it.
Jill K DeWit:
I’ll get it.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’ve seen you do that multiple times.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
We have property laying around, it’s because we want it. We want it. It’s because Jill hasn’t really decided that she wants to smash it out of our inventory.
Jill K DeWit:
We’re just like, “Eh. Well, we’ll get to it.”
It’s funny. You win when you buy it. That’s the whole point. So let’s take a look at another one of our favorite land acquisitions from our regular Thursday member webinar.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill, you have something inspirational to share.
Jill K DeWit:
I wanted to read a little note that was placed in Discord in the Closed Career Path, I see it, channel to me, and I thought it was so sweet and I just wanted to share it here, and hit this point home.
It says, “I’ve been applying Jill’s method for phone calls with sellers, which she goes over in the podcast on January 18th, 2023. A seller told me yesterday, ‘I like your personality.'”
Steven Jack Butala:
I love this.
Jill K DeWit:
And this is a woman, by the way. I want to say it’s a woman writing this.
“‘I like your personality. You are not like the others who want to buy my property. They were rude and acted like they were doing me a favor. You listened. But they would not even let me get a word in edgewise. I have more land for sale coming available and I’d like to do business with you.'”
So thank you very much, MB, for sharing that. I love that. And I just want to just talk about the power of what you talked about a few minutes ago, Jack, about being that person, and getting them on the phone and winning. It’s really about winning them over. You just have to remember with these sellers and these offers that are going out, it’s nothing personal.
And your job when these calls come in, just like MB did, is to quickly get a relationship with them, see if you’re on the same page, that they really want to sell, and get a number from them, and, in that process, listen to them be that person. Why do they disagree with your price? What’s going on? Whatever it is. And I bet that she has even more to share about the story. It could have been a buy for $10,000 he thinks it’s worth $20,000 but the end, she gets it for $11,000 because that happens. “You know what, I like you and I just want to get rid of it anyway. So you know what? If you make it this number, then I really feel good.” And then everybody wins.
Steven Jack Butala:
When does ramrodding your personality into into somebody get you what you want? Does it work with your children?
Jill K DeWit:
No.
Steven Jack Butala:
Does it work with your wife? No, it doesn’t. So why would you do that when you’re… You’re not going to get you what you want with a seller either.
Jill K DeWit:
No, you really aren’t.
So I just wanted to share that story. Talk about for a minute, few minutes. And I wanted to say, too, that if that’s not you, that’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with that. You’re like, “I don’t have the patience.” Maybe you want to do this, but you’re like, “I just am not… I don’t have that voice. My voice is too deep.” I don’t know. Fill in the blank. “I just can’t sound like that person no matter how hard, hard I try, but I know what you mean.”
Well then go get that person. You can hire that person. And you could even use somebody like Pat Live. They have been doing it for us and members off and on for years. I like to say that part of Pat Live is a huge component of that’s Land Academy, and they take care of you and they know what we need and they know how to do this.
So, Jack, what do you have informational to share with us today, please?
Steven Jack Butala:
I would like to talk about a healthy dose of self-deprecation. I think that nobody wins.
Jill K DeWit:
Look at how funny this is. Talk about Yin Yang, positive, negative. Oh my gosh.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m not a big fan of people blowing their own horn.
Jill K DeWit:
Like I just did.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s okay. I can handle it. Go ahead. Bring it.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’ll never forget this conversation I had in college with a girl in my dorm. And she said, “You’re really hard on yourself and you have some really serious issues. You need to see somebody. You’re not a big fan of yourself, are you?”
And I just laughed, and laughed, and laughed. Obviously I remembered it forever, and it still makes me laugh. No, I’m not going to sit here and tell you how great I am. I’m not going to tell you about our balance sheet at all. I would rather talk about how I screw stuff up all the time and have a healthy dose of self-deprecation and reality.
Jill K DeWit:
I get it.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think that’s very healthy to not take yourself too seriously.
Jill K DeWit:
Do you remember what it was that she was bringing up in college?
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t know. And you know what? She’s not the first person who said that to me over the years.
Jill K DeWit:
Shocked.
Steven Jack Butala:
And it’s not gender-specific. And I think that earlier you guys were talking about how the eBay marketplace has changed, how Facebook marketplace has changed, and I was sitting here thinking, “Well, Jill’s taking over the show, like she does.”
Public marketplaces and communities online, public ones, always, are deteriorating.
Jill K DeWit:
They beat up people.
Steven Jack Butala:
Land Academy is not public, and it gets better, and better, and better all the time. And then I started thinking about big cities are always in a state of entropy, or a state of slow death, and rural communities…
Jill K DeWit:
What the heck?
Steven Jack Butala:
Seem to me to be always getting better.
Jill K DeWit:
There’s a positive.
Whoever’s listening right now, I can just feel your shoulders getting lower, and lower, and lower. Like, “Yeah, live in San Francisco right here. I get it.” What the heck?
So I would like to say that I do agree with you on having… You know what I call it? Having a good sense of humor and being able to accept, and learn from your mistakes, and when you move on. And for me, that was very hard. So I don’t call it self-deprecation that’s way big words for me.
Steven Jack Butala:
Wait a minute. Learning from your mistakes is hard for you?
Jill K DeWit:
It used to be because I didn’t want to make any mistakes.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, what the hell good is that, Jill? That’s not good.
Jill K DeWit:
I know. I’ve been working on this for several years.
Steven Jack Butala:
Where does that come from?
Jill K DeWit:
My dad. Remember the whole spilling the milk thing as a kid?
Steven Jack Butala:
No. Explain it, please.
Jill K DeWit:
Seriously?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh my gosh. All right. If my children are listening, and I know they’re not…
Steven Jack Butala:
Kids don’t even know we have a show.
Jill K DeWit:
They’d say, “She did that to us, too.”
I broke a light bulb last night, remember? And I actually didn’t care. But it used to be if I dropped and broke something, big trouble, man. Don’t [inaudible 00:45:56], don’t break anything. Heaven forbid your car gets dirt, scratched, and stuff. You take good care of things. My dad was a very much a perfectionist about things like that. So I would overdo things to make sure. I’m like, “Whoa, don’t make a mistake. Make sure you do it right.”
Steven Jack Butala:
So I think being a perfectionist is the fastest way to being always disappointed.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s about right.
Steven Jack Butala:
I really mean it. I don’t think there’s anything healthy with expecting that everything’s going to be perfect all the time.
Jill K DeWit:
No, exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
You were laughing yourself because you broke a light bulb.
Jill K DeWit:
The whole thing blew.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, really? Did you get it in your eyes or anything?
Jill K DeWit:
No. It was because the glass there was protecting it. I was, with my bare hand though, holding this light bulb.
Steven Jack Butala:
You know, I’m a man.
Jill K DeWit:
I know, but you weren’t here. Remember you were out last night with the guys that you were doing research with.
Steven Jack Butala:
You have a man for this stuff.
Jill K DeWit:
I know, but I blew the whole… The backyard went dark. I’m getting the ladder now, and I’m getting a broom.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
But that’s okay. I’m very proud of myself because A, I fixed it, solved it, laughed at it. And here we are. I got this.
Steven Jack Butala:
You should start taking out the garbage too, if you need some stuff to do.
Jill K DeWit:
Thanks. Well, if you keep doing research at the level that you have been this week, I probably will be doing all your chores, too.
Steven Jack Butala:
Join us next Wednesday for another interesting episode.
You are not alone in your real estate ambition. We are Jack and Jill. Information…
Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration…
Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
Jill K DeWit:
And do other’s chores.
https://youtu.be/rThf4VCCQ8Y
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Join Steven Jack Butala and Jill K DeWit on the Land Academy Show as they discuss Land Academy Ladies, their sense of confidence and community, and the importance of technology and innovation in the land flipping business. In this episode, they also talk about their busy week, upcoming events like Career Path, and answer questions from their Land Academy Discord forum. Tune in for valuable insights and advice on land-related topics and how to succeed in the industry. Check out their Land Academy Discord channel at landacademy.com for more resources.
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m Jill K DeWit. This is the Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
In this episode, number 1,948, today, we are talking in-depth about Land Academy Ladies and their sense of confidence and community. That’s topic number one. Then, a little bit later on in the episode, I’m going to talk about what I’ve learned about technology and innovation from our other career path members in those sessions. How was your week, Jill?
Jill K DeWit:
Great.
Steven Jack Butala:
You were out of town the whole time. How is working from out of town in warm California?
Jill K DeWit:
Piece of cake. It’s amazing how much I’ll get done without you around. No offense.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’ll take it.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s funny. Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s amazing how that’s a win-win situation.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s amazing how little you get done when I’m not around. That’s really the common theme here.
Steven Jack Butala:
Is there that much that we need to get done?
Jill K DeWit:
Wow. We’ve been busy gearing up for stuff. We’ve got a couple things coming up. I’m excited about it.
Steven Jack Butala:
We have Career Path.
Jill K DeWit:
We always have things going on. I don’t know if it’s a problem. I don’t know if it’s a positive or a negative. But you and I don’t sit still. That’s a fact.
Steven Jack Butala:
I wonder if it’s good or bad. I question that, also.
Jill K DeWit:
I know.
Steven Jack Butala:
Hey, I hope you’re also enjoying our 2023 format. Each week we answer questions from our Land Academy Discord forum. We review land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar. That’s every week. We take a deep dive into two land-related topics by popular request that I just described. Now let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. If you want a sneak peek at that, at our Land Academy Discord channel, please go to landacademy.com. It’s free in read-only format. People love it.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. Okay. Clay wrote, “I’m looking for some advice concerning a commercial property that I’ve come across. The owner wants to sell and has two adjacent parcels with road frontage in East blank. Right around this area, there’ve been a lot of development recently. I mailed him concerning one of the properties, and he asked me if I’d be interested in both. I am, in light of their location, but I have no idea how to comp what the commercial property will be worth. Does anyone have any insight, tips, or suggestions on how to effectively do this? It may not be any different. This is just the first possible commercial deal I’ve come across.”
Steven Jack Butala:
This is a regular Tuesday for Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. Exactly. I love this. Okay. The first thing I would do, I look at both. I’m still going to go look at active numbers, just ignoring the type of property it is, in a site like Zillow or Realtor, something just for land in that area. I’m going to try to zero in based on the size. I don’t think Clay mentioned the size here. Let’s just say there are two properties. It’s four acres. So I’m going to look at the two- to five-acre properties active for sale, and then what’s sold in the last, sometimes six months, sometimes last 12 months, just to get a gauge. Now, I know it’s commercial. I needed to take it a step further. I’m going to go to LoopNet. I’m going to look around there and try to find some similar properties in that zip code preferably. If not, I’ll go out a little bit wider just to get a gauge of what’s going on.
While I am doing that, I’m going to invariably spot one that looks good, that I like it. That looks really great. Hey, it’s two miles away. I’m calling this guy. Now I’ve got a gauge of what’s going on, and I’ve found a commercial broker in LoopNet who has a similar property for sale a couple miles away. He’s the first one I’m calling. That’s the next thing I’m going to do. I have my Zillow number in my head to comp it. I have my LoopNet number in my head. Then my third thing to make sure I’m doing this right is calling a local person who is in that area to tell me what he thinks about this property.
Steven Jack Butala:
A local commercial real estate agent?
Jill K DeWit:
Mm-hmm. Yeah. A local broker, just to get an idea. Hopefully, I’ve found a couple. I don’t want to rely on just one guy, too. I’d like to call three. This is what really happens. With these commercial guys, you call three. Two of them will email you something, and one goes dark, because the two, they want your business. They usually email you. It’s interesting. A lot of the commercial guys are used to putting together a quick little two-page synopsis of what they think, and here’s some comps. They have a quick little template that they’ll put data in and email to you. Then I take those two guys, if I move forward and buy the property, and then I pick the one that I like best, and I usually let them list the property.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, with all land, every single piece of land in this country, its price is dictated by its potential use, in large part. Not completely. The other part of valuing a piece of land is comparison values, which Jill just did a great job describing. But potential use, specifically for commercial property, can wide vary very much. There’s all different types of commercial property. Envision, geez, an eighth or less. An eighth of an acre in Manhattan, New York. Its designated use is an 82-story mixed-use skyscraper that’s got residents. That piece of land will ultimately be valued on the income stream that’ll be created when that project’s done, and cash flowing. That’s an incredibly expensive piece of land.
The opposite of this is a quarter-acre property that’s zoned commercial in Riverside County, California, that has no water. So its use is very, very limited, if it can be used at all for anything other than recreation. Those are the two opposite extremes. When you look at commercial property, you have to look at what’s next to it. There might be a Wendy’s restaurant next to it. Then you can be pretty confident after, well, confirm it for sure, that it’s zoned the same for a McDonald’s. Then you know exactly what it’s worth. Exactly. Commercial property is very easy to value, in my opinion, once you get all your ducks in a row and know how it’s going to be used.
Jill K DeWit:
I mean, that’s a good point to bring up, the zoning. It’s very interesting as you’re doing your due diligence. I’m sure, Clay, you know how to do this. You’re calling the county going, “What does C-5 stand for?” Some counties, it’s very vague. You have a lot of options. Some counties, it’s really specific. It is zoned for hotel, motel kind of thing. Some are zoned retail. That’s another thing is, these brokers know that. When you call the right broker, they’re going to help you. The right guy, too, not only has comps, but he also says, “I got three guys that are looking for this. I’d love to get the listing.”
Steven Jack Butala:
This is a double-edged sword, what Jill’s talking about. As an investor, you either love specific-use property, or you want the freedom to choose. Agricultural property, property that’s zoned agricultural is completely different than residential and commercial. It’s somewhat in between. It also has the most generous use possibilities. You can farm it. In most places in the country, how you use agricultural property is very loosely regulated. In a lot of places in the center of the country, not regulated at all. You can build a house there. You can put a mobile on it. You can do whatever you want. Go ahead and subdivide it and the whole thing.
I happen to be the former. I love specific-use property. I love it. I love buying properties in areas that are very specifically zoned for, let’s say, a mobile home property or a Stik Boat property. It has to be a certain acreage for you to do this. I can do what I call a surgical mailer and make a real good decision about value. And, very often, the owner themselves, they don’t know the value of the property because they’re not real estate people like we are. So we can send a mailer out and realize what’s going to happen with the value, and they don’t know about it and don’t care because they’re never going to do anything about it.
Jill K DeWit:
Don’t care is the real point here.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s first topic is how Land Academy Ladies … Well, Jill’s going to talk about Land Academy Ladies and their sense of confidence in community.
Jill K DeWit:
I wanted to talk about this today because we talked about this in great detail the other day. Jack was not around, or I should say I was not around. I was doing the Land Academy Ladies call this week from another state. I happened to be in Palm Springs at the time visiting my favorite aunt and uncle with my mom, having a good time. Anyway, I had the ladies call from my aunt’s dining room table in Palm Springs. It was really funny.
Steven Jack Butala:
Did they listen in?
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, no. They did not. I wish they would have. No, they were being little social butterflies in another room. It was all good, though. They knew what I was doing. It was really cool. I wanted to share because I came back and filled Jack in on how well it went. He’s like, “We need to talk about this on the show.” I said, “Okay.” This was our second. By the way, I do not know of any other group like ours. I think I sport the only land investing, fully land focus investment group, period. I’m very proud of that. I’m proud of our group.
Steven Jack Butala:
Me, too.
Jill K DeWit:
It was an amazing group.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think this is where this is all going.
Jill K DeWit:
I know.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think women need-
Jill K DeWit:
I hate to tell you this, but we talk about that, what we could do without our men dragging us down. I’m just kidding.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, men never say that about their women, ever.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, yes. That’s right. Well, just so you know.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s this concept out there called ball and chain.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, that goes both ways.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s the 21st century, right?
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. Now it’s the other way. Jeez. If I have to run one more thing by my husband. We talk about that, too. Anyway, yeah, it is just ladies. We’re all on camera, we all are mic’d up, and we all talk about all kinds of things. This was our second group for 2023, our second meeting here. It was in March. Excuse me. Beginning of April. It was last week. We started with recapping what we talked about in our first meeting of 2023. I’m going to go down the list real quick for you. Actually, I’m going to go down in ranking. As we all introduced ourselves and talked about where we were, we all brought up what we wanted to get out of the group. I made notes of all these.
I’ll tell you our top three things that we wanted to address as a group were, number one, relationship building and community, which is great because that’s what Land Academy Ladies is. Number two, confidence, and actually, tied for second place was not only confidence and just mastering that, was wealth and retiring our husband slash partners. I thought that was really cool. Then, in third place, tied for third, I should say, we had taking action and accountability with scaling up deal-wise and big picture stuff. The main things that we talked about, and the top two that really jumped out at me were the confidence and the community, which is what we’re going to talk about today. I thought, “All right. I’m going to take it a step further.” Now you know who we are, what we’re about, and the kind of things that we talk about. I thought I would share a little bit of my presentation last … Well, it was really technically this week. It was last week by the time this airs, and what we covered. So important. Confidence. I did some research. What’s so funny? Why are you laughing?
Steven Jack Butala:
Because I think that goes without saying.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh.
Steven Jack Butala:
With you and I.
Jill K DeWit:
I know. Well, you know what is funny about that? Well, not necessarily. I have so much confidence that sometimes I only do research just to back up what I think. That’s really what’s going on. I sat down and thought about, “Okay, what is confidence? What are the attributes? How do confident people roll? What do people need? Well, how do people build up confidence?” I have my own little way of what works for me, so I start with that. Then I usually go on the internet. I’m always reading. I’m always reading self-help books. A lot of it ties into this, too.
I’ve been reading a lot about very confident women. Right now, I’m all into Tupperware. If you want to know anything about the women behind Tupperware, ask me. Seriously, I’m on my third Tupperware book. It’s funny, too, by the way. I’ll have to point out the first book I read really was written by someone who was pro Brownie Wise, if anybody knows who that is. Then the second book I’m reading is the Pasadena crew that were the home of the Tupperware home parties in Pasadena, California, which pretty much debunks a lot of the other stuff. It’s the truth behind Brownie Wise. So now I’ve got both perspective. It’s awesome.
Steven Jack Butala:
Who’s Brownie Wise?
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. Brownie Wise is the woman that worked the … Depending what you read, she was the closest with Earl Tupper back when Tupperware was building up in the ’50s and ’60s. She went to Florida, built the whole … She built a … What am I trying to say? A campus for Tupperware home parties. She claims it was all her. Everything was her. Earl Tupper was just the man behind the product and making the products to deliver to her, to distribute through the country. She was on the cover of Fortune magazine. She was the first woman, by the way. She bragged about that. Later, come to find out, it sounds like she paid her way. I heard she paid $65,000 to be on the cover of that magazine. Anyway, my point in bringing this up-
Steven Jack Butala:
This is fascinating. It’s fascinating to me, always has been, how quickly factions develop in groups, in cliques. It’s something natural in biology because it just happens in middle school for all of us. Anyway.
Jill K DeWit:
Anyway. My point here, I’ve been reading. I’m always reading about who I perceive as confident women. I want to learn from them. So I made my confidence. I made my confidence. I’m just going to pick out some things here because I don’t want to take too much away from our group. I’m going to just share a little bit about this, and I’d love you to ask me questions.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
My couple things about confidence, I just want to point out, is a couple ways for you to build confidence. Number one, celebrate your successes, and know that you have achievements. You know you have achievements. We all have done something great. Some of us don’t take credit for it, and we should. You take great credit in your achievements.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, this is about you. We’ll talk about that later over dinner.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, you’re going to ask the questions already? Are you already like, “Whoa. Stop the press.” Come on. This is my confidence 101 list. Take credit of your accomplishments. I’m going to say build on those. Acknowledge it. Accept it. Build on it. Then my third thing, again, I’m not going to share my whole list there because this is from my group, this is where I think people don’t realize. I am 100% sure, and the internet backs me up on this, the different sources I looked at, you can learn this, and you can practice confidence. You just have to know how. That’s the stuff that we talk about. Do you want to ask questions now?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. What do you guys talk about, practicing confidence? Is that list surprising to the women on the call? Are they really responding to “Wow, I do need to do this and this and this?
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, some people are.
Steven Jack Butala:
“That’s going to help me out on a day-to-day basis?”
Jill K DeWit:
Some people are. Sometimes you know it, but just you need to hear it. You need to hear it again and be reminded of it. Sometimes, look, I think it’s a woman thing. We are usually running around. We don’t even realize how hard we’re working and how much we’re doing. Come on. You know who you are. You’re running a house. You may be working your business. You probably have a job. You’re running your house. Maybe you’re handling remodels. Then, at the end of the day, you make sure there’s a good meal on the table every evening at dinnertime. You are not always celebrated by how kick-ass you are on a day-to-day basis. We just put our head down and do it again tomorrow, and don’t often pause to take credit for, “Wow, I’m running circles around fill-in-the-blank people in my world,” whether they are inside or outside your home.
Steven Jack Butala:
Just be honest. Their husband. I’m running circles around my husband.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m running circles around my kids and everybody else in my family and all my colleagues.
Jill K DeWit:
I made sure that not only was dinner on the table and work done and laundry done and we’re packed for our vacation next week. But I thought ahead to make sure Johnny didn’t miss his report deadline on Tuesday because Johnny can’t even remember that.
Steven Jack Butala:
I have to say this.
Jill K DeWit:
What? What? What? Uh oh.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is a Jill thing. This is not a gender thing.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh. You don’t think everybody does that?
Steven Jack Butala:
No. Well, I know from experience. Starting with my mother, you have not been the only woman in my life. I’m not here to blow smoke or give you compliments.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, maybe it sounds like I should more often.
Jill K DeWit:
That doesn’t suck.
Steven Jack Butala:
You hit the ground running in the morning seven days a week.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
And a lot of the things that you just mentioned, we’re older, so we don’t have to do a lot of those things, and you can outsource a lot of them, but you’re still doing it.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is a lot of your personality type.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
I do a version of it.
Jill K DeWit:
You do amazing. I’m not here to poo-poo you.
Steven Jack Butala:
No, no. I’m not. I’m not here for compliments.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
I know.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m not here for compliments at all. This is about you and your group.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
But it’s just separate. It’s separate from me. But I do run at the same miles an hour.
Jill K DeWit:
I know you do.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m not looking for compliments.
Jill K DeWit:
This is not The Jack Show, though.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m not here for a compliment.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. Good. Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is why I’m asking you how they’re responding to this.
Jill K DeWit:
Supportive. Do you know what?
Steven Jack Butala:
Okay. So no woman in the group says, “Yeah, that’s great, Jill. You’re you’ve got a type triple-A personality. That’s great. But we don’t do that here.”
Jill K DeWit:
No. No, no, no. We don’t.
Steven Jack Butala:
Wow. That’s what guys would do.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh. Why do you do that?
Steven Jack Butala:
Because we all can learn from it. It’s like, “Yeah, I do that over here, and she does that over there, and it works out really well.”
Jill K DeWit:
We’re supportive.
Steven Jack Butala:
Nobody makes a bed because neither one of us care. That kind of stuff. Thursday night’s Domino’s pizza night. So you don’t have to work at it and I don’t have to work at it.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. I mean, there’s stuff like that, that we talk about.
Steven Jack Butala:
All right. Good.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s not all just peaches and cream.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, no. Well, that’s part of this. Well, let me go into my next point here, and you’ll see why. I will remember, I will share this one part with everybody here from our group. I shared a list of five things that confident people do that I believe to be true. One is confident people do what is right, not what is popular. I’m famous for that.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s for sure.
Jill K DeWit:
I barrel ahead, going, “I don’t care what everybody says.” No offense.
Steven Jack Butala:
Boy, that’s for sure.
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t care what anybody says. This is how I’m doing it.
Steven Jack Butala:
You don have to say “no offense” anymore.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. Sorry.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s not possible to offend me.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. Got it.
Steven Jack Butala:
I mean, in the universe of possibilities-
Jill K DeWit:
Well, I’m meant for everybody here, not you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, okay.
Jill K DeWit:
No, I know. I don’t mind offending you. That ship has sailed. No. But-
Steven Jack Butala:
You could say, “You look fat in those jeans today,” and I would say, “Thank you.”
Jill K DeWit:
It’s true. That’s one of my favorite things. We are so past all that. That’s so true. I’ll tell you, Jack sometimes will happily tell me, “Jill, that is not your best look.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m like-
Steven Jack Butala:
Not often.
Jill K DeWit:
… “All right. Noted.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Not often and not with a tone where it’s … you know.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, no. You give me a chance. You don’t say it when we’re out to dinner. You will say it when I’m getting dressed, so at least I have a chance-
Steven Jack Butala:
Or if you ask me. Usually, you’re asking me.
Jill K DeWit:
… to correct myself.
Steven Jack Butala:
Okay. I don’t walk around the house saying, “Yeah, that’s not right.”
Jill K DeWit:
No.
Steven Jack Butala:
She asks me.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
She’s making me out to be ornery here.
Jill K DeWit:
I know. You’re good.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s not without sensitivity. Let’s put it that way.
Jill K DeWit:
You’re good. All right. So let’s back to my thing. Five things confident people do. One is they do what’s feels right. Feels right. Not what’s popular. Underlying the feels part here. They take risks.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s good.
Jill K DeWit:
I love that. I’m not afraid to just go for it. Let’s see what happens. Neither are you, by the way. Confident people admit mistakes and learn from them. That is huge.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s tough for a lot of people.
Jill K DeWit:
Huge. Oh, I know that is. Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m glad. I would open with that.
Jill K DeWit:
Myself included. I still have trouble with that. But I get through it. They’re able to accept compliments. This is something that I think women, myself included, struggle with. I have to get better at that. I’m always getting better at that. When someone says, “Wow, what a great job,” I go, “Oh, I had help. Oh, it wasn’t just me.” Instead of just saying, “Thank you. I appreciate that.” I did not know this last one. Now it makes sense. I didn’t come up with this. I was reading a bunch of stuff. I’m like, “Wow, this keeps popping up.” I don’t think confident people all necessarily share this trait because I know many confident people, they do not share this last item. So this surprised me. But confident people are typically optimistic.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, the keyword here is typically. I mean, I hear typically meaning 51% of people.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m optimistic. I hear 90.
Steven Jack Butala:
Every confident person I know and choose to hang out with is not an optimistic person.
Jill K DeWit:
Isn’t that funny?
Steven Jack Butala:
They’re realistic.
Jill K DeWit:
I know. See, that’s what you would think.
Steven Jack Butala:
Unless you’re a career corporate salesperson, going into anything with … I equate optimism with lack of knowledge and just lack of real core tools to get a job done. I don’t need optimism if I have the tools to get a job done. But this is The Jill Show, so don’t listen to me.
Jill K DeWit:
I tuned you out on that.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m sorry. This is the only thing I really disagree with so far.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s hilarious. Well-
Steven Jack Butala:
Overly optimistic will crush your real estate career.
Jill K DeWit:
I disagree.
Steven Jack Butala:
And make you a pain in the ass to hang around. That’s the truth.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, I’ll say overly, but still, optimistic, I don’t know. I got to tell you, Jack. I go into things going, “No matter what, I’m going to make this play out the way I want it to play out.”
Steven Jack Butala:
I think that’s great, Jill. You’re very successful at it. I go into everything saying, “This is probably not going to work.”
Jill K DeWit:
I know.
Steven Jack Butala:
Then 50% of the time it works, and I’m happy with that.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s really sad. Okay. You’re bringing down the whole thing right now. I got to tell you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Because I’m not optimistic.
Jill K DeWit:
I know. Well, why are you here today?
Steven Jack Butala:
I could go get a cup of coffee.
Jill K DeWit:
Maybe.
Steven Jack Butala:
You know what? I’ll sit here quietly. This is The Jill Show.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. Jeez. Maybe the new topic should be Land Academy Ladies, their sense of confidence in community, and how Jack likes to bring it all down. No, just kidding. What questions do you have, then? This obviously does not come naturally for you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
Do you want to ask me some questions? Because hopefully there’s still a man or two listening.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. They all want to listen to me and break this down.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Boys don’t talk about confidence. I am launching later this year, this is my plug for my version of Land Academy’s group called Man Plan. You can go to manplan.com and sign up to get notices. Go to the website. But men don’t. Men would sit around in a group and talk about confidence and say, “Why aren’t you confident?” And they would probably say, “I don’t know.” We would all say, “You should be. If you’re not, what tools do you need? What are you not feeling about to go into whatever you’re about to go into? Because you obviously are not prepared enough. You didn’t read up enough, and you don’t have the physical or theoretical tools to get what you need to get done.” The man’s response would be, “Yeah, you’re right.”
Jill K DeWit:
We do that.
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t know how to send a mailer out, and I don’t know how to answer the phone. Great. I can deal with both of those things. Come over here. Come with me. I’ll show you exactly how to do it. If you have any questions later, let me know.
Jill K DeWit:
We do that.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s how the whole meeting would go with men.
Jill K DeWit:
I understand. We get to that, but it has to start up here first.
Steven Jack Butala:
Okay.
Jill K DeWit:
Mindset. Just feeling good about what you’re going into. Then we’re going to go, “All right. Now I’m going to get really good at this. I’m going to sound like a pro.” If that makes sense. Which is apparently what you jump to. All right. My last thing was we talked about confidence a little bit, what we shared and my list and traits and then the community. I mean, I’m sure you do that, too. You wouldn’t be working on Man Plan if you didn’t see a sense of community needed for men.
Steven Jack Butala:
Absolutely. You absolutely need a sense of community, no matter who you are.
Jill K DeWit:
So do we. That is really probably the biggest point behind Land Academy Ladies, because come on, we’re in a niche already. Think about this. As a female land investor, do I meet all those? Do I meet those on my day-to-day walking around life? Nope.
Steven Jack Butala:
That is a community.
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
And a powerful one.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
You know what’s so powerful? I guess I am selling something right now. What’s so powerful about Land Academy Ladies is they all found it. Each individual person found that community on their own by doing research and internet and listening to episodes like this, instead of you going out there and spending a bunch of money on marketing and plugging all kinds of stuff.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s what’s great about this group, too. It’s because you asked. You wanted it. I want it, too. I started off the other day sharing with the group that, “Hey, I want you all to know that I’m getting a lot out of this, too.” I love this. I need the community, too. As much as I love the day-to-day operation and just in the trenches with you, Jack-
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill and I have a, during recording-
Jill K DeWit:
Uh oh.
Steven Jack Butala:
… kick in the shin signal for me to stop talking. She hasn’t done it yet.
Jill K DeWit:
What is it?
Steven Jack Butala:
I keep waiting. Kick me in the shin. Just that’s enough.
Jill K DeWit:
Usually, it’s hand on the knee. Hand on the knee. Then, if the hand on the knee’s not enough, there’s a squeeze involved. You’ve left bruises before.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s not true.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. Maybe not really.
Steven Jack Butala:
But she hasn’t done it to me yet, so must be okay.
Jill K DeWit:
You’re good. You’re really good. Do you have any questions before we move on?
Steven Jack Butala:
I think the Land Academy Ladies thing is the greatest thing I’ve ever heard about, specifically for buying and selling land. I think all the feedback that we’re getting company-wide is positive. So no, I don’t really have any questions. I’m sure that you’re approaching it the right way.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a look at one of our favorite land acquisitions from the weekly Thursday member webinar. Hey, if you don’t know this by now, Jill and I started and operate and own a commercial printing company to make sure that you get offers to real estate owners, both houses and land and commercial property or whatever’s in that universe of land database, 150 million units of real estate in our country, to make sure that owners get your offers effectively, cost effectively, and priced correctly and all of it. It was built out of our frustration from sending out mailers years ago, using other commercial printers that didn’t understand us. They were too busy printing catalogs and sending out bills for hospitals to healthcare systems. All we do with Offers2Owners, offers, the number two, owners.com, is get your mailers in the mail correctly. I have to tell you, on a personal note, we just got out of a meeting, and they are two weeks behind. We are in the process of hiring new people because it’s so busy and successful.
Jill K DeWit:
On the concierge side.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s awesome.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take another question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. Again, if you want a sneak peek at our Discord channel, please go to landacademy.com. It’s free.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. Herbert G wrote … Hi, Herbert … “I hope you’re well. I’m getting ready to send my first house mailer a year after purchasing House Academy. I would love for you to talk a bit about the due diligence process of buying a home the House Academy way on one of your upcoming shows. For me, the hardest part about real estate is knowing if I’m getting a good price or not. Apart from inspections, what should newbies do or look out for when purchasing a home? How do we answer the questions such as, what are the expected costs that repairs need to get the ARV, which is after repair value? The reason being that if we are selling primarily to fix and flippers, then they would have to account for that cost as well in their purchase price from us. So how do we come up with a sale price that makes sense to them?” You want to go first?
Steven Jack Butala:
You have a bunch to say on this. Unless you do.
Jill K DeWit:
Go for it. You start.
Steven Jack Butala:
House Academy and pricing house mailers are pretty dramatically different and, in my opinion, a lot easier than pricing land mailers. Land mailers, you don’t have as much data. The product that you’re buying, typically, with a piece of land, it’s a different size. It’s in a different part of the zip code. It could be zoned differently. So many variables. With houses, you get a mailer back from a house, and it’s in line with 19 other houses or some number like that, that are in almost literally the same value, plus or minus maybe the shape that the house is in, which honestly, we don’t care about too much, and here’s why. Zillow and Trulia and Realtor.com and Data Tree and all of those companies now have pretty sophisticated algorithms to value properties with a post office address. Most pieces of land don’t have that. They don’t have a post office address, even.
If you look up 123 Main Street in Carefree, Arizona, on any one of those sites, they’re going to give you a value. So what we do directly in the mailer is we take all of those values. Let’s say we use five companies. Realtor, Zillow, and on and on. We take all those algorithmic values and get the average and/or the mean of that value. So now all these very sophisticated multimillion dollar algorithms, the average of those is $919,000, for example. You decide how much profit you want when they get your mailer. If it’s $919,000 and you want to make 40 grand, you subtract it from that. If you want to make 400, you subtract it, and on and on and on. The more you subtract from that value, the less response in general you’re going to get, a less positive response to your mailer. You can price yourself up by going too low.
That hasn’t been our experience with land, within reason. People generally know the value of their house, but they have no idea what the value is of their land. There’s less yield to the mailers, but more profit. It’s much, much, much easier to sell a house very, very quickly if it’s priced correctly. It’ll sell that first day or week, depending on the market that you’re in. But you know the market you’re in because you’re running the red, green, yellow test, just like always, and you pretty much can predict exactly what’s going to happen, especially if you buy the house at a reduced rate.
Personally, Jill and I won’t do a house deal unless we make $100,000 on it net. That’s after real estate fees and all of it. It generally has to be around $120,000 of gross spread. We’ll send out hundreds of thousands of mailers because the math works. I hope that helps with pricing. On to due diligence. When somebody signs your offer with a house and you’re confident, you’re looking at on the internet, like we always do with land, and you’re saying, “Wow, this is pretty good deal. I priced the mailer right. They accepted my offer. I’m ready to go.” Then House Academy slash all SFR, due diligence kicks in, and this is where I lose a lot of interest.
Jill K DeWit:
I know.
Steven Jack Butala:
Take it away, Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
Do you want me to go? Okay. I want to go through these little-
Steven Jack Butala:
This is where the people part of this starts.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m going to go item by item here, too, to answer this. Can we go back? The first thing you talked about … Will you scroll for a second? Okay. Due diligence. First thing, let’s talk about the diligence process. Obviously, it’s way more involved because there’s a structure on it. It’s not like land. I can just Google Earth it and call it done. You need to have someone inside there. Herbert, I know you know this. You’re going to have to have boots on the ground. If it’s not you … Actually, I hope it’s not you because I know you should be working on other things. You should have either a trusted broker that you know and love, like he’s almost in the family, that we can trust him like that, not just anybody, or somebody of that level to be your boots on the ground.
They need to know what they’re looking at. They need to be able to walk in the house. It’s not like they’re going to go, “Oh, don’t buy it.” You just need them to properly tell you, “Here’s how bad the roof is. I saw cracks in the foundation.” Or “Man, this thing only needs a paint job and new carpet.” You’re going to have all different things that come back with houses. That’s really due diligence, when you think about. Now will you go down here? Getting a good price or not. I mean-
Steven Jack Butala:
I covered that.
Jill K DeWit:
I know. As far as inspections, too, we do pay for that. I will get that home inspection. Am I buying-
Steven Jack Butala:
Without exception.
Jill K DeWit:
… the home? No. But am I going to pay the $800, whatever it is, to get the guy to go in? That’s the first thing. Phase one is my boots on the ground telling me what they think. If it’s nothing, I’m going to move forward, then I will get a regular inspection. That’s all built in as [inaudible 00:36:38].
Steven Jack Butala:
May I on this next one?
Jill K DeWit:
Then repair costs.
Steven Jack Butala:
It says, “What are the expected repair costs in ARV?” I specifically say pretty loud in our program, “Don’t ever use the word ARV anymore.” ARV is something that whoever you’re going to sell this house to, your target purchaser of this house is the person who’s going to fix it up and flip it for more money than they paid to you. So your job is to buy the house real cheap, orchestrate the boots on the ground. Hopefully, it’s vacant. If it’s vacant, there’s not a lot of stuff you have to do. Buy the property for cash or with the funder, and then get it out on the internet because the price will speak for itself. The people who renovate houses will come out of the woodwork submitting offers. They’re not going to look to you for ARV. You can just stop right there with expected costs and repairs, and all of it, that’s on them. If they’re worth their salt in any way, they’ve already got that worked out. They see your price that’s listed for $230,000, and everything has sold for 320. They are going to buy a property that day.
Jill K DeWit:
Right. We know that. You know about what the expected end price is because the expected end price is what everything else fixed up is selling for in the area. That’s really easy to do. But yeah, I agree with Jack. You don’t put that into the posting. I know Herbert knows this because it’s all over House Academy in the program. It tells you how to properly convey the property and what to put in your posting that’s going to sing to these people. That’s all. My only last comment is … Oh, I missed this part.
Steven Jack Butala:
I did, too. There’s more to the question.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, there’s more to the question. This is a long question. My comment about money, though, is I’m okay with a $50,000 profit, to me, because here’s what usually happens on our House Academy deals. We’ll buy it in such a good area that I can cash in, cash out in 30 days. Not kidding. Because I’m ready to go. I have guys. When you get rolling in this, Herbert, and you’re working in an area, you’re going to have people that missed your last deal, and they want to get in on your next deal. The guy that got your last deal can’t wait for your next deal. You are going to have five to 10 investors lined up.
Steven Jack Butala:
Quickly.
Jill K DeWit:
So you can, the day you close, text these guys an address and say, “Give me your best offer.” You can expect to make 40, 50 or more thousand dollars on a deal inside of 30 days, and you’re not doing anything. You’re not even sweeping. That’s House Academy. Also, are you using the simple purchase agreement in our mailers all the way through the deal? What you have, Herbert, in House Academy is real. It doesn’t have to be that involved. Remember, if you bring in a broker or agent on the buy side in House Academy, you are giving away money. You’re taking that out of your pocket, and you’re taking that out of that seller’s pocket.
Steven Jack Butala:
Please don’t do that.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s the point that we make with these people. Thank you for signing this and sending it back. Isn’t this great? You and I are making the deal. There’s no agent. Especially, that seller’s benefiting because, usually, the seller pays for the agent, not the buyer. So they go, “Oh, I see the value right there.” I’m surprised there aren’t many contingencies in our agreements because they’re not needed. You do it. Remember, when you open escrow, anything that is, let’s just say, necessary to complete the transaction, any documents like that, escrow will provide. You don’t need a broker or real estate agent to do that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Philosophically, what other contingency would you need in a house deal, other than, pending my approval of the inspection? Depending on the inspection that comes in, we’re either going to remedy it together, or we’re not going to do the deal. I have to approve the inspection and the stuff at the end.
Jill K DeWit:
Title’s going to want a version slash scale-down percentage of documents to meet their title policy requirements.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. That’s right.
Jill K DeWit:
It might be the lead-based paint thing. That’s a good example. They want you to sign it. You feel good signing it. It doesn’t matter. You don’t need a real estate agent to do that for you. Escrow will give it to you. So I think that’s it, too. People don’t know. We haven’t seen in a while. Remember the old days? I remember in the ’80s, you’d see a sign in the yard that said “FSBO,” For Sale By Owner. That was my dad. My dad was famous for that. I loved that.
Steven Jack Butala:
We are, too.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. You know what? What I think a lot of people don’t realize is you can sell your house by yourself, putting that sign on a stick in your yard, and then open escrow, and escrow will make sure that whatever’s necessary, maybe required by the state or at least for title insurance, is included. Sit back. Let them do it. You don’t have to pay six percent to somebody else to do that.
Steven Jack Butala:
All these flippers are cash buyers, or they have business partners who are the money people, or, in some cases, they have hard money loans. All those lenders are real easy to work with. Bank lenders are different. If you end up selling to an end user, which we’ve done, where they’re going to move in and do the repairs themselves, or maybe the house doesn’t even need any repairs, we’ve done a lot of deal like that, they might have a few more documents that are required. But, in large part, every association of realtors in the state uses a contract that’s ridiculously unnecessary. It’s an inch thick if you printed it out. If you really read everything, it’s all there to protect the agent and the agent’s broker, and not necessarily anything else.
The whole entire industry is rooted in fiction and false compensation, in my opinion. You do not need a license to sell your own piece of real estate or buy someone else’s real estate. You do need a license, as required by law, as far as I know, in all 50 states, to represent someone else in the sale of their real estate. You’re not representing. You’re buying it. Then, once you own it, you’re selling it.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. You’re welcome, Herbert. He wrote, “Thank you.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Great question.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill and I had the opportunity to meet him a few years ago. It was just a delight. It was a great conversation. We ended up eating dinner. It was a lot of fun. I don’t know how that happened. It was a small group or something.
Jill K DeWit:
That was in town. Exactly. It was really cool.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s second topic is more of a technical one. It’s called What I’ve Learned, meaning me, what I’ve learned about technology and innovation during our career path sessions.
Jill K DeWit:
Not to interrupt you, but I just thought of something funny. That’s something that we haven’t done. I’m surprised. When we met Herbert, it was a group that made their own little get-together in our backyard, and they’re like, “Now we have to go.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Is that what that was?
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
We just got invited to it?
Jill K DeWit:
Totally. I’m waiting for somebody else to say-
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s fun.
Jill K DeWit:
… “Screw you, Jack and Jill. We’re going to plan our own event. We know you’ll come.
Steven Jack Butala:
We will come.
Jill K DeWit:
“We’re going to do our own event. We’re going to do our own event. It just happens to be in Scottsdale. Would you guys show up?” Okay. Yeah. Well, of course.
Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s the conversations we have on that. Should we plan our own wedding or be invited to someone else’s wedding?
Jill K DeWit:
I’d always rather be at somebody else’s wedding.
Steven Jack Butala:
We don’t want to be in the wedding, either.
Jill K DeWit:
No, no, no.
Steven Jack Butala:
We just want to be a guest.
Jill K DeWit:
A guest.
Steven Jack Butala:
We will make you proud as your guest.
Jill K DeWit:
Totally. We will show up. We will make you look good.
Steven Jack Butala:
Every once in a while, somebody asks me what I do for a living. Every greater once in a while, they’re actually a really bright person. So I tell them, “This is what we do. We buy and sell land on the side. We have this thing called Land Academy. We send out mailers.” The young ones will say some version of this: “God, it seems like there should be an app for that. There seems like there should be some software solution where it’s not out of 1959, where you go into Excel, create a mailer, and send it all out all over the planet.” To which I say, “You’d think. You’d think there was would be something to make this a lot more simple.” A lot of people who come to Career Path come from the software industry with that intent, and some of them succeeded writing their own software.
It’s very debatable whether or not they go off and use this software effectively because there’s still a lot of manual decisions you have to make, and algorithmic decisions don’t address. That is specifically noted by Zillow’s failed attempt to try to buy houses with algorithms. They really failed at it. If you’re bored sometime, look it all up. It happened a few years ago. If you want to overpay for real estate, over-design some software that’ll tell you to do that. That’s the fastest way to do that. I, at my age, need to make a physical decision about whether or not to buy property. I mean manual. Not physical. I need to make a manual decision about where to send mail and how to price it. There’s tools we can use that help that.
My whole point in leading up to this is that every time we have a Career Path session, we spend a substantial amount of time in office hours, which is a two- or three-hour session every week that Jill and I hold personally to review these discussions and review their software and some of it. If the stuff worked, I would take it on immediately. There’s a lot of technology coming. I hear the word AI 20 times a day, as I’m sure you do. Some of it’s legit. Right now, having an artificial intelligence piece of software go out on the internet and write a term paper for college, is ridiculously accurate, effective, cost-effective. Compiling texts for AI is what’s hot right now. The counterbalance to that is all I get is 500 emails every day saying, “Look at this new AI.” Here’s a good example. The Ford Lightning, which is a Ford F-150 truck, now comes with an option where it can automatically hook up a trailer. It uses this through literal radar and all kinds of stuff in the back of the bumper. Is that AI?
Jill K DeWit:
No, it’s-
Steven Jack Butala:
Hold on a second. Let me just drive-
Jill K DeWit:
Isn’t that scary?
Steven Jack Butala:
… this point home. Let me drive this point home.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m scared by that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Is that AI, or is it just a really cool hardware and software combination that’s hooked up to a computer in a dashboard, with some hardware on the back of the bumper? I would argue that. My point is this. AI is so overused right now and so hot. Just beware. You have my personal assurance that if there’s a better way to send out a mailer, I will do a program on it.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. So you’re telling me I’m supposed to trust, with a push of a button, I just stand back and watch my truck hook up my boat, and then I just drive off? That it did it right? You don’t check it?
Steven Jack Butala:
I have the same concerns you do. But I have to tell you, being really honest, it’s age related because I would never push a button and have a car be a parallel parked, either. Would you?
Jill K DeWit:
Well, okay, hold, please, on that one. I have a vehicle that does that, and I love it. But do I just close my eyes, or do I get out of the car and let it do it on its own? No.
Steven Jack Butala:
Which one of the cars parks itself?
Jill K DeWit:
The silver car.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, really?
Jill K DeWit:
Mm-hmm. It does that. It has that feature. It’ll back itself in and then parallel park itself.
Steven Jack Butala:
Does it work?
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. It’s pretty darn cool. But I man how fast the speed it goes. I have my foot hovering over the brake, or grab the steering wheel at any moment. I don’t feel good about it. It’s like, “Am I really going to get in an airplane with no one up front?”
Steven Jack Butala:
No, I’m not.
Jill K DeWit:
Seriously, would you get in an airplane with no one up front?
Steven Jack Butala:
No, there’s no way.
Jill K DeWit:
Nevermind behind the scenes. That is happening, a lot of it.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what autopilot is.
Jill K DeWit:
I know. But there’s a reason why we have people there for a backup, just in case.
Steven Jack Butala:
I would not get in a driverless car, either.
Jill K DeWit:
Right. I would not. Yeah. If that showed up to pick me up, I’d say, “Nope.”
Steven Jack Butala:
My point is-
Jill K DeWit:
But if someone’s up there, just even if they’re up there painting their nails, but keeping an eye on things, I would get in that.
Steven Jack Butala:
My point is not to judge all of this hardware. This stuff’s all coming. It’s all going to happen. Younger people, it has happened since the beginning of time, are more accepting of new ideas and new technology than older people are. It hasn’t crossed the plane yet, and it will cross the plane into land investing and house investing and all of that. It hasn’t crossed yet. There are some things that can allow you to, if you write the right piece of software, locate the top 10 places, when you set in parameters, to send a mailer. What you would be sacrificing, in my opinion, by executing software like that is all the amazing other places that are overlooked because there’s not enough data. It’s only-
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
… as good as available data. In the case of that F-150 Lightning, it’s got all the data it needs. It’s all spatial data.
Jill K DeWit:
For the certain hitch that’s-
Steven Jack Butala:
To buy a piece of-
Jill K DeWit:
… whatever.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill’s just down on this.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, no. Yeah. I don’t like it.
Steven Jack Butala:
But you can’t argue with me.
Jill K DeWit:
I know.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s got all the data it needs to-
Jill K DeWit:
Don’t worry.
Steven Jack Butala:
… hook up the hitch.
Jill K DeWit:
I would eat a salad or a pizza that a robot made. I have no trouble with that.
Steven Jack Butala:
My point is, you need a perfect dataset, or near perfect dataset, to find out where to send mail. All of that, technology would only find datasets that have enough data in them. I can tell you right now. The vast majority of markets that we send mail to, we’re eyeballing it at the end, and we’re making a very educated decision that it’s probably going to work. It does for us 95%-98% of the time, and most other people in Land Academy, from what I hear, too. So please beware of AI. The minute it happens, I will be there to help.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, what you just said at the end, problem solved. They’re not stepping on our toes because they don’t have the data. They don’t know how to work with it.
Steven Jack Butala:
They will, though.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. Are we going to share another one of our calls to review?
Steven Jack Butala:
We did already. Oh, sorry, Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a look at another one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar. Jill, you have something inspirational to share?
Jill K DeWit:
Inspirational to share?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
I think I shared enough today.
Steven Jack Butala:
Wow.
Jill K DeWit:
This has been a long day.
Steven Jack Butala:
How great is that?
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, gee, thanks. Wow.
Steven Jack Butala:
No, just I’ve never heard you turn down anything.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, thank goodness I’m confident.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill’s middle name is Can’t Say No.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. Okay. How about you? What do you want to talk about informational for us?
Steven Jack Butala:
Longterm goals.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. Go.
Steven Jack Butala:
This whole talk about ladies, you know what men need? Goals. You ladies should know this more than anyone. If you don’t point a man in the right direction and tell him how to get started and then manage his progress, or lack of progress, most men are not going to follow through. Everybody needs longterm goals. Then, at the end of that success period, because you set a longterm goal, you need to know how you got there and what you did well and what you didn’t do well. You did great.
In my case, oh, my God, I priced it right. The mailer looks good. But I suck on the phone. Well, that’s why I got Jill involved. You have to take those longterm goals, break them all down into months and weeks and years, or however it makes sense to you, and hit your milestones. This is the important part. Make sure the right people are involved. I can tell you, at my age, you think, at the time, the right people are involved until they’re not. So now I firmly believe that there’s this ongoing social recruiting thing that goes on in the world, in your life, with the exception of probably your children.
Jill K DeWit:
What do you mean? What does it mean? What’s social recruiting?
Steven Jack Butala:
I might have a great business partner today. She’s great today. But you can’t just ring your hands and say, “That’s done.” You need to manage that relationship and make sure that they’re happy. If you have employees, you already know this. If you have a company with other employees, you already know, especially if you’ve got gray hair like me. You know that the staff that you have right now, as great as you think they are, might be different next month, and certainly different next year. Putting the right people in place is imperative for you to accomplish longterm goals. That staff or that wife or that business partner might not be the last one. That’s the truth.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
I wish somebody would’ve given me this advice, even 10 years ago.
Jill K DeWit:
All right.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s an ongoing thing. If you’re an auto mechanic, it’s an SVT transmission. It’s constantly changing gears. You’re increasing and decreasing speed. There’s no more I’m in first gear, I’m in second gear, I’m in third gear, manually or automatic. It’s an SVT. It just continually changes.
Jill K DeWit:
Noted.
Steven Jack Butala:
Join us next Wednesday for another boring episode.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s good to say.
Steven Jack Butala:
You are not alone in your real estate ambition. We are Jack and Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
We are Jack and Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
Information.
Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration.
Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
https://youtu.be/DNTEFasWXeY
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
In this episode of the Land Academy Show, Steven Jack Butala and Jill K. DeWit discuss the ins and outs of land auctions and provide tips on how to win the bidding war. They also talk about their own garage sale auction where members of the Land Academy community can bid on properties. Later in the episode, Jill shares how to make a million dollars a year through single land transactions each month. Steven and Jill also answer questions from the Land Academy Discord Forum and review recent land acquisitions. Tune in for valuable insights and entertaining banter.
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K. DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit, and this is the Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is episode number 1,947. Today, we are talking in depth about the ins and outs of land auctions, how to win the bidding war, and then a little later in the episode, Jill is going to talk about how to make a million dollars a year doing single land transactions each month.
Jill K. DeWit:
Now, I got to tell you something funny, because we just turned on our garage sale, I don’t know if you knew that or not.
Steven Jack Butala:
No.
Jill K. DeWit:
We just re-turned it on last week. I don’t know if it ends on Thursday or Friday this week. Anyway, what the heck am I talking about? We have collected property in our life. You know what I mean. Some we’ve had a while and some we haven’t, but we just have had. We just come across great buys, let’s just say that, and sometimes I look at them and I go, “Shucks, is this something I really want to sell? I don’t know. It’s not really worth an agent to get involved.” So I’m like, “You know what? I’m going to give it to the Land Academy community.”
So what is this? We have our own little garage sale auction. It’s bidding in $50 increments, and you could pick up a great property for a couple of hundred bucks, and people have done that and they gone off and sold it for a couple thousand bucks. It’s a great way to get started. It’s funny because it’s an auction format, that we have a beginning time and an end time, and the highest bidder wins, but it’s all within Land Academy that we do this, so it’s fun.
Steven Jack Butala:
Are there good properties coming up again?
Jill K. DeWit:
Oh, yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Awesome.
Jill K. DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
Geez, these are properties, some of them, that I bought before Jill and I joined forces.
Jill K. DeWit:
Some are really recent. They’re just too small. We picked them up. They’re great deals. I had to buy it, but I’m going to pass that off to the community.
Steven Jack Butala:
Hey, I hope you’re enjoying our longer format podcast. Each week, we answer questions from the Land Academy Discord Forum. We review land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar and take a deep dive into two land-related topics by popular requests. I just mentioned them a couple of minutes ago.
Let’s get started, so let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. If you want to sneak peek at our Land Academy Discord channel, please go to just that, landacademy.com. It’s free in our read-only format.
Jill K. DeWit:
Stephen wrote, “I just walked out of my W2 exit interview and saw new money transferred in my bank account. Thanks, Land Academy. Off to a good start.” Oh, that’s so great.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s a couple of good comments in here.
Jill K. DeWit:
Okay, so some of Stephen’s peers weighed in and wrote some notes here. Sid wrote, “Congrats, as it takes a lot of soul-searching and guts to take action. I left corporate America 12 years ago to become a realtor and got tired of the travel and politics. Not that there hasn’t been ups and downs in the market, but the joy of being your own boss and determining your own future is one of the best decisions I’ve made.” That’s so sweet.
Well, look at Samantha. Samantha says, “That’s so awesome. I remember having butterflies about leaving my W2 and, honestly, since then, I’ve been extremely happy. It’s a lot of work. Don’t overlook that, but it’s a hundred percent for your benefit, and you are in full control of your finances. I’m so excited for you.”
Me, too. Now, Jack do you remember?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K. DeWit:
I remember doing that and it was, sounds like Stephen did this the right way too, which is, you have enough money saved up you, there’s no scare or fear. It’s like, “I wish I would’ve done that six months ago.”
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s a right way and a wrong way to leave your job like everything. And I’ve long said the right, if you leave your W2 job about a week later, you’re going to say things to yourself like, “I should have done this two years ago,” then you know you did it right. If that two weeks or two months later you said, “I’m out of money and I should have really thought about this before I did it.” That’s maybe not the right way. So you want to really think it through and make sure whoever’s in your life, like your spouse, they’re on board.
Jill K. DeWit:
Could you imagine? I hope Stephen didn’t tell anybody.
Steven Jack Butala:
I literally said I could-
Jill K. DeWit:
This could happen. Hold on a moment. Let’s just talk about this. This could happen. Someone could be working from home and quit that job and do another job. And I bet there are people in their house might not even know.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, there’s movies about that.
Jill K. DeWit:
There’s no what?
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s movies about that. Before I left corporate accounting, I said this to myself for weeks, “I would rather actually literally go to work at McDonald’s than work at this job for another week.” So that those are the times when you need to make changes in your life when it’s that acute, I think.
Jill K. DeWit:
What a great place to be in those. So Steven has all the answers, obviously. He’s in Land Academy he knows what he’s doing. Now he can really focus, put his head down and like Samantha said, you’re doing it for you. That’s what got me. I’ll never forget when you called me in one time and said, “Hey, just so you know, do you know how much money you’re making these people? I listened to you. I hear what you’re doing. I know what you’re selling. I added up, this is what you made them this year and this is what your salary was.” You’re like, “Why don’t you just look at-”
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh.
Jill K. DeWit:
You don’t remember that?
Steven Jack Butala:
No.
Jill K. DeWit:
Oh, okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s all these things that we’re both saying, these are all real things that happened to us. Obviously these are real stories on Discord that people have experienced. So just want to make sure you do it right. It’s possible, but you do have to have the right attitude and the right personality type to make it work.
Jill K. DeWit:
Welcome to the quitter’s club. I love the quitter’s club.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s first topic is called the ins and outs of land auctions and how to win at a bidding war.
Jill K. DeWit:
You want to start?
Steven Jack Butala:
I am. I founded this entire company on tax deed auctions starting in the mid ’90s in Arizona. And I would, this is way before the internet kicked in the way that it is now. There are things on the internet that were very established. eBay was one of them. And the marketplace, there was more, in, my opinion, of a marketplace push that happened early on in the internet in the ’90s than there was sharing of information.
I literally bought, this is right before Google started, literally went to a bookstore and bought a big thick four inch yellow book called the Yellow Pages of the internet. This was before search engines kicked in. And so there was this cresting wave or a wave building that hasn’t, in the ocean kind of a wave. So it was really exciting. So we had an online marketplace like eBay, but you still had all these places, these counties, every single county in the country has back tax property that they’ve foreclosed on that they auction off. So it’s auction season. And that’s the reason I chose this topic, because on a Thursday call last week, by the time this airs, Los Angeles County, well, it’s happening right now actually. The Los Angeles County taxed deed auction, which is forever, has been the largest taxed deed auction in the world.
It goes on for weeks, usually it’s one day. And I had a very serious amount of success buying back tax property and reselling it on the internet on places like, eBay and Bid4Assets, to the point where we were the largest real estate seller for years and years and years, largest by dollars, not by volume. And I got to me meet Meg Whitman, who was the CEO of eBay at the time. So am I patting myself on the back and bragging about anything? Absolutely not. Is it-
Jill K. DeWit:
I would.
Steven Jack Butala:
Is it still viable?
Jill K. DeWit:
Back then.
Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s a spoiler alert at the end of this silly dad like conversation or talk that I’m giving right here, I wouldn’t so much rather have a partner like Jill or have Jill as a partner and do 10 or 15 or 20 deals a year where you’re making 80 to $180,000, a couple hundred thousand dollars a deal, bringing home 2 or $3 million net and by sending out mail. And so I’m going to walk you through the process of what it’s like to get the information from, let’s say, a county that’s holding a tax deed auction, including Los Angeles. If you go on Bid4Assets, B-I-D and the number four assets.com. They have contracts, they’ve accumulated contracts over the years. It was never like this before. It was only ever in person. But Bid4Assets over the years has now specialized in aiding counties in their antiquated ways of getting their auctions online and getting more money for them and all of that.
Jill K. DeWit:
I’s kind of cool.
Steven Jack Butala:
It is. So used to be back in the day, you would get a list somehow from the county of the properties that they were auctioning off. And in almost all cases. It was either on paper or it was a CD that you would have to send money in to get, and then a data CD. And so you’d get in the end, the deliverable was a big long list of APNs, assessor parcel numbers, and what the starting minimum bid was. And then there’s usually in a separate document that says, “Here’s the rules.” If you’re the winning bid, you’d better pay where to come and get you. That’s that universal auction thing. Every year Jill and I go to the Barrett-Jackson Auction, for cars, and some of the little ancillary auctions that happen all over Arizona during this auction season for that now too. And there’s always people who don’t pay, and so they have to re-auction the car. They put it at the tail, which is terrible for the owner because they lost their slot. They lost all the-
Jill K. DeWit:
Hype, momentum, excitement, money.
Steven Jack Butala:
So in some cases, some extreme cases, I would order a printout, which is what they had back then of all the properties, the list of APNs, and it would be two reams of paper that they were trying to auction off. Sometimes they would bunch them up, group them up. But I would spend two to three weeks researching these APNs to see if there were anything that I wanted to buy anyway. And so I’d go down the list and tick the ones that I was interested in, maybe do a bunch of research, find out how much I’m willing to spend, write that in the margin. And so this is going on, and on, and on, for days and days and days. And then here’s that kicker-
Jill K. DeWit:
You may not get it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, you get to the auction and there could be a hundred people there and there could be one or two people there. And I’ve experienced both multiple times. So it’s a lot of work. So nothing’s really changed mechanically, what’s changed is the internet. The internet makes the information to get a lot easier. So you can get an auction list a lot easier.
Jill K. DeWit:
It means they have images and maps and things in there too.
Steven Jack Butala:
The LA County auction, they do have that. They have all the information that’s clickable. And all of that leads to way more competition, which is what the title of this is here, how to Win the Bidding War. It leads to more people that now are in the audience, the figurative and literal audience, including you. So they’re throwing more money at it, which ultimately when there’s more people, there’s more stupidity. And so people will just win an auction to win, just because it’s a rush, like pulling the slot machine handle and trying to win. The phrase, winning the bid, has always cracked me up, because I don’t think there’s anything winning about it. You’re the highest bidder.
Jill K. DeWit:
Right. “You’re the weirdo that Wanda paid that much for it-”
Steven Jack Butala:
For property.
Jill K. DeWit:
Just to get it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Three times what it’s worth. So how do you win a bidding war in an auction? How do you win at gambling? And my answer is the exact same. Now this day and age, don’t do it. Send a mailer out. Spend-
Jill K. DeWit:
Whoa, wait, hold on. One. I just got to ask real quick. Let me back up a second. I dozed off for a moment, but I’m back.
Steven Jack Butala:
Was it that bad?
Jill K. DeWit:
A little bit. It’s okay. No, it’s good. So you just gave us the ins and outs. We got all that now, but you’re talking about, and then how to win at it, and you’re, a whole answer is after I went through 10 minutes of that, how to win at is don’t do it?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yep.
Jill K. DeWit:
Oh.
Steven Jack Butala:
How do you win on a slot machine?
Jill K. DeWit:
[inaudible 00:12:38] don’t do it.
Steven Jack Butala:
How do you win at the craps table? You don’t win. You don’t win.
Jill K. DeWit:
How do you win in parenting?
Steven Jack Butala:
My personal policy? Here’s some neat-
Jill K. DeWit:
I did not see that coming.
Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s some neat tricks about auctions in general. I always, no matter what it was, this is in person only, not online. Always, no matter what the situation was, won the first auction. It was in the room, chest beating exercise that showed everybody who is boss. And maybe the second one too, because everybody’s still a little flustered. They don’t know how the auctioneers… These aren’t auctioneers at the county. They’re the secretary, the 92-year-old secretary of the board of supervisors, and she’s the one who volunteered to be an auctioneer. So she’s not qualified to do this at all. She doesn’t know what she’s doing either.
Jill K. DeWit:
“Give me one, who says [inaudible 00:13:34] just seven.” Could you imagine the little old lady doing?
Steven Jack Butala:
And so she’s not, I’m not saying anything negative about anybody. They’re just local government employees that got roped into doing this thing on Saturday.
Jill K. DeWit:
They lost the coin toss.
Steven Jack Butala:
And so they very frequently, and Jill’s very familiar with this, they’ll lose track of time. And so they have to auction everything off at the end of the auction really quickly.
Jill K. DeWit:
Like, “Oh shoot.”
Steven Jack Butala:
At the beginning of auctions. And at the end of auctions, assuming you want to buy a lot, we’re always there to buy a lot with and we were the ones who had the most money in the room all the time. You buy the stuff in the front because everybody’s disorganized and you buy the stuff in the back, because everybody’s out of money.
Jill K. DeWit:
Or they left.
Steven Jack Butala:
Or they’re gone. There’s two types of people that go to real estate auctions. These are back tax auctions that the county is holding because people stop paying their taxes for years and years and years. This is the end of the line. This is their last ditch effort to get these properties back on the tax rolls. And they don’t like it. The people who lost their property don’t like it. And worse, the local people that are in these auctions do not like people like you, or Jill and I and there’re buying their real estate. So there’s two types of peoples at these auctions. There’s people like us who want to buy it all for nothing.
And there’s people who are there, they’re local people, that are in general probably trying to buy the property that’s in their backyard. So they’re there for one or two pieces of property max. And as a courtesy, I have always stepped off when I, you read the room throughout the entire auction. And if there’s a guy that stands up in a rancher’s hat and he starts bidding on a property that maybe I threw out the first bid, I stop then I let them have it.
Jill K. DeWit:
That’s really nice. Don’t mess with the locals.
Steven Jack Butala:
They understand that. And you become a different person in a matter of seconds after that the one auction, whatever they’re auctioning off at that time. So there’s some serious etiquette as you can imagine. Not everybody who’s trying to buy it all it responds that way. And so the more times that than not, especially at the end of my live auction career, and Jill, fortunately, we went through several auctions at the end and did really well during the downturn. So Jill will tell that story in a minute. But all kidding aside, you’re going to spend a ton of upfront time to analyze an auction. Tons and tons of time. In fact, you probably won’t get to the end of the auction because you can’t take it anymore. And that’s what would happen to me. So then now you’re in the middle of the auction, “Gosh, it’s cheap. Should I buy it?” It’s hard.
Jill K. DeWit:
You don’t know. “I didn’t look at that one. I didn’t get through the list.”
Steven Jack Butala:
If you spend a few hours, maybe if you’re brand new, a day or two doing a 10,000 unit mailer, let’s say, and you’re doing it the way that we teach at Land Academy, you send out 10,000 units, you can almost bank on the fact that you’re going to buy one or two properties, or three properties if you’re answering the phone correctly, if the mailer’s priced correctly and you’re engaging the people on the other end. The mailer’s doing all that work for you, that weeks and weeks of work that you were doing to you don’t analyze every deal in a mailer. You just throw it out there, 20 or 30, come back, you choose the best three and you buy them. And then you get on, go on to the next mailer.
And you can control the property that you buy, where you buy it, the red green yellow test, how you price it. You control the prices, the environment. There’s no competition. Competition kills auctions. It kills it. Every time I went into an auction, I would calculate at the bottom of the spreadsheet, if I buy all of this, every single property at the minimum bid, I’m going to spend $87,000 and I’ll be able to resell it on the internet or however we do it for $442,000. So I can’t spend more than half of what I think I can sell it for. So it ends up being $200,000 or something.
Jill K. DeWit:
I look at it this way too. Here’s the bottom line, I can’t get it out right now. We don’t do it, there’s a reason we don’t do it anymore.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, because it doesn’t work.
Jill K. DeWit:
That’s what I’m trying to say.
Steven Jack Butala:
We do stuff that works.
Jill K. DeWit:
I hope you’re not painting a beautiful picture, like, “Oh, that sounds fun. Oh, I don’t mind wasting a week doing all the research and putting-”
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t know, did I paint a pretty picture?
Jill K. DeWit:
Not a rosy picture. You painted a good picture. You painted a very fair picture.
Steven Jack Butala:
That was not my intention.
Jill K. DeWit:
Hold on. But the wrong person who’s listening to this and they’re thinking, “Oh, I can do this. Oh, this sounds great. I don’t mind. And how cool is that? And I’ll watch for the rancher. I’m taking notes here. I’ll be that cool guy like you and I’ll make sure I’m going to buy the ones in the beginning and I’m going to buy the ones in the end. You taught me all that now too.” But I’m like, I wanted to say, “Put on the brakes everyone, there’s a reason why we don’t go do this anymore.” The weeks, weeks, and time and energy and travel expense that you would spend to go to there, you might as well do an SFR flip and let’s learn how that goes too.
There’s a reason why you’re here. There’s a reason why you’re listening to us. There’s a reason why this one next to me has been doing this since the ’90s and we’ve evolved to what we are today in Land Academy and we want to save you from this. So we want to tell you about this, we want you to know what’s going on, but Jack is right. If you really want to win at a land auction, don’t go. Don’t do it. It’s true, you know what’s funny, because we’ve been talking about this. It’s easy to get sucked in. I see the emails too, like, “Oh look. Oh, look what they’re doing. Maybe they’re going to have some of this cabin property that we’ve always wanted. Maybe that’s on the list.” You know what? And at the end of the day, we look at each other and go, “That’s the stupidest thing on the planet. I can’t believe we even wasted 15 minutes talking about it when all we have to do is draw a circle around where we want to have our cabin and send out the mail.”
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s it.
Jill K. DeWit:
Next.
Steven Jack Butala:
The last auction that Jill and I went to is in 2011 and it was in Arizona and we bought thousands of properties, literally. Thousands of properties. It was the right time. It was the right crowd. The right-
Jill K. DeWit:
Do I have to say how much some of them were?
Steven Jack Butala:
The day of the week, I think. I don’t even think it was a weekend. They did everything wrong. There’s a massive difference between a Wednesday auction and a Sunday auction, because everybody’s at work. So yeah, we were, Jill and I were buying properties for 10 or $11, an APN, with access and the whole thing. And so that really put Joe and I on the map, thousands of multiply that. And we were wholesaling them out to other people that were going to actually sell them. Jill was so, I didn’t mean to make it sound like fun.
Jill K. DeWit:
No, that was good.
Steven Jack Butala:
I really didn’t, because it’s a ton of work. If you are brand new at Land Academy, you’re about six months from getting, if you do everything, maybe four to six months from getting a great payout.
If you are start to run the auction circuit, and by the way, the state of Texas is required by statutes, by state statutes, to have every Tuesday have an auction for their back tax property. None of them do it. There’s 274 or 84 counties in Texas that are required to do this. Almost none of them do it. They hire law firms to handle it for them. So in every state’s different and every county’s different. So now you’ve got a, there’s 31,044 sets of rules about how to buy back tax property. Some are leans, some are deeds, it’s complicated. Sending mail is not… The same way we do it in Delaware is the same way we do it in California.
Jill K. DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
I wish you shutting me down.
Jill K. DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a look at one of our favorite land acquisitions from the weekly Thursday Member Rabbit webinar.
Jill K. DeWit:
I’m thinking for a second. Do I want to do O two or do a different one? This is going to air April like 5th. Okay go.
We are just about to start Career Path six. I am so excited. By the time this airs, I may have a spot. If you are interested, go check out Land Academy /CareerPath. Career Path is our highest level coaching program held and led by Jack and myself. It’s eight weeks every Wednesday plan on spending four to five hours with us, but we will get you there. It’s for someone who wants to make this a career. You’re a former business owner, you’ve been in Land Academy for a while. You understand how this works, but now you’re ready to make it an empire that’s Career Path. So again, go to landacademy.com/careerpath and check that out and then send a note to my team if you’re really interested via support@landacademy.com.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take another question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. Again, if you want to sneak peek at this thing, go to landacademy.com and you’ll see it right there. Just dig through it and you’ll see a free version, or a free peek at of the whole entire live Discord situation.
Jill K. DeWit:
Fred wrote, “Good day everyone. I’m Frederick J. I’m 23 years old and I’m located in Switzerland. I’m working as a buyer of land in Switzerland already, so I’m very familiar with what we do here.” Just the rules of difference, of course. “I just joined Land Academy, but I’ve been doing my research for the last couple of months and already. So I’ll be sending out my first batch of 5,000 mailers in April. I’m extremely excited to kickstart this land flipping in the US and do deal funding. I hope to make some great friends and deal partners here. Cheers, Fred.” This is awesome. We’ve got another one. We have a person says Fernando. “Hello all. My name is Fernando from San Diego. I have 25 plus years of experience in commercial real estate working for large investment groups. I just joined Land Academy because I love the energy of Jack and Jill. And I think they have a great business concept.”
Steven Jack Butala:
I love your low standard, sir.
Jill K. DeWit:
Oh yeah. “I’m interested in meeting anyone that is successfully already doing deals. I’d love to put some money to work on them ASAP. Please message or email me if you want to discuss more. And I look forward to meeting you all, making some friends and money along the way.” That’s cool. Just some fun little new people that joined.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, there’s a reason I put this in here like always. We have somebody from Switzerland in the land business and we have somebody with 25 years of commercial real estate business making choices to join Land Academy to enhance their already skyrocketing career in real estate. So let’s think about that.
Jill K. DeWit:
Is this a test?
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s not a dad type test.
Jill K. DeWit:
No, I get it.
Steven Jack Butala:
I do too.
Jill K. DeWit:
So wait, wait, wait.
Steven Jack Butala:
The success, the likelihood of success for these two people individually in Land Academy program is staggering. This is just another feather in their cap. They’re not restarting anything.
Jill K. DeWit:
True. Are you saying this using these two as an example, because it’s not about where they come from?
Steven Jack Butala:
Nope. The opposite.
Jill K. DeWit:
Okay. And it’s not about their age.
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t care about their age. No, you’re doing that.
Jill K. DeWit:
No, I’m just saying.
Steven Jack Butala:
See how just Jill twisted it all around. [inaudible 00:25:44] point.
Jill K. DeWit:
Do you know what this is? You look at me like, “Ding ding, do you get it?” And like, “Nope, not seeing it. Where are you going here?”
Steven Jack Butala:
If you listener, have experience in real estate and you would like to double or triple your income, or do, I hesitate to call it a sidekick gig or side gig, but that’s what it would be, if that’s what it is for these two people, because they already are in the land business, they already know what they’re doing. They know the terminology and they know the anatomy of a deal. It’s very, very likely that they’re going to do incredibly well. If you’re listening to this and you’re intrigued and you’re already own a business, any business, or you’re in real estate somehow, Sid earlier is talking about being just a real estate agent for years. This is very logical place for you.
Jill K. DeWit:
Totally. Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s second topic is called How to Make a Million Dollars a Year Doing a Simple Land Transaction A Month by Jill.
Jill K. DeWit:
By me. Oh, thank you. I didn’t know that. So this comes up often. You know why I’ve been talking to a lot of people about Career Path. For the last three weeks I have been personally interviewing and screening people. Yes, you were screened, by the way, if you got an invite to come to Career Path. Why? Because I want to make sure that you’re at that right level. I don’t want you to not be ready for it, because it’s so high level. And we talk big numbers. We’re going to get you there. If you’re afraid to add a zero at the beginning of Career Path, you’re going to be adding two or three zeros by the end of Career Path. You will feel great about that and you’ll understand it. And so I’m talking to people about who want a life like mine. Here’s what I’ve got and here’s what I love.
And I mean this, I’ve got for our land business, I have it down to a four-hour work week. Really? It’s the greatest thing on the planet. And I am doing less deals, not more deals, but I’m making them count. That’s the point. And when you really take a step back, this is what we do at very beginning of Career Path too. We sit down with everyone and talk about where are you now? Give us your trajectory. Where have you been last year or this year? How much money you think you’re going to make in land in its current place right now. How much you do you really want to make this year? All right. And next year, let’s talk about that. No number’s crazy too. Then let’s talk about too, even when’s, enough, enough, we even go there too. Let’s talk about how much do you really want to be done?
And then we work up backwards. Then we start, the whole topic today is making a million dollars a year doing one land transit, one deal a month. That’s really it. And people go, “What are you talking about? You are nuts.” But when you really-
Steven Jack Butala:
It sounds pie in the sky.
Jill K. DeWit:
It does.
Steven Jack Butala:
And it’s not.
Jill K. DeWit:
No, but when you really sit and think about it, work it backwards. One deal a month. Got it. How many months in a year? 12. Got it. So what do I have to make each month? I even want to do a cushion. I would say aim for to make a hundred thousand dollars a deal. Do 12 of those and you’re at 1.2. But what if I screw some up or some take a little long? If I aim for a hundred thousand dollars a deal and doing only one deal a month, I’m going to hit my million.
Or what if I even took the summer off? I made $900,000 this year, because I took the summer off. I’m okay with that. All right. I hope you’re okay with that. So this is the stuff we talk about and then, “Well, that’s great, Jill. Well, how do I find these deals?” Well, that’s why you have us. That’s Land Academy. This is the stuff we teach you. When we teach you how to troll, you’re filling in those numbers. You’re filling in, let’s look at sold comps. Let’s look at what’s sold for, I don’t know, 250 and let’s back it up like, “All right, things are selling for 250 and they’re at least five acres,” something like that. Put that in Zillow right now and look around and just go all over the country and look at these properties knowing that, all right, these things are selling for 250. All right, I want to buy them for, I don’t know, 75 a 100 in case I don’t sell them for 200. And start thinking like that. And you can see how it’s possible. [inaudible 00:30:05].
Steven Jack Butala:
Possible and plausible.
Jill K. DeWit:
It is possible. And it happens.
Steven Jack Butala:
Every time we do these topics in these episodes I set out in the back of my mind, sometimes it’s conscious or subconscious to not sell anything. We’re not here to sell Land Academy programs. We’re not. Believe me, we have enough interest in this program. We’re here, Jill and I, because this is our way to give back. And I actually feel good about making a bunch of money, buying, selling land and sharing the word and spreading the word to the right audience. You will never see either of us stand in front of a jet plane that may or may not be ours to sell something. That’s not what we’re here for. It’s very, very plausible and realistic to make a million bucks a year, one month at a time, buying a property for let’s say $30,000 and selling it for 100-
Jill K. DeWit:
130.
Steven Jack Butala:
Or a hundred. That’s a $70,000 net margin times 12. It’s a million dollars to buy one property that checks all your boxes. You’re probably going to have to send out between 5 and 10,000 units a mail a month.
And you’re going to have to do it with all the research that we teach. Research the heck out of where you’re going to send the mail for how much you’re going to send it out, what you expect it to sell it for. This all goes into doing a really intelligent mailer, an intelligent fixed price offer type mailer. And so if you do all that and you answer the phone and create transactions out of the phone calls, you’re going to get out of that mailer, this is very realistic. And if you have the right personality type, or like the guys that just joined, you just heard from them, have a bunch of experience, whether it’s in real estate or not, but just some professional experience. You’re really increasing your likelihood of this being a reality. So I don’t like when the word million, how to make a million dollars. I do know how to make a million dollars this year, that’s the truth of it.
Jill K. DeWit:
Exactly. And I can show you.
Steven Jack Butala:
And there’s no strings attached.
Jill K. DeWit:
Exactly. We just shared it.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s not why we’re here, yeah.
Jill K. DeWit:
There you go.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s a bunch of details and there’s a bunch of stuff you have to do right-
Jill K. DeWit:
That’s why you have us, we’ll show you.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s procedures. It’s procedures. And there you have a massive community that’s already doing it. So again, I hesitate to write these titles like this, but people want, and I don’t make these titles up, they come to us because they’re suggested topics from our staff and from-
Jill K. DeWit:
Because this is what people want to know. This is what people want to hear.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s say you do it all wrong. Jill’s famous for saying this. Let’s say you do everything wrong. And you make 2 or $300,000.
Jill K. DeWit:
I was going to say half a million dollars. I screwed it all up. That’s how I look at things too. If I’m going for a million and I screw it all up and I only make $500,000, am I hurting? Not really. I think I can live off that. If you can’t live on that, now we have another problem. And that’s a whole different thing.
Steven Jack Butala:
Geez, let’s say you make 120 grand.
Jill K. DeWit:
Yeah. You do two deals, three deals.
Steven Jack Butala:
It puts you in the top five percentile of our country as a household. I think it’s higher than that, but I’ll say 5%.
Jill K. DeWit:
Completely agree.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a look at another one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar. Jill, you have something inspirational to share.
Jill K. DeWit:
Okay. I would like to take a moment and talk to everyone sitting on the fence. I don’t care what fence it is, whether it’s, “Do I buy this house? Do I take this job? Do I leave this job?”
Steven Jack Butala:
“Should I ask this girl out?”
Jill K. DeWit:
“Should I ask them out? Should I ask them to marry me? Should I get pregnant?”
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh geez.
Jill K. DeWit:
“Should I go to school? Should I pick this degree? Should I do that degree?” You know what, there’s so many choices. It’s coming up with me now because I’m talking to people, a lot of people that thank goodness are moving forward and they made the decision to join Land Academy. And then, because again, I’m talking to a lot of people the last couple of weeks about Career Path, but for some reason they’re afraid to take that step to do deals we’re talking about. I’m like, “What’s wrong with, why…” I almost wanted to shake people and go, “You got this far, what’s going on?”
So my quote that I came up yesterday was like, “Man, if you don’t do this now, you probably never will.” And I felt so bad for people. If you’re sitting on the fence and you find yourself six months from now still sitting on the fence, there’s something else going on and I feel bad that we’re going to leave you behind. I don’t mean to, I don’t want to, but I can’t drive over there and put you in the car. And this is going on. I have a lot of people that are perfect, perfect for Career Path and their answer is, “I’ll do Career Path seven.” And you know what? If you tell me Career Path seven, that really means you mean Career Path 70.
Steven Jack Butala:
Which there won’t be, I can tell you
Jill K. DeWit:
Exactly. We will not be here for Career Path 70.
Steven Jack Butala:
I do not have 70 Career Paths in me.
Jill K. DeWit:
No, no, it won’t happen. So you need to look at you and really think about this and taking a step, like I said, you’re already in Land Academy. Maybe you’re not in Land Academy. Maybe you’re thinking about this and this is the fence that you’re on. Maybe I have talked here, I’ll give you another example. I have over the years, spoken to a lot of people who have said, “I’ve listened to you and followed you for two years.” I’m like, “How much more due diligence do you need?”
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, then it’s not… And I respect that. I respect one way or the other.
Jill K. DeWit:
Two years?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yes. If you’re listening to it for two years, because you think it’s funny that the relationship Jill and I have, that’s fine.
Jill K. DeWit:
I know. But that you want to do this. You’ve wasted, not wasted, but you waited.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m a big fan of both ends of the bell curve. So if you are a casual listener and you think it’s funny, and I get that-
Jill K. DeWit:
Well, that’s a whole different thing.
Steven Jack Butala:
I casually listen to a lot of other people that are in a space and have no intention of ever buying their products, or getting involved in their community, or any of them. But I just think it’s funny and it’s really interesting to hear about that. I’m a big mobile home guru, let’s call it fan. And I love the stories and all that, but will I ever own a mobile home park? Probably not that, that investment class and what’s required from a management standpoint, it doesn’t fit my personality. And then on the flip side, on the other end of the bell curve, I have to be bonked over the head hard with some life circumstance or somebody I care about Jill to make any real change in my life. And when that happens now I’m going to go a hundred miles an hour and make sure it happens. So I understand that. I’ve been listening for two years.
Jill K. DeWit:
I get that. But you have started other businesses inside of two years. That’s my point. I don’t think that’s a normal, I think that’s a long time. I think you, like I said, you just need to take some action and you need to look at yourself and decide, this is my final point. Look at yourself and decide and rip off the band. You’re either going to do it or you’re not going to do it and accept it. “I’m never going to do that. This is all I’m going to do. I will have this job. I will have this, and I’m just going to own that and not beat myself up about it.” That’s just not for me. Some people don’t have it in them, and that’s okay.
One of my dear, dear, dear best friends is a fourth grade school teacher, and she has never wanted to do anything but that. She’s very happy in that, that’s her thing she never wants. But there’s people that have a drive in them and want to do more. That’s where I get confused. If you’ve got this drive and this fire building in your stomach, but you can’t take action, you need to, you’ve got to push yourself and do it. Or you probably never will.
Steven Jack Butala:
You should teach a class. I’m serious.
Jill K. DeWit:
Really. Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t meet a lot of people who have a lot of drive and don’t do anything about it. You talk to way more people than I do. I met lots of people on each end of the bell curve.
Jill K. DeWit:
I have one guy right now, it’s so funny that. We’ve been talking about Career Path and going back and forth. I’m like, “You have to do this. You’re perfect.” He’s like, “I’m selling this thing.” I’m like, “Well hurry it up,” kind of thing. And then he emailed me with the Career Path seven thing. And my response right back with his says, “I am not going to let you off this easy.” I said that. I said, “Nope, nope. Not happening. You’re going to do this.” And then he emailed me back like, “Okay, one of them sold. I’m working on the next one right now.” I said, “You still have time? We’re going to do this.” He’s like, “We are going to do this.” So you know what? If you need me to give you that push, call me. If you need me to give you that push, I will happily give you that push. Jack, what do you have, something informational to share with us today?
Steven Jack Butala:
I sure do, Jill. The name of my piece of advice here, weekly advice, is getting the inside track of the land business or really any business. I’ve been doing a tremendous amount of research, because of market conditions about buying tax-free municipal bonds, versus annuities, versus let’s say CDs because their interest rates are real high. And it’s real attractive for us to lock in some situation like that where we are taking advantage of the interest rate situation, which is not going to go on forever. Hopefully it’s not. And locking in some good positive revenue for ourselves. And even for me, I have an accounting background. I’ve owned a bunch of companies, still own several very successful land acquisition and salesperson. It’s very hard for me to navigate this. And it occurred to me after about a week of looking at this and talking to my friends who really do know about it and on, and on, and on, I don’t have the inside track in the business.
I have the inside track on the land business, and we talk about the inside track, and getting to know everything. It doesn’t happen overnight. It’s going to take probably good 12 months if you work at it real hard. But you will get it and just like I would and will get it for municipal bonds and everything else, but there’s a lot to learn. And so at the tail end of my initial self-education on all of that, I started to think about how daunting it might be for some people who are learning to buy and sell land from us. And so I’m personally going to try to make it a little bit easier.
Jill K. DeWit:
For us for, okay, well let me ask you this. Have you found the pro and if you found the pro.
Steven Jack Butala:
No I haven’t.
Jill K. DeWit:
Oh.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s right, Jill.
Jill K. DeWit:
Aw. So, that’s the missing piece.
Steven Jack Butala:
And you know I looked. I looked for the Land Academy version of tax-free municipal bond investing.
Jill K. DeWit:
That’s the problem.
Steven Jack Butala:
So now I can’t-
Jill K. DeWit:
And have no trouble jumping in, you know me.
Steven Jack Butala:
I know. Jill and I are independent. We are. I’m not like, if I call Fidelity, let’s say, and talk to somebody who’s a tax bond municipal bond expert, the next thing I know, 15 seconds later they’re shoving me into some annuity that I don’t really want, and they’re not listening, and you just don’t know who you’re going to get. We’re not here to sell you one thing. We’re here to just teach you how to make decisions for yourself and maybe what the difference is between Texas and Montana or whatever other questions you have, especially in Career Path. So I understand that this can be daunting, but the goal has to be for you, or it is for me anyway, to get the inside track where you no longer feel like an outsider. And you can take that Fidelity, I’m just choosing Fidelity because that’s the first one that comes to mind. You can manhandle that, figuratively manhandle that Fidelity salesman and say, “Listen pal, this annuity’s not going to happen. I’m here to talk about bonds and use the terminology and all of it.”
Jill K. DeWit:
That’s good.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s real education.
Jill K. DeWit:
That’s really good. Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Join us next Wednesday for another interesting episode because you are not alone in your real estate ambition. We are Jack and Jill.
Jill K. DeWit:
We are Jack and Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
Information.
Jill K. DeWit:
And inspiration.
Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
https://youtu.be/5hvDg2ZpPV8
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
In this episode of The Land Academy Show, Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit discuss when to negotiate the price of a land acquisition and the backwards psychology of upfront money. They also give an overview of their weekly show and answer a question from a Land Academy Discord forum member. Tune in for expert insights and entertaining banter. Don’t forget to check out The Land Academy Discord channel at https://landacademy.com/testimonials/#discord
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit. And this is The Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is episode 1,946, and today we are talking in depth about when to negotiate the price of a land acquisition. And then a little bit later on, I’m going to talk about the backwards psychology of upfront money.
Jill DeWit:
Okay, wait a minute. Last week I couldn’t talk. I was really, really sick. Are you okay today?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, I feel great.
Jill DeWit:
Okay, good. I’m just making sure. What if it’s Jack’s sick week? We had Jill’s sick week. I don’t know if I want a Jack sick week.
Steven Jack Butala:
I just had a quiet, pleasant four hour in my office with the fireplace on and all the windows and doors closed session.
Jill DeWit:
And that’s what made you not talk.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
Or not be able to talk.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, I’ve just been thinking and not talking. This is what I do at work. The exact opposite of what you do at work.
Jill DeWit:
I know.
Steven Jack Butala:
Talk all day long and then think later.
Jill DeWit:
Thanks.
Steven Jack Butala:
And thinking’s optional. Tell me I’m wrong.
Jill DeWit:
Geez. That’s just not true at all. Sounds like now it’s pick on Jill day.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m not picking on you. Jill talks all day.
Jill DeWit:
Well, because that’s because of my job.
Steven Jack Butala:
I know.
Jill DeWit:
Okay. It’s not like-
Steven Jack Butala:
No, I don’t mean talk to yourself or meaningless talk. I just mean you’re on the phone.
Jill DeWit:
Could you imagine?
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s just what you do.
Jill DeWit:
I’m just sitting there talking. Who are you talking to? Nobody. No, I don’t do that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Hey, I hope you’re enjoying our relatively new 2023 weekly show, even though it’s March, it’s still new for us. Each week we answer questions from our Land Academy Discord forum, review land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar and take a deep dive into two land related topics that are almost always by request, which I just mentioned earlier. Let’s take a question posted by one of our members on The Land Academy Discord online community. If you want a sneak peek of our Discord channel, go to landacademy.com in a read only format. It’s free. It’s worth it. Check it out.
Jill DeWit:
All right. So Steven, not you, right?
Steven Jack Butala:
Not me.
Jill DeWit:
Not you. Steven wrote, I have a new deal. We have a signed purchase agreement buy for $8,296.81. And retail is, I love this. 30,827.23. The realtor we’ve been consulting with in the area has a buyer for the property already contingent that it passes perk, but he has just informed us that he charges a $5,000 minimum. This is the realtor. I understand this.
Steven Jack Butala:
I do too. I’m a pro realtor here. Go ahead.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. Is this the standard? Has any [inaudible 00:02:48] heard of this? I always thought this organization Whitetail Properties, that’s okay, was always 10%. So here’s my experience. The group, the individual, the Whitetail property brokers that I have worked with, I’ve always had sale prices of $70,000 and up and they get 10%. So no matter what, they’re going to lease $7,000. I’ve never had anyone this low. I bet this is a norm for them and it doesn’t scare me at all. The nice thing is when we go up, we go over $100,000 they will sometimes, some of them will rock it back from 10% to 6%, which I appreciate. These guys and I’ve never had a bad experience. I’ve never.
Steven Jack Butala:
So that’s what I was going to say. Whitetail is a lot different than getting a regular Remax real estate agent. Whitetail. These fellas are-
Jill DeWit:
They train them almost.
Steven Jack Butala:
These fellas are land people in their souls like we are. And Land Academy, most Land Academy members are, and you might be if you’re listening to this. So they understand the scenario and the guy’s already got, or the person’s already got an offer in hand. You haven’t retained them yet. And I believe that because I don’t believe that they’re the kind of, in general, they’re the kind of agents that would fib about that or whatever. Let’s do the math. If it was 10%, like Jill said, it’s $3,000 because your sale price is $3,000 or 30,000. Is it worth it to pay somebody $2,000 more to have their expert opinion and they are experts? Again, it’s not a Remax situation. I think so.
Jill DeWit:
I’ve had different, but though I’ve also had this too where I’ve had agents not in areas where we don’t have Whitetail or Mossy Oak and they’ve said, look, here’s the deal. And their minimum was like 4,000. I remember one in particular, I was like, I can’t make the numbers work because I have an assistant, I have a team, I have costs, I do the marketing things, I do the photos and I’m like, you know what? I get it. I’m totally fine with that too. So what’s the end result here? Yes. I think that’s fair. If it were me, I would totally do it. And then the next thing I would do, by the way, go for up my dollar amount, go for properties where I’m selling for 50 and I don’t care on a $5,000 fee.
Steven Jack Butala:
So here’s what you’re going to get for 2,000. Jill’s absolutely right in my opinion, you’re going to get $2,000 more worth of way more value. You need to sit down with this person during this deal or after when the deal’s done and ask them where should I be buying property and for how much is it? And they’ll tell you something like, well, you guys should be looking over in this county for anything over that 40 acres that’s got access. I can sell that for $32,000 an acre or whatever the numbers end up being. And so you can actually tailor now, this is a huge, I call it inside information. This is the kind of stuff you go to prison for on Wall Street. But they encourage in real estate. He’ll tell you buy here and here. I already have buyers lined up.
Jill DeWit:
This is what they want. This is the size.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s costing you $2,000 more to establish hopefully a relationship with not only that agent but that office. And so now you can start building mailers around what you know you can sell.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s all positive. Today’s topic, when to negotiate the price of a land acquisition.
Jill DeWit:
Let me give a little backstory.
Steven Jack Butala:
I love this topic by the way. I really do.
Jill DeWit:
Remember the last time we were in Mexico, and I don’t think it was a time we did the global entry time. I think it might have been the last time.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think it was in Rocky Point.
Jill DeWit:
Oh, that was probably it. Okay. Well-
Steven Jack Butala:
Doesn’t matter.
Jill DeWit:
Anyway, Jack and I, we haven’t been in a few years, but we used to love to go out to Mexico and I used to love this part of Mexico. I love shopping for silver. I don’t need any more margarita glasses. I’m all set with that. I’m all set with pictures. I’m set with blankets. I’m set. Let’s think about all this. I don’t need another turtle with a bobble head. You know what I mean?
Steven Jack Butala:
Or a sombrero.
Jill DeWit:
Or a sombrero. Exactly. But you know what? I can’t turn down good silver. So here’s what I do in Mexico. I love to go in and pick out the most beautiful best thing. And then I’ll have a price in my head. I know what my price is, I know what makes sense. I know what price per ounce for silver generally is. Nevermind that’s a whole past life thing that we have. But so I’ve got a good idea what it should cost. And they’re always going to shout whatever number. And I have a number too. So they’re going to throw out a number. And my point of where I’m going with this is, I love this, I love this in Mexico with silver, they say $50 and I say 10, and I know I’m okay with 20, 22. I’ll do it, not 50, but I’m going to throw out 10.
They’re going to go and they’re going to go, no, 45. I’m going to go 12. It’s a game until I’m walking out the door and I’m at my 22, 25. And I’m okay to walk away with this too, by the way, because I know I can go two doors down and get the same stuff and start this all over again. So they’ll let me walk out the door and usually they’ll shout out my number. And for me that situation, it’s a little bit fun. I have a good time. I don’t really care about it. Do I need the silver?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, you don’t care.
Jill DeWit:
Is it my business?
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what I was going to say.
Jill DeWit:
No. I don’t care.
Steven Jack Butala:
Part of it.
Jill DeWit:
And it’s a game and they expect it. That’s negotiation. And that’s where I’m starting with when negotiation can be a fun and good, lively thing. Now let’s talk about where not to negotiate, which is-
Steven Jack Butala:
That was sport for you.
Jill DeWit:
That was sport and fun and I don’t care. But in my business, I don’t negotiate. Even when I’m not happy with the price, I’m not negotiating.
Steven Jack Butala:
I agree.
Jill DeWit:
We on purpose for many reasons and not just because we don’t want to negotiate, but we just want to get, we’re just trying to get people and buy their property quickly and efficiently in our ballpark kind of thing. So we send out blind offers with numbers on them and some people, some sellers and some buyers, people like me think this is just an open negotiation and I’m here to tell you knock it off. It shouldn’t and it doesn’t need to be. So when I call a seller back, and part of it, I think too, by the way, when Jack here, when our offers go out, they’re down to the penny. It’s not a range, it’s not a, what do you think about this? It’s not fill in another offer if you don’t like this one. It is, I’m willing to buy your property. Here is the price. Here’s the terms, here’s what we’re doing. Are you in or are you out? Kind of thing. We’re not trying to negotiate. So I’m going to say that most of these sellers, when I talk to them, they have that in their head.
They know who I am. I’m not here to negotiate, but could there be a valid reason why it’s worth more? Could have some other information. Is it like you don’t realize I just put in a well and I’m on the road and the water’s across the street? Okay, now I’m going to look at this. I get it kind of thing. But it’s not a negotiation. So it’s funny that this comes up sometimes in our Thursday calls. I feel like people are, I think I can get it for this or will even say though, I’m still in negotiation with them. None of that matters to me. I don’t even want to talk about it. I don’t even look at it. So when people submit offers and they say proposed purchase price, they send in things like for me to review in Land Academy deal review, Jill, here’s a deal. Will you fund this deal?
I think I can get it for X. My immediate response is through my team. Let me know when you got a number and I’ll look at it. I don’t even pull it up on the map. I want to tell you, I won’t even pop it in parcel fact and waste any time because we don’t have a number yet. So you want to jump in here?
Steven Jack Butala:
When you’re ready.
Jill DeWit:
So I’m trying to get two points across that it’s not about negotiation, and I don’t need to think it’s about negotiation and you’re going to get in trouble. You could get in trouble when you go down that path. And I know we have a lot more, we’ll talk more about this.
Steven Jack Butala:
Variables in general kill land deals. And so we do, every Thursday we do a land review on our webinar. We look at people’s deals that they’ve come up with through direct mail campaigns. And I can tell you right from the description very, very quickly which deals are probably going to work and which ones aren’t by the length and the number of words in the presentation that they’re giving. The member. If it takes two blocks in Zoom to describe the deal, that person’s either extremely thorough or a deal doesn’t work because there’s too many variables. Price is a massive variable. The deals that we generally do after this many years are where price is just not, it’s done. I’d like to think I send out mailers, direct mailers that are priced correctly. It doesn’t happen all the time, but let’s just say the majority of the time it does.
And when they call Jill or Jill’s staff back and they say, yeah, I really do want to do this deal, what’s the next step? Then you do the deal. Or if they say something like, yeah, I love this deal. Thanks for the $13,000 offer, but I really need 18,000. Sure, we’ll talk about that. They’re already ready to do the deal mentally and price is not that much of a variable. The problem is this. When you start to veer from that model and a seller, and a lot of people come to Land Academy like this, most of the sellers aren’t the problem. I think it’s brand spanking new Land Academy members that haven’t been exposed to these concepts yet where you have a level of interest, you come to Land Academy with a level of interest in your soul about negotiation and it probably comes from your parents or wherever.
I can’t stand negotiation. I have never liked it. That’s why I came up with this concept of direct mail offers. Here’s a price, take it or leave it kind of thing. Some people, and we have friends like this, we traveled with them that they just love negotiation. The price might be the retail price for a property might be $100,000. We sent an offer for 38,000. They want 40. We all know that’s going to work. But the retail, if the asking price now, not necessarily in a mailer, but somebody posts a piece of property for sale. Let’s say it’s us. Let’s say we buy a piece of property and we sell that same piece of property, that $100,000 property we listed for $75,000, we already know that it’s $25,000 off of retail. We already know that.
And we do that intentionally because we want to sell it fast. We want to just keep cycling through the same acquisition funds all the way through the year. That’s our business model. And a bar will come up and offer 65 and we say, no, it’s already discounted. 75. Well, 68. So Jill’s Mexican negotiation model. That mildly boils my blood.
Jill DeWit:
I know.
Steven Jack Butala:
Because they just have to get money off of what the asking price is without doing any math or actually applying any type of logic.
Jill DeWit:
Well, I expect some of that automatically, but I expect that, but I’m going to entertain one round on those situations and I’m out. So your example, it’s worth $100,000. I have good brokers too. Speaking of Whitetail, I have great Whitetail guys, I think we can get 70, let’s list it at 78. Done. And he and I already had this conversation so we know where we’re going to go with this thing. I’ll entertain one and I might come back on that situation one time and that’s it. And that’s the same with my, when I’m buying a property. I’m trying to think. I think it’s bigger than this. I think it’s the person.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think it’s psychology.
Jill DeWit:
Some people love that. Let’s do this.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s how I was going to end this.
Jill DeWit:
I want that. I want this. I want that. I can’t do that.
Steven Jack Butala:
So really-
Jill DeWit:
You have one valid reason to tell me why you think it’s worth more. I’m going to listen to it. I’m either going to agree or not agree, and we’re going to meet on a price, and that’s it. Done.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you’re a staunch negotiator, because the world, there’s all kinds of books on this. There’s self-help books and business gurus and people that have real credibility have written books on this topic. And it comes down to are you mentally healthy or not? If you have to negotiate and get your way, you’re never going to, it will crush your career. I’ll give you an example, a great example. You need to know yourself and know your market and know this land, these properties. I just paid $75,000 for a classic Corvette, and that was the asking price. And I know that’s $150,000 car and all the pieces fit together for me. I bought it from a dealer/broker who is a-
Jill DeWit:
We know.
Steven Jack Butala:
Consignment group. We’ve done a bunch of deals with them on the buy side and the sell side before. I had a very brief, logical conversation with the guy, the agent that’s there that we’ve done again, Jill and I have bought cars from before. And he’s like, yeah, it just came in and I’m not selling you anything, but here’s a deal and here’s a box of trophies that it won since the ’60s and all the documents since the ’80s for the repair bills and stuff. So I know these things, I’m not bragging here. I’m just saying, and yeah, it ended up being $150,000 car. So the vast majority of people I know would say that, all right, it’s listed for 75,000 or whatever it ended up being. Will you take 69? Do you really? Does it matter?
Jill DeWit:
Isn’t that funny? It’s the personality of the person. Well, that’s what I was going to say too. We are that kind of a seller. We’re that kind of a buyer and we’re that kind of a seller. I go both ways. I’m really firm on let’s all stand up and not try to, how much time does this take and waste time?
Steven Jack Butala:
And emotional, I already won on that car.
Jill DeWit:
Who cares? We have these conversations all the time too like you’re just saying. Even on properties. Okay, so I’m a buyer now, so I’m buying a property. Our offer was $28,502, whatever, and the guy’s like, can you make it 30? I’m like, you know what? I can make it 30.
Steven Jack Butala:
Totally okay with that.
Jill DeWit:
That’s cool. Don’t be that guy too that’s like I’m digging in.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s the meaning of this title, of this part of the episode, when to negotiate the price of a land acquisition. And Jill just described it when it’s reasonable, when they need a little bit more, it soothes them psychologically. They feel like they’re hanging up the phone winning, you know you already won anyway. Way won on a thing because maybe it’s an 80 or $90,000-
Jill DeWit:
It’s worth 90.
Steven Jack Butala:
Piece of property and everybody shakes hands.
Jill DeWit:
Totally.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s when you don’t have to squeeze every single tiny little penny and smash that person’s face down into the mud.
Jill DeWit:
I know.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s just not, you just don’t want to be that person.
Jill DeWit:
You don’t want to be that guy.
Steven Jack Butala:
You don’t. And I think the vast majority of people come to Land Academy with that kind of, all right, let’s kick their ass. And I don’t think that’s the way to do this.
Jill DeWit:
Sometimes I think it is, I still think it’s confidence, because you started to talk about that a little bit too. People are new to Land Academy. They send these offers out and then they think they need to negotiate a little bit more off it. Hold on a moment. You just need to come out. You already did your homework. You did everything that Jack showed you to find a great area. Download the data, price it really well, trust what you did. Don’t come back and undo it. Well, again, unless like we just said, there’s some real thing out there, and it’s true. I’ve had some where, I still like taking calls sometimes on new mailers. I’ll jump in and take a few to learn about the area and there might be some valid reason that this is being built over here. Did you know this is coming? This is what happened with our water situation. Fill in the blank, whatever. I’m like, ah, I need to know that. That’s going to make me look at these a little bit differently.
Steven Jack Butala:
Over the years since the Land Academy years, not the core land buying years, which were before we started Land Academy, people have come to us socially, and they see the kind of cars that we drive and all the superficial crap about making money. And they say, what the heck do you guys do for a living? And we explain it and they say, you know what? I want to do that too. And it never works. Never.
Jill DeWit:
That’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
When people come to us and they find us on the internet and a light bulb goes off over their head about, after listening to several podcasts or whatever research that you do, that seems like the thing that I was doing over here before anyway, then this might be just to add to it and might be a better way, then it really works out. I think that a lot of these things that we’re talking about are built in already, and so if what we’re saying to you right now makes sense, you’re one of those people, but without exception, the people that do it the other way-
Jill DeWit:
Try to become.
Steven Jack Butala:
They’re just doing it for the wrong reasons.
Jill DeWit:
If you’ve never been interested in land.
Steven Jack Butala:
But you’re interested in-
Jill DeWit:
Until now and but you’re interested in the bank balance.
Steven Jack Butala:
But you’re interested in being wealthy. This is not the place.
Jill DeWit:
That might not work.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is not going to work.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly. It was either this or I’m going to go get a chain restaurant. I don’t know.
Steven Jack Butala:
Or open an ice cream franchise.
Jill DeWit:
There we go. It was this or Coldstone. You like Coldstone. I know.
Steven Jack Butala:
So negotiate very, very quickly and efficiently. And when it’s a sport for the other person on the other side, I just say, open the next envelope that’s in the mail and buy a different piece of property.
Jill DeWit:
I have one more thing I want to make sure that, just to get this out there, because I still see this happening now and then. This is why you’re listening. Do not get in this situation. You send out an offer, the person responds to you and says, okay, I love it. I don’t love it. I want to sell and everything, but not at that price. It’s not upon you to give them another price. So if like my offer $28,750. So if the guy said, Jill, I like you. I believe in this. I do want to sell the stupid property, but I can’t do that price. What can you do, Jill? I’m not going to give him another number. And I know people fall into that trap. Well then how about 28,500 or 29,500? No. That won’t work.
30. No. Jill, keep at it. You see where it’s going. You’re going to go down a rabbit hole and be in big trouble. Remember, you already gave them a price. You already threw out the first number. You have to let them, even if it takes them a day to get back to you, think about it and come back to you with a number. They know who you are now. They know how you roll. They know how fast you can do this. They know you have the money ready to go, and they like you. You just say, all right, well then let me know what’s your number? Let me back up. They do have a number, by the way. All of these sellers have a number.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, that’s right.
Jill DeWit:
There’s some number in their head. There’s a number in their head that is usually a version of, okay, I bought it back. I bought it 12 years ago. I’ve maintained this many taxes on it that equals X, so I know I need to make X. So they have a number, or it might be, I bought it 20 years ago. I don’t even, God, who knows what it’s worth now, but I do know I’m about $18,000 away from paying off my mortgage. So that’s their number. There you go. So there’s something in their head. You just have to get that out of them.
Steven Jack Butala:
So I structured this concept of sending out blind mailers, blind offers with a number in it, not a range number, not a letter of interest, but an actual number in it, because I did all that stuff wrong my entire career. And ultimately ended up sending out the offers the way we send them out now so that I don’t have to negotiate. So if you send out a 10,000 unit mailer and you do it right, you price it right, you do your homework about where are you’re going to send the mail and you generally do it right, you’re going to get maybe 5, 10, 15, maybe more real honest opportunities to buy a piece of land. And why would you sit around for a half hour or an hour and deal with somebody who’s stubborn about trying to get $60,000 for a property that you’re offering 28 for?
You just wouldn’t. Jill’s exactly right. You just wouldn’t. So let the mail work for you. It’s structured so you don’t have to do cold calling and the people have weeded themselves. Of those 10,000 people, 100 or so let’s say have weeded themselves out of that mailer. They do want to sell. They called you back and a very predictable and consistent percentage want more than you’re willing to pay. So your job is to say, put it in piles. 100 people responded to my mailer, 25 people told me to go F myself. 25 people said, yeah, but the number’s not going to work. Another 25 people said, I don’t know, I’m going to die here.
Jill DeWit:
Some want retail.
Steven Jack Butala:
10 people or so ish are going… Yeah, retail.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah, the ones that want retail, move on, don’t even bother.
Steven Jack Butala:
10 people or so are going to say 28 didn’t work, but 30 will work. Or they’re going to sign it and send it back in many, many cases. So it’s not anything [inaudible 00:25:17] to get-
Jill DeWit:
That’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
Have any real emotion about. Just let the mailer’s design to take you to the place where you want to go.
Jill DeWit:
You brought up an excellent point. This is not to try to win every single person over who calls you back. Those people who call you back who are holding out for that retail to be the highest priced house on the block kind of thing. That’s not your person. You let them go, wish them well, ask them hang on to your letter and let them go. My 28,000 will never be 60, I hope. And they might come back and they might not.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s right.
Jill DeWit:
They might die with it.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s right.
Jill DeWit:
Or the kids might get it. Who knows? But I’m never going to come up to 60 because that’s all they would do.
Steven Jack Butala:
Negotiation is such an interesting psychological concept because it’s pushing the envelope where it shouldn’t go in my opinion. And we don’t do that with other stuff. You don’t drive your car for as long as you possibly can drive it after the E light comes on, the fuel light’s been on for three weeks, you don’t do that. You go fill the tank up. You just don’t push the envelope. You don’t push the envelope with your wife. If she’s upset about something, you don’t just keep pushing her and pushing her.
Jill DeWit:
I hope not or it’s not going to work.
Steven Jack Butala:
And you don’t negotiate with your wife, by the way. Don’t.
Jill DeWit:
Nope.
Steven Jack Butala:
Ever.
Jill DeWit:
Nope.
Steven Jack Butala:
Just walk out of the room.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly. Pick your battles.
Steven Jack Butala:
So why push it so hard to get an extra $3,000 out of a deal?
Jill DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
That it just doesn’t matter.
Jill DeWit:
I know.
Steven Jack Butala:
You got what you want. You won.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a look at one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar. By the way, I talked to our guys, they pulled these from three months ago already. They don’t do it from last month.
Jill DeWit:
Okay, good. Will you do the ad?
Steven Jack Butala:
Nah, I don’t want to. You can. Do you want me to do it?
Jill DeWit:
No. You know what? Okay, this airs on the 30th. Okay, I got one. Hey, you know what, Jack? We are 12 days away from Career Path. Are you excited?
Steven Jack Butala:
I love instructing Career Path.
Jill DeWit:
I am too.
Steven Jack Butala:
Of all the responsibilities I have at Land Academy, that is my favorite thing. And I’m not blowing smoke because people want to be there.
Jill DeWit:
Oh my God. I know. So I want to just take a moment and talk about Career Path and remind you that I don’t know if I have any slots yet. You could sure reach out to my team, but let me tell you what’s going on. April 12th will be Career Path number six, and I don’t know when seven and eight will be. So if you’re thinking about it, you want to get in Career Path six. So Career Path is our highest level personal done by us coaching session. It’s eight weeks long, only 15 people, and it’s phenomenal. We are repeatedly now have people coming back from Career Paths one, two, and three showing up in older Career Paths to do it again. Why are they coming back? Because it was that great. They know it gets better every time, and I think they’re back to even level up even more.
They’re like, great. Career Path three got me to this much money. I’m back to do Career Path six to bring it home. So wherever you are in your land investment journey, if you want to be like us and just make this your thing, you’re done. I know where I want to go. This is going to be my life. I want to do deals like you guys. I want to have a staff like you guys. I want to make this as easy as I can like you guys. That’s what Career Path is. So check it out. Go to landacademy.com/careerpath or just send a note to my team support@landacademy.com.
Steven Jack Butala:
We have presentations during Career Path by all of our staff. Jill’s transaction coordinator, the person who does concierge data, who does our mailers. So they all-
Jill DeWit:
Show up.
Steven Jack Butala:
In a very intimate business setting tell you why they’re successful for us and with us. It’s pretty cool.
Jill DeWit:
It is.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s nothing else like it.
Jill DeWit:
Totally.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take another question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. Again, if you want a sneak peek at our Discord channel, please go to landacademy.com. It’s free.
Jill DeWit:
Is this the same person?
Steven Jack Butala:
Mm-mm.
Jill DeWit:
The same name? Oh.
Steven Jack Butala:
I feel qualified to make this statement. There’s Steven, S-T-E-V-E-N. There’s Stephen, S-T-E-P-H-E-N and there’s Stephan, S-T-E-P-H-A-N. Of all the things-
Jill DeWit:
Excuse me.
Steven Jack Butala:
We talked about today that’s the thing I’m most qualified to talk about.
Jill DeWit:
Excuse me. Stephan Rota. Geez. Talk about pushing your partner’s buttons.
Steven Jack Butala:
Okay, Jillie.
Jill DeWit:
I’m okay with that.
Steven Jack Butala:
All right Jillian.
Jill DeWit:
I don’t care. That’s not my name, but it’s okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
What does it say on your birth certificate?
Jill DeWit:
Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
J-I-L-L.
Jill DeWit:
That’s it.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s awesome.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah, it’s not short for anything. It is just Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
Not Stephanopoulos or something.
Jill DeWit:
No.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jillinacious.
Jill DeWit:
Jillifer. No. It’s nothing. All right. So Stephan wrote, I’m going to quit my nine to five here soon. I’m based in California, and my only hangup is healthcare seems like a huge can of worms to investigate. I currently have Blue Shield Platinum with my W2. What can I expect to pay for something similar? Should I work part-time at Starbucks just for the cheap health insurance and free coffee? That’s not crazy actually.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s not.
Jill DeWit:
That actually might be kind of fun.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s nine things right with this question.
Jill DeWit:
I know.
Steven Jack Butala:
And zero things wrong in my opinion.
Jill DeWit:
It has never crossed my mind other than the fact that I don’t ever want to have a nine to five again or even a part-time gig like that. But if I could show up when I want to and just help out in Starbucks, I would do that.
Steven Jack Butala:
I love this question. You are planning for war. You’ve premeditated this. You’ve got a checklist. Health insurance is on that checklist. So you went to the community and you’re asking. A bunch of people responded to this.
Jill DeWit:
Oh, good.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is an incredibly intelligent question and it’s simple, and I really think you’re going to succeed.
Jill DeWit:
The only thing Stephan didn’t come up with is marry someone with good health insurance.
Steven Jack Butala:
Please don’t do that.
Jill DeWit:
No, but I bet that’s in there. I worked with a gal. That was her thing. It was at American Airlines.
Steven Jack Butala:
Of all the wrong reasons to get married as if there’s any good reasons to get married. That’s on the list.
Jill DeWit:
Her husband wouldn’t let her quit her job because he needed the health insurance.
Steven Jack Butala:
If your husband won’t let you-
Jill DeWit:
I know.
Steven Jack Butala:
Quit your job, maybe-
Jill DeWit:
Well, they’re divorced now.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. Find another husband.
Jill DeWit:
By the way I don’t think she’s there anymore. I’m sure she’s not. But anyway, this is good.
Steven Jack Butala:
All healthcare providers to directly answer your question, and then I’m going to give you some compliments after this, provide independent insurance policies, all the major ones, and you don’t want to veer off within health insurance at all. And you don’t want to use your health broker, healthcare insurance broker because they mark it all up and you don’t want to veer from the major carriers. You already have Blue Cross. So I’d call them.
Jill DeWit:
And keep COBRA for a while.
Steven Jack Butala:
So you’re going to have COBRA for what, six months?
Jill DeWit:
Sometimes a year.
Steven Jack Butala:
Whatever happens in California, it’s probably-
Jill DeWit:
Oh, it’s probably five years in California.
Steven Jack Butala:
And it’s free.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly. Don’t worry about it, you’re set.
Steven Jack Butala:
They’re going to have a program for you. They’re very in tune with your situation, and they will have, if you don’t have any dependents and you’re young, it’s going to be shockingly cheap. So I don’t think it’s going to be more than three to $300, maybe 400.
Jill DeWit:
Probably.
Steven Jack Butala:
Probably less. I’m old and my insurance policy is maybe 700, which-
Jill DeWit:
Yours is more than mine.
Steven Jack Butala:
But I’ve got people attached to mine too, and it’s a different story. So just call your carrier, and if you don’t like the numbers, call around. There’s all kinds of HMOs and PPOs that are in California. HMOs and PPOs originated there with Kaiser Permanente. So I would call Kaiser Permanente because it’s very prevalent in California.
Jill DeWit:
What if he leaves California?
Steven Jack Butala:
If you leave out of your network, you are going to have to get a new insurance policy anyway. You don’t want to get… [inaudible 00:33:47] Out of network is a terrible thing, especially in emergency situation because it’s going to be expensive. But ask the person at Blue Cross that you have the insurance with right now and call the person, whoever your HR person is. They know all this stuff.
Jill DeWit:
Are we really talking this much about healthcare?
Steven Jack Butala:
Guy wants to quit his job. I love this stuff.
Jill DeWit:
Okay, good.
Steven Jack Butala:
He’s learning. He’s asking.
Jill DeWit:
I do. I get it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Is that a joke?
Jill DeWit:
No.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think it’s important as heck.
Jill DeWit:
No, you’re right, you’re just, you’re going down the, do we now want to bring up copays?
Steven Jack Butala:
If you’re going to increase your copay, your insurance is going to be way cheaper.
Jill DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
Just work your way down your list. And I hope you quit your job and I hope you’re ready. I hope you’ve done a bunch of deals and it’s not too soon. And I’m happy for you.
Jill DeWit:
What’s interesting, I would just like to add, here’s a big picture comment on this to end this question is-
Steven Jack Butala:
She shut me down, but now she’s going to continue the topic.
Jill DeWit:
That was never a consideration for me as far as leaving a company.
Steven Jack Butala:
It was a huge consideration for me. But that’s the difference between you and I. One of the differences.
Jill DeWit:
That’s wild.
Steven Jack Butala:
But that’s why it works together. You and I.
Jill DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s second topic is the backward psychology of upfront money. What do you have to pay upfront for in your life and then you don’t believe that it worked out?
Jill DeWit:
Health insurance.
Steven Jack Butala:
When a company-
Jill DeWit:
Perfect.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s use the Northern California startup model for a business, let’s say like Uber. So Uber goes out, they have a assembled credible tech team and what’s called a little bit of, let’s call it a deck, a 10 or 15 page printed out, usually a deck to go shop to find money, to start what they think is going to be the greatest, best thing ever. Stand on a corner, use your app, get a car to come and pick you up. Turns out that works. And so there’s millions and millions and tens and hundreds of millions of capital that’s required upfront to start something like that. And there’s no scared money. The people that are providing that money upfront, there’s no psychology behind it that they know that’s how it works. They also know that for every 10, 20, 30, 40 of those that they spend money on, only one or two, maybe three are going to work, which justifies all the money that they’re spending. And that’s that business model. That’s that startup model.
What else do you put a bunch of money upfront? A house. You put 10, 15, 20% down on a house and you make payments. I’ve never seen people be more happy in their entire lives to get into debt than when buying a house. So there’s some upfront money, but if you ask most people, it works out. You bought a house, you paid some payments, you decided to sell it, and you made some money on it theoretically, hopefully. There’s certain things about upfront money that just like purchasing an app. For whatever reason, most of the people I know, wealthy people even have a problem spending 3.99 on an app when there’s another free one over there that’s way substandard.
Jill DeWit:
You mean $3.99.
Steven Jack Butala:
$3.99.
Jill DeWit:
Like whatever I spend on, Spotify. I love Spotify.
Steven Jack Butala:
So think about your college education that can cost $200,000.
Jill DeWit:
I was thinking about that.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s huge upfront money so that you theoretically can pay it off for God knows how long after you get a job when you get out. No problem there. [inaudible 00:37:30] People don’t have any issues with that.
Jill DeWit:
That’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
Honestly, because I don’t think it’s their money. I think they go buy, they go get a student loan.
Jill DeWit:
And then it’s their money though.
Steven Jack Butala:
But for some reason, people have a massive problem writing a $38,000 check for a piece of land that they know is worth $78,000. And the truth is, and this is from my soul, good. It keeps everybody out of this business.
Jill DeWit:
That’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
Because if this makes sense to you and the light bulb’s going off to write a $38,000 check and get 62, 82, 92 back within a month, then you get it. And so I’m going to quote Dr. Phil here. You either get it or you don’t. Upfront money can’t be explained to most people. And if you have to explain why it costs $120,000 to open a convenience store so that you can have a job and you can put food on your family for 25 years after that because you made a good decision on location and all of it.
If you have to explain that to somebody, maybe they’re related to you and you have to sit them down and explain why this is a good idea. It’s not good. You get it. They don’t. So where’s this all going? The Land Academy education program costs, I don’t know, what does it cost? $2,000. And it’s just, our salespeople are inbound intake salespeople who take phone calls are always chuckling about this because the return, we have several every single time we do a Career Path, it’s I made $6 million this year and I really want to make 18.
Jill DeWit:
I know, but oh, I don’t know if I could write a check for three. I’m like what?
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s the psychology-
Jill DeWit:
Or 20.
Steven Jack Butala:
Of upfront money.
Jill DeWit:
It is.
Steven Jack Butala:
And so like all things in life, whether it’s education or your professional, your career or your relationships, you need to know yourself. You need to look at yourself in the mirror and say, do I have a problem with upfront money? Like wacko Jack is saying.
Jill DeWit:
You know what’s funny about this? I just thought of a great situation. Here’s a crazy upfront money expense. How about a wedding?
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh my God. So that’s not upfront money. That’s a disaster. That’s expensing after tax money for no benefit.
Jill DeWit:
For a party. That could have been done for free somewhere else. On a beach as a picnic.
Steven Jack Butala:
Go buy a $30,000 piece of real estate. We were talking about this in the advanced call. Go buy a piece of $30,000 real estate that’s worth 150. Get a keg, a couple of kegs, invite your friends and have a party. And there’s your party.
Jill DeWit:
On the property that you buy.
Steven Jack Butala:
Bring your sleeping bag. That you own.
Jill DeWit:
Then sell the property.
Steven Jack Butala:
And tell me which is more fun, a wedding or that. And if it’s a big enough piece of property and you know your friends well enough, bring some firearms.
Jill DeWit:
So what is it? So can we talk about this for a few? We clearly don’t have this trouble, but I just need to do some recon. I have no trouble writing checks. Definitely for land. Because why? Because I do my due diligence. I make sure it’s a good investment. For education. I still do education stuff.
Steven Jack Butala:
Me too.
Jill DeWit:
I told you I brought you one. I’m not going to do it. But I talked to, I just brought to Jack the other day a Stanford continuing education class that I was considering, and he’s like, I don’t think you’d need it. So I’m like, well, thank you. I appreciate that compliment. It’s not about the money. It wasn’t about the money. It was me going, I asked you, I’m looking at this course. Do you think it would benefit me? And you’re like, I know you. And it wouldn’t, not, how much was it? How long is it? How much time is it going to take from us? None of that. It was only about what it was.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, you know what that it is about that since you brought it up, I don’t want some education. I don’t want you to be educated so that it breaks your style. I want you to continue to manage the people that are under you with that Jill style and continue to do real estate deals. And I’m honestly afraid if you go to-
Jill DeWit:
It was a [inaudible 00:41:54] course.
Steven Jack Butala:
It was Stanford freaking, what was Stanford? And it was long.
Jill DeWit:
It was $20,000.
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t care about the money one bit.
Jill DeWit:
Weeks [inaudible 00:42:02]
Steven Jack Butala:
I want my Jill back after that. I’m afraid that won’t happen.
Jill DeWit:
Thank you. But I thought maybe I could even jush it up and be even be better at it. I’m always reading books about it. I’m reading a book right now about it. I’m always trying to better myself anyway, no matter what. So I tip the scale up. But what’s interesting is, so for me, that must be you’re either worried about the money or you’re worried about, if you’re worried about money on stuff like this, I think you either, A, don’t know yourself.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what I think. You nailed it.
Jill DeWit:
B, didn’t do enough research to make sure this is right. And then C is really kind of A.
Steven Jack Butala:
Look, upfront money. Here’s my whole point to writing this topic. Upfront money can be categorized in two buckets. Number one, you are buying something or putting money down, let’s say on something that you believe at the back end of it is way more valuable than the front end. And so putting a down payment on a new car is, you’ll never win on that.
Jill DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
Just the backend is way worse.
Jill DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
And the number two thing is, it’s what I just described. You’re not going to get anything out of it. So you have to decide what’s worth it and what’s not. It shouldn’t be, I don’t think a very long conversation with yourself. I’m going to go to medical school because I want to be a surgeon, that’s the whole conversation with yourself. Because you know what’s going to happen on the tail end of that.
Jill DeWit:
You’re going to be fine.
Steven Jack Butala:
You’re going to win. You and your family are going to win.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. There wouldn’t be doctors in the world today if they didn’t pay off the student loans, even though it took them eight years or whatever it was.
Steven Jack Butala:
Or even welding school. Trade schools. The greatest value ever is becoming a specialized welder or some version of that. You put the money down or even get a loan, you’re going to come out of that great.
Jill DeWit:
Do you know what’s funny when you think about that? I do see in trade schools and things like that, huge value for a lot of people. I look at, that’s us. Land Academy’s like that. We’re teaching you a nichey specialized thing that you can go off and put food on the table for yourself.
Steven Jack Butala:
Taking a chance on the stock market with a bunch of money upfront.
Jill DeWit:
Oh my gosh.
Steven Jack Butala:
Worst idea ever.
Jill DeWit:
I can’t even imagine that.
Steven Jack Butala:
You should go to the craps table. It’d be faster and easier to convince yourself that’s probably not a good idea unless you went to school for that and you have a brain for that. And you’re one of the very small percentages of people that make $1 billion doing it. I get that.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah, I bet there’s some of that too. It’s just not us.
Steven Jack Butala:
So like everything today, what we’re talking about is just the psychology of it and a personality. And so light bulbs either go off when you’re talking about land or they don’t. And if they don’t, I wouldn’t. I would just look for something else.
Jill DeWit:
It didn’t sing to you. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a look at another one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar. Jill, do you have something inspirational to share with us today?
Jill DeWit:
Okay. I wanted to talk for a few minutes about work-life balance, because you’ve been talking about that with our staff and I’ve been thinking about that since our first Land Academy 2023 ladies group gathering, which I love. It’s so fun. Because you know what’s funny about that? This topic came up, but not as much as I thought it would. So when we got together our first meeting a couple weeks ago and I said, all right, what are you here for? What’s going on? And the top things were community, building wealth, including retiring their husbands, and then a bunch of other little things. But those two things were the big ones. But I was thinking about work-life balance, probably because you brought it up a lot this week within our staff.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’re going through a whole thing with our staff about making sure they’re happy.
Jill DeWit:
I feel like we had the Covid change and now we’re coming back from. I think we’re finding a groove right now within our lives and our company about and going forward, how often are we in the office? What are we working on? How hard are we working? That kind of a thing. So that’s where it all ties in for me. So I was thinking, it made me think about my work-life balance, and I was going to ask you about your work-life balance, and I’m thinking about what’s important to me, you know what my number one thing is?
Steven Jack Butala:
I want to hear this.
Jill DeWit:
That’s important to me.
Steven Jack Butala:
Working naked all day.
Jill DeWit:
That’s important to you. That’s not important to me.
Steven Jack Butala:
I wonder if you can even say that. I’m sure you can.
Jill DeWit:
I’m sure you can. Exactly. So thank you for that. That was good. I appreciate that. Now what’s really important to me is I cruise through every single day whether I’m at work or at not honestly, is having fun. It’s not my bank balance. It’s not stroking my ego or I don’t know, whatever you can think of. It’s like nothing. It’s just having fun. So if I am not in an environment, whether it’s Friday night fun or at my desk and it’s not fun, I’m not happy, it’s not working. And it could just be little things. Just not necessarily working naked, but that might make some people laugh, but I need to have that and I do. Here’s the nice happy result I report back is that I do, we have a great staff. We have a phenomenal community. This community is so supportive and awesome and helpful. So I really do. I’ve been having oodles of phone calls the last couple weeks, people asking about Career Path and I love it. I’m meeting so many people and hearing their stories and just having a good time.
Steven Jack Butala:
Why do you love it?
Jill DeWit:
Because it’s fun. Maybe it is, maybe it’s more to this. I like having fun and I do like helping people.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what I think is going on and that’s why I ask. So work-life balance for me, and we’ll get back to that in a second, Jill, because it’s super important, is a short list of stuff that has to go on all at the same time for me. And I know that’s why you’re in this, because you believe. We teach the thing. You’ve seen the outcome. You’ve seen people that are coming back in our alumni group with massively amazing results.
Jill DeWit:
Totally.
Steven Jack Butala:
And I think that really makes it all worth it to you, even for you, which is different for you, more than the money.
Jill DeWit:
Oh definitely.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think you want to make a difference.
Jill DeWit:
Way more than the money.
Steven Jack Butala:
If I’m putting your words in your mouth, please stop me.
Jill DeWit:
I agree.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think you want to make a difference in people’s lives.
Jill DeWit:
I do.
Steven Jack Butala:
And you look back at all the stuff that you’ve done for a living long before buying and selling land and then Land Academy. That’s what you’ve done.
Jill DeWit:
That’s true. Thank you. And I believe that I do that. Even with our sellers. Why I like talking to sellers and talking to buyers. I’m helping sellers get out of a property they don’t want anymore. They’d rather have the cash. They love that. And then the same thing then when I turn around and sell it to people, I’m helping them buy their dream property. So I am helping them and I want to have fun while I’m doing it. So tell me more about yours.
Steven Jack Butala:
My work-life balance, again is a short list of things that in a perfect world all go on at the same time to accomplish that one big thing, which is what we’re all talking about, which is just satisfaction. And it’s the same thing that goes on in an interpersonal relationship like Jill and I have, or a relationship with our children. It’s the exact same thing. It’s a balance of a few things. It’s a recipe of a few things that need to go together. For me, and I’m not apologizing for this at all, is money at the top. I’m not going to do something just for money, but if I’m going to do something, there better be a lot of money involved.
Or I’m not going to do it. I will move on and do something else. Number one. Number two, what I’m doing to achieve that initial goal needs to be not very risky. That’s why we dog on the stock market all the time, and we dog on real estate agents on this show all the time because I think both of those things have a very high failure rate. And so buying and selling land for us just makes sense and I don’t see any real risk in it.
Jill DeWit:
I agree.
Steven Jack Butala:
And we’ve proven that over and over again. So we’ve got money. Low to zero risk. I do want to have fun. That’s in the mix, but I learned since we started Land Academy, really it’s very important for me to pass on the knowledge, and I don’t want to sound altruistic here at all. It’s not altruism, but I do need to give back to some community, this community that we created. And I love, this is what I love about Career Path. I really love watching people take this farther than Jill and I have ever taken it and making it work for themselves, and especially in Career Path and in the alumni, the stuff that goes on after that, hearing people take their family on vacation and they don’t have to work hard and their wife doesn’t work anymore, and they’ve had a lot of success with it.
Jill DeWit:
They’ve quit their jobs.
Steven Jack Butala:
So that’s something that I never knew was even possible in a career. I didn’t know that there was an unintended consequence for starting Land Academy.
Jill DeWit:
That’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
And so that’s why, and I’m not selling anything, I’ve decided to keep it moving forward with manplan.com. I think that there’s a lot of resources for young men or just men in general that are going undiscussed in this world that we live in now. And it’s not an advertisement. I don’t want to go on about that, but work-life balance to me is all those things. And I’m starting to get it and haven’t in the past. I’m starting to feel great about being a leader with a lot of our employees. Jill and I are taking a much more active role in the day-to-day leadership of our… Jill’s always done it with the land people, but the people in Land Academy, the guys that work there. We’re starting to have a bunch of fun and it’s really rewarding. Reward is the word. I need to be rewarded.
Jill DeWit:
That’s good.
Steven Jack Butala:
So I’m financially rewarded. There’s no real risk. I’m people rewarded. And watching people grow is it’s very-
Jill DeWit:
You know what I was going to add too about, for me, work-life balance? If you enjoy what you’re doing, like you’re talking about for you and I, then it doesn’t feel like work. So I don’t leave my desk, close my office door, and then not think about Land Academy, not think about land, not think about real estate. I don’t just flip a switch. It’s always going constantly.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill and I-
Jill DeWit:
Because I love it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill and I have an amazing luxury at this point at our age, and at this point in our careers, and I wish this for everyone in every job or if you’re an owner of a company, there’s stuff you just hate to do and there’s stuff you love to do. We have the luxury of hiring people under us to do the stuff that we don’t want to do. I don’t post produce video anymore. That’s a huge luxury. We have a person who handles HR in all those types of in office space and general office management. So that’s a massive luxury. I can just focus on doing the show and starting man plan and instructing Career Path.
Jill DeWit:
And Career Path.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yep.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly. Good talk. Jack, do you have something informational to share with us, please?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yes. It directly relates to Jill’s topic. I have, like I said last week, I’m 56 years old and I’m starting to financially plan for retirement. And execute the plan that I’ve had for a long time for retirement, but I keep researching all this new stuff that’s out. And what keeps coming back to me is what matters during retirement. They never bring up money. I read a whole article that Warren Buffet wrote.
Jill DeWit:
Interesting.
Steven Jack Butala:
It was a very lengthy article about, and you know what he kept saying throughout? I want to hang out with my friends. My topic here is personality and lifelong friendships. And so you need to be some version of friends with the people in your life, including your employees. And I’m not saying great friends, because that’s a super bad idea, but you need to identify with them from where they’re coming, which is why I launched this whole thing. You need to find out from where they’re coming. You need to meet them there within reason. These are all results of all this research that I’m doing.
Jill DeWit:
I’m glad. I love it.
Steven Jack Butala:
And they’ll stay with you forever. They’ll perform with you forever. They’ll feel rewarded. And so it’s not more, it’s less about my work-life balance for me at this age. And it’s more about people in Land Academy, certainly Jill, which she takes responsibility for. So I’m lucky there. And the people that work with us, I want them to feel good. And as far as personality goes, I can’t say this enough because again, I keep coming. This keeps smacking me in the face with all this research. You have to hang out socially with people that have the same type of personality that you do and that have the same kind of values that you do.
Jill DeWit:
That’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
And so this whole today has been really about personality.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah, it’s true. That’s really good. Makes me think of your dad and his golfing buddies. He’s done a good job aligning himself with the people that are just like him. And everybody has a good time.
Steven Jack Butala:
Join us next week, next Wednesday actually for another interesting episode, because you are not alone in your real estate ambition. We are Jack and Jill.
Jill DeWit:
We are Jack and Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
Information.
Jill DeWit:
And inspiration.
Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
Jill DeWit:
It’s nice I can talk today.
https://youtu.be/OjqD8ZFy74g
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Welcome to the Land Academy Show with Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit. In episode number 1,945, the hosts dive into the topic of recovering house flippers and why they’re a great fit for the career path program taught by Jill and Steven. Later on, they share some amazing stories from Land Academy members, highlighting their success and achievements. Unfortunately, Jill is suffering from laryngitis due to her extensive phone conversations, but that doesn’t stop the duo from answering questions from their Land Academy Discord forum and reviewing land acquisitions from their weekly Thursday member webinar. Join in on the conversation and check out their Discord channel for a sneak peek at landacademy.com. Don’t miss out on this episode of the Land Academy Show.
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit, and this is the Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is episode number 1,949 and today we are talking in depth about recovering house flippers and how they’re perfect for the career path program that Jill and I teach. And later on we’ll talk about the countless stories of Land Academy members. It’s pretty amazing how many Land Academy members we have and have had over the years, and it’s amazing to share their stories. We don’t do it often enough.
Jill K DeWit:
I think that’s great. I’m really glad. I may or may not sound like myself, but if you see me, I should look like myself.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill has-
Jill K DeWit:
No, I didn’t take up cigars this week.
Steven Jack Butala:
Poor Jill has laryngitis from selling too much.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, I’m not selling, I’m talking on the phone. Oh, you mean property selling?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, okay. Not Land Academy, but talking on the phone a lot, which has been really great.
Steven Jack Butala:
It just crushes my soul to see you like this. I don’t like to see you in pain.
Jill K DeWit:
Aw, I’m not in pain. I just sound like crap.
Steven Jack Butala:
Okay. I’ll carry you.
Jill K DeWit:
Thanks.
Steven Jack Butala:
And I hope you’re also enjoying this new format that we’ve created. Each week we answer questions from our Land Academy Discord forum and review land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar. And we also take a deep dive into two land related topics that are usually by popular request, I just mentioned them a couple minutes ago. Jill, let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. If you want to sneak peek of our Discord channel, please go to landacademy.com. It’s free.
Jill K DeWit:
Marilyn wrote, “Hello. Hope someone can help me with this. We sold a property over two years ago on a land contract and the buyers have paid 34 out of 60 payments. They want to sell the property to the neighbor. The neighbor wants to run title and go through escrow at their cost. Would this be a concurrent close? Do we write up a new sale agreement between original buyer and us that outlines the purchase amount, the amount received, and the balance, and then she writes up a sale agreement between herself and the new buyer?” What a flipping mess.
Steven Jack Butala:
No, I think this is a great opportunity.
Jill K DeWit:
I mean it’s great, but it’s just messy. It’s one of the things I don’t like-
Steven Jack Butala:
No, it’s easy.
Jill K DeWit:
But go ahead.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s easy. So this comes down to really simple arithmetic. You’ve got 34 payments paid out of a 60 unit loan, 60 month loan, which is a five-year loan. They’ve got three years, almost three years paid. That’s good. They have, so what? They are going to have some loan balance. So it’s just exactly like you own a house. This happens many, many, many times a day. You own a house, you have some payments left on it, so there’s a lien, you have a lien on this property. You don’t own it, but you have a lien and you’ve been making payments for 15 years, let’s say, and you want to sell the house and it’s worth a lot more. This is only way it works is these people are about to sell, your customers, your buyers are about to sell it for more than what they owe. That’s the way this works. And so good for them. You’re about to get 60 months’ worth of payments hopefully on a property that your basis is way low on, and they’re about to make some money and the neighbor’s going to pay.
So my first step would be to talk to the escrow agent and explain the situation. I don’t think you should be doing any purchase agreements or any of that stuff. The first discussion is with the escrow agent and how to manage it. A good escrow agent, one that’s been in business for more than five years, they’ll be so used to this and make it real easy for you.
Jill K DeWit:
I wouldn’t confuse the escrow agent too with all the details like, “Here’s my contract, here’s the Fresh Books account, here’s this.” Don’t confuse them with any of that. I would just say, “They’re in the process of buying from me. This is the balance due.” Leave it at that. And then they can go, “Okay, let’s just work up agreement. I just need something in writing showing that we’re going to pay you this much out of escrow on the close so that you’re made whole.” Great. Done.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s it. The way that this is written and how a lot of people responded to you in Discord, Marilyn, it’s not a negative thing. You’re about to get paid out fully on a loan with, I’m sure that was, again I’m sure this is a good financial situation for you. If it’s not, do all the math on it. Please, before you do anything, do all the math on it and make sure it’s like, “Wow, we’re going to get a big check at the end of this thing,” and then let escrow do what it’s supposed to do, which is make your life easy. And even if, a lot of times escrow will say, “Hey, do you want me to do the contracts for you?” Geez, for $100 or $200, heck yes, the answer is-
Jill K DeWit:
I think it’s usually included. They usually don’t charge more for that. That’s part of what they do, which is awesome.
Steven Jack Butala:
Good news. Today’s first topic is recovering house flippers and how they’re perfect for career fat.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m getting ready. So-
Steven Jack Butala:
Poor Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
I know, bear with me.
Steven Jack Butala:
You’re a trooper.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you. So I’ve had several conversations the last couple weeks as we’re getting ready to start Career Path number six, which starts April 12th. I’m really excited for it. It just keeps getting better and better and better. And it’s funny because, like Land Academy, the conversations have changed. I don’t have to really explain Career Path anymore because word’s getting out and people are sharing their story like, “This is what I went from, this is what I went to,” as a result of Career Path. But it’s interesting, people that find us, and I had a great conversation that day with a, I love to say recovering house flipper, he’s still in it and he’s like, “I’m trying to get out of it.” And I said, “I get it. Been there, done that.”
And I was telling him how wonderful it is because he’s going from, like I said, we’ve done these very hard product type where you can’t leave town, by the way, there’s always things that go wrong. There’s just so much involved with it and you’re sweating it. You’re sweating. When you’re doing a house renovation, you’re really sweating it until it closes and it’s sold because most of the time you don’t have the cash to put down. So you’ve taken out a loan on the property and while you’re renovating, you borrow the money for that probably, this whole thing until it’s done and closes, a lot can go wrong. And so I was telling this person, “You’re going to love this,” because the way we do things and how we do them, nobody’s sweating anything. There’s no financing involved. And if you even don’t have the money to put down on a property, it’s really not a finance, you just bring in a partner who’s a money guy. So now you together own the property. It’s the greatest thing ever.
Nobody’s hitting you up for payments. You’re not worried about what if it takes an extra month? What’s that going to cost me? Kind of thing. And so it’s a really logical step to go from that to Land Academy to Career Path. And I’m finding a lot, and I think just because of the environment right now and the competition has been happening in housing and all the construction woes that we know about and hear about and hard to find this person and hard to keep that person kind of thing, there’s a lot of people that are looking around going, “All right, I’m in real estate. I know it, I love it, I’m really familiar with it, but there’s got to be something else out there.” And they’re finding us and they’re finding land and this is just a perfect transition.
Steven Jack Butala:
So I look at this topic like I look at everything from a data perspective and how many unknown variables are there when you buy a house? How many unknown variables, there’s a lot. How many unknown variables are there when you buy a piece of land? Well, very little because most or 95% of the due diligence that you can do to see whether or not you’re going to buy a piece of property is from your desk, even if it’s in a different state or across the country or whatever. And if you’re a stickler about this, and we’re not anymore, that last 5% of due diligence can be completed by sending somebody out there or you yourself, if you work in an area where you live, you can go out, and especially if you’re brand new, I would encourage you to do that-
Jill K DeWit:
Are you talking land losses? I’m sorry.
Steven Jack Butala:
No, I’m just saying land, people are defecting from buying and selling houses because there’s so many unknown variables. With land, again, there’s 95%… Laryngitis over here wasn’t listening, so-
Jill K DeWit:
I know, because my head’s foggy too. I get an A+ for showing up, man.
Steven Jack Butala:
You look good though. You’re all right.
Jill K DeWit:
Thanks.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s no variables in buying and selling land once you really look at it. And I don’t mean none, I mean very, very, very few. Geez, I can’t count the number of times, we only renovated maybe a handful of houses and there’s always these unknowns. It was always way more expensive to get it done than we thought.
Jill K DeWit:
I have one sentence that I say to every house flipper and they go, “Oh yeah, that’s right.” Every house flipper will agree this one thing; I’ve never worked so hard for $30,000 in my life.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yes. Yes.
Jill K DeWit:
They’re like, “Oh yeah. That’s it.” I’m like, think about that for a minute, because I did that for a while. We did a couple of them, several I should say-
Steven Jack Butala:
That was my second point.
Jill K DeWit:
Go ahead. Sorry.
Steven Jack Butala:
No, you just made my second point perfectly. It’s a great example. How much money do you want to make or not make and how much effort do you want to put in or not put in? Again, it’s relational and it’s data driven and there’s not a lot of emotion in it. I personally can’t stand interior decorating and any of that. I really, it’s just not my thing, but I love money and data. Money and data are what buying and selling land is all about and it’s pretty simple once you get the hang of it.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, it’s so funny. So we talk about that, just think about this for a second. You’re a house flipper. You’re here going, all right, you got my attention. What do I need to know? Think about if you really do everything right and great job, you’re lucky if you’re cash in, cash out in 90 days, that’s shocking.
Steven Jack Butala:
And if you make 40 grand, that’s actually-
Jill K DeWit:
If you do renovations.
Steven Jack Butala:
… not so bad.
Jill K DeWit:
You’re doing some stuff there. So I’m like, what I could do in 90 days, heck, what I could do in 30 days. I could sit back and coast and not even try that hard and do two deals a month and easily make $40,000, $50,000 a month. That’s no brainer. To make $25,000 on a deal, for us, it’s easy.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s water.
Jill K DeWit:
So think about that, so in three months I made 150, so you have to go, “Huh, let me think about this now.” That’s the reality and I don’t know why, here’s the question, there’s still a misconception I think that many individuals think you have to do something to a property, even vacant land to make it worth more. And we haven’t talked about that in a while. I think it’d be good to bring it up again. When people come to us and go, “Well, what do you do to it? You put in a road? You put in a well? Do you do this? Do you do that?” I’m like, “No, no, no, and no, I do nothing.” Why? Because we buy it right.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. I think that exactly, you’re exactly right. But think about it like this. Let’s really do an apples to apples comparison with buying and selling land the way we do it and buying and selling houses. So number one, and this is kind of the House Academy model, there is such a thing called House Academy. We buy property that’s off market period. The vast majority of house flippers buy a piece of property and a buy house that’s on the MLS, they didn’t get there first, and then they’re creating value, creating equity through the improvements that they’re doing. Everybody understands that. There’s a whole channel on television, HGTV that focuses on that. They lie off their butt about the numbers deal after deal after deal, I’m sure of it, but it’s focusing on the renovations. It’s not focusing on the money.
I would argue this, if you sent out a mailer, and we’ve done this many, many times, and we’re bringing back House Academy this year, if you sent out a mailer to property owners and bought a couple of houses just because it’s off market because there’s no real estate fees, there’s no fees to get the deal done except title, and maybe an inspection of a few other things that are pretty incidental on a $300,000 house, smashed a sign in the ground and said, “Hey, this is for sale.” You might make some pretty good money and forget about renovating it, in fact you will make a bunch of good money because-
Jill K DeWit:
That’s what we do.
Steven Jack Butala:
… that’s what we do in a House Academy. The problem is that you’re on the buy side. These people who renovate houses and flip them are out paying all kinds of fees that are associated with it on the front. So it’s not an apples to apples comparison. Again, if you buy a property for $20,000 to $30,000 to $40,000 under market from the owner without any involvement of a real estate agent or anything, slap a sign in the front of it, sell it as is where is, “Hey, we just bought it,” mark it up $20,000, $30,000, theoretically there’s no real estate fees on that side too, because there might be a buy side real estate agent possibly. You’re going to do okay. The problem with these renovations is they get feed to death. You get real estate agents on both sides of the deal-
Jill K DeWit:
And time. And time. Time kills it.
Steven Jack Butala:
And if you have ever taken a sledgehammer to a wall to knock it down, what you find behind that wall is staggering. It could be mold, it could be asbestos. There’s so many variables that go into renovating a house. It’s not fun. I don’t like variables. I would like to know that I’m going to make some money on a deal. And that’s what land is.
Jill K DeWit:
You know what the thing about it is with us? And I mean this as a compliment.
Steven Jack Butala:
Uh-oh. “I mean this as a compliment, but it’s over, Steve.”
Jill K DeWit:
Instead of using the L word, I’m just going to say, Steven doesn’t want to work that hard, and I understand that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, that’s absolutely right. You can say lazy.
Jill K DeWit:
I won’t say lazy.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m actually not lazy, but-
Jill K DeWit:
No, you’re not.
Steven Jack Butala:
… it’s just a matter of efficiency is what it is.
Jill K DeWit:
It is.
Steven Jack Butala:
I would rather do-
Jill K DeWit:
Why would I do that when I can do this? Why would I do this when I could sit at my desk?
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill’s really right.
Jill K DeWit:
Or I could sit on the boat, I can sit with the RV, I can be lakeside with my laptop, with my fishing pole in the water next to me, and that’s what we do.
Steven Jack Butala:
But there’s a fantastic way to buy and sell houses that’s not a bad investment or a real estate opportunity. Renovating a house is the problem. That’s the real problem. Because unless you’re just an amazing handyman and you do all the work yourself to save a bunch of money, and then you’ve got to factor in all that anyway, those are variables too. How much is your time really worth? Should you be swinging a hammer or buying another piece of land? I would argue the latter.
Jill K DeWit:
I was going to think of other good things that are perfect fits for Career Path. Okay, let’s do this. Lot of people are recovering real estate agents, brokers, great for Career Path. They have been in it, seen it, watched it, been on the other end and said, “This is stupid. I’m helping this investor make all this money. It should be my money.” And you’re right. So we have a lot of that in Career Path. Let’s see, who else is a good fit? Business owners.
Steven Jack Butala:
Former or current business owners make up every Career Path class, there’s at least half are former business owners or current business owners, and not because-
Jill K DeWit:
It could be very different types of companies too.
Steven Jack Butala:
And not because they’re disgruntled in any way, they just want to, they’ve either figured out the business that they’re in and it’s going great and they want to start another one.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. They come to us, go like, “All right, I have this company. It’s running great. I have a great team. We only make this much per deal. I know I could make this much per deal if I do this stuff with you guys.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh geez, we’ve had, looking back on Land Academy members, we had one member, a couple that lived out in the sticks, they’re horticulturists, so they grow plants, like unusual plants, and then they have a website so you can buy strange plants and they love land and needed more land and they went on to be really successful too.
Jill K DeWit:
Most do.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s all kinds of examples of… There’s only so many examples that get to Jill and I. There’s a lot of people that lurk in the back of the classroom that listen and learn and go off and do amazing things and we don’t know about it.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a look at one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m going to let you do this commercial, please.
Steven Jack Butala:
Many people don’t know that Jill and I have a full-blown commercial printing company that we created about four or five years ago out of our frustration being misunderstood by other commercial printing companies about how we mail merge data and we send offers to owners. That’s the name of it, Offers to Owners, it grows mightily. Sales month over month, it grows very, very well. So if you’re looking to, whether you’re in the group or not, in the Land Academy group or not, get a mailer out super efficiently, we have multiple products depending on where you’re coming from to doing a mailer. We have a lot of products.
If you want to be completely hands off, we’ll completely do the mailer for you, with the exception of pricing at the end, which you can’t do for a bunch of reasons. Or if you’re a seasoned professional and maybe you’re sending out neutral letters and you’re not getting the response you want or postcards, we can very, very quickly help you there. Again, whether you are a member or not, so check out offerstoowners.com. It’s one of the tools that we developed for ourselves that when we made it available to the public and to our members, it turned out really well.
Jill K DeWit:
I have something funny to say. When you brought up misunderstood, all I could think about is poor Jack, misunderstood, and it made me think of the book Hello God, It’s Me, Margaret.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s for 13 year old teenage boys.
Jill K DeWit:
I know. It might be for you right now. I might get you that book. Hello God, it’s me, Jack.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s a show.
Jill K DeWit:
Is it? There we go. Jack feels misunderstood.
Steven Jack Butala:
The older I get, the more misunderstood I am.
Jill K DeWit:
Yes. That is very true.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take another question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord channel. It’s in our online community. Again, if you’d like a sneak peek at our Discord channel, please go to landacademy.com. It’s free.
Jill K DeWit:
Andre wrote, “I have a few calls coming in for my first mailer. Mostly people unwilling to have a conversation.” That’s hilarious. “They’re taking time out of their day to say they don’t want to sell, which doesn’t make much sense. I’d imagine if they’re calling, there would be some strategies to get them to open up.” Yep. “Any tips on converting them into potential sales. I’m completely new to this part and I need help navigating cantankerous sellers.”
Steven Jack Butala:
So before you answer this, there’s multiple people that piped in on Discord, Jill, and said, “Jill talks about this in Land Academy 1.0 and 2.0 and 3.0.” And it has all kinds of comments all throughout the almost 2000 podcasts that we have. So, she’s going to say it again right now, I guess.
Jill K DeWit:
Yep. So I agree with you, Andre. If they really didn’t care, it would be in their shred pile right now. But if they’re calling me, it’s usually there could be something there. I think they’re calling me for a reason. And yeah, you do have to get them talking. And the easiest, fastest way is to sort of, not really, but a sideways acknowledge, what’s going on? Is it the price? Try to get them talking. Maybe there’s something I missed. Please tell me what’s going on. So let me give you a little example. The mail goes out, this person opens it up, and I know you know what I’m talking about. You can tell they’re walking on their cell phone and they haven’t even got from their mailbox to their door and they’re already calling you because they’re ripping through their mail right there, and they stop to do this.
And they’re like, “Who the hell do you think you are offering me $19,443 and 44 cents. A, where’d you get that? And B, are you nuts?” And then that’s your opportunity to go, “Well, hold on, did I make a mistake?” And now you caught them off guard like, “Well, yeah, you did. What am I missing?” And let them tell you. Now you’ve got that conversation. So just something like that to, not saying, “I goofed, whatever.” Because you don’t want to agree that it’s worth three times as much, because in the very bitter end, your pricing was probably pretty good and you might end on that price, but right now they’re just initially mad. So you just got to get them talking.
And then, now you’ve opened that door. Sometimes, like I said, your price is going to be that end price, after they get it off their chest, you guys talk a little bit, and you start asking follow-up questions. “When was the last time you were there?” “I’ve never even seen it.” “Okay, well, let me tell you what’s going on out there. And it’s called nothing,” kind of thing. No, seriously. They’re like, “Yeah.” When you get them going, they go, “Yeah, I kind of wondered. My dad said this, but I wasn’t really sure.” You’re like, “Yeah, I can send you some screenshots if you want, and kind of show you what I’m looking at so you can get an idea of where it is in relationship to all these other things.” And this is why this money, this makes sense to me. Now you’ve got that going.
So that’s one outcome that could happen. Another outcome that could happen, there’s usually three. The next outcome that could happen is you missed something. They go, “No, wait a minute, Andre, I’m digging my heels in because I, seller, know that Amazon is down the street and this happened and the college is almost done and all these six things.” You’re like, “You know what? I did not know that. So now what all you got? Give me some more information. I’m going to go do some work on it and I’ll get back to you. By the way, what is your price?” I want you, no matter what, on all these conversations, I don’t want you to ever hang up the phone going, “Well, I’ll come back to you with another price.” Please don’t ever do that.
You already made an offer. Now it’s their turn. And their turn is to make an offer back to you. Like, “You said, $19,527. I want nothing less than 25,000, period.” “All right, I’ve got the information, I’ve got your number. Give me 24 hours. Can I reach you here? What’s the best time? What’s the best number? Let me get back to you.” Now you go see if that works. You can do all your due diligence, all the stuff that we taught you to do.
And then the third outcome is you will get people now and then that are like, they’re mad about it, they just want to vent and they really don’t want to sell because their dog’s there, their dad’s buried there, their husband’s buried there, fill in the blank. They’re all buried there. No one’s selling this land ever. You’re like, all right. And those, you just kind of, you’re not going to exhume these people and move them. So that’s when you just say, “Got it, I understand. I wish you all the best. Thank you very much. I’ll take you off my list.” Whatever they want to hear and let that go.
Steven Jack Butala:
Sales is partially solving problems for people.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
And it’s not just solving problems. On top of it, they need to be entertained and charmed, and those might be strong words, but without doing it in a slimy manner, they really do. Think of a person who walks into a dealership and the sales guy walks up and the first thing you say is, “I’m not here to buy a car.” Well, in the back of his head, and he’s probably been trained this way, is, “Well then why did you walk into a dealership?”
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. Why are you standing here?
Steven Jack Butala:
Let me help you wipe the drool off of the side of your face there when you’re looking at this car. So you’re there for a reason. You may not even know. So I really think that’s what this question is about. They don’t know their sellers, but in the very back of their head, and it’s probably subconscious, they are sellers. And it might be a matter of price. It might be a matter of what their husband says or there’s all kinds of things, but they’re calling you, they’re walking into that dealership for a reason. They don’t know that they want a new car or need a new car. They probably do if they need one. And they don’t know if they can afford it and they don’t know, nobody’s talking about price, but your job is to identify what’s really going on in the nicest way, in an endearing, heartfelt, I just read an article about sales, I don’t know why it hit my radar.
Jill K DeWit:
Cool.
Steven Jack Butala:
You know all this stuff, Jill, but a lot of this is still new to me. Somebody did a huge survey about listening and talking. And the sales-
Jill K DeWit:
80/20 rule?
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, it was closer to like 60/40, but the best salespeople in the world listen 60%-
Jill K DeWit:
Or more.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. And they’ll tell you, if they like you. That’s the whole thing. If they like you, if you’re like, “Well, then why did you call me back?” That’s going to go nowhere. But Jill’s right, if they’re still listening on the phone and you’re asking them a couple of questions, not like, “What’s it going to take to get you into a car today?” Because that’s all 1975, that’s not what I mean, but hey, we buy and sell land all the time-
Jill K DeWit:
It’s what we do.
Steven Jack Butala:
We make the process super easy. And are you interested in selling it all? Is there some price that would work or is it price at all? Or like Jill said, are you going to die there? So you have to get them talking about, they will reveal.
Jill K DeWit:
They do.
Steven Jack Butala:
We talk about this kind of stuff in Career Path all the time and I have to tell you that during this part of Career Path, which I think is week six-ish, all the women take over in the group. We usually have 50% women-ish and 50% men-
Jill K DeWit:
Why do you say that? Because I can tell you examples of not women-
Steven Jack Butala:
No, I just think-
Jill K DeWit:
… that are very good talkers.
Steven Jack Butala:
… I think it’s very positive that women take over because this is the part that is my, it’s not always like this, but I believe women-
Jill K DeWit:
Welcome to Land Academy ladies, now you know why we have this group. Just kidding.
Steven Jack Butala:
Women, over and over and over again, say in our group, “Oh yeah, my husband tried to answer the phone and he sucks at it. And when I answer the phone, we do a deal. And when he answers the phone, no, not so much.”
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
So there’s a people part of this that-
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t think it’s gender specific, I think it’s person specific. You can be-
Steven Jack Butala:
I think in general it’s person specific, but for some reason women really pipe up, not during the mailer part, not during the data pricing part, but really get involved-
Jill K DeWit:
Well you know why? I’ll tell you why. We will have more conversations for one reason and one reason only, it’s hard to scream at me. It’s easy to scream at a guy. It’s hard to scream at a really nice woman answering the phone.
Steven Jack Butala:
I noticed that.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. You don’t have a problem, but other people do. Just kidding.
Steven Jack Butala:
No. I’ve noticed that.
Jill K DeWit:
So yeah. But that’s a lot of it. We soften it. And I can be, you know what? I can be a not nice person, but just the fact that I’m a woman and I answer the phone and I’m sweet. If I was a gruff, mean lady, and like, “Next,” Betty, you know? I don’t know, I don’t want to pick on Betty, but I don’t know. But anyway-
Steven Jack Butala:
I handpicked this question and I think it’s crazy important.
Jill K DeWit:
It is.
Steven Jack Butala:
Because this is the difference between, and every once in a while, people come to us and they say whatever environment it’s in, whether it’s the Thursday caller or the accountability groups, “I sent out 5,000 units and nothing happened.” So what happened in that mailer, I can tell you, is one of two things. It was either grossly underpriced, and I mean you offered $35 or $500 for a property-
Jill K DeWit:
I still get a call.
Steven Jack Butala:
… that’s worth $30,000. Or what’s really happening is a version of what this question is all about, where you’re not finessing, there’s people that call back or maybe you have 25 or 30 or 45 numbers that are hangups on your caller ID.
Jill K DeWit:
Because you didn’t answer the phone.
Steven Jack Butala:
Because you didn’t answer or because maybe they hung up on your answering service, but you have their number. You have their caller ID number, call those people back and say, “Hey, I think I sent you a mailer. I’m pretty sure you want to sell your land.” Now they’re all calmed down, and even if they’re angry and say, they called you for a reason. Small percentage of people that call you back with the massive amount of hate really have the hate. [inaudible 00:29:40], you just got to find out.
Today’s second topic is the countless stories of Land Academy members. Jill and I were talking in the kitchen a couple days ago, for whatever reason we were talking about former members and, “Oh, remember that guy that did this?” So I figured it would just be a good topic.
Jill K DeWit:
I was thinking of it, what made me think of it was in times like this, when we’re having all these bank issues and finance issues and people are worried about mortgage rates and things like that and jobs. Even though unemployment’s down, we still know people that have been laid off and are looking for jobs, and now they’re having trouble finding jobs. So it’s like, I can think of so many people that have been in these situations, and it happened after, they got into our world, got into the Land Academy world, but never really dove in. And then the next thing you know, laid off or something happened and some event, and they’re like, “Oh my goodness. I am so grateful that I had this.”
And then they dove into Land Academy, and then it’s so great because when the opportunity to get their job back or make a change or something presented itself down the road, somebody even said, “Eh, I’m out. Now I know how to make my own money. Now I know how to have my own company, have my own life, my own time, my own fill in the blank, I am not going back into that rat race.” And I love it.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s a certain number of people that for-
Jill K DeWit:
like us.
Steven Jack Butala:
… for whatever reason, when they hear about this or research it or look into it, the light bulb goes off over their head. And it’s not entirely predictable, but there are some pretty serious consistencies. We have a guy in our group, I’m going to call the first letter of his first name is I. He was in a Career Path gathering or Career Path, he was in one of the Career Paths.
Jill K DeWit:
Uh-huh, Career Path session.
Steven Jack Butala:
Session, thank you. And he immediately said, “Yeah, I made 6 million bucks last year and I’m a former mechanical engineer. I stopped working three years ago when I started doing mailers or some version of that and I’m here because I want to make more.” And so that’s one extreme.
We have somebody that’s been with us right from the beginning, her first initial is B, and she, if you go out on Land Watch, she’s got 200 or 300 properties posted at any given time. And her husband recently, not so recently, probably a year, two years ago, she retired her husband, which is what she said from the beginning she wanted to do. Because they didn’t want to work anymore, along the lines of what Jill said.
Jill K DeWit:
They have kids.
Steven Jack Butala:
Our moderator on Discord, first initial K, is retired and he has been to both of his live events and he said, “I love buying and selling land and I love helping you guys do it.” And he will be a presenter at our live event in October, I’m sure of it, although I haven’t asked him yet, oh yeah, I actually have and he said yes. And he said to me in so many words, “It’s either I do this during my retirement or I sit at the bar.”
Jill K DeWit:
That sounds like you.
Steven Jack Butala:
We have another example. I’m blowing through these. Our ambassadors, Carl and Sam, she just quit her job-
Jill K DeWit:
During Career Path.
Steven Jack Butala:
… her powerhouse job as an accountant and another example-
Jill K DeWit:
Like a major analyst for a big deal company.
Steven Jack Butala:
So yeah, exactly, oil and gas, I think. And her husband has had his own, these are kids in their 20s, maybe-
Jill K DeWit:
30s.
Steven Jack Butala:
… 30s. Has a full-blown construction company with contracts with home builders and private equity home buyers for maintenance and all that. And they see this made sense to them. And they’ve had so much success with that so quickly that now they’re Land Academy ambassadors. So, that’s another example.
Another person from Utah, first initial B, he’s on our talks sometimes, on our Thursday call. And he is bent on not working hard, he’s got-
Jill K DeWit:
For a long time.
Steven Jack Butala:
… tiny little kids. He’s their coach and he only does 10, 15 deals a year, but he makes them count. I can keep going on and on. There’s a whole slew of people that are frustrated as hell with the software development industry. For some reason, what we do makes a lot of sense to them. And I think honestly, they’re extremely intelligent people.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, I think they’re extremely intelligent people, and I really think that they look at this, they look at buying and selling land, and they look at what they’re actually doing for a living, and it’s so much easier. What we do is so much easier.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
And then I think that in the back of their head they look at our process and they say, “Well, I know I can write software to really improve this, really improve where we send mail, really improve the response rates and all of that.” And they do and they come to us, a lot of those people are in Career Path too, they come to us and say, “Well, it only made sense to me because I wrote some script and ran it based on sales comparables and fill in the blank to send property to central Mississippi, let’s say, versus rural Virginia.” I’m just throwing those two places out, please don’t send mail there, or send mail there. I don’t know. I’m just throwing them out.
Jill K DeWit:
Run the numbers.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. Run the numbers-
Jill K DeWit:
Don’t just listen. Don’t just do this.
Steven Jack Butala:
So for some reason that goes on, but I’ve got story after story after story. We’ve been doing this now for, what is this?
Jill K DeWit:
Oh my gosh. Land or the podcast or Land Academy?
Steven Jack Butala:
Eight or nine years. Land Academy itself.
Jill K DeWit:
Land Academy, 2015.
Steven Jack Butala:
Eight or nine years. And we’re getting to know some people that have had an amazing amount of success with this. So I thought I would share their stories.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m just thinking about that. I’m actually looking for, in two years, we’ll have 10 years of Land Academy. Holy holy. That’s awesome.
Steven Jack Butala:
And that’s a lot of success stories.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, totally.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a look at another one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday webinar.
Jill, you have something inspirational to share?
Jill K DeWit:
Yes. I was going to talk about this today. I want to talk about burnout because I want to make sure that you are aware of it, watch for it, and don’t let it happen. So I was thinking about this because for three things. It just keeps coming up on my mind right now. One of them is, I’m reading this book. So the book that I’m like, I’m going to finish it this weekend, gosh darn it, because now it’s getting really good. It’s the whole story of the Tupperware woman, Brownie Wise, and her and Earl Tupper, how they got together, how she started Tupperware home parties. He was in the northeast of the country, being the manufacturer and coming up with the new products. She’s running everything out of Florida, but they have, of course, it was a nationwide thing all in the 50s. It was amazing. And the numbers that they did, they put in their numbers in this book. It’s really cool-
Steven Jack Butala:
What are the numbers?
Jill K DeWit:
… how many million they made. They would do a $10 million a year in Tupperware in the 50s.
Steven Jack Butala:
Sure. That’s $100 million.
Jill K DeWit:
50s, $110 million. I know. Just staggering. She bought an island in Florida, not kidding. So there’s a funny story in there that she had one of their, they used to call them their Tupperware Jubilees, and she’d bring in all the top distributors, have a big luau, big party. She put them on the island one time, as the storm was rolling through, and then they had to vacate the island, and some people got in the water and got hurt. These boats were running into each other, this horrible thing, and he was-
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s a good story.
Jill K DeWit:
Earl Tupper was so mad about this party went wrong, this luau gone wrong. So anyway, everybody’s okay, but it was just kind of funny. But in the book right now, she’s building and building and building and they’re seeing burnout coming. Her team around her is noticing she’s getting worn down. And I hear this when I get people coming to us with… So I’m reading the story, I can’t wait to see how it goes. I know how it’s going to end, but I’m reading how it unfolds. But it made me think too about people that I’ve talked to in the last several weeks that are right at that point in burnout. And I’ll tell you what they’re doing that’s causing the burnout, it’s too many terms properties. It’s too many seller financing.
I have talked to several people in the last couple weeks because of Career Path, they’re like, “There’s got to be another way. I’m working…” They are working so flipping hard to manage 80 to 100 terms payments so they can have X amount coming in a month. And every time I say, “Is it passive income?” They go, “Ha ha, funny.” I said, “Right? That’s the problem.” They’re like, “I’m about to burn out on this. I’ve got to do something.” And I was talking to a gal the other day. I’m like, “You should be unloading this stuff.” She’s like, “You better believe I am. I’ve got five right now.” I said, “I would start calling these people. You got two choices. Call these people, say here’s what you have left, what can you afford? Let’s get this done,” kind of thing. Or you could sell them in tranches to somebody else. Let somebody else have them. Get them off your books and just get out of it. They’re like, “Oh gosh. Yes.”
And so with us, I don’t know why it doesn’t seem to happen to us because we… I’m sure it is. You know what? I’m sure there’s people in Land Academy that are also facing burnout because they keep buying for 1,000, selling for 3,000, buying for 1,000, selling for 3,000. And then instead of buying for 10,000, selling for 30,000, they just do 10 more or 20 or 30. That is going to be burnout, and you’ve got to be thinking about that. And you’ve got to be aware of this.
And I want you to know, you don’t need to be doing that. You’ve got the hang of it. If you’ve got more than 20 deals under your belt, maybe even less, but I’m going to say at least 20 under your belt where you’ve bought for 1,000, sold for three, you’ve got this licked. You know what you need to know. And I want you to be confident to go, “I’m done with that. Next minute, let’s go on out, I’m buying for 10 and selling for 30.” That’s it. And I want you to do four or five of those a month. That’s easy. You know how to do it. You’ve been burning the candle-
Steven Jack Butala:
Just do one.
Jill K DeWit:
… doing all these little ones. And then I want you to, once you get comfortable with that, what’d you say?
Steven Jack Butala:
You’ve been burning the candle.
Jill K DeWit:
What?
Steven Jack Butala:
Just, I don’t know. One of my hobbies is listening to your version of some cliches.
Jill K DeWit:
All right. Hello God, it’s me, Jack. All right..
Steven Jack Butala:
I think you mean burning the candle at both ends, but I don’t mean to [inaudible 00:40:56] momentum.
Jill K DeWit:
I know. It’s all right. It’s okay. Foggy head, I’m going to go foggy head all day today.
Steven Jack Butala:
You’re burning the candle. It might be burned out.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. It was something like that. You’re approaching burnout because your candlewick is getting like this. So anyway, I don’t know where I was going with that. But the point is, you can’t keep going like that. You can’t keep doing that. And even if you think, “Well, I got a team, Jill. I’ve got a staff of five.” Really? So how much less money are you making right now because you and your staff, feeding five people to run this operation, seriously, whether it’s seller financing, I call them terms, but seller financing or you’re doing a ton of little deals. It’s so much work. Up your numbers, up your game, your life is going to be so much easier. And then you too can be like a lot of people in Land Academy that some people look at them going, “Geez, that guy’s a weirdo. He does one deal a month. That’s all he’s doing. That’s stupid.” Think about this for a moment. He’s doing one deal a month-
Steven Jack Butala:
May be the smartest guy in the room.
Jill K DeWit:
… and his minimum is $75,000 a deal. Is he nuts? I’m not so sure. And that could be you. How hard are you working for $75,000 a month right now and don’t get burned out? That’s my-
Steven Jack Butala:
Look, there’s a number of concepts in my mind that are associated with burnout. If you’re burned out from something, you’re successful at it. You’ve made it work, you’re buying and selling land, you might need to do it a little bit differently. Like Jill said, you might need to, instead of making five grand a deal, you may need to start thinking about making-
Jill K DeWit:
50.
Steven Jack Butala:
… $50,000 a deal or your processes are too cumbersome or labor intensive. A great example of this is just think mathematically with me for a second, or statistically even. You have a certain amount of time every day that you’re going to be on the phone. Do you want to spend that time on the phone looking at new acquisitions, A? B, closing deals? C, talking to somebody that you sold a property to three years ago that’s going to be late on their payments? Totally it’s not a good use of your time, but if you don’t do it and you turn this over to somebody else like a service, they’re going to lose the deal.
You really need, and you’re burned out because of this. You’re burned out because you’re talking too much on the phone. And what you should be doing is buying land and selling it for cash and either having one employee that they’re a transaction coordinator handles the sale of the property, of the purchase and the sale of the property with the escrow agent and manages the real estate agent. So now you’re not talking on the phone at all except for acquisitions.
Jill K DeWit:
Ding, ding.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s how you don’t get burned out doing this.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s Career Path.
Steven Jack Butala:
So burnout, when Jill wrote this, Jill wrote this today, this topic, I got all happy because I’ve known people that have been burned out or getting burned out in their careers at all different ages, not just real estate. We have lots of friends who own companies, all different ages, shapes, and sizes. And every time I hear this, it’s because they don’t have an office manager because they’re control freaks and they have to do all the billing themselves, which is silly. Or they’re in business because they have a talent. I was in business and am in business because I’m pretty good at the data part of this. Jill’s in business because she has somebody doing the data for her so she can sell and do the stuff that she wants. She’s not burned out. We’re not burned out because of each other and because we have the systems in place-
Jill K DeWit:
Not today.
Steven Jack Butala:
So burnout is the first step and the first indication to realizing that it’s a symptom of some problem that can be really solved. The title should be Burnout is Badass or something.
Jill K DeWit:
I like that. Jack, what do you want to share with us today?
Steven Jack Butala:
My topic is called Find Your Community. I’m 56 years old. Jill and I, all three of our kids are doing really well. The third one is just recently out of the house, he’s in college, he comes back once in a while when he needs something. It’s honestly a pleasure to see him because for several deals before he went to college, it wasn’t a pleasure to see him at all.
Jill K DeWit:
Although he does come when he only needs something, but that’s all right. We can handle that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Our financial situation is pretty good. It can always be better, but it honestly is pretty good. And so we don’t have any real problems at all. And I think we’re both healthy and happy in general. So it caused me recently, probably for the last two years, one or two years to do research, imagine that, to do research on happiness and retirement and what is all that and what’s the key to it. And I’m always trying to learn about attempting to do stuff the right way long before I actually go do it so I have some idea of how it’s going to go. And what keeps coming up on people’s lists of what’s an important or psychologists, psychiatrists writing blogs and articles for Psychology Today is find your community.
And what they mean is hang out with people that you have like kind values with, who understand each other, you’ve had similar experiences and on and on and on. What does that really mean? Well, for me, what it means is I don’t hang out with 65 year old plus Irish women who love to crochet. Do I not like that? No, I think it’s great. And I would do it for a day because I think it would be a blast. But that’s not my community. I’m not judging it, I think it’s great that it exists and more power to them, but it’s not my community. For me to have long-term happiness or long-term, let’s call it just general content, you need to surround yourself with people that they’re not arguing with, that have kind of a like kind value system as you do. I’ll give you a great example. I’ve made fun of my dad for decades. He lives part-time in Florida in a-
Jill K DeWit:
This is Jack eating his words right now. I just have to point that out.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. Laugh for both of us.
Jill K DeWit:
I’ve gotten real good at it.
Steven Jack Butala:
About living in this private mandatory golf community. And Jill and I went there several years ago and we were there for a couple days and they played 36 holes of golf, which is not my idea of fun at all. And afterward, they all get together, health, they’re old, so their health situation, depending on what it is. They’ll get together, have some cocktails, have dinner in the clubhouse, and they generally have the same opinions about everything in life and talk about it with each other.
So 20 years ago, I thought that was really silly. How do you learn anything? Everybody’s got the same opinion. Well, fast forward 20 years, that’s his community. He found his community. And when you’re older, I think that’s really important. Do I mean close your mind entirely to new ideas? Absolutely not. But I do see the point of finding your community. If you want to buy and sell land, this is your community. I’m not selling anything here, I’m just saying try to find another one. If you’re a woman, there are none. There are literally-
Jill K DeWit:
This is, we have a community.
Steven Jack Butala:
Except this one.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
There are no other communities-
Jill K DeWit:
What do you mean?
Steven Jack Butala:
… except Land Academy. For what, Land Academy Ladies is-
Jill K DeWit:
Yep.
Steven Jack Butala:
So, again, I’m not selling anything here, but I really think that we just live in this strange time now, largely because of COVID and the political environment that we’re in. And very largely because of social media where no matter what you say on social media, somebody’s got some negative, derogatory judgment.
Jill K DeWit:
I hate that. You can be the best person in the world and someone’s got to beat you up. It’s stupid.
Steven Jack Butala:
And it’s not even that there’s any validity to it now at all. It’s just people are negative and they’re loud about it. And so that’s not our community. It’s not your community.
Jill K DeWit:
Do you know what my community is today?
Steven Jack Butala:
Uh-oh. Laryngitis.com?
Jill K DeWit:
No, no, no. Today, as we’re recording, I’ll just share, as we’re recording it’s the day before St. Patrick’s Day. So my community right now is green beer drinking, college basketball loving people.
Steven Jack Butala:
Can I be the first in the line for that?
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, sure. Sure. Now, my bracket started out not great, so hopefully by the time this airs, my bracket is doing much better. Those of you in Land Academy who are in my little bracket challenge, you know what’s going on. You can see that. It’s awesome. But that’s my community. Who is your community right now today?
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, it’s Thursday and Thursday is our hard week scenario, but Jill and I later are meeting some of our best friends for dinner. And that is kind of our community.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
[inaudible 00:49:37].
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, steak loving. Oh, this is good. Steak and seafood. High-end steak and seafood-loving, basketball, beer-drinking-
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, they’re all that.
Jill K DeWit:
… parents of older children. Love it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Parents of children that are out of the house. Business owners.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s good. Business owners.
Steven Jack Butala:
Current and former business owners. People who gave it a shot in California, but they came back.
Jill K DeWit:
True, they came back.
Steven Jack Butala:
Just like us.
Jill K DeWit:
This is our community.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s our community.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, didn’t think about that. That’s awesome.
Steven Jack Butala:
And the Thursday call with hundreds of people on it, every Thursday of Land Academy members-
Jill K DeWit:
You’re our community.
Steven Jack Butala:
… the members call, I’m part of that community too, and not against my will.
Jill K DeWit:
You know what’s one of the best things about our Thursday call with all of our members is you’re our people and you know this, there’s things we can say here and there’s things we can’t say here. When we get in our little community, that’s our community. Our Thursday member call, we have so much fun and we can say whatever we want. It’s all of us in a closed environment.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is rated G.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
The Thursday call is rated PG. The Man Plan and Career Path are rated R, and that’s it.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s hilarious.
Steven Jack Butala:
For some reason, rated R is a little more fun than rated G.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. That’s hilarious.
Steven Jack Butala:
Join us next Wednesday for another interesting episode. You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill K DeWit:
We are Jack and Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
We are Jack and Jill. Information.
Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration.
Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
https://youtu.be/tpi9WHrAM6Q
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
In this episode of the Land Academy Show, hosts Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit cover two important topics related to buying and selling land. They discuss how everyone has access to the same resources and identify three reasons why buying and selling land may not work for some people. Later, they answer questions from the Land Academy Discord forum. Join Steven and Jill for a deep dive into the world of land investment.
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit, and this is the Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is episode number 1,944. And today, we are talking in depth about a couple of topics. The first one is how we all have access to the same exact resources. All of us have the same exact resource exposure to buy and sell land. And the second topic is three real reasons why buying and selling land may not work for you.
Jill DeWit:
It’s one personality flaws.
Steven Jack Butala:
No. It could be though. Well, I kept it to three.
Jill DeWit:
Oh, okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
Because there’s several.
Jill DeWit:
Okay. We’re going to talk about 30 reasons why. I’m just kidding. Good.
Steven Jack Butala:
No. Look, there’s some stuff you got to do to make this really work for yourself. And we’re going to spend the next hour, hour-and-a-half talking about it. This is not meant to be negative, it’s meant to be a real positive thing. And then at the very end, Jill and I, as always, we’re going to talk about our motivational. I’ve learned a lot in the last … It’s March, so the last couple of months about Land Academy members in a really positive way, what works and what doesn’t.
Jill DeWit:
Cool. What’s different? Why do you think you’ve learned more now than-
Steven Jack Butala:
I think it’s experience and age and for whatever reason. And we should talk to our marketing staff about this, the people that are joining Land Academy really recently are really, really experienced and want to be here. It’s called like there’s master … I call them the master’s degrees level of interest in learning how to do this.
Jill DeWit:
I think because you’d led that first accountability group up, maybe where it’s coming to you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, maybe.
Jill DeWit:
That’s it. That we haven’t done that in a while and now we brought them back. They are free for members, by the way. That could be what’s going on.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, I’m sure that’s definitely part of it. Hope you’re also enjoying this new 2023 weekly show. We moved from a daily show to a weekly show, too, because people are asking us for more depth-
Jill DeWit:
Like what-
Steven Jack Butala:
… in a more in-depth look at exactly how to buy and sell land, or at least how we do it. Each week, we also answer questions from our Land Academy Discord forum. We review land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar, and we take a deep dive into two land related topics that are, for the most part, requested in some way by our members. Now let’s take a look, take a question actually posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. If you want to sneak peek at our Discord channel, please go to landacademy.com. It’s free.
Jill DeWit:
Kevin wrote, hello, so I got a signed purchase agreement back in the mail and the seller left his phone number, no email. Multiple times calling the number, it says, the number you’re calling is not accepting your call. It’s like with these spam things. It sounds like they accidentally have it turned up too high. I found the guy on True People Search. He’s very old. I’ve tried five, six other phone numbers, family members, but they are all disconnected. Does anyone have any other ideas of contacting the seller before we starting just mailing him a followup?
I was going to say, you’re going to have to mail him now. That’s apparently how I replies. He responds. And you know what’s interesting? It’s not very common, but it does happen that I have sellers that don’t have email. They may not have great internet, they may have old school cable. Maybe it’s available in the area too. They just don’t do it because they’re 80, and that’s okay. But that could be the situation and you have to write them back, and that’s what I would just be doing right now, writing them back and just saying, I’m trying to call you from this number. Can you please show that as a recognized number so we can talk? Or can you please call me at this number? I will watch for you kind of thing.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think it’s really important to meet sellers from where they come. And everything in the world, they all come in different shapes and sizes. And I don’t think it would be appropriate to talk to somebody who’s 95 about selling their land as if they were 25 or 30. They both have really different access to different resources and tools and communication tools, specifically.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. Did you try texting?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, I could be wrong completely.
Jill DeWit:
Did you reach out on Snapchat? Maybe they’re there. Just kidding.
Steven Jack Butala:
All those little things like, darn, I wanted to buy the piece of dirt, he signed it and I’d love to do the deal. Those are all positive pathways and positive signs to buying a piece of property. This whole thing is no different than the classic sales funnel. If you send out 5,000 offers, you’re going to get all kinds of responses, positive, negative. It might be old people, young people. But you’re going to get some responses. If you send out 50,000 letters, as I’m going to talk about at the end of the show today, that funnel’s much, much bigger. And so things like this will happen.
You’re probably not going to spend as much time in the future because there’s other deals to do. Today’s first topic is, how we all have access to the exact same resources. You know what, I think a lot of this information is coming from the accountability groups because I get a chance now to once a week after our Thursday call for people who sign up for it to talk to new members and address their concerns. It’s more of like an office hour situation where the group of people that we have, it’s an open forum.
Jill DeWit:
Well, yeah, can you explain the whole format, the flow of these accountability groups-
Steven Jack Butala:
Sure.
Jill DeWit:
… for myself included? Because I only was there for one.
Steven Jack Butala:
Account-
Jill DeWit:
Not that I don’t have things going on. I’m like, I’m contributing, but I was only there for one of these.
Steven Jack Butala:
I set up the accountabilities groups based on my experience in going to college where professors would have office hours. And so it’s not an education, it’s not an hour of me talking about how to do a mailer or, Jill, about how to answer the phone.
Jill DeWit:
Because you have that
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, you have access to that and you have a textbook, you have a video textbook as a Land Academy member. And you would theoretically go to office hours in an educational setting, which is what this is. After you read the material or that was been assigned or did whatever the assignments were and you had extra questions. You had more questions. Yeah, I get this, but I don’t understand this. Well, we’re all adults now, so it ends up being whatever you want to talk about, we’re going to talk about it. It’s office hours. It’s not Weight Watchers or-
Jill DeWit:
No, it’s not that.
Steven Jack Butala:
… Alcoholic Synonymous. It’s not-
Jill DeWit:
Okay. It’s not how much weight did you lose or how much mail did you send?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yes, it’s not that.
Jill DeWit:
Okay. Is it going to stay like that or might change? Because some people need, how much mail did you send?
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s going to stay like that.
Jill DeWit:
Oh.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s a different product. How much mail did you-
Jill DeWit:
Well, accountability, I think of like, what are you doing? Are you moving forward?
Steven Jack Butala:
Hey, I’ve done many, many of these accountability groups now over the years, so is Jill. We end up talking about whatever our members want to talk about. Like I just mentioned, we’re not here to … You have to hold yourself accountable and then we’re here to answer any questions that you have and provide these resources and tools, which is what we’re going to talk about resources and tools for you to accomplish this.
Jill and I have spent, since 2015, a tremendous amount of time and energy and resources in capital to convert the resources that she and I have developed over the years to buy and sell land for ourselves, in which we continue to use, to make them much more user-friendly and web enabled. For instance, we used to do our own mail. And we eventually graduated ourselves because we were tired of using companies, whatever they are now, they go in and out of business, actual printing companies to do our mailers and we were just never satisfied.
We started to do it ourselves and ultimately, people are asking, “Well, what mailing company do you guys use?” And we said, “We’re doing it ourselves.” And then we made that service available after we perfected it in the form of offers to owners. We have tons of resources like that. ParcelFact is one, it’s a website that we have. These are all dotcoms. It’s because we were having trouble finding the real estate that we were trying to buy. We created a resource for ourselves.
It was ugly and clunky and pretty awful to use, but ultimately, hired a tech team, myself included, to create the resource so you can find land much more easily. And the list goes on and on and on. Everybody always has wanted since minute one, since we started Land Academy, an easy to use now phone enabled online community. In the beginning, we called it Success Plant. In the middle, I will say we called it landinvestors.com, and now we’re using Discord, which everybody seems to love. And so that’s a real-time, 24/7 answer or ask questions from people.
It’s a good way to get deals funded. And so what I’m really saying here is that we have access to all the same exact resources. Is there a reason that Jill and I may or may not make as much money as you do buying and selling land? Yeah. And we’re going to cover that in great detail in the next topic, but it’s not for lack of resources. It’s for probably the greatest variable in all this as experience. And the only way you can get experience is to spend time with other people, like in Discord and on our Thursday webinars and all of that, so you can gain that experience.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly. I was thinking even other things like data sources and things like that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, go ahead.
Jill DeWit:
Well, I mean-
Steven Jack Butala:
I skipped along the top here.
Jill DeWit:
Oh, okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s a ton of ton more resources that we have.
Jill DeWit:
Right. That’s the big picture. If you really want to do this, you could dig in and do this on your own. There’s people that have done that too. They listened to our … Because this is not the first year, this is what? Our eighth year of this podcast, and there’s people like, “I listened for four years and then I started doing it on my own.” I’m like, “Why’d you wait that long?” Because we can only deliver so much on every podcast. But if you sit and listen to all the podcasts, you could piece together everything that we do in Land Academy. If you want to fast forward that, you just join Land Academy, then you have that in one weekend kind of thing. But-
Steven Jack Butala:
You know what, that’s a great point. That’s a personality choice. And so I’m a big fan of doing an incredible amount of research on something that’s completely and totally free until I decide that, yup, I’m going to give-
Jill DeWit:
I agree with that.
Steven Jack Butala:
… this a shot. I’m not disagreeing with you at all.
Jill DeWit:
Okay, got it.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m just saying, do as much research as you possibly can. But when you make a commitment, make one.
Jill DeWit:
But when you think about it, the data resources and mail resources and finding property resources and pricing, things that we need like comps to help us figure out pricing, the active properties right now and the sold properties, we all have access to all this stuff. It’s putting it all together. I think that’s important. And understanding what it is and how to use it, that’s the key. Acting on it and having the resources like the money, the money and the time to buy these properties and act on this stuff.
Steven Jack Butala:
I really think that money as a resource in a long list of resources, I think you need-
Jill DeWit:
Well, that’s a good resource.
Steven Jack Butala:
Money is something that we have so readily available, both Jill and I, personally. And just a ton of people in our group have a tremendous amount of money that it’s ready to be thrown at really good land deals. That’s also the most popular reason why I think people can’t move forward on this, is they think they have lack of funds or lack of access to money.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s a hard thing to swallow from anyone. Because as you go through life, you have limited money. That’s just how it is. And in a group like this, there’s just limitless money, if the deals are good. My entire life, except for recently, I’ve been strapped for money in some one way or another. I don’t know, probably the last four or five years, I think that it’s really gotten to a point where we’re good.
Jill DeWit:
Mm-hmm. I was just thinking in other world, it’s the same thing like, okay, access to the same resources. Say like going to college and business classes and things like that, there’s so much you can get out there online right now and so many great books you can get your hands on. Then I’m going to argue that I may not need a degree, it depends on what it is, obviously. But to learn the knowledge, to learn what I need to know just to be a great leader, what if I want to be a business manager? Fill in the blank. There’s so many great leadership books and managerial courses and things that you could take that we all have access to.
Steven Jack Butala:
I mean, I think it all starts with just a natural interest. And it’s very, very hard. There’s a lot of moving components to this to buy and selling land. It’s very hard to be interested in all of them.
Jill DeWit:
That’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s a Jack and a Jill.
Jill DeWit:
That’s good. I’m interested in answering the phone, you are not.
Steven Jack Butala:
But the stuff I am interested in, I’m really interested in doing it right and following through. And so Jill’s got access to me, I have access to her, and you have access to all kinds of people in our group that are going through the same thing at some level.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
Now we’re looking at success as defined by constants and variables. We just reeled off a tremendous number of constants that we all have, we’re all the same. There’s only a few variables, and the biggest one I think is it always ends up being money. But where your interest starts and stops in doing this is how successful you’re going to be, not for lack of money or any real other resource.
Jill DeWit:
I agree.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a look at one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday webinar.
Jill DeWit:
Thinking. I am very happy to announce for the first time ever, I mean, ever, because you … It’s timely too, because a few minutes ago, we talked about money and that being a variable sometimes. Well, just getting started, you do need to have some cash just to get the education. And guess what? We now have payment plans. Check it out. To join Land Academy, we now have some payment plan options. Check it out. Just go to landacademy.com. Under join, I think there’s a join here tab. It’ll take your right to it and you’ll see it. I’m really excited. It’s the first time that we’ve ever done this, and I think it’s going to help a lot of people out.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take another question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. Again, if you want a sneak peek of our Discord channel, please go to landacademy.com. It’s free.
Jill DeWit:
Okay. Peter wrote, good morning, everyone. We have a good deal with a signed purchase agreement that we just applied to get deal funding for this morning. Timing question, do you guys wait to set things up with the title company until after you confirmed that you have funding for your deal? Or do you set things up with the title company immediately? I’m a lock it in person, so put it in for deal funding because you know it’s that good. If this is the thing, Peter, I’m assuming it’s that good. You’re like, we’re buying this, we got to take this deal down.
Put it in deal funding and then immediately open escrow and then just say, I’ll let you know later. Give me a couple hours or a day and I’ll get to you what name it’s going to go in, who’s going to be my funding partner and that kind of stuff. And I would do that, totally.
Steven Jack Butala:
I agree with Jill completely, every single part of what she said. There are a lot of comments about this because there’s a lot of deal funders in our group. And some prefer to approve the deal very quickly and then work in escrow with you. We don’t necessarily do that. I think I agree with Jill. I think tie it up and tell the escrow agent right away, here’s the purchase agreement, here’s the terms of the deal. The way that we fund these deals is through private funding. And so we may have to change the name where the deed recording name and all of that. If this freaks them out, then it shouldn’t at all because it’s real-
Jill DeWit:
No, they’re fine with that.
Steven Jack Butala:
… standard and simple. They’re the wrong escrow agent.
Jill DeWit:
No big deal.
Steven Jack Butala:
It serve a couple of purposes here. But you will have to change almost, I think, with all of us, the original purchase agreement and then the two parties that are buyers and sellers that it’s going to change.
Jill DeWit:
Some people have had updated wording on their things that it says and assignees or something like that, and then that’s been fine. And then it’s no big deal. That depends on what the PA says and it also depends on that title agent. No matter what, worst case scenario, the title agent says, we need to do another purchase agreement, what to put that name on as a buyer. Done. No problem. You can DocuSign that in five minutes.
Steven Jack Butala:
A really material percentage of deals get assigned like that during the process. If the escrow person that you’re dealing with has done more than five or eight deals, they’re going to say, “Oh, no problem.”
Jill DeWit:
Well, you know what’s funny? This is a no big deal thing too. We have done this ourselves. We have actually bought go open escrow on properties that we’re buying. And then Jack will come along and go, “Oh, wait a minute. You know what? I want you to put that one in that entity’s name.” “Okay, no problem.” Just get a new purchase agreement signed by the seller. We’re going to put it over in this company name. That’s all. You’re doing the exact same thing-
Steven Jack Butala:
Unfortunately-
Jill DeWit:
… as far as they are concerned.
Steven Jack Butala:
… if you read about this on the internet, and maybe even in Discord, about assigning to a new party within your group, there’s always one or two outlaying strange examples of why people freaked out about it or it didn’t work.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah, nobody cares.
Steven Jack Butala:
Just don’t pay attention to it.
Jill DeWit:
Your seller doesn’t care.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. It’s the same old thing with all of the internet. 90% of it’s awesome, but the 10% of it with bad stories and just bad, everything seems to rise to the top.
Jill DeWit:
There’s nothing bad about … Unless they’re making it bad. That would be-
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, sure. No, I think, and if you’re new. This is for really new people.
Jill DeWit:
You know what, it’s-
Steven Jack Butala:
And if you’re really detailed about what you want to try to hedge off or not, you’re going to run into stories about why you can’t assign purchase agreements and it’s-
Jill DeWit:
That’s ridiculous.
Steven Jack Butala:
… all not true.
Jill DeWit:
It’s not true. It’s like, “I know I was going to give you a cashier’s check and now I’m giving you cash.” And they’re like, “No, no I want cash.” Okay, really? Really? We’re going to go back and forth about this. That’s the same level of that, who flipping cares?
Steven Jack Butala:
And it’s not just land, everything on the internet is like that.
Jill DeWit:
It’s silly.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s second topic is the three real reasons why buying and selling land may not work for you.
Jill DeWit:
Now this has my attention. Seriously-
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill and I took notes and we each came up secretly and separately of our three reasons, and Jill’s going to go first.
Jill DeWit:
Okay. I think that three reasons why this would not work for you is, number one, you don’t take any action at all. You’re stuck in the still doing your recon. Even if you join Land Academy and you’re just spending way too much time watching everything, pricing and overpricing and pricing and overpricing. And so the mail never goes out, but just basically no action at all. That’s one reason. Number two, this won’t work for you if you don’t have the confidence to trust yourself in everything that we teach you and make these acquisition decisions. That is going to be a problem too. That will keep you from moving forward, and then won’t work. You’ve got to make a decision, period. And by the way, you have all kinds of resources to help you like-
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, all of them.
Jill DeWit:
Well, all of them too. I know. Well, first of all, no mail, no action. Well, join the accountability group. I think accountability groups are there to help you be accountable. And you can make it that for yourself, just showing up and holding yourself. Tell the group, by next week, I’m going to have a mailer out. And then come back to the group and tell the group, I did send my mailer out. Make it your own thing that you want, even if it’s not being led that way. But you have to take some action. And then number two, so there’s one way to solve that.
Number two is, gosh, with the confidence in these acquisition decisions, do the best you can. And then if you’re still not sure, bring it up to us on the Thursday call, drop it in Discord with your peers. You have people here that will help you to make sure that you’re not making any fatal flaws and buying good property until you don’t need it. Then you won’t need it. And by the way, too, you can also go back and watch, well, A, read in Discord, look at some of the deals people are doing like, okay, would I have bought that? Would I have made that decision?
And you’re going to learn from those examples. And on our Thursday member calls, if you go back and watch, as we discuss in great detail every darn week, why I would buy it or why I wouldn’t buy it? And if I still would buy it, but I need this to change or I need this price or I need to know there’s access or I need to know this. You will start to pick up and you will gain that confidence. You will gain that knowledge, so you can make these decisions. And so that takes care of number two. And then the third reason that I see that people, this is not working for them.
They may have started out okay, but somewhere along the way, they lost motivation. And often it’s like things take too long or maybe they’re doing a lot of things they don’t want to do kind of thing. If things take too long, then you need to get yourself on a schedule. You need to give yourself a calendar and stick to it. Because I might lose motivation too if I’m like, okay, I just got Land Academy, I spent a month picking a county, then I spent a month getting in mail, and now I’m waiting and I’m watching for the offers. And I’m afraid now to pick one. I might even lose that.
You’ve got to really get yourself into the flow, into our system. And when the mail goes out, okay, two weeks later, I need more mail going out. And two weeks later, I need more mail going out. Because by doing that and keeping everything going forward, you’re going to constantly be working on things and you’re going to be constantly be watching properties being sold. That’s motivation for me. When I see my bank balance going up like, oh, that one’s sold, and then 10 days later, that one’s sold, and then two weeks later, that one’s sold. Great. And you’re always moving forward. That, to me, is a great way to solve your motivation problem. But that’s how I look at it. What are your-
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, first one is general follow through. But you’ll notice that three things Jill talked about were very personality driven. And so my three are a little bit more technical, but I don’t want to distract or take away from her points because I really think that they’re extremely valid. If you had experience in follow through, here’s some real core life examples about successful follow through. Like it or not, believe it or not, believe in it or not, spending four years to get a stupid freaking degree is a real good example. I’ve learned later in life. Jill and I hired a lot of people.
I never look at their education. I want to meet them and talk to them. I can tell you that that four-year degree experience as an employer, what they’re looking for, most employers not talking about Google or the top three law firms, because that’s a whole different thing. I’m talking about regular people and regular jobs and like us. I want to see that they spent four years. They had what it takes to deal with the minutia and all the BS that is associated with sitting there for four years on a college campus and actually having a follow through to finish it.
It’s not what grades they got, it’s not what degree they chose. Did you finish it? Did you follow through? We have a disproportionate number of people in our group who are the real successful ones, specifically in career path, who have come from or right now, own other businesses. Because that’s all this is. This is a startup with all the tools. And we couldn’t, I don’t think, make it easier for that type of personality type. I think follow through is the number one scenario. Do business owners really enjoy anything about doing payroll?
Jill DeWit:
Yeah, right.
Steven Jack Butala:
But you do it. If you want to get an accounting degree, you have to suffer through, two years of stuff that has nothing to do with what you’re there for. And so whether or not that business model, that bachelor’s degree business model is going to be viable in the future, that’s a whole different topic. It’s just all follow through. And if you started a business and it didn’t work, there’s some follow through to that. There’s some huge value in that. I’ve started many, many businesses that haven’t worked. Jill and I have failed at several together. And do I look at it like we failed at something? Not at all. It’s just all it did was in the end, and Jill now says this pretty loudly anytime anything else comes up, “No. Why don’t we just buy in some more land?”
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. Last time I checked-
Steven Jack Butala:
Did we know how to do it? We’ve got all the access to a tremendous amount of capital. We’re not going to make bad decisions, and she’s right. Follow through is my number one reason why I don’t think that this … You have to really ask yourself, do I have a follow through type personality? There is nothing wrong with not having a type A personality like both Jill and I have. Because we have to follow through on everybody, probably to our own fault. There’s nothing wrong if you’re not into that. I’m just saying, this might not be the best career choice for you.
Number two is you are not honest with yourself about where you’re good at something and where you’re not. I was extremely guilty of this, and I was finally wised up and hired somebody who was good at answering the phones and a good salesperson. And it changed my business overnight. This is a lot of years ago before Jill and I joined forces. And then ultimately, the best thing that ever happened is Jill and I joining together, when she’s just a natural on the phone and really enjoys it. In her pastime, she doesn’t sit around and try to create better Excel skills or find different ways that we can apply trolling, let’s say, to find a new market, but I do. In her spare time, she’s reading books about how to sell stuff or how to buy things or how to be a better investor-
Jill DeWit:
Investor.
Steven Jack Butala:
… or how to be, what’s the new climate of how women are running things now. Which is becoming more and more and more and more popular and in my opinion, rightfully so. And so, that’s just who she is. No one’s sitting around asking Jill to do something that she doesn’t want ever at work. And the same thing with me. Please be honest with yourself. And you have some phone skills or not, I know I don’t. If I had to, I could do it, but I don’t have to.
The third thing is, and I can’t say this enough, I’m going to talk a little bit more about this in a few minutes, is sending the mail. We have people that, for whatever reason, have proven this to themselves and send a tremendous amount of mail every month and they reap the rewards for that. And so if you’re getting hung up on, which I understand, not getting a mailer out or, and I think this happens way more than it gets discussed in our group, is you just can’t bring yourself to spend 5,000 bucks on a mailer. I understand that. But then be honest with yourself about, is this going to happen or not? Those are my three.
Jill DeWit:
I love it. It’s good. And again, it’s not a black and white like, you don’t have money. That’s not it. You don’t have a degree. That’s not it. You don’t know Excel. That’s not it. You don’t have whatever, because you can learn all that stuff. You really can. And we watched it. That’s one of the nice things about Land Academy now. People don’t ask us the same questions now that they used to ask us in the beginning, because we have such a strong community that people can see the results and they know that it works. They don’t have to even ask that stuff.
And I’ve watched over the years, people overcome a lot of these little hurdles, like Excel, either gotten a partner or really, they just got down and learned it. That’s really what happens. They get Land Academy, they start watching it right away, it’s Excel. Now they got to pause, spend a weekend, take a couple courses, and then come back, pick up where they left off, and then they can go with it. And you can do that. That’s it. There’s no real thing like, I’m trying to think if there’s any fatal, fatal, fatal thing that has kept someone from being successful. And I don’t have one.
Steven Jack Butala:
No, it’s all-
Jill DeWit:
Not one.
Steven Jack Butala:
… the only one that I … Well, I am forced to come up with one. It’s really a combination of just three things. It’s just you don’t want to do this in the end.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. You don’t like it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, you don’t like it.
Jill DeWit:
That’s it. And that’s okay. Then don’t do it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Or you like it and you like the idea of having money and you like all that. Just right when we started Land Academy in 2015, we had a few built-in customers because they were our regular customers who were selling them land. And they were really into it. They didn’t question it. When we opened it to the public, the number one question for probably the first 12 months, and I’ll have to tell you, Jill and I traded off opinions about whether or not we should continue because we were spending too much time explaining to people-
Jill DeWit:
How this works.
Steven Jack Butala:
… that it works. Their question was, does this work? And you guys are probably crooks. And so I had to look inward and see how we’re presenting this and because there wasn’t anything at the time on the market like that at all. There are a couple other buy and sell land programs, but they all had to do with back taxes and financing. And we were real adamant when we released this. That isn’t the right way to do this. You got to send a mailer out, you got to send a ton of mailers out. And by the way, it costs some money to do that, which people are like, wait a minute, it cost money.
Jill DeWit:
And you have to pay for data, really? Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
But after a year or so of watching us and watching other people taking a chance and doing really well with it, I’ve never have answer to that.
Jill DeWit:
We don’t have questions anymore.
Steven Jack Butala:
For years and years and years-
Jill DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
… I haven’t answered that question.
Jill DeWit:
Mm-hmm. That’s good.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a look at another one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar. Jill, you have something inspirational to share.
Jill DeWit:
Well, I was going to talk a little bit about the return of Land Academy ladies, which I’m so excited. We had our first meeting last week. We meet on the first Tuesday of the month. And it is open to any female/female partner of a current active Land Academy member. I think there was only one person … Trying to think here. It’s a whole new group. It was so fun and so exciting. We’re still getting the word out here too, because I know I’m going to have some more alumni come back and rejoin this reprise of Land Academy ladies.
But it was so fun and it was just so many fresh ideas. It was amazing. We went for about two hours. I got to tell you, our first session was I shared, I think, something in inspirational. And then I opened it up to the group like, “Okay, let’s all get to know each other.” And we’re all on camera, we’re all mic’d up. So it’s really fun. And we all talked about who we are, where we are, our experience up to this point. And we had a wide variety of experience too.
Everything from brand new, not done a deal yet to I have 100 seller finance deals, I’m getting out of this to I’ve done this many land deals and I’m looking to triple that, all over the map. People in different spaces in real estate that had come to us, maybe some were agents that were still active and some were like, I turned that off. We had attorneys. We have everything in this group, was just amazing. There are a couple things that we talked about that just rose to the top that I thought I’d share. And if you think this is something that would sing to you, please reach out.
We’d love to talk to you about that. Even if you’re not a Land Academy member, just you want to learn more about the ladies group and what goes on there. Because that might be what you need to get you here, get you going. That’s totally great. I’ll stop, send a note to support@landacademy.com, and they’ll give you more information. But the three things, so we talked about … I said, “Okay, who are you, where are you, and why are you here right now? What do you need from this group?” And the three top things that really popped up were, one, is “I can’t find a group like this anywhere on the planet.” And I’m like, “You are right. There is not one.”
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s great, Jill.
Jill DeWit:
They’re like, “I’m here because nowhere can I be in a group of female like-minded people doing what I do, which is buying and selling land.” I’m like, “You’re right. It doesn’t exist.” And I’m so proud of that. So, yay. The second thing that rose up that people talked about there, like in confidence, it’s a woman thing. Everybody, I’m sure most people, have trouble with confidence at some point in their life. Because even if you’re a little boy showing up for the baseball game, am I going to hit the ball or not? You’re a little nervous about it. We all have times like that.
But for us, we’re still women in a man’s world doing these real estate deals, which I personally love. And so we talked about things that we’re going to do to help each other and get even more confidence. There’s several strong women in this group, by the way, too. But to get even more confidence going forward, doing these deals, doing bigger deals, and working in this space. And then the third thing that came up, which I did not even think it was going to be this popular, but they’re like, oh, this is why we’re here, is big picture wealth generation. These women are not here selling Tupperware. This is the whole thing. The women in this group are not here to sell Tupperware or have a fill in the blank home party because we’re just making ends meet.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s great.
Jill DeWit:
I’m just here to make sure we can afford our vacation once a year, something like that. They’re like, oh, no, that’s not what this group is and that’s not who we are. We here to retire our husbands and make this a family business, starting with me as a woman. I’m like, that was awesome. We had a really, really good time. And again, if that interests you and you’re like, that’s me, Jill, I want to be in a group. That’s what I want. I want a group like that. Please reach out to my team and they will get your message to me and we’ll get you in there. Jack, what would you like to share?
Steven Jack Butala:
My topic.
Jill DeWit:
You have something informational to share with us today?
Steven Jack Butala:
I do.
Jill DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
My topic is called reckless mailing.
Jill DeWit:
Oh.
Steven Jack Butala:
Part of what I do, part of what my responsibilities are in our land business and all the other companies we have offers owners and land, all of them, is to analyze and complete financial statements at the end of every month. And so I completed a year to date scenario in offers to owners where, for the first time, I calculated … Well, I reported and regurgitated the top 10 customers that we’ve had in offers to owners, which tells us who has been sending out mail and how much mail they’re sending. And the top slot was over $900,000.
Somebody spent over $950,000 on mail the first few months of this year. Which is like, there’s always a bell curve to these things. That was extraordinary enough. But then I looked at the 19 after that, the top 20, I think I said top 10, but top 20, it went to 400,000 from there, 300,000, and then a lot of 100,000. The rest were in the hundred thousands before it dip below. I had to go 20 people down before … This is only the first two months of the year.
So then I got to thinking, every career path we have, I ask everybody on the call, what is it that really makes you … You make $6 million a year doing this, you make $600,000. What really is the key? What’s the real success, the secret? Tell me your secret. And everybody says, reckless mailing. They don’t say that phrase, but that’s what they mean.
Jill DeWit:
I like that. That’s a good phrase.
Steven Jack Butala:
Not looking at, well, should I send a 5,000 mail?
Jill DeWit:
Mailer yield per this and I’m going to analyze that. Just get it out.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s very, very natural. A lot of people that join Land Academy, or at least the ones that are exposed to me, are Jacks. They are very analytical. They have chosen careers like accounting or mechanical engineering or software design or very technical degrees, and they need something quantifiable. And I completely understand that. It’s very popular for those types of people to hang their entire theoretical success doing this on a number like, how many mailers do I have to send out to buy a piece of property? To which I have answered, “Since 2015, I don’t know.”
There’s tons of variables involved. Did you price the mailer right? Did you choose the right county and run the red, green, yellow test correctly? Are you consistently sending 5,000 out or just sending 5,000 out to see if you can get one? What’s your real attitude? And then most importantly, which is the hardest thing for them to digest because they have my personality type, who’s answering your phone? And are they taking deals that could have probably slipped through the cracks or theoretically thought there’s no deal there and had them be transferred into a successful real estate deal by somebody like Jill?
The older ones tend to understand. Younger ones, we always have people in our group that believe that, and we had a question like that today, believe that texting and email are somehow going to get a real estate deal done for you. And I’m here to tell you, and I would’ve believed that years ago, I am here to tell you, these people want to hear a friendly voice on the other end of the phone.
Jill DeWit:
That’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
They want to have a relationship and they want to sell you their property, but they don’t this to be any type of insincere. They want to believe that you’re going to pay them $32,541 at the end of escrow, which we do and our members do. It starts with reckless mailing. I’ll tell you, after your-
Jill DeWit:
And ends with success.
Steven Jack Butala:
… 5 or 10 deals, you’re not going to care about mailer yield ever again. You just do a huge mailer. You buy 14 or 15 properties. This is what the way Jill and I do it. The mailer might have been 80,000, it might’ve been 50,000, it might’ve been 15. But we’re busy running around doing deals and we make a lot of money doing it. I stopped calculating mailer yield, if we ever really calculated it.
Jill DeWit:
I never calculated it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Many, many, many-
Jill DeWit:
You know how I am.
Steven Jack Butala:
… many years ago.
Jill DeWit:
I just look at the bank balance going, yup, keep going. Don’t stop, send more.
Steven Jack Butala:
And to bring this full circle, that’s what the people in career paths said, “Oh yeah, I worried all about that right when I started and I did five deals and made-
Jill DeWit:
Then I forgot.
Steven Jack Butala:
… $182,000. And I think I spent 15 grand on mail, or maybe it was 20. I don’t remember.”
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. Who cares?
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s how our conversation always goes. And most of them don’t even know that’s their secret sauce because they go about things in their life like that. Which I have to tell you, Jill and I do too. It’s responsible. But a lot of stuff we do is just reckless barrel forward until we’re going to die doing this or it’s going to work out great, figuratively dies.
Jill DeWit:
Hilarious. Oh, boy.
Steven Jack Butala:
Join us next Wednesday for another interesting episode. You’re not alone in your real estate ambition. We are Jack and Jill.
Jill DeWit:
We are Jack and Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
Information.
Jill DeWit:
And inspiration.
Steven Jack Butala:
To my undervalued property.
https://youtu.be/EsJOIdrRo_g
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
In this episode of the Land Academy Show, Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit discuss the myth of passive income in relation to buying and selling land. They also delve into how only 10-15 deals a year can lead to millionaire status. The hosts answer questions from their Land Academy Discord forum and review land acquisitions from their weekly Thursday member webinar. Join them as they take a deep dive into the world of land-related topics and share their insights on the industry.
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit, and this is the Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is episode number 1,943, and today we are talking in depth about the myth of passive income, as it applies to buying and selling land. In the beginning, we’re going to talk about that, and then ultimately, later in the episode, we’re going to talk about how it only takes 10 or 15 deals a year to make a million bucks.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s fun when you really think about it and you work it backwards, you’re kind of like, “Oh, yeah, that’s really is all it takes. Like I could do a deal a month and make a million.” “Yeah.”
Steven Jack Butala:
We have a bunch of people who signed up largely because of some promotions that Jill and her staff did at the end of the year, so it’s March, and they’re getting mail-out, and there’s a lot of chatter in a very positive way in Discord, “But I sent a mailer out. I got 12 or 13 responses back, but there’s no deals.”
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, that’s different. Oh, that’s a whole another thing.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, no. There’s a deal in there, I’m sure.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s another conversation.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, that’s what we’re going to talk about later, but there’s deals in all this stuff, and you don’t need to do 22 deals in one month. You need to do one.
Jill K DeWit:
Isn’t that funny?
Steven Jack Butala:
One great deal, every month.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, wait, wait. Let’s talk about that. When we get to the passive income part, in a minute here, and we talk about that, and then I have some stuff to say about the 22 deals in a month.
Steven Jack Butala:
Hey, I hope you’re enjoying this new 2022 weekly show-
Jill K DeWit:
’23.
Steven Jack Butala:
Sorry, ’23 version of it. Anyway, Jesus, almost the first quarter. Each week we answer questions from our Land Academy Discord forum. We review land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar, and then ultimately take a deep dive into the two land-related topics I just mentioned here, and those are all requested on Discord.
Now, let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. If you want a sneak peek of our Discord channel, please go to landacademy.com. It’s free and a read only format, and I really would encourage you-
Jill K DeWit:
Not all the areas, too. I was clicking around that the other day. It’s kind of cool. What you see on the Discord from our website, there’s some hidden areas where there’s even more deep dive deal discussions.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s why it’s a sneak peek, my dear.
Jill K DeWit:
I know. Exactly. All right. Bailey wrote… Or wait, is it Bailey or David?
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s David. Sorry.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. Excuse me. Okay. David wrote, “Hi all. Kind of a random question. I’m curious if anyone has experienced creating mailers for commercial office space? Specifically, I’m looking for 5,000 to 10,000 square feet in the King County area in Washington, and 15,000 to 20,000 square feet in ‘fill in the blank’ parts of Florida. Right now, just trying to figure out if that criteria is too specific for this type of model before I really spend a lot of time on it. These would be owner-occupied offices for call centers, so could probably expand the criteria to some types of industrial spaces as well. Any insight would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Jack, why would you put a question like this? We’re supposed to be buying and selling land. That’s what this show is about. This show is about a lot more things than buying and selling land, and this person’s an established commercial real estate agent or broker, and he’s sitting down thinking, “Wait a minute, I have a database. We have a database of all the people who own land, 99.9% of the people who own real estate. We have a access to a database for those owners, and so do our Land Academy members.” There’s other databases, I have long threatened myself, not anyone else, threatened myself to do a program on the value of offers in direct mail for all kinds of stuff. You’re only as great as that database.
So, yeah. Yes, Jill and I have done this for apartment buildings. We’ve done it for specific, in very urban areas, very specifically zoned property for future high rise apartment buildings on behalf of one customer or client. I had a guy in our group, Jill and I had a guy in Land Academy, really early on, who took our database after a hailstorm, sent everybody a letter because he’s a roofing contractor, and said, “If you have these issues with your roof, please give me a call,” with great success.
So, this concept of sending direct mail with a serious call to action, like, “I want to buy your property, I’m going to buy your land for $5,234.22.” It’s very hard not to respond to that, as a recipient. And so, if you have the owner of office space, a receptive database, it’s workable. I would highly encourage you to do this. I’m working on a data set right now where we’re, Jill and I are thinking about expanding what we have to, this year, buy us some commercial buildings to collect the depreciation for tax reasons for 2023 taxes, and we’re going to do the exact same thing. I will send out a mail, Jill will answer the phones on some very specific tenant-driven, commercial, triple tenant buildings, and yeah, it works.
Jill K DeWit:
It works for everything. There’s a healthy number of people in our community that have used the Land Academy model like, “Hey, this is how we’re going to find our next cabin, sweetheart. I know where I want my cabin to be. I know the area, I know the zip code. I know exactly how big I want it to be. I know exactly how old I want it to be,” kind of thing, and use it for just any kind of thing. When you think about it, it’s a little scary what we have at our fingertips. Yeah. It’s not just land, it’s any-
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s every property.
Jill K DeWit:
… real estate property, every zoning. It’s the whole doggone assessor database nationwide, dream it up, with mortgage information. You could really get granular. If you want to get granular about this, you could. So, everything you just put in here… I think it’s David. And then you could add in, “I want a loan that’s been in place this long,” even loan the value. “I want to know that they own at least 20% equity into this building. I want to know it’s owned.” Yeah. You know what? You can. You could even dig in and find just the LLC-owned ones, or privately owned, maybe you want to just dig into the mom and pop ones, dream it up.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is a finite data set. The database is between 150 million and 155 million contact records-
Jill K DeWit:
That’s awesome.
Steven Jack Butala:
… for every single piece of real estate-
Jill K DeWit:
Everything.
Steven Jack Butala:
… not just every piece of land, or house, or condos, all of it, every commercial property. Is it incredibly simple to go in there and say, “I only want these properties that are owned by this person in this area”? No, you need to be-
Jill K DeWit:
Dig in a little bit.
Steven Jack Butala:
… honestly, you have to be into it.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
The first time I opened a data set, it was RealQuest, back in the day, I had to take a day off, literally. I was so elated with the possibility of what was going to happen in my life. I tell you, I was-
Jill K DeWit:
What’d you do with your day off?
Steven Jack Butala:
I can tell you, “You know what I did? It’s the same thing I do”-
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, it was more than a day. So, first, he spent a week in Mexico, party like a rockstar, then he came back. That’s what I think you did. Let’s be honest.
Steven Jack Butala:
I was very, very single when this happened and I didn’t go to Mexico-
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, excuse me.
Steven Jack Butala:
… but old town Scottsdale-
Jill K DeWit:
Served to the purpose.
Steven Jack Butala:
… was in for a treat. And that’s true. It was probably two days because I knew right then and there, after looking at it for an hour what was possible. And here we are. That was the late nineties. That database that you have access to as a Land Academy member, the Data Tree national database, the one that’s got all of it, and they continue to improve it. It’s something else.
Jill K DeWit:
The one that you get when you’re in Land Academy automatically.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. Yes. It’s worth the price of admission, and I’ll tell you, if you had to go get it on your own, it would be worth more slot. I’m not selling anything here. It’d be a lot more expensive.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s why we do this.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. Today’s first topic is the myth of passive income as it applies to buy and selling land. In the Discord section, we have a section called Noob for new people, and we ask you in our program, the first thing is go to Discord, introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about yourself and what’s going on and why. And in there is a very lengthy, very well written entry about how a person who has a lot of commercial real estate experience joined another group on the internet and wasn’t satisfied with the quality of the group or, quote, unquote, “How in depth it was about this topic”. And so, he finally found us, which forced me or sparked the idea for this topic. Passive income, which is what this specific group teaches, does not apply to this. And throughout the next 15 minutes, I’m going to basically describe to you and prove to you why passive anything doesn’t apply. Are you passive in your marriage? Are you passive with your little sister? Are you passive in your schoolwork or passive in college?
Jill K DeWit:
Can I jump in?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you are, you’re going to fail at it.
Jill K DeWit:
So, here’s the thing. That’s what we were talking about this morning when we were thinking about this topic is-
Steven Jack Butala:
Did you just roll your eyes over there?
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, I’m sure I did because it’s stupid. It’s bad.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, I thought you’d roll your eyes at me.
Jill K DeWit:
No. Yeah, no.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, good. There’s another target besides me today.
Jill K DeWit:
No, you’ll know I roll my eyes at you.
Steven Jack Butala:
No, I don’t. That’s the problem.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, God.
Steven Jack Butala:
It could be anything.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, well.
Steven Jack Butala:
It wasn’t me this time.
Jill K DeWit:
No, no, it’s not you. It’s sometimes you, but not at this time. So, no, I roll my eyes because I don’t want you to feel bad and I want you to know that you are not alone. If you thought that, “What do you mean I can’t buy a property here for $1,000, and then get $300,000 down and then $99 a month for five years, and have 10 of those, and just sit back and go, ‘Woo-hoo.’ And I do nothing.” Well, because that’s what some people are out there kind of teaching and talking about and coaching, and I’m like, “What do you mean there’s not going to be any work?” “Oh, there’s work.”
There’s always people that don’t pay, lose their jobs, things happen, fall off the planet, whatever it is, you get to take and you don’t want to take it back. There’s so much customer service, especially when you think about it too… Let me think about this for a second. A person who’s buying a couple thousand dollars property or a person who’s buying a hundred thousand dollars property, think about how different those people are. One’s like, “This is all I have. I’m so excited.” And one’s like, “I’m a pro, we don’t need to talk about this.” So, that’s one aspect to think about.
Steven Jack Butala:
A lot of years ago, early on in the Land Academy scenario, I wrote a blog called Chasing Zero. People still contact me about this concept. So, I’m literally writing an ebook, a pretty substantial ebook. I don’t know what it’s going to be at some point, might be a regular book. About chasing zero, and what chasing zero really is, and apparently it sung to a lot of people, at least the type of people that join Land Academy is this. I wake up in the morning trying to do less stuff than I did yesterday. So if I can remove somehow something that was a pain in the butt or something even that I just had to do, remove that out of my life so I can go and do more meaningful things to me, then that’s what chasing zero is for me. And so, I’m constantly chasing this concept of how can I outsource with the stuff I don’t want to do?
How can I get a partner to do the things I don’t want to do to make everything more efficient so I can actually go do the things that I want to do? And I don’t mean go fishing, I mean start a new company or something like that. A great example is getting a housekeeper. I don’t want to do all this housework. Jill doesn’t want to do it. It’s really not expensive at all in the scheme of things, let’s get a housekeeper. Check, that’s one thing I got out of my life. I have many, many, many other examples. This is why we have employees because we can’t all do all the stuff that they do all day.
We could possibly do it all. You get burned out, you’re not going to do it right, we have people that are marketers limited, Jill has a transaction coordinator, to this day, I believe this and so does Jill, that is way better doing deals than Jill and I is. She’s better on the phone. She’s more meticulous. She’s part kook, and I say that-
Jill K DeWit:
In a good way.
Steven Jack Butala:
… with affection. She’s just kooky enough to talk to these real estate agents and these escrow agents. And so that was a huge chunk out of our lives. And our lives are better because she’s in it, so we’re chasing zero. I’m constantly chasing zero.
Jill K DeWit:
So-
Steven Jack Butala:
The passive-
Jill K DeWit:
Go ahead.
Steven Jack Butala:
So, my point in saying all this is that I wake up trying to chase some type of passive income. It just doesn’t work that way. Anything that’s worthwhile is going to require some type of involvement on your part. Might not be after you’ve got all the pieces in place and the players in place and all of it. Your involvement might be, I’m on standby, Jill is on standby for all the deals that we’re doing. We’ve got great people in place, so they don’t need her very often, but they need her once in a while. So, that’s not passive income. Passive income is when you take a thousand dollars and you put it into a CD, a certificate of deposit or a checking… Not even a checking out, a passive… There’s all kinds of passive investment vehicles, but even then, you still get in a statement every month, and you open it, and you look at it.
Jill K DeWit:
So, my whole thing, this comes up often when I’m talking to people about joining Land Academy. They’re like, “Well, why wouldn’t I do this?” I said, “Well, let’s talk about that for a second, because I’ve been there, done that, and I know a lot of people that have been there done that. And you do this model, okay, you go along, I’m going to buy 50 properties and I’m going to get $99 a month coming in. That’s my goal. Awesome.” Is that five grand?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, I had to think about that.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s a Jill rhetorical question.
Jill K DeWit:
I know. So, that’s still for a lot of people. I’m like, “That’s perfect. That’s all I want to do.” “Okay, now think about this. You got 50 customers. You think that every single month, all your 50 people at $99 a month are going to pay? Please test that and call me in a year.” And they do. Well then, so, that’s number one. And I’m like, “I just have to say it from experience and please ask the community because a lot of people in our community have been there, done that.” So you’re like, “Okay, here’s the other thing. Think about do you want to get wealthy? It’s one thing to sit back and just say, ‘I got five grand coming in every month,’ but that’s all I got. I’m not building anything right now too. When those five grand pay off and I deed them the property, I don’t have anything.
I just got those months of, I had all my expenses paid for, versus, what if I take this money and I put this into a property one deal? I start with $10,000, instead of buying 10 $1,000 properties and setting them up like this? What if I put this $10,000 into one property and made that 20,000? And then I put that 20,000 into something, next month and I made it 40,000, and then I make it 80,000 and now, I’ve only done not even five deals and now you’re staring at $100,000. Now, you can start making some different decisions. Do you still want to go do that? Probably not. And you could do one deal a month like that and you’re doing so much less work and it’s just-
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s still not passive-
Jill K DeWit:
It’s not. But not-
Steven Jack Butala:
… and that’s my point. But none of it is passive.
Jill K DeWit:
… no, for me, passive is… I’ll tell you right now, I feel like I have passive income because I work maybe four hours a week on land deals. Not kidding.
Steven Jack Butala:
And I honestly would argue, Jill, because I think that’s what happens. That’s actually what our just if we didn’t have Land Academy, Jill and I would probably work four to eight hours week, probably four hours a week.
Jill K DeWit:
You would work more than I do. So, your mail would take more yours. Trolling and mail probably takes… Mine’s like I’d just wait for the phone to ring.
Steven Jack Butala:
But it’s still not passive. So, I thought this term would go away, but it’s just stuck around. Geez, when we started Land Academy, there is such a trend, a massive trend, way bigger than it is now. Now it’s like side gig or side hustle. Those things are cute little words for you don’t want to work that hard. And so, if you go into Land Academy-
Jill K DeWit:
Which I’m doing either.
Steven Jack Butala:
… listen, if you go into all the stuff that you see, I’ll use Grant Cardone as an example, or just anybody who’s standing in front of their airplane, if any of it’s real and most of it’s not. But I think in his case it’s real. He started in a college dorm with three stinky idiot, got kids who were probably amounted to nothing and he just believed in himself and had that first employee, and then that second employee, and a third employee, and maybe a first wife, and then that second wife, whatever. I don’t know his… It is good-
Jill K DeWit:
It’s his first wife I think, and I think she’s awesome. Please don’t [inaudible 00:18:59] Elena.
Steven Jack Butala:
Is that her name, really?
Jill K DeWit:
Yes.
Steven Jack Butala:
How do you know this stuff?
Jill K DeWit:
Because I think she’s okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is truly amazing.
Jill K DeWit:
Because I think they’re cool.
Steven Jack Butala:
So, I’m just using him as an example. But the guy-
Jill K DeWit:
We don’t go to lunch or anything. Not yet.
Steven Jack Butala:
… the guy, he’s just full of fire.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, he worked his ear off.
Steven Jack Butala:
He doesn’t want anything passive.
Jill K DeWit:
No.
Steven Jack Butala:
He’s waking up every day smashing it. So, I would like to make this official that buying and selling land is not passive. Well, there’s a lot of work.
Jill K DeWit:
Come say-
Steven Jack Butala:
From when you join and figure it out and do your first deal three to five years, it can be almost passive, but it’s the word’s not passive. It can be not very much work.
Jill K DeWit:
How about on autopilot? A lot of it, that’s what I think.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
Here’s my final point on this. No matter what you’re going to do right now, if you’re listening to this because you’re trying to make a change, right? You’re like, “All right, do I go into land? Do I go get my real estate license? Do I save up and buy a Domino’s pizza chain?” I don’t know, whatever franchise, fill in the blank. They’re all going to be work. No matter what it is, they’re all going to take something. And especially in the beginning, I don’t care really what it is and what it’s going to spin off, it’s going to take work. And it started going to, you got a lot to learn. So, pick something that sings to you, number one. And number two, speaking from experience from someone who has owned a pizza operation, pick something with a better ROI-
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, that matters.
Jill K DeWit:
… than a pizza. Because if you think two, $2 an order is going to get you wealthy this month, I got to tell you it’s not. It’s a slow road to a wealth.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s really, really deconstruct that. You have eight hours a day, eight to 10 hours of depending on what your personal life is like. Between eight and 18 hours a day to spend on whatever, chasing your dream, let’s call it that. You have all kinds of decisions to make because you could be Elon Musk if that’s what you wanted. or you could be a shopkeeper, a convenience store owner, or anything in between. Land Academy falls in the between that. And so, you have all kinds of choices, but chasing something that’s passive is not the right path. Chasing something that pays out that eventually you can scale, which is buying and selling land, in my opinion, and where you can grow it to as much as you want, and it’s mostly variable costs, that makes a lot of sense to me. A lot of commercial real estate people that are old school, I’m actually old school commercial real estate, this business model doesn’t work because you have to go out and churn these deals.
You have to buy a deal and sell it and buy a deal and sell it, which for whatever reason, between Jill and I, it really fits our skill sets really well. Commercial real estate people would argue, “Well, if I buy this regional strip center and I finance it correctly and I have the right partners with the right project, with the right property manager in place and it stays occupied, I don’t have to do anything.” But you do, you just enjoy it, that’s why you don’t think that you’re doing anything but you’re constantly thinking about, “All right, we bought it at a seven capitalization rate. The rent escalations are going to get us to a 12 cap. In three years, we got to prep for the 10.99 exchange.” Property management firms don’t do that. And you’re nuts if you let your accountant do it because they’re not going to do it right. And those of you who are in that situation know exactly what I’m talking about. So, no, it’s not passive. It’s just happens to be something that you really like versus talking to tenants.
Jill K DeWit:
I understand. You know when you think of owning an office building and things like that, all I could think of is… I’d be worrying, “The roof’s not going to need something, and all the plumbing’s going to work today-
Steven Jack Butala:
Same thing.
Jill K DeWit:
… fill in the blank.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, but Jack, there’s triple leases that you can lease to something like Bank of America.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
Sure, sure.
Jill K DeWit:
And then you’re still thinking about the 10:31 exchange and the rent escalation and that service.
Okay. I know I said I was ending it on that, but now I’m really ending it on this for me, why everybody got so lazy? Maybe this is part of the culture. That’s a whole another show.
Steven Jack Butala:
No, I think now’s the time. I love this.
Jill K DeWit:
Why is our culture, why is this planet lazy?
Steven Jack Butala:
I love this, Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
I remember going in, punching a time clock. “Wait, this is a discussion we had other days. What do you mean after three occurrences, you were fired?” I’m like, “Yes, I’ve had a job. And those of you know what I’m talking about. There was attendance, and you had to be on time, punch a clock, and after three you were let go.” That’s just what you had three in a year. You had a rolling 12 month period, you’re let go. And I remember getting excited when things would, after 12 months would fall off. Like, “Oh good, 12 months has passed, now I’m back down to zero.” So, if I’m sick one day, I’m late, car accident. That’s just kind of what it was. And you had to get up and go to work. And honestly, I kind of like it. I like doing stuff. I like moving forward. I like buying property. I like watching the bank balance go up. I like knowing that my daily stuff contributes to that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s a thought that I’ve had recently. I was a kid through the ’70s and fortunate enough to have computers in my life since middle school, whether they’re in school, in the library, and ultimately as a Christmas present for my parents because they were tired of me talking about it. And all I kept thinking during that period was, “I know where this is going. I know that this computer that’s on my desk is going to get better and cheaper because you could see that happening every year then, and they’re going to connect eventually.” I remember, me and my friends connecting our computers together for the first time when we were in maybe junior high and then looking at each other saying, “Well, what if all computers are connected?” And so, we were always never appreciating the time we were in.
So then, you get a little bit older, it’s like, “wow, these times next year are going to be greater. They’re going to be better.” And then, I was in accounting for commercial real estate, “oh, next year I’m going to have a better year than this year. Oh, accounting, I’m going to get promoted and it’s going to be better.” And then something like COVID happens or 9/11 happens, when both of those things happen and it didn’t make it better. COVID made this worse, and that’s what Jill’s referring to. We are now socially kind of depleted or diminished because of these events where there’s more restrictions on us now. Everybody’s staying at home for two years, it doesn’t help anything. It doesn’t help anything. Certainly, under the guise of being passive. That’s what be staying at home for two years is, passive. It’s not active.
Jill K DeWit:
I know.
Steven Jack Butala:
By the way, Land Academy and our land business thrived during those two years. We smashed it. I mean we doubled our revenue, company-wide and we’ve kept it there.
Jill K DeWit:
I wasn’t expecting that too when it all happened. I’m like, “Oh, everybody, this is going to sink the ship,” and then like, “Oh no, this is even better for all of us.
Steven Jack Butala:
So, in summary, I get chasing zero. I get wanting to put your feet up with a cocktail in your hand in the Caribbean permanently someday.
Jill K DeWit:
Mexico. I get that. I get it. I have those same versions of those same goals. They all involve Jill now, not just me, in our family, but I’m way too young for that. And we do it a couple times a year and that’s good enough for me. And we have a ton of employees that are doing this stuff. So, you’re not going to do this in the first 24 months of anything that you start, but it will happen if you’re not chasing something passive. Let’s take a look at one of our favorite land acquisitions from the weekly Thursday memo member webinar. That was kind of ranty on both of our parts.
Maybe. Did you know, we have a full-blown ready… Boy, we just visited it again a couple of weeks ago. Direct mail printing operation to help you. Check out offers and the 2owners.com. It’s awesome. So, let me tell you a little bit about what we can do. If you’re like, “Okay, this is great. I hear you guys talking about data or hear about talking about getting offers to sellers. There’s a piece in the middle. How do I get these letters to these people? Am I handwriting things? Oh my gosh, no. Can you imagine how long that would take?”
No, offers by the thousands are getting out to property owners to buy their property and that’s how we got where we are today. So, check out offers at 2owners.com. Basically, what you’re going to do is go on there, give them a call if you have any questions, but it’s where you can go and upload a spreadsheet. They’ll put it into a beautiful letter format for you and get it in the mail with your offer price, your company logo, your website, your name, your phone number. Everything will be on there. And including, if you’re like, “Okay, that’s great, but I’m still not that good about the data part.” Well, don’t worry, we have a service there. It’s our concierge service, and they will actually go download the data for you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Same one we use.
Jill K DeWit:
Get it pre-scrubbed for you, ready to price with stuff for you to know how to make an accurate price like some sales comps and price per acre from wherever you guys scrub it, and you can accurately price these offers and get them out and it really will keep you on track too.
Steven Jack Butala:
Nice work, Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take another question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. Again, if you want to sneak peek at this, go to our Discord channel and take a look at it on landacademy.com. It’s free and it’s read-only.
Jill K DeWit:
Greg wrote, “Hi, everyone. I’m James from Salt Lake City, Utah. Brief background, I got started in a commercial real estate 2005 by raising an investing capital in the 50 unit multi-family property in the Bronx, New York City. I’ve since raised capital for more of those over the years with the biggest raise just last quarter. While in New York City, I attended NYU’s commercial real estate master’s program and was very involved. So, I know commercial real estate folks all over the world. I worked in acquisitions for a couple of years, then transitioned to a brokerage where I’ve spent most of my time in the office and industrial sectors in Salt Lake City. I’ve spent time working in every CRE sector. I’ve gotten nice fees, but I’ve seen my clients knock the ball out of this park comparatively. So, joining this group is my foray into running my own business and calling my own shots. Thrilled to be a part of Land Academy, although it’s taken me a bit to think of that as Land Academy rather than, oh, Los Angeles.” LA, LOL, got it.
Steven Jack Butala:
I agree with you.
Jill K DeWit:
Didn’t think about that.
Steven Jack Butala:
I did, I think about it all the time.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, that’s funny. “And looking to be actively involved and bring value where I can. I have access to pro versions of CoStar and LoopNet at my brokerage, which may prove useful at times. I’m a recently joined member of the Land Geek program as well. But the deal sizes here are ultimately more my size or style. I’m committed to probably both. I’m committed to sending a large amount of mail out this year, so I’m just trying to get set up right now so I can pull the trigger on my first mailer ASAP. Looking forward to learning from all of you and creating something special here.” You’re not alone. There’s a lot of people that came here from other groups and a lot of it is, “Hey, I got my feet wet. I get it. I learned the land thing, but now I’m here to do some bigger deals or make this my career. ”
Steven Jack Butala:
This is exactly how I got started in 1993 in commercial real estate. I got tired of making other people money as a broker. I got tired of waiting on the phone. Jill knows this. Waiting on the phone for a decision after talking to somebody and listening to somebody described their perfect acquisition. Me spending a month and a half on my own dime to go find out, find that perfect acquisition or 10 of them, and only to have that person say, “Yeah, I changed my mind.” So, that being the person on the other side of the phone has always been my dream until I was that person on the other side of the phone. Then now, Jill’s the other side, and that’s it’s even better. Jill’s on the other side of the phone.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you’re thinking about joining LAN Academy, this is the kind of people this person just joined. These are the kinds of people that you’re going to rub shoulders with. And if this makes sense to you, this person has a tremendous amount to offer this group. I hope they join career path. Because I have questions for this person because raising capital of commercial real estate is not what it used to be. It was very hard in the past. But the internet, raising capital has become a lot easier. It’s easier for you as a Land Academy member, potential Land Academy member, because that’s what we all are. We’re sources of capital for you for your acquisitions.
Jill K DeWit:
Totally.
Steven Jack Butala:
I love having this type of person in our group who comes to us consciously saying, “I have a bunch of experience and I get what you guys are doing and it makes sense to me to send out a ton of offers.” Today’s second topic is not written in the script.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh.
Steven Jack Butala:
Who does these scripts?
Jill K DeWit:
Good thing we have people that can edit this.
Steven Jack Butala:
I do these scripts. That’s what I say.
Jill K DeWit:
I know.
Steven Jack Butala:
Hey, it only takes between 10 and 15 deals per year to make a million bucks in this environment. I’m not here to sell you something. This isn’t some sales pitch. This is the truth. And like I said earlier in the program, there’s a kind of a trend. We have a lot of people who joined Land Academy during during January, December and January, and it’s always like that every year. And Jill runs promotions and stuff to satisfy that desire. It’s the same desire I would like by you’re a lot more prone to think about buying a treadmill in January. It’s the same thing, because you want to make change healthily, make changes in your life. So
Jill K DeWit:
There’s trends end of the year coming into the new year. Also, at the end, when people are going back to school, we all think about what should I be doing more to when the kids are going back to school? So, I totally agree with all of that.
Steven Jack Butala:
So my point is, there’s a trend in Discord, these newer people that have signed up who are new and sending mailers out there, getting the responses and the results from their mailers right now, and they’re talking about it in Discord, and there’s somewhat of a trend like, “Geez, I got all these deals back and my phone’s ringing off the hook. It’s not working and I don’t mean not working. It’s just like, yeah, it’s that the deals are not…” So there’s some kind of disconnection at the end of this where we’re not communicating this correctly or maybe to certain people. Jill and I are not telling you what to expect when all these diamonds that are crusted in carbon are falling out of the sky under your lap when you open all these these, but you got to crack that carbon off. There’s a diamond in there.
Jill K DeWit:
I was going to cover that more in a few minutes in my little part, so I’m happy to share that.
Steven Jack Butala:
So, let’s do some real easy math then.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you for jumping ahead. I appreciate that. So-
Steven Jack Butala:
What you’re looking for is one fantastic deal per mailer, one deal that where you look at it and say the offer signed off or figure till he drops out of your hand on the desk and you say, “Boy, I have to do this deal. I don’t care where I get the money. I got to do it.” This thing’s going to make $120,000, maybe 80,000, maybe 60,000.” If you multiply every deal that you due by 12, that’s how much money you’re going to make that year. If it’s 60,000, one deal from one mailer a month, if it’s 60,000 bucks, you’re going to make 60,000 times 12, which is 720 grand.
Jill K DeWit:
If I may, here’s the whole point, and this is stuff that I talk about all the time when I’m talking to people that they’re like, “Okay, what’s going on? What do you mean I don’t have to work that hard? What do you mean I could just do one deal a month and make a million?” And when you really sit back and look at it, you go, “Oh, I guess it does make sense.” We talked about earlier, passive income and all these little deals, and I mentioned, you know, can do some much bigger deals and you should. This is normal and natural progression. It’s scary starting off in adding zeros. But if you can jump right in and go for these bigger deals, your life is so much easier and there’s so less work to do and you have so much more time, and then you can decide if you’d like to keep it like that, or if you want to do even more deals.
When you learn to make 1 million a year, and I’m going to tell how in a second you go, well, “Shoot, I can times five find that in a heartbeat. Or even times four, if I do one deal a month and I make sure that I’m going to make at least $80,000 to $100,000 a month.” “Got it, noted. That’s great. That’s easy.” Versus, “I’m going to do,” and then you do, “I’m going to do one deal a week like that once I figure it out.” Then you can see how it all adds up.
The best way is if you’re a new Land Academy member and you haven’t got into the dashboard, scroll down to the tools, which is all new and configured for you and found the equity planner. This is what I’m talking about. Sit down and look at that equity planner, which is a spreadsheet that Jack lovingly made for us a while back and we share with everybody, and this is what we do all the time. Open up that equity planner and put in how much money you want to make this year. Let’s just say it’s $1 million. Awesome. And then you fill in another box that says, “Well, how many deals do you want to do in one a month?” Great. Now, that’s figured out. So, now, you figure out, “All right, well that means I got to make $100,000 a month on that one deal. All right, great.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Realistic or not, we don’t know.
Jill K DeWit:
And you start backing into it like-
Steven Jack Butala:
Maybe 60.
Jill K DeWit:
… well, how much do I need to buy for, how much do I need to sell for, obviously, to make that money work? And you start back, you can really back into, “Well, how many mailers is that going to take and how hard am I going to have to work? And how many deals am I going to be looking at every month that comes back?” It’s all kind of right there for you. But when you really have to sit back, look at that and digest it all, and you can see that it’s really possible. It’s not nuts. I know a lot of people are like, “I’m just happy making $100,000 this year.” Well, shucks, when you think about that, well, great. Especially those numbers. If you just want to make an extra 100 grand this year, totally serious.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh geez.
Jill K DeWit:
Say, “I’m going to do one deal a month and make $10,000.” In this group, that’s like child’s play-
Steven Jack Butala:
Or just one deal in June, you make 100 grand.
Jill K DeWit:
… that’s nothing. Honestly, we have taught our kids to do that. Now, do they get excited about and motivated about it? Not yet. But they know how to do it. And that makes me feel good, and that’s another show. We are teaching, it’s kind of neat. That’s another little byproduct of this, that there’s a lot of people in Land Academy that are here to not only do this for themselves and make this income to fill in the blank, fill that hole, but also teach their kids so they know that their kids always know how to make money and keep food on the table, and they never have to worry, which is awesome. But that’s it, you’d have to sit and work it backwards and it sounds like, “What? You guy’s sure it’s going to be that easy?” When you do the math and then you look at what works involved in it, and then you just kind of dive in and you come up for air, you realize you’re doing it.
That’s it. You’re going to sit back and know that, “All right, oh, I got to send out 10,000 units a mail a month. All right, and I’m going to get two deals, minimum. Two to four deals, let’s just say, because I’m new. When you’re better and more experienced, you’ll get more deals out of that. And as you get rolling, you’ll get more deals out of that because those 10,000 units you send out every month, it’s going to keep yielding properties for you, potentially for your lifetime. It is for us, especially right now. I’ve got so many people calling me back from mailers that are over five years old, some over 10 years old. So, this stuff will keep spinning off property once you get going.
Steven Jack Butala:
So, my point is, in writing this topic and really spending some time talking about it, is that if you look on the internet, everybody’s standing in front of a jet on a tarmac somewhere, say, toasting themselves about how incredibly successful they are, and it just gets lost. It gets lost in this myriad of, “I got to send out a hundred thousand mailers. All these offers came back. I don’t know what to do.”
Jill K DeWit:
It seems overwhelming.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. I’m not going to use the word overwhelming. It just lost. This topic is meant to help ground this to this concept. You only need to do one deal a month. Do you only need to send five to 10,000 units out a month to pretty much guarantee that you are going to find a… If you do everything we talk about in the programs, if you walk, watch the weekly calls, and how we analyze these products, utilize all the resources, most importantly, Discord.
Ask questions along the way. So you send out a real effective mailer that’s priced correctly, and you answer the phone, you’re at five to 10,000 a month. If you do, you’re going to make a million dollars a year. Yeah. Am I guaranteeing that? No, because the mailers got to be right. You have to choose the right area-
Jill K DeWit:
Got to answer the phone.
Steven Jack Butala:
… you have to have a Jill-like personality, whether it’s you or somebody else, really engaging, even with the people who are angry, engaging the person on the other end of the phone to get the piece of real estate that you’re talking about to a price and acquisition price that’s going to be make you successful financially. So, forget about the jets. Forget about, there’s people in our group that make six, seven, $8 million a year. All you need to do is one deal a month.
Jill K DeWit:
Agreed. That’s why we’re here, that’s what I was starting to say. That’s why we’re here to help you too. We’re spelling out this big picture concept. You’re like, “Okay, great. But there’s a lot of little pieces in there.” Yeah, there are a lot of little pieces in there, but you know what? Lucky for you. We’ve done them all. We’ve done them all wrong-
Steven Jack Butala:
We’ve failed it all.
Jill K DeWit:
… we’ve done them all right.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s right.
Jill K DeWit:
We’ve done them wrong. We’ve fixed them, and we continue to make mistakes and fix them. We continue to test things. We’re always going to say, that’s something about us too, this is our business. I’m very proud to say I love Land Academy, this is my passion. I love Land Academy ladies and all the other things that we do in career path, but hey, I’m a land investor first. That’s my thing. And lucky for you, I’m a land investor first because I need to be out there in front of you figuring things out. He needs to be in front of us going, “Uh-oh, this changed.” Like the whole zip code thing, and so is now it’s not showing zip codes, so here’s how you have to go get it. We’re always right there ahead of you, helping you, guiding you, showing you the way.
Steven Jack Butala:
I know these things change because when I go to do my mailer, I’m like, “Well, I have to change how I’m doing this mailer.” because what I did last time just doesn’t work this time. Well, I’d better tell everybody else.
Jill K DeWit:
Can you imagine, it’s having a… It’s funny, I think about Cold Stone Creamery. I don’t know why this? Because we’re in Arizona, so our former mayor-
Steven Jack Butala:
Governor.
Jill K DeWit:
… Doug Ducey. What’s that?
Steven Jack Butala:
Governor.
Jill K DeWit:
Excuse me, former governor. Thank you. Doug Ducey. I love being corrected like that. Just kidding.
Steven Jack Butala:
I love that.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m sorry.
Steven Jack Butala:
I love it too. I’m going to hear about it after return of Microsoft.
Jill K DeWit:
No, you’re right. Thank you. No, our former governor, Doug Ducey, was the head of Cold Stone Creamery, And it’s interesting because he obviously left Cold Stone Creamery when he became governor. He can’t effectively run the franchise when he is the governor. I don’t know if it’s as effective now. Do you even see them growing up? I’m sure he did a good job starting it up. I remember watching it here in Arizona, take off and grow and getting more Cold Stone. I didn’t even know who the guy was. I remember seeing along the freeway, along the 101, the office buildings, and I knew and he’d take the owners in there and do it, but he took a different role. So, he had to transition. Are they as effective? What do you think? I know, for us, we are as effective because we’re still in this business. I’m not going to leave it to do governor.
Steven Jack Butala:
First of all, Jill has this fascination with Cold Stone Creamery, and here’s why-
Jill K DeWit:
I like ice cream.
Steven Jack Butala:
… because it comes up. If you have 7,000 hours on your hands, go back and listen to this. And Cold Stone comes up a disproportionate really number of times. And Cold Stone comes up in our lives too much. Here’s why.
Jill K DeWit:
I didn’t know that. This is the first time I brought it up, and I don’t remember when. Now, Dairy Queen-
Steven Jack Butala:
When Jill’s a kid in Laguna Beach, she worked at Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory-
Jill K DeWit:
I did.
Steven Jack Butala:
… and is there a high school job or a teenage job?
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
So, every single place we go, a lot of Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
We got to go in there and Jill talks to everybody and the people that work there, and I don’t even go in anymore. I don’t know if you’ve noticed that.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, I noticed that.
Steven Jack Butala:
And she comes out with a grocery sized bag of chocolate and stuff, which we should never be eating. So, she’s predisposed for this business model, this little shop that’s got chocolate and happy people in there, and it’s a big treats thing. And then a bunch of years ago, her family came to her and said, “We should buy these Cold Stone locations, that we should be a franchisee of Cold Stone Creamery.” It never materialized. So, she’s got that half fascination about what goes on.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
As a business model, tiny little shops that you’re so capped and the amount of money that you’re going to share, that you can potentially make, if you spreadsheet it out, it’ll never work.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
So, you’re capped anyway. Then you’re capped, as a franchisee, you have all this responsibilities about where you buy supplies, how much money you pay, top line revenue, you have to share percent revenue percentage. Yeah. They help you with the leases, but your shop has to look a certain way. It can’t just look, if I was just an independent. So, as a business model, the only person who ever probably wanted that is Doug Ducey. And I’m not knocking him because I actually think Steve did some great stuff for our state, but I just had to bring that up because we talk about Cold Stone too much.
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t bring up that often, but that’s okay. Apparently twice a year is too often.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yes. Once a quarter, talking about Cold Stone, often walking into a Cold Stone. What is it? Is it better?
Jill K DeWit:
Is it my turn? Oh, is it, my turn? What’s today? Oh my God.
Steven Jack Butala:
Is ice cream better?
Jill K DeWit:
No, it has nothing to do with that. I don’t care. Nah, has nothing to do with that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, go ahead-
Jill K DeWit:
Oh my gosh.
Steven Jack Butala:
… what do I talk about too much? Money?
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, I’m thinking, let me think for a few minutes. I’ll come up with something.
Steven Jack Butala:
Money depreciation and single malt scotch.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, we’ll come up with some other stuff. I’ll save it. That’s good.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a look at one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar. Jill, you have something inspirational to share.
Jill K DeWit:
I wanted to talk for a few minutes about how people sometimes are missing deals. This came up the other day… We leave it on the screen while I’m talking-
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, sure.
Jill K DeWit:
… okay, good. So, this came up the other day, about a week and a half ago, you and I did a live thing on, we did a live webinar. It was really cool, and I’m sure you can still get the replays out there. And someone brought up, almost like calling it a failed mailer. They didn’t use that term, but it’s like, “I sent all these offers. I didn’t get any juice back.” And I’m like, “Well, let’s talk about that for a second. There are usually common things when you send on a mailer and you feel like you’re not getting induced. Let me paint the picture. The mailer goes out, phone calls come back you, or you may or may not be answering the phone.” I’m just going to say, “Maybe you have a day job, so it all goes to your Google Voice. You listen to your Google Voice later on and everybody’s just saying, “Go jump on a lake,” and now, two weeks have passed and you feel like, “I bombed, I did nothing.”
Well, often, there’s some things that you could do differently right out of the gate to make this a successful mailer. So, this is really, I want to talk about how you can turn every single mailer response… Or there’s an opportunity in every single mailer response that you get, and a lot of people miss this. So, can you… That blue is distracting for me. Thank you very much.
First of all, one thing I want you to do is when your mailer goes out, I want you to be ready. I want you to kind of already know the area, because if you did your own picking the county… If you don’t have a partner like I do, right? You’re doing it yourself. You put a lot of recon into picking the count, you did a lot of recon into properties in that area, you did a lot of recon into what’s going on, price per square foot, what the terrain is, what you’re looking at, you have some ideas here. And you know too what you should be asking these sellers when the calls come in. So, that’s number one, being ready.
Number two, here come the calls. That’s going to be the first thing that happens. The mail hits, you know it, when you get these phone calls coming in, and if you’re afraid of those or you can’t answer the phones, you’re shoving them off to your Google voicemail, you’re going to miss stuff right out of the gate. I want you and or a live body, whether it’s even PATLive answering the phone, that’s going to already set you up to get a better response. They know how to do it. When you set it up through us, they know who you are, they know you’re Land Academy, that team is ready for those phone calls. They’re coached and counciled by PATLive before we coached and council. And when I say, I mean me, it got to that. And then now they do their own coaching and counseling too, to be ready for these calls. They’re ready for them. They want to take in as much information. I want you to take in as much information as you can.
You need to answer the call and like I said, think of everything as an opportunity. Think of every mad person as they’re reaching out to me for some reason. And usually, they’re reaching out because they do want to sell, and maybe they don’t like your price, or maybe they even do, they just need to get it off their chest. They’re not happy about it. They need to know you’re a real person. They need to understand this process. They need to understand that it’s real and they can sell to you, and there’s an opportunity there.
So, there’s usually two things. Like I was saying going into this, and then we talked about that the other night in the webinar. Two things that will make you think it was a not successful mailer. Number one is you didn’t answer the phone. There’s not a live person there. And number two, you’re not following through and asking the right questions. So, when the call comes to me, I automatically assume that I’m going to get a deal here. This is what you need to walk away with right now. You need to automatically know that every time someone’s calling your phone, there’s a deal right there. And all I got to do is figure out, is it my price or their price? That’s it. And as quickly as possible, get to that point, get to be on the same page with them and churn those people into an acquisition opportunity.
Who cares if it’s not your price? What is the price? You just need to know that there’s something there and say, “Look, the bottom line is…” Now, there’s a few rarely that they’re like, I really don’t want to sell ever. And you’ll get that, but that’s less than 1%. I’m going to argue. Or maybe 1%. Let’s just say that I’m really only calling you because my husband’s buried here. My grandparents are buried here. My great-grandparents are buried here. I will be buried here. All right. When you think like that, there’s a 1%, that’s really it. But the other people, there’s a number, and maybe it’s a make me move number, but there’s a number there, and you just got to get that out of them, and then you decide that works for you. So there’s always an opportunity.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let me describe, I think this might be very helpful to bring clarity to this topic because Jill’s exactly right. But let me describe the process that I had. Before Jill and I joined forces, in a very successful real estate operation, it was so different than it is now and much less successful than it is now, largely because of Jill. But I was starting out back then and still were finding stuff. But here was my process. I had a person who I hired, her name was Debbie, and she was a very successful escrow agent, and she was very, very good on the phone. And so, I did what I do now. I sent all these mailers out. We had a CRM, very similar, well, effectively the same thing as Airtable, sent all these mailers up just like I do now. Same format, same verbiage, and same way we priced it.
Took a lot longer, it was a lot harder, and more clumsy, and took me a lot more time to do it, and it was way more expensive because we didn’t have offers to owners. But I got these mailers out in the mail and they would call back, and Debbie was not in the same office that I was in. I couldn’t see her and she couldn’t see me, but I could hear her and she could hear me. That’s just how our offices were set up. And these calls would come in and I could hear if it was going to be a disaster or if it was going to be a happy person that just really wanted to do the deal. And she handled every single deal the same way.
“I’m sorry you feel that way. Would you like me…” Because my name’s on the mailer at the time. Would you like me have Steven re-look at the deal and see if it’s a more appropriate price based on what you’re telling me? Maybe we price the mailer. She was full of one-liners, and so she would put, and this is the rules back then, and I would encourage you to follow some version of this, put every deal on that CRM. Unless they signed the offer or said, I really want to do the deal at that price, she was not authorized to negotiate anything on that one first phone call. So, everything went in the CRM and it went into acquisition opportunity because every deal is an acquisition opportunity. Every single one is an acquisition opportunity. And I just telling this story, my heart starts to beat and I start to have endorphin rushes and this positive thing because when people start to call in a mailer and there’s complaining about it, all I feel is glee-
Jill K DeWit:
Me too.
Steven Jack Butala:
… it’s like, wait a minute-
Jill K DeWit:
This is an opportunity to have a conversation.
Steven Jack Butala:
… I know now, they got the mail. They may or may not be happy with the price. It’s only a matter of time before I find that diamond and crusted in carbon and we smashed one out of the park and we’re probably going to hit a lot of singles along the way. And so, she would jam these properties all day long. These properties would start to populate in the CRM. And so, every morning, I would come in, we would all horse around, and at about 10:00 I would dig into that. And this went on for years, dig into that CRM. And I would make write in comments just like we do now. And if it was a go ahead deal, I would move that deal from acquisition opportunity to a acquisition approved, or I would move it to acquisition pending, if I looked it up and found out it didn’t have access or I needed to adjust the price, or, “Debbie, please go back and do whatever this is.”
But little by little by little, we chipped away at a mailer and found the deals that were standup, triples, slide in doubles, singles, and once some great while you hit one out of the park. That is turning every mailing response into an acquisition opportunity. Not a deal, not everyone’s going to be a deal-
Jill K DeWit:
Correct.
Steven Jack Butala:
… but they all deserve to be looked at and if they don’t have access or there’s some huge flaw, there’s still worth something, go back and offer 1,000 bucks and say, “The people are responding to this because they probably need money or who knows why, but they want to do a deal in their soul.” Jill’s been saying this for 10 years.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s what I think. They reach out to you for a reason. I think everyone that reaches out and calls you really just want to sell. You just got to get on the same page about the price. And sometimes, getting on the same page is letting them know who you are. “Look, I’m not an agent. This is not retail. We’re not here to one up your neighbor. That’s not what this is. This is my business. I’m going to give you a good price if you really want to unload this and let’s talk about it.”
Steven Jack Butala:
If you’re a one person show, and most of you are, if you’re new, you’re doing Debbie’s job, and my job, and Jill’s job, or my job. And so, since then, Jill has her own process and it’s way wildly more successful than it was back then and she’s able now to cut… There’s a lot of back and forth. She, was Debbie’s on the phone for eight straight hours and her staff’s not because they’re able to cut through a lot of this stuff much more efficiently.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you’re a one person operation, you’re going to have to do both of these things. You’re going to have to be on the phone a ton, whether it’s returning calls or answering calls or whatever, taking the heat, temperature of what’s happening and seeing if there’s a deal there or not, or just report what… It’s easier, largely, I would say it’s if you’re a one person operation, it’s easier because right away you don’t have to put it in the CRM and wait for somebody to make a decision and call back and all of that. And that’s why Jill’s so refined at this, because she’s just got it licked. She, can tell right away whether we’re going to do the deal or not.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s deals in all of this.
Jill K DeWit:
Totally. All right. Your turn. Jack, what have you got to share for us today? Something informational.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m going to talk about cash flow.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, cool.
Steven Jack Butala:
This goes back to my accounting days, but it goes back in into my soul too. The topic is the real problem with managing your business and life by cash flow. There’s a concept out there. It’s not new, but it’s been regurgitated by people and economists talking about it, and they use a tube of toothpaste as an example. When you buy a new tube of toothpaste and you crack it open, how you use that toothpaste on your toothbrush is very, very different than how you use toothpaste at the very end of the tube. You know, might in the beginning, just slather it on there and enjoy yourself-
Jill K DeWit:
I’ve never heard this.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s an economic concept.
Jill K DeWit:
I didn’t know this.
Steven Jack Butala:
And it float over to accounting too, because it’s very rare that accountant’s in economics agree in-
Jill K DeWit:
It’s kind cool.
Steven Jack Butala:
… anything.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
When you’re at the end and you’re jamming a thing on the sink and you’re trying to just get that, I can get one more day-
Jill K DeWit:
You rolled it up, that’s what I do.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. and in college, you look in the inside the grout for toothpaste and rub your teeth.
Jill K DeWit:
Ew.
Steven Jack Butala:
Anyway, that’s what I did.
Jill K DeWit:
Yikes.
Steven Jack Butala:
Maybe that’s why-
Jill K DeWit:
TMI. Oh, I want to kiss that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill, you’ve always had low standards in men-
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
… I can help you with that.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, no. I wish I didn’t. Now I can’t unsee that. This is awful. Oh, yuck. Not hugging my teenager or my college kid.
Steven Jack Butala:
Is it so fun to disgust certain people here in your family? Not sure.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s great.
Steven Jack Butala:
You can’t manage your life like tube of toothpaste. You can’t do a mailer, in my opinion. And if your bank account’s full, it’s at full tube of toothpaste and you got 100,000 bucks in there or at you’re at the end and you’ve got 5,000, you can’t look at the same deal based on that. I know so many people. Over the years, I’ve heard a million people say this, “Well, it’s the end of the month and I don’t have any money left, so no, I can’t go to the show with you.” “Well, I just got paid. Sure. Let’s go out.”
Jill K DeWit:
Can you imagine the market? That’s awesome.
Steven Jack Butala:
How many times has your friend said that all throughout your life.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh no, that’s true. It’s like bonus check Tuesday. Ooh. Yeah. Yeah, totally.
Steven Jack Butala:
If everybody’s on the same payment cycle, like working for the same company, which I think Jill’s experienced, so-
Jill K DeWit:
This is hilarious.
Steven Jack Butala:
… they’re all broke at the same time of the month.
Jill K DeWit:
I forgot all about this, but yeah, it’s totally true.
Steven Jack Butala:
You’re all splitting the same $5 bottle of vodka and eating ramen noodles until you get that paycheck.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
I can’t wait till I get my paycheck.
Jill K DeWit:
And then I can go out. Yup.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s a terrible, terrible cycle to be in. And you can break the cycle mentally by forcing yourself, especially now with automatic payments and all of that. Forcing yourself to stop living by cash flow because you’ll never get out of that cycle. Never.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
What you will do to smooth it out is to find sources of credit. And so, now you’ve got credit card debt and it’s on a personal basis, that’s not good. You have to save money. You have two choices that break this cycle, both in your business and personally. Save money, which sucks, nobody wants to talk about it. And who wants to save money, or make more money. Make more money and allocate it as you’re making more. You might allocate it toward mail. You might allocate it toward putting an retirement fund or a college fund, go ahead.
Jill K DeWit:
What about spending less?
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, spending less is, that’s up to you. That’s a personal choice. If you’re spending too much money on stuff that you don’t need, then you need a psychiatrist, not this. You don’t need this podcast. I’m really serious about that. Nobody needs a new hairbrush, really.
Jill K DeWit:
No, some people, like, Because today I can afford that two bedroom, whatever, awesome apartment on the top floor, whatever.” So, when you’re like, “Do you really need the two bedroom apartment on the top floor by yourself?”
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill’s really, right?
Jill K DeWit:
I’m just asking.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s obviously two components for revenue and expense. And so, talking about managing your own personal expenses is not something ever want to talk about. I think, if you can’t do that again, I think that’s some… And we have, separately, when we were younger, Jill and I’ve talked about this many times over the years, experienced that. We’ve experienced, well, I need new shoes because everybody else has new shoes. I think it’s a normal part of grow becoming an adult. You should grow out of that. If you’re having trouble with that, I would suggest you go figure that out, not here though.
I’m talking about managing cash flow-
Jill K DeWit:
Sorry.
Steven Jack Butala:
… and the mentality with that. Especially in your business, so we just covered personally how the toothpaste thing. In your business, especially in this business, you’re going to hit it and you’re going to hit it pretty soon. And so when you get $80,000 back, or if you go do deal funding or whatever, you choose and you get $30,000 check or $40,000 check, do not spend that money. Allocate it. You need to allocate that money for a new mailer… If you have bills to pay, I get it. That’s fine. And then continue to use deal funding until you don’t need it anymore and manage your money not by cash flow. It’s a downward cycle that will never end. And the reason I wrote this topic is because I just wrote a very interesting article. I’m going to talk about it later today on that Thursday call about the differences between, and I’m quoting this article, it was fascinating. It was one of these articles-
Jill K DeWit:
You read or you wrote?
Steven Jack Butala:
I read it.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh.
Steven Jack Butala:
Did I say wrote?
Jill K DeWit:
I thought so. I’m like, “Where can I read this?”
Steven Jack Butala:
It was one of these articles where I started to read it like most articles, I’m like, “This is so stupid. Who’s doing…” And then, it ended up being great, the mentality or the thought process of people who are very, very poor, people who are, this is what the world would call middle class. I don’t believe in these titles, by the way, but I’m just regurgitating this article. And then people who have wealth, and I do agree with that title, and the people who are poor, and the people who have wealth think very similarly. It’s the people in the middle that are spending too much like Jill is saying and are living their lives through by cash flow. Yeah. They’re doing the right thing revenue wise or most of them are, they just can’t get out of it.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. That’s sad. I get it.
Steven Jack Butala:
So, please, if this sings to you… We have such limited time on the show all the time. If this sings to you, please look it up because you can change your life within 30 days pretty quickly if you start to just understand what the decisions that you’re making and why. Somebody within this article, the person who wrote it, did a extensive poll, they had access to an extensive poll, where they asked people to define the difference between assets and liabilities, and 85% couldn’t do it.
Jill K DeWit:
Understood, noted.
Steven Jack Butala:
Join us next Wednesday for another interesting episode. You’re not alone in your real estate ambition. We are Jack and Jill-
Jill K DeWit:
We are Jack and Jill-
Steven Jack Butala:
… information-
Jill K DeWit:
… and inspiration-
Steven Jack Butala:
… to buy undervalued property.
Jill K DeWit:
What’s funny, I’m not an accountant ,and I never will be, and I thank God I have you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Likewise.
Jill K DeWit:
Yes.
https://youtu.be/esa0YKlzIlQ
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
In this episode of the Land Academy Show, Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit discuss effective marketing strategies for selling land in 2023 during an economic downturn. They also explore the differences between buying and selling land as a hobby versus a career, sharing insights from their Land Academy Discord community. Steven and Jill also highlight the benefits of being involved in Land Academy’s online community, where members can get 24/7 support and have their questions answered by people who were in their shoes six months ago. Check out landacademy.com for more information on the Land Academy Discord community and to watch a view-only snippet of some of the areas within the channel.
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit. And this is the Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is episode number 1,942, believe it or not. And today, we are talking in depth about marketing for sale land in 2023 in this economic downturn. And we’ll talk later about the difference between buying and selling land as a hobby, or as a career.
Jill K DeWit:
I like this.
Steven Jack Butala:
I vote career.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
But I was reading in Discord, there’s a lot of people that have joined that they have roots in the real estate, civil engineering maybe. They have history locally in dealing with land and landowners. And they joined because they want to do a couple deals a year, and they want to be part of the community.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, careful, ’cause that’s how it turns into a career. That’s the greatest thing.
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t know how you can-
Jill K DeWit:
Isn’t that funny? Like, huh, wait a minute, I didn’t even work that hard, and I just made $50,000. What would happen if I really tried?
Steven Jack Butala:
What would happen if I spent two hours a day instead of one?
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
I couldn’t stop myself. That’s why we’re here, actually.
Jill K DeWit:
Yep.
Steven Jack Butala:
I hope you’re also enjoying our 2023 weekly show. It’s changed a little bit. Each week we answer questions from our Land Academy Discord forum, review land acquisitions from our Weekly Thursday Member Webinar, and we take a deep dive look into the two land-related topics that are by and large requested on Discord. Now let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. If you want to sneak peek at the Discord channel, please go to landacademy.com. It’s totally free.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. It’s a view-only snippet of some of the areas within our thing. Discord is our online community. It’s pretty darn cool. If you’re not familiar with Discord, google it, watch a YouTube video on it, and it’ll show you what is it. It’s pretty cool.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s a huge benefit to being involved in Land Academy. I think you’re-
Jill K DeWit:
It’s 24/7 support, basically.
Steven Jack Butala:
Your questions get answered by people who were in your shoes six months ago.
Jill K DeWit:
Uh-huh. There you go. Bailey wrote… Or was-
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s correct, Bailey.
Jill K DeWit:
Bailey wrote that Yuri said-
Steven Jack Butala:
No, I’m sorry. It’s script and correction.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, sorry. So, Yuri wrote-
Steven Jack Butala:
No, Bailey just-
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, Bailey wrote.
Steven Jack Butala:
… just said it.
Jill K DeWit:
Who wrote who wrote the-
Steven Jack Butala:
Congratulations, Bailey and Yuri.
Jill K DeWit:
Who wrote the flipping question? All right, we’re going to get on that person who-
Steven Jack Butala:
This is a script error.
Jill K DeWit:
Yes, that’s right. It’s probably the same person that does our mailers. Great. This makes me feel great. Okay, that would be him. All right, so Bailey wrote, “Hey guys, has anyone here dealt with fractional interest/ownership before?”
Steven Jack Butala:
Listen to this.
Jill K DeWit:
I have a lot to say about this one.
Steven Jack Butala:
Listen to this joke.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is a crack up.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay, like it’s okay. All right, “I’m in contact with a large company that wants to offload 120 parcels over the course of the next couple of years. And there are some great pieces of land in this portfolio, much of which has been owned for over 60 years. Some of them-”
Steven Jack Butala:
But do they own?
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’ll see.
Jill K DeWit:
Do they? “Some of them, however, have fractional ownership.” Oh, but the company has a majority share and control in all of these. Oh, I’m sure that’s true. “This first parcel I’m offering on 160 acres in Colorado is a very expensive area owned by 75% of them, and then 25% by another party that bought it through a tax deal 60 years ago. The company solely owns the easement leading to the property.” Well, that’s great. “And many of the adjacent parts.” Awesome. You can get to it, but you can’t use it. “And many adjacent parcels, accent is great. Under normal circumstances, I might just let this go. However, this relationship could be incredibly lucrative if we’re able to get this first deal done. Is this something you would recommend staying out of?”
Steven Jack Butala:
Yes.
Jill K DeWit:
“Any input or resources are greatly appreciated. Thank you.” Here’s what I would do. Can I answer first?
Steven Jack Butala:
Sure.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s great. You’re talking to the person that owns 75%. You need to talk to the person that owns 25%. It’s not going to do any good unless you buy 100% because do you want to now buy 75% of this, and you too can’t do anything with it or use it? Or live on it, or whatever because there’s somebody else that owns 25%. And it’s not like, oh, I get these 15 out of 20 acres, and they get those five. That’s not what this fractional ownership means. It’s another person who has interest in this property, and they have to be a part of everything. You can’t even really buy this from them. Go ahead.
Steven Jack Butala:
There are many, many ways to own real estate. What we care about is a fee simple interest, and that’s it. When you buy a house, you have a fee simple interest in that house. Unless there’s a land lease, or you’re in a mobile home, and you’re renting the land under it. Or, you live in a condominium where you have an interest in the air rights. Literally the air that’s between the walls, that’s what you own. It’s crazy when you really think about it. Fractional ownership is one item in a long list of ways to own property that don’t work for us. The complication here, or what’s making this not clear, is when you think about a company. We’ve all heard, “Hey, if you own 51% of a company, then you have a controlling interest, and you’re going to decide exactly what it’s going to do.”
Jill K DeWit:
Sure.
Steven Jack Butala:
You could do everything from increase the value of the company and operate it differently, or break it all apart like a corporate Wall Street Raider from the ’80s, and just dismantle it because the parts equal more than your 51% ownership value. That can’t be confused with this. Fractional ownership came about because probably in the ’50s and ’60s, and slightly in the ’70s, for whatever reason, certain places specifically in California, specifically West Virginia, and I didn’t know in Colorado until this person posted this, they assigned APNs to ownership. Silly.
Jill K DeWit:
Mm-hmm.
Steven Jack Butala:
Now, the vast majority of the property in the entire country has one APN. One parcel, one APN. Somebody got the bright idea specifically in Southern California, so if Jill and I own a piece of property, she gets an APN and I get an APN. That’s what you’re dealing with here. Unfortunately, this is a 60-year-old tax sale situation, so everybody’s probably dead.
Jill K DeWit:
That could be too.
Steven Jack Butala:
Unless you get ahold of this 25% owner and they give you consent, or you pay them, or something-
Jill K DeWit:
To buy that too, at the same time.
Steven Jack Butala:
… to create now one APN for that parcel, they own nothing.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
They have no value here. The only other option is, and I would really encourage you to take a look at this, is a quiet title. Because you could end up with the entire value of the property, a fee simple ownership of the property if you go through quiet title, which is going to take-
Jill K DeWit:
Which is-
Steven Jack Butala:
… maybe five grand, and probably two years.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, that’s the problem. Which is really basically, you buy the 75%, and you have to go through a legal process to try to connect with the other person. There’s an attorney involved. There’s attorney fees and times.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, it’s a legal action.
Jill K DeWit:
Right. To basically try to reach out to them, there’s ads in the paper. It’s all old school. There’s a whole process.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s a statutory process.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s dictated by each individual state.
Jill K DeWit:
Right. And where you’re really trying to find them… Because if you can’t find them, this is what it would be. And then basically, the court will award you like, “Hey, the guy obviously disappeared. They obviously went dark. We did everything we could.” The court will award you now that extra percentage, but I don’t want to do all that.
Steven Jack Butala:
No. There’s people that this is their career. They quiet settle property, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Especially, and I’m being really blunt here, these people who have this minority interest in this property, they acquired it 60 years ago, they’re all dead.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, there’s a good chance. Nobody knows.
Steven Jack Butala:
Quiet titling property from dead people is… I don’t want to be crass here, but otherwise, it’s just going to go back to the taxing authority anyway. There are people out there who target dead people property, and quiet settle it. Personally, I would run away from this. I think it’s too much work.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’d just send out more mail, get a better deal, and live a happy life.
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s first topic, I should say, is called Marketing “For Sale” Land in 2023. In this economic, economic downturn. I say “for sale” in air quotes because when I was in commercial real estate a million years ago, people would run around the office… Largely our clients, not so much the people in my office, would run around and say, “The last thing anybody wants is for sale property.” Which is funny, because I made a career out of it. What they really meant to say is “Well, you need a-”
Jill K DeWit:
They want sold?
Steven Jack Butala:
No, you want an office building that’s collecting rent, so the balance sheet’s going up, and there’s capitalization rates, and there’s stuff that you can lend against. And they want to have a complicated real estate life, and that’s not what we want. We want for sale property that’s soon to be sold.
Jill K DeWit:
I have no problem with for sale property, I have to think about this for a second.
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t have a problem with for sale property either.
Jill K DeWit:
No, especially right now with this market, and this climate, and all the worries people are having, and the whatever. It always brings up the money people. Anytime there’s up or down, like a stock market, you’re going to make money going up and you’re going to make even more money when it goes down. There’s nuances to this, you just have to know what you’re doing. Man, we’re getting some amazing deals. I don’t mind putting it out there for sale even right now, knowing that the right person’s going to come along here pretty darn soon. And they’ve been watching for it, and they’re ready to make a move.
Steven Jack Butala:
Exactly. The topic is how do you market for sale property in today’s economic downturn?
Jill K DeWit:
Is there something different?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. Jill and I have said this on the show over the years. There’s two reasons that properties don’t sell.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
Number one, you’re not exposing the right people to this as potential buyers to the fact that this is for sale number one.
Jill K DeWit:
Correct, reach.
Steven Jack Butala:
Reach, yeah. Number two is it’s not priced right, which usually means you paid too much.
Jill K DeWit:
Correct.
Steven Jack Butala:
And that’s the real difference here. You’re going to have to work a little bit harder in this economic downturn to sell property than you would have let’s say a year or two years ago. It’s a lot like wearing ankle weights, and then taking the ankle weights off, and it’s so much easier to walk around. Because you’re building muscle. That’s what this is.
Jill K DeWit:
Wait, I got to back up here. Is this the ankle weight time? Are we in the ankle weight time?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
You think so?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, you got to work harder.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, maybe. I don’t know. Maybe you have to work a little harder because things aren’t maybe flying off the shelves right now, but I’m going to argue that. I’m not feeling it. I’m not feeling a change in our inventory. Like a massive, oh, nothing’s selling right now.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, when’s the last time you overpaid for a piece of property?
Jill K DeWit:
Well, that would be true. I know how not to overpay for a piece of property. But I just sent you a note the other day like, “Hey, while you’re in the bank account, do you see this incoming wire? This one sold.” I wasn’t planning on it selling right now, but it just did. It’s fine. I’m trying to think this climate and what’s different. For me, and when I’m talking to agents, here’s what I am noticing different in 2023. I’m noticing pricing changes maybe more often than normal. So, what’s that making me do, is check it a little more frequently. Maybe every 30 days versus you just set it, and forget it. List it, and don’t even think about it. For example, this one property that we have right now, I looked at it again. Right now, it’s not moving, and this agent reached out and said, “We need to drop the price.” And I’m like, “Hold on a moment.” I go, “Look-”
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill hates dropping the price.
Jill K DeWit:
I hate dropping price.
Steven Jack Butala:
For the record, she just can’t stand it.
Jill K DeWit:
You know why? ‘Cause it’s a lazy broker. It’s a lazy broker’s answer like, “Oh, it’s not moving, we need to drop the price.” I’m like, “You think?”
Steven Jack Butala:
I feel a Jill rant coming.
Jill K DeWit:
So yeah, I may have talked about this last week because it’s still on my mind, and we’re doing it. Anyway. Well, I spent some time like, “Well, let’s just take a look.” I started looking, and I’m like, “No, no, no. Things are going the other way. We are underpriced right now, and I think it’s sending the wrong message. I think people are looking at this, seeing this property, and assuming there’s something wrong with it.” So, I wrote the guy and I said, “Nope, we’re actually increasing the price.” I haven’t seen it come back yet, but what’s funny is this broker, as he said, “I think we should lower the price.” He automatically just sent me the document, and I’m like, “What is this?” so, I sent it to Jan, and she’s like-
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s called slamming. We got slammed.
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t even look at him anymore. This is the value of an awesome transaction coordinator. Any broker, anybody tries to just send it straight to me, I don’t even click on it, I just forward it to my team. I’m like, “Jan, I don’t know what this is.” And she wrote right back like, “Don’t sign this. He’s on my hit list now,” kind of thing. Because he’s like, “Oh wait.” And he just thinks I’m going to open it up blindly and just sign this document. He’s going to change the price. Nope. And he hasn’t set them on raising the price yet. So, I’m waiting for it. I’m like, “No, you need to raise the price.” I guess my point in this first rant is numbers will bop up and down a little bit, so maybe you got to be a little more on it than you normally have to. But big deal. Once a month I’m looking, or even once a week.
We reach out to every deal I’ve got in play right now on the buy or the sell side, whether it’s a broker selling it, or the seller that we’re working with through escrow and everything as we’re buying it, they get touched on at least once a week, and I get a report every Wednesday of where I stand on every single property. What’s going through the system. If you do something like that, and I highly recommend it, every time, once a week, you have your thing. Look at the prices, check the market, eyeball it. Make sure your listing looks good. Make sure your leaf photo’s great. Make sure your person’s doing their job, who’s selling it for you, if it’s not you. And double check the prices. See if you need to tweak it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s some real serious and simple ways to sell property in an economic downturn. And my point to this ankle weight thing is, you should do this in an upturn too because this is going to end. The second economic downturn will end.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
And you will have the good fortune of struggling through it, succeeding and forming some great habits. Number one, put a sign on the property. Put a sign from Home Depot on the property, not a Century 21 sign. Number two, do a neighbor letter. Neighbor letters are finding all the owners, which is what we do in DataTree. We find owners of properties, that’s what we do here. Should be second nature. In fact, if you send a mailer out, you already have the data in the mailer. So, you know who owns all the property within let’s say a mile radius, maybe two, depending on how rural it is. You know who owns these properties, so you need to send a letter to them that says, “Hey, this property’s off market, and I know we’re in an academic downturn, that’s why it’s a smoking deal. We’re asking this amount of money. Give me a call. Let’s put a deal together. You already own property in the area, so you must be interested.” I think I would say that works 60% to 70% of the time if the property’s-
Jill K DeWit:
Priced right.
Steven Jack Butala:
Priced correctly. Number three, avoid infill lots.
Jill K DeWit:
I like saying something like do you want to expand your yard? Or do you want a new neighbor? Like, oh wait a minute.
Steven Jack Butala:
Owning real estate, it’s such a good tax situation for you, especially if you’re going to hold it. It’s a great estate planning thing.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you learn about these things, you can have a very intelligent conversation with somebody who calls on a neighbor letter and says, “It is really cheap. It’s a lot cheaper than I paid for my property. I’ve got a bunch of cash land around, it’s going to get taxed in my estate.” Maybe you put it in your kid’s name, or in your name and your kid’s name as joint tenants, and when you pass, it gets conveyed tax free.
Jill K DeWit:
Sure.
Steven Jack Butala:
They just own it. You should educate yourself about the benefits of that, so you can have a good conversation when they call back. Number three, avoid infill lots right now. The people who buy in infill lots, the people are home builders usually. Or, they’re builders of some kind, maybe even commercial. You don’t want to have a property that’s got a real specific use right now. Now is not the time for that. We’re in an economic downturn. Unless it’s so crazy cheap, and you’ve got a warehouse owner next door that has too much money, and it’s the same situation that I just described. You want large recreation property that’s priced really cheap because hunters and people who have hobbies also have a lot of money. They’re dying to buy 20 or 30 acres of property that they can go skeet shooting on, or whatever it lends itself to. This is a positive thing, not a negative thing.
Jill K DeWit:
I agree.
Steven Jack Butala:
And believe me, I’m Debbie Downer most of the time about a lot of this stuff. Buying really cheap property, the right property, putting a sign on it, sending a neighbor letter out, it’s going to work. Also, half of the real estate agents are out of work.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m so glad you brought that up.
Steven Jack Butala:
Go ahead.
Jill K DeWit:
I was going to say that too. This is a time that the good ones survive, and it’s easy to spot who they are, and they’re not having any issues.
Steven Jack Butala:
Exactly. If your property’s listed with a Century 21 agent, let it expire, or try to get out of the contract. A lot of times they’ll just let you out because the real estate agent sucks, and go on to LandWatch, and find a person who’s got 30 listings for land, and good listings in the area that’s your property, and hire that person. Get their opinion. And then, form these good habits right now because this downturn will change.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
And that’s it.
Jill K DeWit:
Mm-hmm, stay on it. I’m going to just circle back around to reach. One of the things about reach though, if you’re marketing your own property, you’re doing it, you have it out there on everywhere. You probably get a flat rate MLS listing, so it’s out on the planet on Trulia, Realtor, Zillow, wherever it needs to be. And then, hopefully you’re doing it, and it’s all parts of social media that you can think of. You had that hunting property that Jack just described. You have it in all those area-specific hunting groups on Facebook. You just need to get it in front of the right people. And if you’re not the one doing it, your broker is, that’s a conversation to have with your broker. Make sure that they’re getting it out there. They know how to do a neighbor letter. They know how to do that stuff. That’s why you hired them.
Steven Jack Butala:
Start thinking like this. If you have experience in real estate, there’s this regular automatic response when we list property to describe it. “Hey, this is a hundred acres, it’s really pretty, and it backs up against a forest.” Forget that right now. That needs to change during this environment. You need to lead with, “My loss is your gain. This property is grossly underpriced and we need to liquidate it, and please make any offer.” Start thinking like that, and start listening and talking to potential buyers, and make them understand that it’s so incredibly undervalued. Usually, I don’t say sell on price. Now’s not the time to maximize price. This is not bucket [inaudible 00:20:38] time. Now is the time to blow through property, and just become an acquisition expert because you’re buying it so cheap, and then selling on cheap.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a look at one of our favorite land acquisitions from the Weekly Thursday Member Webinar.
Jill K DeWit:
I would like to talk about for our members right now, ’cause I don’t think it’s open to the public at this moment, but Career Path 6 is coming up. It’s going to be April 12th through May 31st this year. Where do you find that information? Go to landacademy.com/careerpath, or just go to Land Academy and there’s a menu dropdown, and you’ll find Career Path. So, what is Career Path? Career Path is an eight-week program led by ourselves.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is the next topic, by the way.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, is it? On this show, we’re going to talk about it?
Steven Jack Butala:
You know what? The enrollment for Career Path will be… This airs on March 1st, so enrollment opens to the public on the 3rd.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, okay. Well, we’re talking about it anyway.
Steven Jack Butala:
But, in a minute we’re going to talk about do you want to make this a career? Or do you want it to be your hobby?
Jill K DeWit:
All right. Well, this is the whole point. For those of you, we all are going to talk about that in a minute. But for those of you that are here to make this your career, and I’m doing a lot of the calls myself right now, screening people, and I’m getting good people.
Steven Jack Butala:
Okay, I want to hear.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. All right, go ahead. Let’s get to the topic.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take another question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. Again, if you want to sneak peek of this Discord channel, which is pretty amazing, go to landacademy.com. It’s free. Read-only free.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. Andre wrote, “What are your all-”
Steven Jack Butala:
“What are y’all’s.”
Jill K DeWit:
“What are y’all’s opinion on wholesaling vacant land? What are the pros and cons?”
Steven Jack Butala:
Okay. This is a huge topic in Discord. Actually, the topics that we discuss, the questions that we discuss here, I choose them based on the level of-
Jill K DeWit:
Response?
Steven Jack Butala:
… response in Discord and level of involvement. And boy, this blew up.
Jill K DeWit:
Can I assume, please, that the response to this question was what it should be?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yes.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s still some new people that this person specifically, and a couple other people signed up for Land Academy because they came from wholesaling-
Jill K DeWit:
Environments.
Steven Jack Butala:
… environments, and-
Jill K DeWit:
Can we back up and explain this real quick? I hate this. I hate this. You know what wholesaling used to be to me? This is 10 plus years ago when people used to say, “What do you do?” I’m like, “Well, I kind of wholesale land.” Well, which meant to me was it was how I priced it, and who I sold it to. Like you wholesale carpet. I don’t wholesale carpet, a new carpet on terms. You know what I mean? Or, I don’t do-
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s not a warehouse wholesaling.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s not like I have-
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s a whole different beast.
Jill K DeWit:
… a theoretical role of carpet that I just pass the piece of paper that conveys the ownership of the roll of carpet. It’s not like that.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think it’s really appropriate for you to rant about this because I agree with you, and most people in the Discord do too.
Jill K DeWit:
Years ago, wholesaling was a positive thing. It was great. It meant that I bought property really inexpensively, I sold it very inexpensively, and I sold it to other investors.
Steven Jack Butala:
Which is the correct-
Jill K DeWit:
That was my main thing.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s the correct-
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
… use of the word wholesaling.
Jill K DeWit:
Right. You wholesale carpet to someone who’s going to sell it to the retail. That’s it. I would wholesale land to someone who would mark it up, sell it on terms or whatever, sell it to the end buyer, end user, retail prices. It was a beautiful relationship. Well, somewhere along the way in the last 10 years, someone got a hold of and they made the wholesaling term, which is so wrong. They made it that you’re walking around with a contract. That I sent in an offer, the person signs it back. Now I’m going to go and try to sell this piece of paper. I’m not going to buy the property, I’m not going to open escrow. I’m not going to do anything like that. I’m going to assign this property to someone else. They’re going to pay me five, 10 grand, a percentage, whatever it is, whatever you work out, for me to give them this piece of paper that they can now go buy the property from the seller. That’s what wholesaling has become.
Doesn’t matter if it’s land, doesn’t matter if it’s a house. It’s a lot of people with houses that are doing this, especially if you’re on bigger pockets, or in a clubhouse. I see it in clubhouse talks. It’s so confusing. I hate this. I don’t like to be that about… Or I should say, there’s a few things that I feel this strongly about, and this is one of them. If you feel that the property’s good enough, why don’t you buy it? Why are you running around with a piece of paper?
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s my question. Why?
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Why are you doing this?
Jill K DeWit:
Well, you know what the usual reason is? Well, usually there’s two reasons. Okay? Reason number one is I don’t have the money. Got it. Reason number two is I’m not sure that’s good of a deal, so I’m not going to put down the money.
Steven Jack Butala:
You’re not confident in the deal.
Jill K DeWit:
Reason number one, you don’t have the money. Okay, that I get. You love the deal, it’s great. You flat out don’t have the money. Well, guess what? I do.
Steven Jack Butala:
We have the money, and our entire group has tons and tons of money for this.
Jill K DeWit:
So, you don’t ever have to do that. If it’s that great of a property, just use somebody else’s money. Buy it, own it, control the deal, and then turn around and sell it quickly like we all do. And then the second one is I’m not so sure it’s that good of a deal, so I’m not going to put my money down, or even not going to put anybody else’s money down because I’m not quite sure. I’m going to run around and try to shop this piece of paper and see what happens. What a waste of your time. So many things can go wrong in that process. And two, I’m going to argue you’re not even that interested,
Steven Jack Butala:
You’re not committed.
Jill K DeWit:
Mm-mm. You’re not going to really be trying to sell that property because you’re not sure it’s a great price anyway. You’re kind of throwing it out there-
Steven Jack Butala:
You’re getting in the way,
Jill K DeWit:
… seeing what sticks. See what comes back. And that’s just dumb. You shouldn’t be-
Steven Jack Butala:
This is the same mentality-
Jill K DeWit:
… spinning your wheels.
Steven Jack Butala:
… as real estate agent.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m not committed enough to actually buy the house and resell it, or the office building or the trailer park, or whatever it ends up being. I just want to represent somebody else who does it, and make a fee. That’s not a real estate professional. That’s getting in the way of a real estate deal, which is what wholesalers do. They’re getting in the way.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m going to argue that there’s some value sometimes for agents in certain situations. I don’t think that’s necessarily… I think people-
Steven Jack Butala:
I’ll argue with that all day long.
Jill K DeWit:
You know what I think, honestly? I think there’s a lot of agents out there that are good agents that they’re just afraid of making that next step. They’re happy to represent you, happy to represent the buyer, but they’re not comfortable stepping into our shoes-
Steven Jack Butala:
Why is that?
Jill K DeWit:
… to talk to these people.
Steven Jack Butala:
For the same reason here.
Jill K DeWit:
Probably confidence.
Steven Jack Butala:
They don’t want to take any risk.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, and that’s okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t think it’s okay.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, it’s not in our world.
Steven Jack Butala:
All you got to do is go to realtor.com, and see every single property that’s listed on the MLS in the entire country within 13 seconds.
Jill K DeWit:
Do you know what the whole thing is? Maybe that’s it. I think this is where this is going, and I would be flipping scared if I was doing this. Because here’s what can happen, Andre. I think you are five months away from the real estate community coming down on you saying-
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what I think.
Jill K DeWit:
… now you’re acting as a real estate agent, and you’re not licensed, and we’re coming after you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill’s exactly right. The technical term for when you have a signed purchase agreement, and let’s say you open escrow, which is the right thing to do. You have equitable title in this property now. You are legally allowed to because you have an ownership interest. You don’t have fee simple ownership, like we were talking about earlier, you have equitable title. And that allows you to shop the deal, sell it for more, and do a-
Jill K DeWit:
I still wouldn’t do it.
Steven Jack Butala:
… dual escrow, and most title companies now, they won’t allow this. It was very popular, geez, 10 years ago, like Jill said.
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
So yeah, I’d be concerned about it too. Ultimately, legislation’s going to come down to not allow, we call it a dual closing. And I think that’s okay. Usually, I’m not a big fan of more legislation and more rules, but I think this is destructive.
Jill K DeWit:
Right. The whole thing is you need to-
Steven Jack Butala:
Buy the property.
Jill K DeWit:
We haven’t even got to the topic today, the second topic. But if you feel that good about it, Andre, just buy it. The last piece I didn’t get to say was, when you don’t own that property, and you’re running around with that piece of paper, 16 things can go wrong. The seller could change their mind. The buyer could reach out to the seller, and say, “Let’s just cut Andre out.” And what are you going to do? You’re going to really go after him, chase him, and try to sue him for it?
Steven Jack Butala:
No.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s a waste of your time. You and I know that it’s not worth it. And time, like I said, you’re not interested. You’re not going to really be working that hard. Just a lot of things that could go wrong. You may or may not remember, for those of you that have gone back to podcast number 12, some of you have.
Steven Jack Butala:
Please don’t do that.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, don’t go back.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, if you want a good gut laugh, go ahead.
Jill K DeWit:
But somewhere between 12 and 22, there was a time that I had to do a version of this only until I had the money to buy the property. But it was very, very rare.
Steven Jack Butala:
Really?
Jill K DeWit:
Mm-hmm because come on, way, way… Maybe even been before Land Academy probably.
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t recall that ever.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. But there was a time that I didn’t have the money, and I would try to do, I’d call it an option.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh yeah, optioning.
Jill K DeWit:
And it was only because I loved this deal, and the guy really wanted me… I’m like, “Ah.” But I was very upfront and honest with the seller too, by the way. And he signed something knowing that I’m going to go try to sell this, and I’m going to try to get you this price. And he’s like, “Done. Have at it, Jill.” And then as soon as I could afford it though, I would buy the property. I needed something to sell, so I could buy it.
Steven Jack Butala:
The other issue, which is a little bit more… Forget about the ethics of it, or doing the right thing.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s a core economic problem with this. $10,000 seems to be the number that everybody is shooting for to option a property, or to-
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, to make?
Steven Jack Butala:
… wholesale it. Yeah. You buy property, you sign a contract for $30,000 or $40,000 on a piece of land. You think it’s worth $80,000. You option it immediately out to somebody let’s say, in Land Academy, who sees a value in it. And they buy the contract for $10,000, and then they go off. Let’s say it’s Jill. Jill goes off, and immediately lists it, and sells it for $80,000. Now she’s $40,000 into this thing. She made 40 grand, she did about two hours of work, max. Maybe an hour. With her transaction coordinator, she really does no work at all. And great. You do 10 of those a year, and Jill does 10 of those a year, and you make… 10 times 10 is $100,000? And Jill makes $400,000. The difference is-
Jill K DeWit:
That’s a good point.
Steven Jack Butala:
… you don’t have to front any money.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s a disease. If you see risk in buying and selling land, this isn’t for you, so just don’t do it. Don’t option it. Don’t get involved in it. If you see the value in Jill’s $500,000, it’ll end up being if she did 10 or 12 of these a year, which we do see, and many, many other Land Academy members see it.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, you’re welcome to into this group then.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Andre, well, I’m not picking on you at all. Yeah, it’s a great question and I’m glad-
Jill K DeWit:
I’m glad.
Steven Jack Butala:
… you asked it, and everybody had the same opinion.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s why we’re talking about it right now.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
I want the planet to know.
Steven Jack Butala:
No way are we picking on you. You just happened to be the person who asked the question, and I’m really glad you did.
Jill K DeWit:
Totally.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s second topic is we’re going to talk about the difference between buying and selling land as a hobby or a career. That was actually a good example, that question. I think as a hobby, you can go around wholesaling land-
Jill K DeWit:
That’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
… and be a software developer.
Jill K DeWit:
If someone wants it, great. If they don’t, no big deal. I’m still back at my job at AT&T, or wherever it is.
Steven Jack Butala:
But the reality is, if you’re doing the right deals, you’re leaving so much money on the table. And in my example, Jill’s making it all. So, why not just call Jill to fund it in the first place?
Jill K DeWit:
That’s the thing.
Steven Jack Butala:
And then, now we’re all making money the right way.
Jill K DeWit:
That was my example. Here’s a positive thing. I know several people in Land Academy that are former real estate brokers/agents. And one of the common things that they have said to me is, “Yeah, I was tired of watching all these guys make all the money, all the investors.”
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s me. You’re describing me because I used to be a commercial broker.
Jill K DeWit:
There you go. I’m going to be that. I’m going to be the investor. Well, I’m only making 3% or 6% or 10%, depending on what’s going on. Versus, I want all that. I watched a few of those, I figured out what’s going on over here, and I can do that. I know how to value property. I know how to sell property. Ding, ding. That’s a good example of a good career transition.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you buy a piece of property, this is along the lines of the topic here, like Joe was saying at the beginning of the episode. And you make $50,000, and you’re good that year, that’s your hobby. There’s no way I’m going to buy himself a piece of property for 50,000 bucks, and call it a year. In fact, I’m not going to call it at all. It really down to-
Jill K DeWit:
Hold on just a moment, please ’cause for some people that’s enough. Not us.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s a personality type.
Jill K DeWit:
I know, but maybe two a year, maybe five a year. I don’t know.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m going to do 10 a month if I know I can make 50 grand.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. I want to say no way’s right or wrong, they’re just different.
Steven Jack Butala:
Absolutely, right and wrong here.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, wait. If you want a hobby, that’s it. Here’s the good news. If you want to be pushed to make this a career, join Land Academy because-
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s right.
Jill K DeWit:
… everything we do inside the Land Academy is going to try to knock that hobby out of your head. And good luck if you think you’re just going to come into Land Academy, and skip along the top, and have a lot of people that are just skipping along the top. No, we’re kind of in it.
Steven Jack Butala:
I talked to somebody on real-
Jill K DeWit:
For you motivated people, you know I’m talking to you.
Steven Jack Butala:
I talked to somebody a real long time ago, a lot of years ago, and they said, “I just want to make enough to cover my mortgage.” And I said, “This is not for you.” If you have some version of OCD or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, you have a type AAA personality where you can’t sit still, and ADD, or anything like that, you will be in great company in this group.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
Everybody’s going a hundred miles an hour here to get a bunch of deals done, and try to take the basic advice/education that Jill and I provide, and put their own twist on it so that they can make more money than the other person that’s next to them in this group, and I just love that.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s pretty easy to get into this group, do a deal or two, and then go, “Oh, if I did 10 of those, or 20 of those, where would I be right now?”
Steven Jack Butala:
To this day, when we do a deal, when Jill gets a deal like we’re just going to wire transfer in on one today, I multiply it by 12 and I say… I don’t know why I do this. I’ve always done it since the beginning of my career. If I do one of these a month, could I live on it? I think it was 38 grand.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, it’s nothing.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s 400 what? Right?
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, $500,000.
Jill K DeWit:
Could you live on that? Yeah?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t even remember this deal. I forget sometimes. Like, huh, what’s this coming in? This is the beauty of our position. My transaction coordinator will just say, “Hey, watch for a incoming wire.” I’m like, “Oh, cool. I wonder what it is.”
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s really funny because a lot of people signed up. More than usual signed up at the end of the year, so now they’re in the second month, almost the third month that their education, and they all have… I should do a frequently asked questions.
Jill K DeWit:
This is good, yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s the questions they asked. How many mailers does it take to buy a deal? And I say, “I don’t know.” This is what it reminded me of.
Jill K DeWit:
For me? Or for you?
Steven Jack Butala:
What reminded me of that was we stopped tracking this about, I don’t know, 15 years ago. More than that.
Jill K DeWit:
Like forever.
Steven Jack Butala:
Probably 25 years ago.
Jill K DeWit:
Did we ever track it? I don’t think we ever tracked it. I don’t track it.
Steven Jack Butala:
All I know is how many deals we do. I don’t care about how much mail it takes to send out because if you run the percentages, and the return on investment for what the mail costs, and the amount of money made-
Jill K DeWit:
People don’t care.
Steven Jack Butala:
… just after maybe two deals, you’ll stop caring. But I get it. People are new. They’re spending money. Thousands of dollars on mail, and you need to have a budget. And you need to predict what’s going to happen within reason. But for whatever reason, we attract a lot of people, I call them STEM-type people because that’s what I am. They’re just accountants, or they’re software engineers, or they’re mechanical engineers, or airline pilots, and on and on and on. It’s a very technical, and they want to get it all into a spreadsheet and understand it before they let it rip. Those people are planning for a career, or a second career. They’re not doing this for a hobby. There are other places to get educated out there, all of which, Jill and I, they’re offshoots of Land Academy because they used to be Land Academy members who treat this as a hobby. They buy back tax property, they send out 10 mailers a day.
Jill K DeWit:
Or, they’ve done five deals and think, “Oh, I can teach everybody this.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
Really?
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s a lot of offshoots of Land Academy. I don’t believe that any of them at all give the real big solid picture about how to make four, five, or six or $10 million a year.
Jill K DeWit:
Because they haven’t done that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, that’s right.
Jill K DeWit:
They can’t. Well, can I get back to that real quick?
Steven Jack Butala:
Sure.
Jill K DeWit:
Can I get back to Career Path real quick?
Steven Jack Butala:
Sure.
Jill K DeWit:
Speaking on that, just so you know, this is not a definite thing, but if you want it, we will help you. There’s a lot of people that just come in the Land Academy, follow us, figure it out on their own, and make this a career. Not on their own, you know what I mean. But they do everything that we do, and copy us to make it a career. If you want our help doing that, we are happy to do it. We have an eight-week program. The next one’s coming up. I’m doing two this year. One in the spring, one in the fall. And right now, it’s going to be opened up here to more people outside Atlantic soon. If you’re in Land Academy, this is a hint to you to get your seat because if I fill up before I go outside Land Academy, then that will just happen. I want you to have them first.
But we only have 15 seats, Career Path #6. And it’s us for eight weeks really coaching you, pushing you, motivating you, helping you, showing you. Telling you everything that we do, so you can make it a career like we have.
Steven Jack Butala:
And it’s not just us.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
We have people in the group-
Jill K DeWit:
Other pros [inaudible 00:39:47].
Steven Jack Butala:
… who, many of them, make more money doing this than we do.
Jill K DeWit:
Sometimes, yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
You’re one of 15 or 18 people for an entire Wednesday. I think it’s eight hour… No, probably six hours. Four to six hours every Wednesday for eight weeks.
Jill K DeWit:
Eight weeks.
Steven Jack Butala:
Consecutive weeks. You’re in a room with the people who are smashing it-
Jill K DeWit:
On Zoom.
Steven Jack Butala:
… buying and selling land. And it’s not a lecture. Hopefully, your camera’s on, your mic’s on, and you interrupt us as we’re talking, or ask other people questions about-
Jill K DeWit:
How’d you do that?
Steven Jack Butala:
… everything from what phone service do you use? To tell me your biggest horrific financial loss story, and how can I avoid that? Because I want this to be my career.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s true. That’s good.
Steven Jack Butala:
I learned the truth is we continue to do this, we don’t need to do this.
Jill K DeWit:
I love it.
Steven Jack Butala:
I love it too.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s my favorite thing now.
Steven Jack Butala:
Because every single career path, I learn a lot of stuff, and then we create business partners. In the end, if you’re serious about this, you’ll create a great business partnership. Many, many people come to us, and say, “I was in Career Path 3, and I did 22 deals with the guy. We got along, we understood each other.”
Jill K DeWit:
I’m so excited. This Career Path 6 more than ever now. We have more people that are from Career Path 1, 2, 3, and 4 and 5, wanting to come back and do it again. They’re like, “I got so much out of that. I know I’ll get even more doing this again.” I’m like, “This is really cool.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Right.
Jill K DeWit:
We have a great group. I love it.
Steven Jack Butala:
This group path is a little special because we’re going to add Land Academy Pro on the tail end of it, so you can use our staff. If you’re in Career path, you will meet… Am I not supposed to talk about that?
Jill K DeWit:
Well, it’s out there now. I was kind of just quietly-
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill’s like, “What the hell?”
Jill K DeWit:
… quietly sharing. Well, we can explain more about that at another time ’cause that’s a whole different thing. I don’t want to confuse people, but yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Right. Hey, you know what? The truth is, and all kidding aside, if this is your hobby and there’s a person just joined our group in Virginia. And I was describing this person earlier. They’re involved in the community. I think they were a civil engineer involved in a planning of a community in Virginia, and they want to buy some land. They know landowners, and it seems like from how they’re talking about it and Discord, they’re retired, or maybe later in their career, and I think that’s great.
Jill K DeWit:
This could be for everybody. This can be a hobby for you if you want. My only comment is it’s very easily to get addicted, and then it doesn’t become a hobby anymore.
Steven Jack Butala:
I would not buy Land Academy for your wife, and expect her to do it.
Jill K DeWit:
Why?
Steven Jack Butala:
Some people have come to us that… I don’t know.
Jill K DeWit:
Hold on a minute.
Steven Jack Butala:
How about I buy you an accounting degree? Are you going to go do it?
Jill K DeWit:
Well, I mean-
Steven Jack Butala:
Why don’t you ask her first?
Jill K DeWit:
Well, there is that. You don’t just say, “Here baby, log in. Let me know how it goes.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Make us some money. Come back with some dough. I’ll be over here.
Jill K DeWit:
No, that’s funny. No, but it’s awesome. I just talked to a couple today that are coming to Career Path 6, and she found Land Academy for him. I’m like, yep, it’s really good.
Steven Jack Butala:
Did she make him do it?
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, of course. Well, when the wife brings it up, then it’s going to happen.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, you’re right.
Jill K DeWit:
Right, Tory? This is good.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a look at another one of our favorite land acquisitions from our Weekly Thursday Member Webinar. Jill, you have something inspirational to share?
Jill K DeWit:
Yes. Okay, I was talking to my team today. We have a daily chat that we get together on. And we’re talking about new members, current members, everything that’s going on within our Land Academy community. And they said, “Here’s a common thing we’d love you to talk about.” And it’s people nitpicking, and looking for problems, and it’s keeping them from getting things done. My sentence is, you’re never going to get going if all you do is look for problems.
Steven Jack Butala:
I have so many questions about this because I look for problems all the time.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, but at least you do it. Let me give you an example. Here’s what I’m talking about. You’re getting ready to do a mailer, and you’re doing your numbers, you’re following Jack on screen. You’re pricing, and you know what? You just can’t get the percentages. You just can’t run them down the sheet. Maybe it’s an even Excel issue. This is what people do. They can’t get the Excel formulas to work right, They’re having trouble with this, and you know what? I’m just out today. I’ll get to it tomorrow. And then, maybe they do, maybe they don’t. And then another day goes by, and another day goes by, and another day goes by, and a week goes by. And then a month goes by. They still haven’t sent a mailer because they had some Excel hangup, or spreadsheet hangup, or just something little like that. Then instead of sitting down, don’t complain, don’t yell at people I don’t know. Don’t call my staff, and tell them it’s stupid. Not that you would do that, but you know what I mean?
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, I think some people do that.
Jill K DeWit:
Actually, some people do that. Like, this is too hard.
Steven Jack Butala:
No, Land Academy doesn’t work. No. Land Academy works, you don’t work.
Jill K DeWit:
Maybe you need to brush up on Excel. Maybe you need to use Concierge. There’s solutions, but they just look for the problems, and they use that as an excuse-
Steven Jack Butala:
Where’s this going from? This is given.
Jill K DeWit:
… for my team today. They said, “We are having not a lot, but a healthy number of people reaching out to support saying, ‘I can’t do this.'” And then, there’s one little thing like the red, yellow green test. We continue to update this because the tools that we use, and the websites that we use to download data, sometimes they change the formatting. They move it a column them over, so you have to put it in a different way. And people are like, “Well, it doesn’t work. Because it’s one column over, I can’t figure it out.” How about we take a moment to understand-
Steven Jack Butala:
This is turning into a Jill rant.
Jill K DeWit:
Sorry. How about-
Steven Jack Butala:
I love it.
Jill K DeWit:
… we take a moment to understand what each column is, and then you can go, “Oh, days on market is shifted to F instead of E. I got this.” Little things like that. And some people though, they use that sadly as a thing to stop the whole process, and you shouldn’t do that because I’m going to come back to my sentence. You’re never going to get going if all you do is sit here, and look for problems, and let that stop you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Are there predictable speed bumps in the process here?
Jill K DeWit:
Predictable? No.
Steven Jack Butala:
So, it’s not like every single person has an issue with pricing?
Jill K DeWit:
No. Nope.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s all just all over the place.
Jill K DeWit:
Sometimes it’s individuals that it’s almost like they’re looking for a reason not to do it, and they want to blame somebody else. I hate to say it.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is like a business meeting for us.
Jill K DeWit:
It is.
Steven Jack Butala:
Wouldn’t you think that you would go out into Discord and say, “I’ve got this issue. The data that Jack says in module three or chapter three at around 38 minutes isn’t lining up. Does anybody else have that issue? And please PM me.” Because everybody would say, especially Kevin Ferrell. I remember that he would say, “I’m happy to help you.”
Jill K DeWit:
Just do this.
Steven Jack Butala:
“Let’s look at it together.”
Jill K DeWit:
Well, you know what my first thing is though?
Steven Jack Butala:
support@stilllandacademy.com is not the place to learn how to buy and sell land. That’s funny. It’s just not.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, here’s my thing too. What’s wrong with trying to figure it out on your own for a few minutes?
Steven Jack Butala:
I agree.
Jill K DeWit:
Let’s first just take a step back, and whatever the problem is, understand what you’re working with here, and it might take you a little bit. Maybe there’s some Google involved. Maybe I’m not even sure what this term is. That could be. And you spend a little time on it because you know what? Wait a minute. I’m going to argue because you’re going to be smarter in the end, and you’re going to teach yourself-
Steven Jack Butala:
You’re going to feel great.
Jill K DeWit:
… how to do these problems, and work through these problems. And eventually, you’re going to be faster at it. Because if you reach out to every single person… I understand your Discord thing, that would be at the end for me. And I’m going to give you an example. But if you reach out to somebody for every little thing, you’re never going to do it on your own. You’re never going to learn. You’re never going to get past it. And if those people aren’t there someday, you’re kind of lost. Here’s an example. Sometimes when I’m doing property, I’m doing research, and I need to know what the zoning is of a property. As I’m buying this property, I’m trying to figure out what the zoning is because I’m trying to figure out what’s possible, and I’m trying to figure out who’s going to buy my property, and it’s going to make a difference if I want to buy the property. I’m like, “Can I put a mobile on there? Can someone camp on there? What can we use this for?”
And I go into ParcelFact, or whatever you use, and I see 400 or whatever that shows land use in there. The first thing I do is not pick up the phone and call the county. I never do that. First thing I do is try to find it myself. I’m going into the county website. I’m getting ahold of their property. I’m downloading their… It’s often a PDF file. It might be 30 pages long, but I’m going to get my hands on that county’s planning and zoning PDF file telling me what’s possible. I’m looking at that. And I have all I need often. Not always, but often. Now I’m like, “It says camping’s allowed, but is there a time restriction? I don’t see that in there. And it says mobiles, but I’m not sure about this.”
Now, I pick up the phone, and I will call the county. And I learn, and I remember. Now I know forever what 400 is. I didn’t rely on anybody. And two, when I call the county, they love me. “I’m staring at your manual. I’m staring at page 32. I know what 400 is and I know this, this, and this. Can you just answer this one little section for me?” You are their best friend right now.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
Because you know-
Steven Jack Butala:
Because nobody does that.
Jill K DeWit:
Uh-huh. And they’ll answer any question you want. By the way too, this is helping me because now any question I want, they love me. They’re like, “Yeah. Oh, and by the way, here’s what’s coming next month since you’re so cool. It’s not in this manual, but next month, there’s going to be a rule change that’s also going to allow this, this, and this. You are the first person to know.” Awesome. That’s how I roll.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is a Man Plan topic more than a Land Academy topic. We live in a culture where we now have an entire generation, a whole generation, maybe a generation and a half of people who were born with a computer chip in their mouth. And so, there’s not-
Jill K DeWit:
That’s coming, that’s going to be in a pacifier at some point.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m really serious about this. There’s an iPhone in their crib in some cases.
Jill K DeWit:
Maybe, yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
And what social media and the internet in general does is it gives you the false impression that your opinion matters. And what we’re seeing with some Land Academy members, I’m certainly seeing it in the public, and in a lot of other places where for some reason you think your opinion matters, and you think that everybody’s wrong. This isn’t right. This person just cut me off. Couldn’t be anything I did. Couldn’t be I was driving like an idiot. That person’s terrible. And it is this culture of blame, and over explanation for everything. And the fact is, when somebody cuts me off, my immediate response is, maybe it’s me. When I can’t get a mailer out, or it’s priced incorrectly, it’s my problem. It’s not support@landacademy’s problem, and we’re just using that as an example.
The underlying problem here is it’s personality type, and we’ve got an entire generation and a half of people that expect other people to do stuff. And they don’t look at themselves and say, “How can I be a better person today? How can I do a better mailer next time? How can I answer the phone in a better way to-”
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t think it’s age related.
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t think it’s age related at all. I think it’s your level of involvement, and when you got involved with social media.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, I just-
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s a direct cause and effect.
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t think so. I still think there’s older people that are doing it too.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
I think there’s a laziness factor too. But my point is-
Steven Jack Butala:
Absolutely. I didn’t say millennial, and I won’t. That’s not the problem.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. Well, you said generation.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, there’s an entire generation that… I don’t think it’s age specific. I really don’t.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay, can we wrap it up on a positive note?
Steven Jack Butala:
Sure.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. My point is-
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t really want to because I think-
Jill K DeWit:
Well, we’ll get to you in a minute. You can be negative on all you want.
Steven Jack Butala:
I really do think that-
Jill K DeWit:
But Jill’s inspiration is supposed to be positive.
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t want to search for positive stuff. I really think you should look for problems.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, no. You should not look for problems. Don’t go looking for problems because then you’re creating problems. It’s stupid. You should look for problems.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m upsetting Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay, ignore him. Everyone ignore that comment. This is Jill’s inspiration-
Steven Jack Butala:
I just undid everything-
Jill K DeWit:
… not Jack’s deflation.
Steven Jack Butala:
I undid everything Jill just said.
Jill K DeWit:
Jill’s inspiration, and Jack’s deflation. That’s it. I’m going to build you up, and he’s going to do his best to just let all the air out. No, but I just want you to be aware of it. And you may or may not know that’s you. If you realize, oh, you know what? I am poking holes in things instead of just figuring it out for myself and learning from it, moving on. And now I memorize it, and I got this. That’s it. You’ll be a better person, and your family and your friends will appreciate you more too. And your peers in Land Academy. Woo jack. Now it’s your turn. Do you have something you want to share?
Steven Jack Butala:
I do. I want to talk about land back taxes and back tax sales 101.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is a huge for whatever… Well, I know why. It’s a huge topic in Discord. People are asking all kinds of questions about it because I’m fairly confident. Don’t know for sure. Pretty confident they came from another land-
Jill K DeWit:
Group. That goes and buys back tax property?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yes, a land group. Another education environment that has to do with land that focuses on back taxes, which is fine. Here’s a deal. Here’s what you need to know. Every single property in the entire country, unless it’s owned by a nonprofit group, like a church, or a hospital, or whatever, has to pay taxes on its property every year, sometimes twice a year depending on where it is. And these are statutes in the state about the process and how this happens, when you stop paying your taxes, the state or the county has to follow a statutory process to get that property back on the tax rolls. That’s their whole point to this. They go about the business of over time sending you notifications, and informing you that, “Hey, you haven’t paid your taxes. You haven’t paid your taxes. This is the amount. We’re going to foreclose on it. We’re going to take it back.” And that eventually happens.
Those properties get sold at an auction after a certain amount of time. There are two types of auctions in the entire country, and then a hybrid between the two. So, there’s really three types. Tax deed, and it’s just exactly what it is. You go to an auction. Jill and I have been to a million of these. Spent millions of dollars on back tax property in the past. You go to a county courthouse, sometimes they do it online now. They say, “This is APN fill in the blank, and we’re going to start the bidding at a hundred dollars.” Or, a thousand dollars, or whatever it ends up being. If we like the price, we did all our homework, we buy the property.
Jill K DeWit:
There’s a gavel.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yep, tax deeds. There’s also tax liens. Liens are if a property has a thousand dollars of back taxes on it, you buy that thousand dollars. And a lien is placed that’s associated with that property and the owner has a couple choices. They can pay back the thousand dollars to the person who paid the thousand-dollar lien. And then, they’re all in good standing and they own the property and everything’s great. Or they can choose to ignore it because they’re dead, usually. When they ignore it, the lien holder ultimately at some point is allowed to foreclose on the property through a statutory process. That’s what quiet title was. We talked about that earlier. It’s the same process. And they end up owning the property for the amount of the back taxes that were owed. The third and final one, and Arizona’s like this is, there’s a hybrid.
First you buy a lien, nothing happens. The lien holder doesn’t foreclose, the dead person is dead, so they don’t do anything about it, and it goes into a tax deed status. This takes five to seven years in Arizona. Every state’s different. You can make a ridiculous amount of money buying properties at a back tax deed sale. Arkansas is a deed state. Texas is a deed state. Texas is required by law. Every two weeks, they have sales, every county. And there’s 274 counties in Texas. I think nobody does it. Nobody. It’s too much work. There’s a huge subculture of buying these properties at back tax sales. Why do I bring this up? Why do you care? Because you’re sending out mail all the time, and you are ultimately going to buy property from somebody who bought it at a tax sale. Is this good or bad?
Jill K DeWit:
This is a good question, yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
When a taxing authority brings a property back, and it’s through a judicial forged closure or administrative foreclosure action, it clouds a title. And now you’re buying a piece of property, sent a mailer out, guy calls you back. Says, “Heck yes. I’d love to sell you my property for $8,000.” And you say, “Great.” This is how you usually find out. You send it to a title, and title says, “Hey, this title’s cloudy. I don’t think we can insure it.” And that’s because they bought it at a tax sale several years ago.
Jill K DeWit:
Because it was taken, not sold. No, seriously. I’m just saying that-
Steven Jack Butala:
No, go ahead.
Jill K DeWit:
No, because they took it back.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s why there’s a cloud. It wasn’t a formal transaction where I willingly sold the property. They just had to take it back.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s foreclosed on.
Jill K DeWit:
I just want to explain, that’s why there’s a little cloud on there.
Steven Jack Butala:
You can undo this by quieting the title, so to speak. There’s a company in Irvine called Tax Title Services, costs a couple thousand bucks to get a cloud-free title at the end of that process. And what they do is go through judicial foreclosure. They quiet title the property, and then it’s insurable. It’s title insurance insurable. That’s back tax property. Well, Jack, why don’t we all just go buy back tax property? Why are we messing around with these mailers? Why would you send out mail if you can just go get a list at a county and pick the ones out that you want, and buy them, and resell them? Great question. It takes an incredible amount of work to look at a hundred properties in a back tax list. And I would encourage you find out wherever you live, find out if there’s a list, and go review a hundred properties, and tell me how long it takes.
It takes 10 times longer to do that than it does to do a mailer. And then, when you ultimately find the three that you want out of that a hundred, the financial part of it might not work. You can’t control the sales price, they control it. There’s all kinds of reasons that it’s not efficient from a time standpoint versus sending a 10,000-unit mailer out that might take you a day, maybe two days. It’s going to take you a lot less if you use Concierge Data. And the 25, or 30, or 40, or 80 people in those 10,000 that you send out, are calling you back in a lot of cases saying, “Where do I sign? Your timing’s perfect. I would love…” And you told them how much you’re going to pay for it. Mailing is better. But-
Jill K DeWit:
You might be eyeing that process too, which is really interesting. There’s times that you reach out to people, they’re getting these notices that it’s going to happen. So they’re freaking out going, “Shoot, I’m going to lose it.” And now, you’re coming up to buy it. That’s really amazing, and they’re happy.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill and I bought a house a few years ago. We sent the letter, they said, “Heck yes-”
Jill K DeWit:
Oh yes.
Steven Jack Butala:
“… we’d love to do the deal.” We opened escrow and the title agent called Jill a huff and said, “They’re going to take this house back next week.” The seller didn’t even tell us. I don’t know if they’re embarrassed or what. It was a smoking deal, so what did we do? We settled the taxes immediately.
Jill K DeWit:
Ran out, and paid the back taxes.
Steven Jack Butala:
We got cashiers checks, did whatever the taxing authority wanted us to do, subtracted it from the purchase price. And geez, we made probably 200 grand, $150,000 on that house. So yes, Jill’s exactly right. You’re sending a mailer out to these people that are getting these notices, and they have no intention of paying their taxes, or they don’t have their money.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, that’s the whole point of today too.
Steven Jack Butala:
Or they’re heirs of people who have passed away.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s nice to know this because now you have some knowledge, and you could explain it to sellers too. Sometimes you’re like, “Ah…” They may or may not know what would happen, and now you can say it’s going to get taken back.
Steven Jack Butala:
So please-
Jill K DeWit:
Which would happen.
Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s a couple of anecdotal points about back taxes. Property taxes are associated with the land. They’re not associated with you. A lot of people confuse that because they may have gone through a house foreclosure. And when you have a bank loan on a house, on a mortgage, that’s attached to you. It’s a personal guarantee. And the house. Property taxes are only attached to the land, so it doesn’t affect your credit score. There’s not a lot of motivation for us to pay property taxes for property we don’t want. There’s a ton of motivation for me if my property’s going back to answer somebody’s letter, and say, “Heck yes, I’ll sell it. You can please solve all my problems. Thank you.”
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
And you need to know that. Jill’s right. You need to know how this works because you’re going to talk to people on the phone who are like, “Thank you. Let’s get this done fast.”
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. Good segment. Thank you very much. Good information.
Steven Jack Butala:
Join us next Wednesday for another interesting episode. You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill K DeWit:
We are Jack and Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
We are Jack and Jill. Information.
Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration.
Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
https://youtu.be/GmCoUC4iYeQ
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Welcome to the Land Academy Show episode 1941, hosts Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit discuss why re-mailing land offers is effective and also delve into commercial real estate 101, prompted by a question from a member of their Discord channel. They also share tips and insights about commercial real estate terminology and answer more questions from the Land Academy Discord Forum as well as review land acquisitions from their weekly Thursday member webinar. If you’re not yet a member of the Discord community, you can check it out in read-only format on landinvestors.com or landacademy.com.
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit, and this is the Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is episode number 1,941, and today we are talking in depth about why re-mailing land offers is so effective. And then also, I’ll give a little talk on commercial real estate 101. Both of these things were highly suggested this week-
Jill K DeWit:
Really?
Steven Jack Butala:
… in our Discord Channel. Yeah. That’s where they came from.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, I understand the re-mailing land offers.
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t make this stuff up. I just take direction from our members. Sit next to you.
Jill K DeWit:
Are you sure? I’m not sure because there’s sometimes topics creep in there that are like, dad says, “You need to know this.” They may not be-
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s why I asked you. That’s why-
Jill K DeWit:
They may not be requested, but maybe they’re required.
Steven Jack Butala:
We moderate each other. We’re supposed to moderate each other.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. I understand.
Steven Jack Butala:
How effective is that?
Jill K DeWit:
It doesn’t go very well sometimes. That’s so true. I’m curious about, I like that commercial real estate 101. Is it because people are making mistakes, or they’re just assuming things incorrectly?
Steven Jack Butala:
No, nobody’s doing anything wrong. They’re asking questions, which they should. You’ll see what the question prompted this. The question’s actually in here in a few minutes, but it’s like, what the hell’s commercial real estate and why is it different and how should it be treated? And more specifically-
Jill K DeWit:
Is it good? Is it bad?
Steven Jack Butala:
How can I talk about it and not sound like a ding dong? That’s what I’m going to… By the time we’re done with my little spiel here, you won’t sound like a ding dong.
Jill K DeWit:
You’ll learn some new words, so you too can sound like you know what you’re doing.
Steven Jack Butala:
Is that what you do, Jill?
Jill K DeWit:
Drop 10 cap.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s good. Keep going.
Jill K DeWit:
Just make up.
Steven Jack Butala:
10 cap.
Jill K DeWit:
Just make up anything cap. Well, it’s a 32 cap.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, they would kick you out for that.
Jill K DeWit:
Could you-
Steven Jack Butala:
You know what? If you could analyze a girl as a capitalization rate, Jill’s a 32 cap.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you. Versus some of my friends, which are five caps or-
Steven Jack Butala:
Or three and a half cap. Yeah. If you know commercial wheel estate it, and you’re listening to this, you know what a three cap girl looks like.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
And forget about how she looks.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s just how she’s talks to you.
Jill K DeWit:
What do you do with a three cap girl?
Steven Jack Butala:
You walk away.
Jill K DeWit:
See already right there. Aren’t you glad you’re listening? You can sound like a professional.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s just not gender specific. There’s three plenty of three cap guys out there too.
Jill K DeWit:
I dated some three cap guys.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. And I’ve heard about her three cap guys, and all I wonder is why stay? Why stick around for that three cap stuff.
Jill K DeWit:
Yep. Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Hey, I hope you’re also enjoying this new 2023 weekly show. Each week we answer questions from the Land Academy Discord Forum, review land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar and take a deep dive into these two land related topic. Its topics that have been requested in Discord. Let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. If you want to sneak peek at what actually happens in our Discord Channel, because you’re not a member yet, please go to landinvestors.com or landacademy.com and check it out and read only format. It’s free.
Jill K DeWit:
Yuri wrote, “What do you change on your letter template when re-mailing an area? I don’t want sellers to think, I just copied and pasted the same letter I sent them before.”
Steven Jack Butala:
This sparked. I included this in the sub podcast episode, because it sparked maybe 25 comments on Discord. All of them, every single one without exception were glaringly positive reasons why-
Jill K DeWit:
But they all you need-
Steven Jack Butala:
… why you should resend mail.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m curious, what were some of the things that people said?
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, and what’s what else is interesting too is that there are people in there that have been in our group for a very long time that-
Jill K DeWit:
Like years?
Steven Jack Butala:
For years, like Bay, who have done made this work for themselves times 10. They’ve both have quit their jobs, and they’re both working at it. And they’ve done 100s and 100s and 100s of deals, and they sparked in and said, and I’m paraphrasing, if you want to go read it, you can on Discord. They popped in and said, “This is the reason we’re so successful is because we re-mail.”
Jill K DeWit:
That’s good.
Steven Jack Butala:
You know what? This is actually the topic, so we could go and go into it. First topic is why re-mailing land offers is so successful. I guess we’re in the topic.
Jill K DeWit:
We are.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’re going to fool our post-production people.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s all good.
Steven Jack Butala:
They’ll figure it out.
Jill K DeWit:
All good.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s think about this for a second. I have long said that buying and selling land, the way that we do it, which is sending blind offers out, is a lot like insider trading on Wall Street, except you don’t go to prison for it. You take all this real information. You’re utilizing market information and purchased and sales information and all the things that goes on in a potential market where you’re going to send mail, and you make a decision about how to price a mailer, at what numbers that you send out offers to people. And potentially buy property because they’re willing to sell it to you for way less than market value. That’s the definition of insider information. You have all this information that not everybody has, because they’re not smart enough to go out there and get it. And you’re making a decision and then you’re essentially buying a stock that’s worth $100 a share for $22 a share. And so it’s an amazing business model.
Now, multiply that times three because you already sent the mailer out. You sent a mailer out for five to 10 acre properties in a certain place for let’s say $15,000 or whatever the numbers end up being. You get a mild response. Maybe you buy a couple of properties, maybe you buy five properties, and you find out what’s going on in the market because you’re talking to all these sellers. Some properties you buy, some you don’t. Now you have even more insider information, information that no one else has or no one else is really paying attention to, because you’re smarter.
Jill K DeWit:
About that one little area.
Steven Jack Butala:
You think to yourself. Well, what if I sent another mailer out, not just for five to 10 acre properties, but from two to five acre properties or maybe 10 to 20 acre properties, because I know how it’s valued now. I know how people are basically going to respond to my pricing. Maybe I’m going to lower it, maybe I’m going to increase it based on the response that I got. And I’m pretty confident, more confident that I would be as if I went in blind like I did on the last mailer. I went in blind, and I can better predict now the outcome. And then the third time and the fourth time you do it, now you’ve got yourself a market.
Jill K DeWit:
A quick question. Are you talking, I was assuming re-mailing what we’re talking about is the same exact property size to drum up more deals.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, I’m getting to that, Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
Sorry. And then I have some follow up questions, but we’ll get there.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is the first part of the dad’s speech.
Jill K DeWit:
Great. I’ll be over here. Let me know.
Steven Jack Butala:
And Jill’s dead on. What’s even better is sending out the same mailer-
Jill K DeWit:
There we go.
Steven Jack Butala:
… with a price correction that you believe will increase the number of properties that you buy.It almost always works.
Jill K DeWit:
You know what’s funny and sometimes it might be lower and sometimes it might be higher depending on what you find out. I want to add one thing too. Another plus in this whole thing is the reason you’re doing this is because you had a positive result in this area. If it didn’t or something was going on, maybe it’s somewhere in let’s say a state out west, and they’re having water issues. And you’re like, “I don’t even want to play with that.” But maybe it’s somewhere in a great area. You found out like a nugget. They’re like, “I didn’t know all this was going on here. I want more property here. I didn’t know it was going to fly off the shelves like this too. I want more property here.”
But another bonus is you already know the county. You already know how they roll. You’ve already got a title person there that you’ve been working with too. You’ve got all these systems in place, which I think are an added bonus that when you call your Susie at ABC Title back on, “Hey, I know we did three last month. I got five more coming at you.” We’re going to do the same thing. It’s so much more efficient. You understand each other. It’s so great.
Steven Jack Butala:
You also can gauge because you posted all the property from first round the on the sell side, what their reaction is. It’s very often still that Jill and I sell property I think too inexpensively. What that allows and what that tells me in my next mailer is that, you know what? I can afford to send out the same mailer, maybe price a little higher, because I don’t think we charge enough on the sell side, so it gives me a lower little more… This is an acquisition person’s dream. What do you mean I can pay more? If I can pay that much more, I can buy probably 10, 15 more properties in the same mailer. It’s all this information that you’re collecting on the first round mailer and Jill’s dead right. You’ve got a crew set up now, and you have pricing information down. You’re not going in blind anymore. That’s the true definition of experience.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, this is one of the reasons too, that if you’re doing this full-time or you have the luxury that you could answer your phone and you’re not doing a nine to five job or you just can’t do anything outside of your day job. If you can answer some of these incoming calls, at least the first wave, this is when you’re going to learn this stuff, and this is why this is really valuable and this is why I still do it now and then today when we send out a brand new area. I’m like, “I’m going to take the first wave of calls.” I need to gauge what’s going on, gauge how our pricing is, get some inside information like you’re talking about. What if it’s agriculture or something, who knows? And everybody says, “Well, because of X, Y, Z that’s coming into the valley. This is why I think it’s worth,” fill in the blank. I didn’t know about X, Y, Z coming into the valley, and now I know.
Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s another huge benefit. Jill’s obviously on the sell side and the people side of this.
Jill K DeWit:
On the buy side.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m on the data part, and so I don’t have to redo a mailer. I’m sitting there staring at a mailer that I spent a bunch of time and money on, spent money on data and time-
Jill K DeWit:
It does save.
Steven Jack Butala:
… putting this whole thing together. All I got to do is adjust the price? [inaudible 00:10:56] I already spent all that time testing for reason at the end of the mailer last time. Those are the same. I’m just going to change the percentages up or down. That’s a five-minute mailer. That’s the total of a show, and you’re going in saying it needs to be 5% more. And then you resubmit it to 020, and now you’re done. Talk about working for two hours a day.
Jill K DeWit:
Do you know what?
Steven Jack Butala:
Now, you’re not working at all.
Jill K DeWit:
This is a good thing too. There’s a lot of people that come in Landing Camp. “We know you’re hitting it into our head. Send more mail, send more mail, send more mail. But I’m so busy I didn’t have time.” That would be a good thing for someone to hold on a moment. I know you’re busy. You don’t have a lot of time. I know we have Concierge Plus, but they could go back to an old mailer that did really well. Go back to the well basically and regurgitate one once in a while to get more deals in an area that they already know. That’d be a good way to keep them on track too. I think that’d be great.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you sent out a mailer, a 10,000 unit mailer at 20%. I’m making gross generalizations. At 20% of you determined retail value, and you bought three properties. How many people do you think got your offer stared at it for a minute and didn’t tell our spouse this time, but they’re like, “You know what, we’re never going to use that land.”
Jill K DeWit:
Didn’t tell our-
Steven Jack Butala:
But they never picked up the phone.
Jill K DeWit:
Didn’t tell our spouse. What?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, I’m not going to tell him yet, because I don’t want to break the bad news. But his dream of putting a cabin on that property is over.
Jill K DeWit:
He’s 93. He wanted to build it himself.
Steven Jack Butala:
Maybe he’s not 93, maybe he’s 56, and he is just an ass. And you don’t think he deserves a cabin.
Jill K DeWit:
There we go.
Steven Jack Butala:
For whatever reason, you didn’t let him know about the letter.
Jill K DeWit:
Where do you come up with this stuff?
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t know.
We’ve been talking about buying and selling land for what? Almost 15 years now in a format like this, and we got to make it funny. We’ve literally talked about everything you could possibly talk about.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m going to pause for a second. I have yet to call our friends and ad say this, but I’ll never forget when you first started this podcast. And I ended up being your permanent guest here, co-host slash guest, whatever you want to call it. Our friends would all go, “What the heck are you guys going to talk about? Do you have that much to talk about?” It’s so funny. And at the time, “Oh sure.” And then later on I’m going, “No, that is kind of nuts.” And here we still are. I should call up and go, “We’re still doing it.”
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s really a show about Jill and I failing at being in a relationship.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what the show’s about.
Jill K DeWit:
True. That’s it. That’s why you’re here. Don’t let this happen to you.
Steven Jack Butala:
You send this 10 unit mailer out. If you buy three or four or five properties, how many people do you think thought about calling you, but didn’t. And now they get another letter from you that says maybe you changed the letter a little bit. That’s the real question. How do you change it if you’re going to send it out again? That’s the question before this that led to this topic, and I would say you used the information from the first mailer and you changed just a couple sentences in the offer that says, “Hey, I’m reaching out to you again because I sent a letter to you a couple months ago, and we re-looked at your property. And now we want to offer this.” If it’s lower, that that may not work as well. If it’s higher, and you could say that right here, “This is a new revised offer. We realize your property’s worth a little bit more money.” How many more people are going to sit down and say, “Wait a minute.”
Jill K DeWit:
That would be really cool.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you’ve ever watched a football game, you see the first Pepsi commercial in the first quarter.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
And then the second quarter, there’s three Pepsi commercials and to the point where you’re sick of it.
Jill K DeWit:
No. You’re thirsty.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. Or you’re going to buy a Pepsi to shut them up.
Jill K DeWit:
It does look good. I keep staring at that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Repetition in marketing and advertising works, and that’s what this is. We have a guy, he’s a career path alumni guy. I haven’t heard from him in a while, but he’s famous for coming on to our advanced career path calls every month and saying, “I’ve only ever sent out one mailer, and I send it out every month. I change a price a little bit, and I buy a couple properties and that’s my whole… That’s what I do.”
And that works.
Jill K DeWit:
For him.
Steven Jack Butala:
A guy in our advanced group when we had that a lot of years ago, that’s only ever sent mail out to one huge subdivision in Texas his entire career, and he made a career out of that. re-mailing an area after you get to know it really, really, really well is super, super effective, and you’re gaining confidence every time. First time you buy five, the next time you buy three, the next time you buy eight, the next time you buy four. After a while, you’re changing your thinking about it. You just roll it in, you roll it into your… I’m not saying never mail another place again, because you always have to try new stuff, but now how much confidence do you have that what’s going to happen on a mailer? Maybe the next time it’s only one. It’s still no work.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s so nice. Even when the calls start coming in on a single mailer. You’re new to the area. After five or six phone calls, you know the area. You’re starting to learn the APN schemes, you’re looking them up. You’re starting to know, “All right, I realize on this side of the train tracks is this, and on that side of the train tracks is that. If I can get closer in, this is where, and this is where it’s kind of deserty and this is why it commands this price.” It’s really nice. So this is-
Steven Jack Butala:
East side of the free… Yeah. Go ahead.
Jill K DeWit:
Keeps going on and gets, just gets better.
Steven Jack Butala:
East side of the freeway’s worth this. The west side’s worth this. There are places in Arizona that they’ve been groundwater had, they’ve sunk, and there’s tons of property for sale there. And we just don’t send mail there anymore, because we know. We sent mail. We did a huge mailer in West Virginia one time, and Jill found out very quickly.
Jill K DeWit:
It was hilarious.
Steven Jack Butala:
I spent a lot of time on this.
Jill K DeWit:
It was a bummer.
Steven Jack Butala:
She walked in my office and said, “Yes, so this is not going to work.”
Jill K DeWit:
I just told everybody to stop taking calls when they have a Virginia property, wish them well.
Steven Jack Butala:
West Virginia.
Jill K DeWit:
West Virginia, excuse me. Wish them well, because undivided interest was rampant.
Steven Jack Butala:
In West Virginia for whatever reason, quite some time ago, they assigned APNs to owners, not real estate. And so one property-
Jill K DeWit:
These poor owners didn’t even know it.
Steven Jack Butala:
One property could have four APNs. And so as you know, we send mail out to APNs. We buy APNs.
Jill K DeWit:
That was funny.
Steven Jack Butala:
You don’t ever want to buy 25% ownership in a property.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
Ever.
Jill K DeWit:
That was good.
Steven Jack Butala:
Hey, let’s take a look at one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar.
Jill K DeWit:
Hey, you know what’s coming up next month?
Steven Jack Butala:
No.
Jill K DeWit:
Land Academy Ladies. Coming in March, 2023. I’m proud to say this is the only female land investor group that exists. How cool is that? It’s for members or partners of members. Sorry, you need to be a lady to join in. Wigs are not going to count, and I know people that would do that, but I am so excited. It’s starting up in March this year, 2023. If you are a Land Academy member, keep an eye out for an email. It may have gone out, but if not, or if you have any questions, of course, reach out to support@landacademy.com. Or if you’re not Land Academy member, and you’re like, “All right, this sings to me.” Send a note to support@landacademy.com, and we will get you more information.
Steven Jack Butala:
Don’t forget about offers to owners. Jill and I have a full-blown commercial printing company, whether you’re a member or not, that you can use to get offers out to for houses or land or any type of real estate.
Jill K DeWit:
Anything.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, it’s getting more and more and more popular.
Let’s take another question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. Again, if you want to sneak peek at our Discord channel, go out to landinvestors.com or landacademy.com. Dig your way through those sites, and you’ll be pleasantly surprised. It’s in real time how we all communicate with each other.
Jill K DeWit:
Charlie wrote, Who’s the land Academy of commercial real estate? I need to do some reading slash podcasting.” Listening, I’m sure. “I can’t even carry on a conversation with a commercial agent. It’s embarrassing. Or is there some commercial stuff in Land Academy that I’ve missed?”
I like this.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oddly enough, I’ll answer this question in today’s second topic.
Jill K DeWit:
Cool.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s amazing how that happened.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s second topic is commercial real estate 101.
Back in the early 90s, right when I got out of school, out of college, I had a very brief job as an accountant. I mean for like four months, a small accounting firm’s tax practice, which made me vomit every morning. I had a talk with myself and said, “I’m going into real estate, because every one of our tax customers was in real estate.” And I was looking at their tax returns going, “These people are crazy wealthy.” But I always knew I wanted to go into real estate anyway. My dad did very well in commercial real estate, so I went down the path to become a commercial real estate agent and took the test, passed that, this is in Michigan, Detroit, Michigan in one of the worst recessions they’ve ever experienced. My timing couldn’t have been worse. And so I did, and it was full commission, and I ate a lot of ramen noodles for a year and learned all kinds of stuff about commercial real estate and why creating value in commercial real estate is so effective.
And I’m going to give a basic talk today about just understanding commercial real estate, but keep in mind there’s things that you can do with commercial real estate when you buy them or develop them that create an amazing amount of equity very, very quickly that you could never, ever accomplish buy and selling houses or anything that really has to do with residential real estate. Unless you’re building huge master plan subdivisions, which is very unrealistic for an individual person. For us, Jill and I, to go out and do a master plan community it’s possible, but not very realistic without becoming partners with people that are really involved in that. Owning it, buying and improving a strip mall is very realistic. And so that’s where it comes into play for us, because we’re all entrepreneurs sitting in some home office somewhere, for lack of a better description self employed. We want in. Here’s the deal with commercial real estate. It all comes down to how it’s valued. Just bear with me for a second. When I say that, I mean, Jill, bear with me for a second.
Jill K DeWit:
Could you tell? Could you see?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
Could you see-
Steven Jack Butala:
The back of your eyelids? Yes.
Jill K DeWit:
Yes. Could you see, no. What’s going on with, you could see the mental shift, which is she’s shopping in her head right now.
Steven Jack Butala:
What were you shopping for?
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t know anything. Not commercial real estate.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill, you’re a 32 cap. Just sit there and look pretty.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you. I got to go on today. We’re leaving town this weekend. Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
Really, really quickly. We all know houses. When we think of real estate, the vast majority of us think of houses. The house we grew up in, how much of our money our parents made on these houses, houses, houses, houses.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
HG freaking TV’s got a whole-
Jill K DeWit:
Oh gosh.
Steven Jack Butala:
… channel that runs 24 hours a day about window treatments and buying a house and selling it and improving it and making money. All of that, all of it is 90% emotion. Does the house look pretty? I walk into it. I want to buy it. How much is it? I don’t care. I want it. But the house next door is falling down. I know. How much is that? I don’t care. I’m not buying it. The scary thing is that those two houses, one that’s been completely done, and the one that is fallen down, or maybe it’s original. Maybe it’s 1962 original with avocado stove and we just walked through a house like that.
Jill K DeWit:
Yes.
Steven Jack Butala:
And we walked through because Jill bought a painting off of Offer Up. We walked into this house. There’s this deceased guy who’s lived there by himself. All original. Million eight they got for the house. The fully renovated one right down the street is 2.1. That’s not a big variance for a pile of crap house and a brand new and turn on your favorite song and open a bottle of whiskey house.
That never happens in commercial real estate. Never. Why? Because commercial real estate is valued on capitalization rates in general, which means how much money is it bringing in will dictate the value of the property. Nobody walks into a warehouse and says, “It’s really dirty in here, and I don’t think I’m going to buy it.” Long before you walk into a warehouse to see if you’re going to buy it, you look at what the tenant’s paying, whether the history of the payments, the vacancy rate, the occupancy rate, the structure of the lease, and you value it in a capitalization rate format. The capitalization rate, the strict definition is you take the net operating income, the amount of rent that you’re getting, and you divide it by the purchase price. Right now, seven caps are real popular, because interest rates are a little higher, and interest rates affect net operating income.
I don’t want to get too deeply into this environment, but just know how much money’s coming in dramatically and directly dictates the property. After you get into due diligence period and re-look at the deal, especially things old apartment buildings that are falling down. The condition of the actual property might come into play, might. A brand new property’s going to be probably have a lower cap rate, because it’s going to cost less to run it versus an older one. But again, that’s reflected in the cap rate, so you don’t have to really worry about emotion, which makes commercial real estate, in my opinion, extremely attractive. Because everybody’s valuing it with the same mindset. How much money is it making or losing? We just looked at an investment townhouse in an area in Old town Scottsdale, and this townhouse has bright red kitchen-
Jill K DeWit:
Cabinets.
Steven Jack Butala:
… cabinets.
Jill K DeWit:
Shiny cabinets.
Steven Jack Butala:
And it’s a great price and a cap rate works and the whole thing. And Jill’s like, “Nope.”
Jill K DeWit:
I said, “Put in an offer.” Would I live there? No. It’s not for me. But you know?
Steven Jack Butala:
This is very on the screen with the camera on a nice way of saying, “I’m very available.”
Jill K DeWit:
Did I?
Steven Jack Butala:
No, yeah. [inaudible 00:26:01]
Jill K DeWit:
I said, “Put in an offer.”
Steven Jack Butala:
… property.
Jill K DeWit:
I did. I don’t care.
Steven Jack Butala:
The question is to me, I could care less about what it looks like on the inside. Is somebody going to release it?
Jill K DeWit:
Not for me.
Steven Jack Butala:
The balance sheet in that area, the amount is going up no matter what, but is somebody going to pay to live there? And I think the answer is yes, because it’s in such good… Doesn’t matter. That’s what you want to remember about commercial real estate. How is it valued? What does that have to do with land? I thought this was Land Academy. Nothing. The value of the land needs to be much less than the value of the cap rate. That’s the amount of income that that property is generating at times. Specifically in Southern California, the value of the land becomes more than the actual rent that the property can generate. You see this in trailer parks all the time.
Jill K DeWit:
Isn’t it amazing., but yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
And so what happens then? That’s when all the yellow iron comes out and you can theoretically, the new owner would realize that and theoretically apply for a zoning change.
Jill K DeWit:
What’s the yellow iron?
Steven Jack Butala:
Caterpillar. Crush it all.
Jill K DeWit:
Got it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Crush it on to little pieces and…
Jill K DeWit:
Change it up.
Steven Jack Butala:
Put it in a landfill and create a new condo complex or a mixed use building.
Jill K DeWit:
This used to be a residential area, not anymore kind of thing.
Steven Jack Butala:
Exactly. We see that all over-
Jill K DeWit:
Office building, office building, office building, little house, gas station, da da da da, restaurant. You’re like, “It’s coming.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Speaking of that, office building, office building, gas station, the other thing about commercial real estate is the vast majority of it is the use that you can use a piece of property for has been dictated and it’s over and that’s it. It’s going to be used at heavy industrial or light industrial or multi-tenant, multi… There’s all kinds of subtypes of multi-tenant buildings, like apartments obviously and trailer parks. Those are multi-tenant buildings. It could be a mall, which is retail.
It’s all about that valuation. And if you go on at LoopNet or Crexi or any of the sites that list commercial real estate property for sale, the stuff that’s going to pop up first is vacant property. And if you want to talk about creating value and getting wealthy, you can buy with partners commercial real estate, if you know how to operate a piece of property and fill up vacancy rates, which no one, I’m here to tell you in commercial real estate knows how to do. Commercial real estate is packed full of people sitting around in an airplane hangar smoking a cigar, wondering who they’re going to hire to fill up their building.
Jill K DeWit:
Isn’t that funny? The only thing I think they think about is raising the rent.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, that’s right.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s the lazy way.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s right.
Jill K DeWit:
All they think of doing is raising them. “Great, I’m just going to raise the rent $100 a month or whatever it is.” This is dumb.
Steven Jack Butala:
In Southern California right now, or it used to be before Covid, very popular for institutional buyers to go in and buy a piece of property, buy an existing apartment building, buy everybody out of their leases, kick them out, renovate all the units, allow pets because the former manager-
Jill K DeWit:
This is smart.
Steven Jack Butala:
… former manager didn’t allow pets. Now you’ve got a whole new rental pool, increase the rate and sell it as soon as it’s all leased up. Who leases it up? A commercial management company, the person sitting around in an airplane hangar smoking that cigar could care less about how that actually property gets managed. And they’re not wrong. They don’t need to be. My point in saying this is if you’re young and really tenacious and you think you can lease up a trailer park or lease up a building, you’re going to become a multimillionaire very quickly. That’s how you create equity in commercial real estate. From a land perspective, which is really why we’re listening to this. You’re probably not listening anymore anyway.
Jill K DeWit:
I stopped.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you go through an industrial park and this happens every Thursday on calls or most Thursdays, somebody responds to a letter that we’ve all sent out that says, “Yeah, I have this property and it’s the last property in this industrial park, and I’m happy to sell it to you for less than it’s worth. Because we’ve done what we needed to do.” And so there’s a huge play for us, but it has to be in line with that capitalization rate. And how do you find out other capitalization rates for buildings that are all around there? You don’t. You have to know the area. Commercial real estate, there’s a lot of moving parts, a lot more moving parts.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, that’s the value of our commercial real estate broker that’s local to the area. I have had dealt with some good ones, not good ones and some really good ones.
Steven Jack Butala:
Good news is that people in commercial real estate are wealthy, and so when you do get a piece of land that you know think is way less valued than what you can sell it for, finding a local community of commercial real estate owners and setting up a tiny little database is bring me two hours away from that and then sending out a neighbor letter saying, “I know you own this building over here, and I’ve got this piece of dirt over here that I think is way undervalued for what it is.” They’re very likely to respond to that. I would drop what I was doing and saying, “What do you mean it’s 30,000 or $80,000? I just paid 6.2 million for this distribution center.” Yeah. I’m going to take a look at your deal.
Jill K DeWit:
This is brilliant. Thank you very much.
Steven Jack Butala:
And then my last point is zoning, and then triple net. I want to talk about triple net in a second, for a second. I’m trying to hold Jill’s attention. It’s very hard. Jill talks in sound bites.
Jill K DeWit:
Thanks.
Steven Jack Butala:
Zoning is all master planned these days. There’s this concept, and again, it’s probably comes from our parents’ time. You can buy a piece of property and rezone it and make a fortune. Rezoning property is all but impossible this day and age. You can realistically rezone a trailer park for condos. Everybody loves that. All the people on the city board are going to sign off on that, but you’re not going to rezone a trailer park to heavy industrial. Nobody wants heavy industrial or retail where it’s causing a lot of traffic and all kinds of stuff. Please put rezoning as a possibility just out of your head. There are whole shows on YouTube. We’ve had guests over the years on our podcast. We’ve had business partners gone. Not a single time has anything ever gotten rezoned. It’s all talking, and if you do get a rezone through, it’s going to take years and 100s and 100s of 1000s of dollars of legal fees.
It’s already all master planned. That’s what a civil engineer does. Long before the thing gets developed, they go in and plan it all out and say, “Here’s the industrial stuff. Here’s the retail. Here’s where all the houses go. Here’s where the apartments go, and here’s a bunch of parks.” And that’s it. It’s not going to vary very much from that.
The exception is this. This is a anecdotal fun little fact. Any place of worship, you can put it anywhere, and you don’t have to ask. You can put a church on the lot next door to your house. Isn’t that crazy?
Jill K DeWit:
I know.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s why if you drive around a community, and it’s like, “What the hell’s a church doing there?” And I say, “What the hell?” Intentionally.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. Like that one-
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s because there’s no zone requirements.
Jill K DeWit:
… we saw last night behind a bank, next to this big grocery store, we have this weird church. Yep. There you go.
Steven Jack Butala:
Churches are the one place you could potentially rezone something, because it doesn’t have any zoning anyway. And so that’s when the city planner’s going to look at that and say, “Anything but a church should be better there.”
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
Lastly, let’s talk about triple net property, because it’s so prevalent and you’ve driven by it 14 times already today and maybe not known it. All fast food restaurants, all bank branches, all freestanding buildings are triple net leased. Meaning, let’s use McDonald’s as an example. McDonald’s is a tenant and the definition of the three nets is rent of course. That’s net number one. Utilities, that’s net number two. This is a double net lease now, and a triple net is everything else. Insurance, maintenance and taxes, everything. If you own a McDonald’s, the building, not the franchise, your tenant is a franchisee of McDonald’s, and they’re responsible for 100% of the costs of operating that building, including the taxes. You just get a check.
Jill K DeWit:
Isn’t that nice?
Steven Jack Butala:
What’s the cap rate on that? It’s really low, because there’s no risk. And a lot of times those commercial leases are cross-collateralized or corporate guarantees. If the tenant fails, if that franchisee fails, because he’s eating too many hamburgers, then McDonald’s is going to pay the rent. And this is a huge, and this is also rent escalations built in. See?
Jill K DeWit:
Excuse me.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s built in rent escalations. After a few years of owning that, you sell it on a cap rate, make some money.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m allergic to bad business things.
Steven Jack Butala:
Plow it back into something else. Every dollar general you see in all these small towns are all tripping that leases. There’s a cult surrounded by guys that go in the back room and trade their trip on that lease properties. No risk, but you don’t really make any money. We made it, Jill.
Let’s take a look at another one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar.
Did you just yawn?
Jill K DeWit:
No, did I?
Steven Jack Butala:
My god, you just yawned.
Jill K DeWit:
No, I was saying that was fascinating.
Steven Jack Butala:
A lot of times you say, “Wow, that really is interesting.” Not this time.
Jill K DeWit:
No. Yeah. Not this time. You know those classes you just have to get through to get your degree or get your whatever your diploma?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, that’s all of them.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, some I find interesting, some I have to sit through this. I know there’s some nuggets in there. Just kidding. It’s all good.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill, you have something inspirational to share?
Jill K DeWit:
You know what’s interesting? I wanted to talk about the rest of my note. Will you pull up my little, I’m so sorry. My little note that I sent you, because it had a little follow up nugget in there about my thing today. Okay, so I wanted to talk about-
Steven Jack Butala:
You know what? Before you answer, I put a little question in here that somebody put it in Discord that prompted, that I think just ties right into this.
Jill K DeWit:
I’ll read the question, and then I’ll give you my little thing.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay, so that was nice. We have a third question today. Chris wrote, “I had my first phone call from my first mailer about 20 minutes ago. I was tied up with my day, and I wasn’t able to pick up, but she did leave a voicemail. She said she was interested in selling her property, but she wanted to know the details of the process. I’ve been through the program a couple times, and I listened to almost all the podcasts, but this is my first phone call, and I don’t want to sound clueless. Any guidance on how to navigate the conversation?” Well this is a two-parter. I’m going to give the answer, and then I’m going to talk a little bit more about it.
The direct answer, Chris, is go on landacademy or landinvestors.com. Either place, and get my inbound seller call checklist, print that out, use it, write on it. That’s the easiest way you’re going to sound like a pro. All the questions, the things that you need to ask are right there. Ask about the property, ask all the information. State, county, APN. Did my offer price, did that work for you? What do you know about the area? Are you current on your taxes? Fill in the blank. There’s all kinds of things on there so you know you’ll sound great. That’s a short answer.
The longer answer is, well how do you just get the confidence, and why do you, Jill have so much confidence talking to sellers and talking to buyers? And the answer is because I believe we have the same goals and this is proof right here. This person called back, you want to buy, they want to sell. Check. How do you not feel good about that? I know we both want the same thing out of this phone call. Now, all I have to do is make sure we’re on the same page, which is do I still want the property? And do they want to sell it to me at my price? It’s not hard to very quickly like this example, get to that solution, and you know that you’re working through it together.
You just keep asking each other questions. Your questions are all about the property. Their questions are all about the process. Just keep going until you guys don’t have any questions. And then that at the end this is going to happen. Great. And they know the steps. You hang up. You got the price you wanted. They’re going to follow through with the steps. They hang up knowing that they’re going to get the price they wanted, and they know what’s going to happen next.
What’s interesting is what you need to watch for is the minute it’s not going that way. I know how to, and here I’ll give you some examples here. Figure out the minute you’re not on the same page and easily it’s going to be you don’t like the property, or it’s not going to happen because there’s some legal reasons. Maybe there’s a probate issue, or you guys don’t agree on the price. What you need to do is when you figure that out, quickly end it, because it’s not going to go anywhere. You’re not going to talk them into it. It’s not even worth it.
Steven Jack Butala:
You can’t go wrong asking questions. Think about first date. You got to get the other person’s talking about themselves. Last thing you want to do… There’s this misconception, and I had it in the beginning of my real estate career where you’re sitting there trying to impress the person who owns a property to see if they want to sell. That’s not what they want at all.
Jill K DeWit:
No.
Steven Jack Butala:
Just ask them questions. How long have you owned it? Did you inherit it? Did you guys use it? Was there ever structure on it? Just the list of questions that Jill has on the website.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. You know what’s interesting? Some people believe that they have to control the conversation by talking too much and just railroading people.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s that man bad date>
Jill K DeWit:
And really having a real strong person has the most control of our conversation when they’re just asking questions and getting all the information they need out of them. That’s the secret I think. And after a few of those, Chris, it doesn’t need to be much. I bet you after between five and 10 phone calls, you’re going to get so much confidence and be so ready and secure talking to these sellers and knowing the area. You just have to pick up the phone.
Here’s my last little piece. I always assume that the reason they’re reaching out to me and calling me is because they do want to sell, and there’s one little thing they’re not sure about. Exactly like this example, she liked you. She looked you up. You passed your test. She liked the price. They’re there. She just needed to know how it works.
How great is this is the greatest conversation ever, and all you need to do is say, “Well, now I open escrow, and here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to make those calls. I do need your content information, and I’m going to make those calls and next thing you know you’ll get a call from the title person, and they’ll walk you through. If you have a copy of the deed, if they need that. Any follow up stuff like that, bank information, they’ll need to know that.”
And just make it simple. The best thing you can do too is don’t overwhelm them. Don’t give them too much information. That’s part of they think you need to control the conversation by just dumping on them. Don’t explain exactly what a title agent does, and why you pick this person. They don’t flipping care. You need to make this real easy and simple and comfortable and befriend them and make sure they know too. Remind them we’re on the same page here. Look, that’s the end thing. “I want you to know as we end this phone call that I’m buying it. You’re selling it. If you have any questions at all, you call me. We’re going to get this deal done. I am your resource here and whatever you don’t understand, I’ll walk you through it, or we’ll figure it out together.” How’s that? Who would want that?
Steven Jack Butala:
The chances are nine times out of 10, and this is hard for me to understand when I started, you are smarter about real estate than the person you’re going to talk to.
Jill K DeWit:
You [inaudible 00:43:38].
Steven Jack Butala:
Not about that piece of dirt. They know a lot about that piece of dirt, and that’s why-
Jill K DeWit:
Maybe.
Steven Jack Butala:
… one of your jobs is to really… Well, if you do it right, you’re going to ask them so many questions about the actual piece of land that by the time you’re done asking the questions, they just don’t have any more answers. Does it have access? Have you ever used it? Why are you selling? They’ll tell you big, long, personal stories about all that stuff and just all you have to do is listen.
Jill K DeWit:
Ask.
Steven Jack Butala:
Just listen to what they say.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
You know more about how to close a deal. If you’ve never closed a deal, I’m sure you know more about how to close a deal then the vast majority of the people you’ll talk to.
Jill K DeWit:
If you have watched Land Academy 3.0 one time, I can guarantee you that very first phone call, you know more than they do.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
How is that? That doesn’t make you feel good. Okay, got it. Just you know more than you think you do. How’s that?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
Jack, how about you? Do you have something information or some nuggets you want to share with us today?
Steven Jack Butala:
I do.
Jill K DeWit:
Other than the awesome, amazing, riveting commercial real estate 101-
Steven Jack Butala:
Why do you think that?
Jill K DeWit:
… chat we got.
Steven Jack Butala:
Why do you think that that was so boring for you? I mean really why? And I’m not criticizing you. I don’t care.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s like sitting through a history class.
Steven Jack Butala:
Just never going to use it?
Jill K DeWit:
No. I will use it.
Steven Jack Butala:
You’re the person who’s done 10,000 transactions. That cursory knowledge of the commercial real estate 101 is not going to benefit you in any way?
Jill K DeWit:
Know what it is? I’ll tell you why. I don’t get excited about it. I get way more excited about what’s possible with this hunting property that has these beautiful peaks, and it backs up to this and this BLM land. I get excited about that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Why is that? This taps into my topic.
Jill K DeWit:
Just my personal preference, and that’s it.
Steven Jack Butala:
No., Dig deeper. Why do you care about BLM land behind your LA property or where the things located or just honestly why? Versus an apartment building that’s got a 12 cap?
Jill K DeWit:
Isn’t that funny?
Steven Jack Butala:
I really want to know.
Jill K DeWit:
I just like-
Steven Jack Butala:
And everybody else does.
Jill K DeWit:
… endless land and blue skies. It’s my personal preference.
Steven Jack Butala:
Because you’re a land lover.
Jill K DeWit:
I am.
Steven Jack Butala:
And so am I.
Jill K DeWit:
Right. But you know what’s funny about that?
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m not apartment building lover.
Jill K DeWit:
But here’s what I learned. You can never poo poo the other people. You have to understand that just because it’s not your cup of tea, it’s somebody else’s cup of tea. Can I buy a strip mall and sell a strip mall all day long? Absolutely. I’ll make it seem exciting. Did you know that used to be a Blockbuster and now it’s a-
Steven Jack Butala:
How was that exciting?
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t know. I’ll make sure it sounds exciting.
Steven Jack Butala:
Do you know what I always wanted to do?
Jill K DeWit:
It used to be a Blockbuster, and now it’s a McDonald’s. How great is that? Don’t you want to own this whole strip mall, or here’s what’s possible on this piece of dirt to make it a strip mall.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill and I did a lot of traveling last summer around the country in an RV, and we’re going to do the same thing this summer. And every single small town’s got that used to be a Pizza Hut. And I want to do a coffee table book of what people have done. Because it’s such a-
Jill K DeWit:
And now it’s a dentist office.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. It’s so obvious that building-
Jill K DeWit:
Was a Pizza Hut.
Steven Jack Butala:
… a shape.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. Spires. I was a Spires at one time.
Steven Jack Butala:
Same thing with homestead houses. Every small town’s got that’s the homestead house. Where they homesteaded all this land and it got redivided.
Jill K DeWit:
Isn’t that funny? We should have a thing about that. Okay, well let’s do a couple real quick. Think about a memorable icon building shape that you know the minute you see it, what it was. Mine is Wiener Schnitzel.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh geez.
Jill K DeWit:
With the red roof and the thing. If you roll up on that, you’re like, “Yeah, that might be a post office now.” Or a post office outlet. Mailboxes Etcetera, whatever. But that used to be a Wiener Schnitzel.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yet another difference. Yet another difference between Jill and I, because I’m going to shoot a little higher here and say Transamerica building in San Francisco.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, what is it now?
Steven Jack Butala:
The Transamerica building.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, no. I want one that used to be something that became something. Can you think of-
Steven Jack Butala:
South Pizza Hut for me.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. There you go.
Steven Jack Butala:
We don’t have Wiener Schnitzel in Detroit. Unique buildings we had were-
Jill K DeWit:
Well, White Castle.
Steven Jack Butala:
White Castle.
Jill K DeWit:
There you go. Well, you know what a White Castle looks like. If you try to redo a White Castle into a nail salon, you’re going to know that used to be a White Castle.
Steven Jack Butala:
Because you can have three customers at a time. Please form a line.
Jill K DeWit:
Are they all small?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
I didn’t…
Steven Jack Butala:
The same thing with the Sonic.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, the only White Castle I was in was here in Arizona.
Steven Jack Butala:
The Sonic you can’t even go in there.
Jill K DeWit:
A Sonic…
Steven Jack Butala:
A useless piece of real estate.
Jill K DeWit:
That may look like a drive-through insurance place, but that used to be Sonic.
Steven Jack Butala:
Maybe you can get your nails done in your car.
Jill K DeWit:
There you go. I would like that.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s not crazy.
Jill K DeWit:
If I can just sit on my own seat and just kind of pivot. That’s not bad. And drink a malt at the same time. Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
Used to be a Pizza Hut. That’s the name of the book.
Jill K DeWit:
All right, so please tell us what you have for us to share.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s occurred to me recently that I think many people before they start clicking around and providing their credit card number should ask themself this question in detail. In fact, spend a lot of time on it, not just a few minutes. Should I be a Land Academy member? Am I set up to be a land investor?
Jill K DeWit:
Wow. I did not see this coming.
Steven Jack Butala:
I know you didn’t, and I bet you don’t like it.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m a little worried where it’s going to go. It sounds like, do all my friends say I’m high maintenance?
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, I think you should ask yourself that too. I think you should ask yourself that when you’re 12 years old.
Jill K DeWit:
Do I not have any friends? Am I only here, because I have no friends? I’m just kidding.
Steven Jack Butala:
I really think that all of us, along the lines of what Jill’s saying-
Jill K DeWit:
It’s like-
Steven Jack Butala:
… Once in a while-
Jill K DeWit:
… Jack’s [inaudible 00:49:34].
Steven Jack Butala:
… or often than not, need to look around and look in the mirror most importantly and say, “Is this where I should be or not?” Because Land Academy is not going to solve any personality problems that you have.
Jill K DeWit:
Or get you a date, or look good on your dating profile file.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you don’t follow directions and have never followed directions, then Land Academy might not be for you. If you’ve owned a company very successfully in the past and-
Jill K DeWit:
Know how to work through some things.
Steven Jack Butala:
… and understand that rolling with the punches is part of it, you might be a-
Jill K DeWit:
You’re good fit.
Steven Jack Butala:
… Land Academy member.
If you’re impatient and you’re not what I call a linear thinker, go to A to B to C to D, not from A to D. If you’re a linear thinker, it’s very logical that you’d be good at this. If you hate spreadsheets and you hate math, this might not be for you. And I’m really serious about that. For whatever reason, and I don’t know why, we’ve had a lot of people sign up recently from between around Christmastime and through January, and there’s some people that probably should not have signed up if they gave it more than five minutes thought. I know this is the reverse of Jill’s effort in life.
Jill K DeWit:
Yes. You’re undoing everything that I work hard on. Just kidding.
Steven Jack Butala:
Look, this is a great way to get wealthy. We sure did. And I don’t mean Land Academy. I mean buying and selling land.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s true though.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s a great way to do it. It happens to be great for Jill’s personality and for my personality and us together.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s true. There are plenty things that I would suck at. We’ve been watching Billions. Here’s a good example, and I’m watching Billions going, I couldn’t do it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Me too.
Jill K DeWit:
I couldn’t do it. I don’t have the stomach for it, and I wouldn’t go into it knowing that even though I don’t have the stomach for it, I’m going to expect this person to teach me and show me the way. I would never do that. You’re going to make me a good trader. No. You got to make you a good traitor. I can’t do that. I can show you the steps and give you the stuff, but I can’t make you a great trader.
Steven Jack Butala:
For whatever reason, Jill and I have the same personality trait. When something goes wrong, the first thing we do is look straight at each other and say, “Why did we screw this up?” I don’t blame somebody else.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t blame anyone else except myself. And I spend about 13 seconds or less thinking about it, and then we change it. We fix it. We roll with it and get it back on track. Whatever it is. It happens all the time in real estate deals. People change their mind. You send out a bad mailer once in a while. I sent an overpriced mailer out, and then we adjust.
Jill K DeWit:
Fix it. So what?
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t blame her for anything. She doesn’t blame me for anything. I certainly don’t blame DataTree.
Or anything like that. And so you have to think about, really, truly think about if this, because all that stuff’s going to happen to you. I’m telling you. We talk about all the positive stuff on this show all the time and in our Thursday call, but the fact is this is a lot of work. There’s a lot of work, especially if you’re brand new to real estate or brand new to owning a company. There’s a bunch of moving parts. And if you’re easily frustrated by things like that and you just want it right now, this is not for you. And I’m being really honest.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Why waste money and feel bad about yourself, because you can’t figure it out? We’ve had several people recently that just can’t figure this out, and I feel bad. And it’s not that they’re not smart, that’s not it at all. I just don’t think that they’re willing to spend the time or don’t have the time or the resources to really get into it so that they can get out the other side with a bunch of dough.
Jill K DeWit:
Right. I get it. Having said that, I want to say that-
Steven Jack Butala:
Now, I’m afraid.
Jill K DeWit:
No. I’m just kidding. But you know there’s exceptions to everything. But you do need to have that conversation with yourself. You’re like, “I know I stink at Excel. I know I’m not good at this, but you know what? I’m going to learn how to.” There’s always people that impress us and surprise us. I’m like, “I’m not sure this is going to work.” And they’re going to say, “Well, I spent the last four weekends learning Excel, and now I’m a pro.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Exactly, Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
“Out of my way.” You can do it if you really want it that bad. I’ve seen it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Boy, if you have that level of confidence and you believe in yourself and you can overcome things or learn new things very easily, geez, you’re going to smash this then. You’re going to do great at this. It’s all attitude. It’s having a negative attitude and expecting somebody else to do something for you when-
Jill K DeWit:
That’s the problem.
Steven Jack Butala:
… that’s a tough thing to get over.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
Join us next week for another interesting episode. You’re not alone in your real estate Ambition.
We’re Jack and Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
We’re Jack and Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
Information…
Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration…
Steven Jack Butala:
… to buy undervalued property.
https://youtu.be/YKXxwYTiSxk
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
DescriptionIn this episode of The Land Academy Show, Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit talk about why sellers choose to sell their land for less than it’s actually worth. They also share their personal experiences and mistakes they’ve made in the land business and how they turned them around. They also answer a question from one of their members on the Land Academy Discord online community about the value of paying taxes on a 20-acre land with $7,000 in back taxes. This is a must-watch episode for anyone who is looking to get into the land investment business. Don’t miss out on the valuable insights and tips from these experts in the industry.
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m Jill DeWit and this is the Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is episode number 1,940 and today, we are talking in-depth about why sellers choose to sell their land for less than it’s actually worth, less than market value. And then a little bit later we’re going to talk about the mistakes we have made in the land business, Jill and I, and how we turned them around.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m so glad it’s not mistakes we’ve made in life because that could be a three-hour show or more.
Steven Jack Butala:
It always goes to that.
Jill K DeWit:
The land business I can handle, but the one I’m talking about mistakes I’ve made in life, don’t get me started.
Steven Jack Butala:
If we made the contest out of that, I might win that contest.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m still making mistakes.
Steven Jack Butala:
I was just going to say I made about three of them all this morning. It’s still pretty early. It’s like 10:00 in the morning.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s good.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s going to lead to that, I’m sure.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, totally. It’s good.
Steven Jack Butala:
Hey, I hope you’re enjoying our new 2023 weekly show. Each week we answer questions here from our Land Academy Discord forum like we always have, but we’ve added a land review, a situation where we review land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar. We take a deep dive in two land related topics by popular request that I just mentioned.
Jill K DeWit:
By the way, I’m enjoying the new format. No, seriously. You know what it is? I felt like the old format. There’s times I’m like, “I have so much more to say,” but we’re like moving on.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think the old format is old.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s very true. Thank you Jack for catching up to 2023.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s about… Yeah. Well, it’s all me.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s kind of it. Well, it really-
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s about three people that made negative comments about darn, I wanted to listen to it every day.
Jill K DeWit:
So you can.
Steven Jack Butala:
You can.
Jill K DeWit:
You snip it up.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s 1,939 shows that you can listen to every day.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, that’s actually true. That’s very true. And then when you run out of those, let me know if you’re still with us.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. If you want a sneak-peak at our Discord channel, please go to landinvestors.com or landacademy-
Jill K DeWit:
Landacademy.com.
Steven Jack Butala:
Go ahead.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, thank you. It’s on there.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s free and it’s read only and it’ll give you a feel for what our community’s talking about with each other.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. Brent wrote, “So here’s a newbie question for you all. I have some land in Blank County, about 20 acres, and I bought it cheap, but it has about $7,000 in back taxes. So the tax lien homeowner is foreclosing. Beyond comps, how much should I determine if it’s worth me paying the taxes and keeping the asset?” Boy have I been in this situation? You’re in it right now.
Steven Jack Butala:
I was in this situation yesterday. We’re constantly in this situation. That’s why I included this, here’s the deal deal, why I included this topic. Here’s the backstory on how and why this happens. If you buy and sell a lot of land, especially at the rates where we do $3,000 here, $5,000 there, 30,000 and it’s all for sale and you’re selling buying properties consistently, you accumulate land. That’s the truth of it. And Jill’s going to explain what our tax paying policy is on property taxes.
Jill K DeWit:
It takes a lot.
Steven Jack Butala:
We don’t pay taxes on property.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay, here’s the truth time. So yeah, it’s easy to… Sometimes you get distracted. Sometimes you’re like, “Shocks. I don’t know if I want to sell that now. I think if I wait a little bit it’s going to be better.” And we’re doing so much volume, it’s totally fine. I remember too, part of it is we pay cash for all these things. So I don’t care. It’s my money. I can let it sit there for a while. I’m not making payments on it. I don’t owe anybody any, whatever. There’s no mortgage on it or loan on it. When do we worry about taxes? Usually never.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is property taxes,
Jill K DeWit:
Because especially at our… I’m going to talk at two levels. I’m going to talk about the low properties and I’m going to talk about the high dollar amount properties. First, I’m going to cover the easy ones, which is the high dollar amount properties. I’m buying those and selling those via escrow. Escrow is already catching up the taxes so I definitely don’t think about it.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’ve got to slow down here because this is… I’m going to give the back situation. I’m going to say the word and so is Jill, tax and lien, all real negative words and-
Jill K DeWit:
Not to scare you, but to inform you. Don’t worry.
Steven Jack Butala:
Exactly. To inform you. Because believe it or not, this is a very serious sign of success for Brent here. Brent’s got a property, he probably had it for sale, maybe it just didn’t sell for whatever reason, or maybe he bought it with a bunch of taxes on it.
Jill K DeWit:
Probably knew it going into it. You should know going into it.
Steven Jack Butala:
He inherited some taxes. The way taxes work with real estate is not what we’re all used to when you hear the word tax. When you hear the word tax, you think of April 15th, I’m going to get either a refund back or in a lot of cases of Land Academy members, I’m going to have to write a bunch of checks because it’s expensive and we’re making a lot of money. That’s income tax. That’s not what this is.
These are property taxes and property taxes stick with the land. It has nothing to do with me as the owner or Jill or the companies that we own that own these properties. Nothing. There’s no real reason that we would ever pay our property taxes until we sell the property. And that’s our policy. And if you’re into this business, I encourage you to do the same.
Every year around property tax time, we get tax bills in the mail enough to fill a banker’s box. It’s not so bad anymore because we’ve liquidated a lot of our property, which is good. But if that property, for whatever reason that we have goes on to the next year and we get another tax bill that keeps accumulating, after a certain amount of time, the taxing authority, which is almost always the county has a statutory process that they follow to get that property back on the tax rolls.
In the state that Brent’s talking about, which I’m very familiar with, they make the lien to the property available to purchase for the public. So somebody can go buy, it’s not, I’ve got $7,000 worth of back taxes on a piece of property, somebody else, anybody else can go buy that lien and they pay for the taxes so the county gets their money and I as the property owner now have two choices.
I can go pay the guy who bought my lien and get my property back or I can forget about it and the property goes back, doesn’t affect my credit score. No one gives me a phone call. Nothing. It’s just kind of a non-event. This happens tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of times a year.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s just like fine, now we’re giving it to him.
Steven Jack Butala:
He’s now faced with this choice. Somebody bought his lien and he’s-
Jill K DeWit:
Is it worth it?
Steven Jack Butala:
Should I write this guy a check and get my property back or should I just forget about it?
Jill K DeWit:
There you go. And the bottom line is is it worth it? That’s really it. So $7,000 in back taxes. All right, so I’m guessing, Brent, you paid one or two for this because you said he bought it cheap. So is it worth 20? If it is, I’d do it. If I could sell it for 20, say I bought it for 1,000 or 2,000, I’ve got 7,000 in back taxes, then ding, ding. And it’s really… Like you do it all wrong and it’s worth 20, then I would do it.
Steven Jack Butala:
By the way, to accumulate $7,000 in back taxes in a state that’s out west here, that’s got to maybe 10 years.
Jill K DeWit:
Take some time. Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
This doesn’t happen overnight. I’ll tell you a true story, this week I was forced to make this decision on. I went and bought some property. This is before Jill and I joined forces. That’s how old these tax things are or this back tax scenario.
I let two of them go back. And then there’s one that’s got an old mobile home on it that is adjacent to farmland that I’m going to write out, well we are going to write. Thank you Jill, for supporting my silliness. Jill and I are together going to write about it.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, we’re going to talk later about mistakes we made and don’t think I won’t bring this up.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’re going to write a $3,500 check to get that property back, which I feel like is pretty valuable so that we can re-list it for approximately 15,000-20,000.
Jill K DeWit:
I thought you wanted to keep it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, I do. It’s got an old mobile home on it and it’s electricity and water-
Jill K DeWit:
If this doesn’t work out, this is his fallback plan.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, believe me. We’ve got a lot of mobile homes in the desert. Jill’s 100% right to be directly answer the question. It all comes down to economics. Are you going to write a 7,000? Do you already bought the property? So let’s say paid a couple grand for it.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s what I think.
Steven Jack Butala:
You might enter the whole deal for $10,000.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s what I think.
Steven Jack Butala:
It better be worth 20 to make this worth your while or just forget it.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s what I think. Exactly. My question too, just a side note just from this is experience. This is why you’re here too, because nobody has more experience than this one. I’m going to just make an educated guess that if the back taxes have racked up to seven grand, it’s probably worth it. It’s a pretty good property. Because if the back taxes over 10 years or $700 and you’re like, “That means they’re paying a hundred bucks a year.” Big whoop. But these have some serious taxes on, so I’m thinking it might be a good property.
Steven Jack Butala:
What Jill means is that in general, the higher your tax rate-
Jill K DeWit:
The more valuable.
Steven Jack Butala:
The more valuable the asset is.
Jill K DeWit:
Not always, but it’s a good indication.
Steven Jack Butala:
And that’s not apples to orange because the biggest pile of junk property in Trenton, New Jersey has like $12,000 of taxes a year. And that tax amount, we pay less than that in our primary residence in Scottsdale. Jill doesn’t want to live in no junk.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m sorry. I’m still laughing at that’s not apples and orange, apples to oranges. You mean apples to apples?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. What did I say? Apples to oranges?
Jill K DeWit:
You said oranges? I’m like, “We’re…” Actually, it is apples or orange. You’re right.
Steven Jack Butala:
You can always count on your spouse to correct you.
Jill K DeWit:
Sorry. It’s going to be that kind of a day.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, you want to… When you compare tax value and you want to look at within the same county and hopefully within the same area of the same county, same way we price mailers.
Jill K DeWit:
I think it’s very sweet that you turned that around. Because you know what? It’s usually me. You’re like, “What did you just say?” Yeah. Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s topic, we’re going to talk about-
Jill K DeWit:
Why sellers actually choose to sell their land for less than market value.
Steven Jack Butala:
Thank you, Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
You’re very welcome.
Steven Jack Butala:
You saved me again.
Jill K DeWit:
You’re welcome.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s time number two.
Jill K DeWit:
You got it. That’s why I’m here.
Steven Jack Butala:
Why would somebody ever, ever sell a property that’s worth $100,000 for $30,000 to Jill? Would you ever go on the internet and buy a share of stock that’s trading at a $100 and say, “I’m going to offer you $22 for this.”
Jill K DeWit:
I’d give it a two for 30 because I like you.
Steven Jack Butala:
No, you would be laughed off the trading floor. You would be laughed off the internet. It’s ridiculous. This is a [inaudible 00:11:53] and this is a… So why do people do this all the time? Why are we making millions of dollars every year and people in our group are making more than that buying property under its value and shaking hands when it’s over, thanking us.
Jill K DeWit:
Isn’t that amazing? Why is that Jack?
Steven Jack Butala:
Convenience. I haven’t said the gallon of milk theory in a long time. So I’ll say it here at the risk of sounding like an old man. It’s not the risk, I am sounding like an old man because I am an old man.
Jill K DeWit:
You’re so weird. You’re not old.
Steven Jack Butala:
You have three choices. If you want to go buy a gallon of milk, you can get in your car and make an afternoon out of it. Go to Walmart or Costco and you get an amazing price on a gallon of milk. I don’t know what milk goes were now, but it’s probably two or three gallon maybe. Two or $3 a gallon, maybe more.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s probably eight and you’re way off.
Steven Jack Butala:
And you pat yourself on the back. Yeah, it’s probably eight.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Pat yourself on the back and you say, “I got the best price on a gallon of milk there ever was.” Or you can go to the grocery store that’s right down the street and pay a couple of dollars more a gallon or a dollar more a gallon, whatever the prices are because you just don’t care because maybe you had some other stuff to pick up.
When I go to the grocery store at this age, honestly, I don’t look at the price tags as much more as I used to. It’s just down the street and that’s my grocery store. And the grocery store a mile down the road might’ve been cheaper, but just don’t care.
If I really need the milk bad, I’m going to go to the gas station and get it. Or a convenience store, which is really close and extremely convenient and it only takes a few seconds out of my day. Now, there’s probably even a fourth option, which is call somebody to bring it to your house like Instacart.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s true. Instacart.
Steven Jack Butala:
In that third case, I don’t smack the gallon of milk when I’m checking out at the counter in front of the guy and say, “This is an absolute outrage. How much do you charge for this milk?”
Jill K DeWit:
Like at the convenience store?
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m going to buy it. But it’s an outrage how much this… And if I ever did that, I would hope the clerk looks at me square in the eye and says-
Jill K DeWit:
You can go to Walmart.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s pretty convenient, isn’t it? Yeah. Go to Walmart if you need to. You want to save some money, go to Walmart. Why? Because it’s convenient. Because I wanted the milk. It’s quick. I was doing it anyway, driving right down the… People sell land and houses by the ton because they don’t want to deal with real estate agents.
They don’t think that their property, for whatever reason is worth what it’s worth. They can’t do math like Jill in her head or like you as a Land Academy member. They didn’t want to do any work. They got a letter. It’s all immediate gratification. They got an offer for $32,000 for a piece of property that they never cared about anyway.
They looked around and said, 32,000 thousand dollars sounds great. They don’t have a conversation with themselves most of the time and say, “This property’s probably worth more than $32,000. Maybe I should call my friend and check, my real estate agent friend.”
Jill K DeWit:
Do you know what’s funny about that? They do say those words, but they don’t do the second part. I’ve had them talk to me on the phone saying, “I know I could go through the motions and get more for this, but I just don’t want to. Jill, how fast can we close?”
Steven Jack Butala:
I can name probably very quickly, I’m not going to do it, but I can name probably 10 at 15 things off the top of my head that are in our house or in our office where if somebody sent me a letter, yeah, I have a pile of computer equipment, pile of computer equipment that’s probably pretty valuable that if somebody said, “I’m going to come over for… I’m going to hand you $100 bill…”
Jill K DeWit:
And I’m going to clean out this closet.
Steven Jack Butala:
“And I’m going to come over and get all that stuff and just take it out of your life, what do you say?” I would say, “How fast can you get here?”
Jill K DeWit:
Yep.
Steven Jack Butala:
Because I don’t care. And it’s super convenient. I love the free section and offer up and Craigslist for different, it’s just come and get all my stuff.
Jill K DeWit:
What about… Are we going to talk about the situational aspect?
Steven Jack Butala:
Sure.
Jill K DeWit:
Because I do think that’s part of it. So Jack just described the number one reason and which is true, it’s convenience. It is. I’m here with an virtual open checkbook ready to go and I can and do clothes really fast for people. Like the weight is lifted for these people. It’s out of their lives and they’re happy. And that’s when Jack says they shake our hands and hug us.
I’ve had people hug me literally saying, “Thank you. I know you’re going to make more money on this and thank you for getting this out of my life and thank you. I needed that money for X.”
So that’s the other piece of this, which is situational. It may be that… Like a lady I was just thinking about, it was her master’s degree, that was going to pay for that. You had one where it was going to take the mom… The mom had cancer and they could afford to go to Hawaii. She really wanted to take her mom-
Steven Jack Butala:
Take her to Hawaii for a-
Jill K DeWit:
And afford to do that. Sometimes it’s just some life event like maybe they got laid off, maybe something happened, somebody’s sick, whatever it is and their car broke down. I’ve had everything from car broke down to this couldn’t happen a better time. I just got the vet bill back and I want to save my dog.
Really, those are serious real stories or situations that I’ve helped people with and they’re like, “Thank you. There’s no way they could get the $10,000 right now today to pay those vet bills, to save their dog. If they had like, “I’ve got to wait? Find an agent, do this, do that.” They’re like, “Nope, let’s do this and I’m ready to go.”
Steven Jack Butala:
In most big cities, if you drive around, you’ll see check cashing places, which I’ve never understood. I’ve had employees who take their paycheck and go cash it and I’ve asked them, this is a distant past, way distant past, why are you doing this? Why don’t you just deposit it in the bank? “Yeah. I don’t believe in banks. I don’t trust banks and I like to get my paycheck and get the green cash. I want the cash and then that way I know how much money I have to spend for the next two weeks until I get another paycheck.”
Jill K DeWit:
I Understand that. It’s cool.
Steven Jack Butala:
I do too. They don’t even think about the 19 or 20% that it costs to actually do that.
Jill K DeWit:
I see what you’re saying.
Steven Jack Butala:
And so if their paycheck is 2,000, it would’ve been $2,200 or that’s 10%, but $2,400. It doesn’t enter their mind. They’re not doing any math at all. Am I criticizing these people? Absolutely not.
They have good and valuable lifestyle reasons for these choices that they’re going to make. Are they going to get rich making these choices? No, probably not. They’re not like us where it’s premeditated and we’re facilitating this. Are we taking advantage of these people? Absolutely not.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s a good point to bring up because some people go, “Oh, well then you’re talking, I’m into it and all this stuff.” I’m like, “No, I’m not.” That’s [inaudible 00:19:02]. That’s not how I roll. I had too many people blowing up my phone when these mailers go out. I don’t have time to talk to somebody. I’m not going to do that. It’s kind of like, “Hey, here’s my price. If it works for you, great. If it doesn’t, I understand this is exactly what I say. Please hang on to my letter and let me me know if we change your mind.” That’s it. Now, if you think that’s coercing and talking someone into something, we’ve got to talk. Because-
Steven Jack Butala:
Believe me, I’ve seen Jill talk people into stuff that they don’t want to do and-
Jill K DeWit:
That’s different. And I put back that flowery comforter because of you. Just kidding. I don’t have 18 pillows on the bed.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, there’s about nine. You’re right.
Jill K DeWit:
No, you know what’s so funny?
Steven Jack Butala:
But in Jill’s mind, that’s a compromise.
Jill K DeWit:
More than three are yours.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s do some math.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Now that we’re all hopefully understanding, this is a very, very difficult concept for anybody who’s in real estate who comes to Land Academy and they say, “How do you guys make money?” And I explain this, many, many of them shake their head and say, “Why would that ever work?”
Jill K DeWit:
Can I just talk about that for just a moment before we do the math? Because this is the part that perplexes me. People can’t get it in their head. And I’m like, I don’t understand why 16-17,000 transactions as proof doesn’t spell it out.
Steven Jack Butala:
We got lucky.
Jill K DeWit:
I admit. That’s it. I got lucky 16,500 times. Yay. There you go.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think it’s probably over. We’re not going to do another deal.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s it. Yeah, that’s right. We’ve just pushed it. It’s funny and this is one thing that I talk about with people when they’re coming in the Land Academy. I’ve had some really good conversations in the last several weeks with new people and they’re like, “What do I need to watch out for? I’m in. I’m doing it. Please tell me what I need to where I’m going to catch myself so I don’t make those mistakes like other people.”
I said, “Good question. What you should do is don’t second guess this. Things are going to come up. I’m telling you, you need to offer this percentage of what you found and send the mail out like that. And people go, “What? Are you really telling me to put this number on this thing?” I’m like, “Yep. Because watch what happens.” The smartest best people listened and do it and they watch what happens and they go, “Okay. Well, nevermind.” I’m like, “Right?” And it’s all because of what we’re talking about right now.
You’re sending out these offers. For these people, it’s a situation, it’s timing, it’s convenience. We’re good people. They trust us. We follow through. Everybody wins. That’s it. We’re not talking to anybody. We’re not cold calling. We’re not trying to tap into the elderly community or whatever, you know, think or people have said or whatever. I’ve heard all kinds of things. I’m like, “Yeah. No, that’s not this at all.” But anyway.
Steven Jack Butala:
So let’s use some math or some kind of simple math. Once you’ve accepted this concept and many people don’t accept it, the most difficult person to accept this is a really well-seasoned real estate professional who’s been used to doing real estate deals successfully by dealing with brokers and paying people.
They’re used to buying a piece of property. Let’s use a trailer park for an example. Buying a trailer park that’s 70% occupied. Hiring a professional person to live on site, to lease up those last 30% maybe… Well, there’s all kinds of things you can do. Put older trailers on a park and then lease those out. But anyway, get the thing to 100% occupancy, maybe do some improvements and then resell it for the same cap rate. But because it’s got a lot more revenue, you make a good spread on that.
That’s a very typical commercial real estate play. It has never entered their mind that it would’ve been a hell of a lot easier to negotiate if the property wasn’t for sale, if the broker didn’t bring it to them. If they got there first, sent a letter to the owner of the trailer park and said, “I’d like to buy a traffic trailer park for half a million dollars instead of paying a million through a broker.” Then you would never have to go through all those improvements. You could have listed it with a broker and sold it for a million bucks and then you’re done.
Jill K DeWit:
Could you imagine, I wonder if that… The same person you’re describing, it’s like they walk up to the counter and they say, “Here’s…” Like your gallon of milk story. It’s like they walk up to the counter at Walmart or Costco and they’re like, “You know what? This is actually too cheap. You should be pricing at whatever. You should be pricing at the convenience store pricing. So here, I’m going to give you an extra $10.” I don’t need the… You know what I mean? You wouldn’t do that. Isn’t that funny? No, I know it’s on sale but I’m used to paying retail for everything, so please charge me retail.
Steven Jack Butala:
People are not selling their land on price. You’ll get a lot of phone calls if you’re in the group, you do get a lot of phone calls where people are very price conscious. They’re very clear about what their land is worth. And they’re usually career salespeople like corporate sales and something and they just want to talk about their $100,000 piece of property that they think is worth 1 25 and they just got an offer from you for 23,000 and they think that they’re going to talk you into it into paying $100,000.
That person cares about price. Those that are not people we do deals with. Often, and Jill will describe this 15 different ways, if your offers $23,000, they might come back because they’re negotiators. You should do a show on this where different personality types call you back.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s good.
Steven Jack Butala:
$30,000 would do it even though the property’s worth 120.
Jill K DeWit:
They just need to get that little extra whatever.
Steven Jack Butala:
And then that’s what they want. They just want some juice out of that. I don’t know if it’s an endorphin rush for them. I don’t know. I’m not a big fan of negotiation.
Jill K DeWit:
To feel like they got something out of it. I know you said 28,000, but I need 30. Okay, I can do 30.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’ve done many, many, many, many deals where they really have patted themselves on the back because they feel like they got… Price is sort of involved with that person, but I don’t think so. I don’t actually think they know what it’s worth at all. They don’t and they don’t care. They don’t. What matters to them is getting a little bit more out of us.
Jill K DeWit:
Feeling like they won.
Steven Jack Butala:
They’re negotiators.
Jill K DeWit:
Feeling like they won and I’m good with that. I’ll let them have the win. That’s good. Do you know what’s funny? You bring that up at the price. One of the things that I don’t do hate doing, not going to go down this rabbit hole, is a guessing game about price.
This scenario you just said you offer $28,000. The person doesn’t have a number. They’re like, “Nope, doesn’t work. Try again.” I’m not going to go 29. Nope. Try again.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s an auction.
Jill K DeWit:
30? Nope. Try again.
Steven Jack Butala:
Reverse auction.
Jill K DeWit:
[inaudible 00:26:09]. Not going to do that. Don’t even go there. So what I’ll do though, this is so funny. I’ll say, “All right, you know how I roll. We know how this is going to… We know how this could end. What is your rock bottom number that if I handed you cash today, you’d say, ‘Fine Jill. I’ll take. It’s yours kind of thing.'” And then let him give you a number and then you try to make that work. But what’s funny is I sincerely believe that that number has nothing to do with the property.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what I think, Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
Do you know what it’s tied?
Steven Jack Butala:
Exactly what I think.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s tied to… His wife just came in this morning and said she wanted to remodel the kitchen. I’m not kidding. That’s what the kitchen costs or fill in the blank. It’s something back there that they’re like, this money will solve that problem. That’s my number. You just have to get that out of them. It’s so funny.
Steven Jack Butala:
So let’s do the math. So now you’ve accepted this, whether you’re the trailer park guy, the buyer or the seller or a potential Land Academy member or an existing Land Academy member that’s wondering how many offers you should send out a month. Does it make more sense to try this 5,000 times or 500 times?
The obvious answer is the more people you reach by sending out a mailer, the more opportunities, acquisition opportunities that will physically and literally be signed agreements on your desk for you to review.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
You’re really shooting yourself in the foot if you think you’re going to send out a 500 unit mailer priced at 25% or 20% of the established retail value and get a lot of response because the people that don’t care about price or the people that are negotiators or the people that we just described, the situations that we described are less prevalent than people who think that their property that’s worth a million dollars. We didn’t talk about that. There’s a handful of people that believe their $50,000 property is worth 50 million.
Jill K DeWit:
Priceless.
Steven Jack Butala:
Because there’s gold in there.
Jill K DeWit:
That exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
Literally gold.
Jill K DeWit:
Those are people that… When you get those situations, they don’t want to sell. That’s what’s going on.
Steven Jack Butala:
This last career path, we had a person who is on Jill’s side of the world, not mine, who’s not a tech person and not into the data piece at all. That’s just lifelong salesperson. And she said, “What are you guys talking about? You send all this mail out?” I send about three or 400 mailers units out, and I don’t even price it. I just say, “I want to buy her land.” And then she proceeds to stay on the phone with each person who calls her back and wear them, filibuster them down. I don’t know, women can do this for some reason.
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t know if that was the right term. But she would just talk to them for an hour though.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s the exact strict definition of filibuster. Talking to you to get what you want.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m choosing to be very supportive here. That was just her way.
Steven Jack Butala:
And so there’s nothing wrong with that, but she was very surprised that we send all this mail out.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, there is one problem with that. You can only talk to eight people a day or 10 people a day. How long [inaudible 00:29:25]. If you do an hour long call, I can’t do that. If I have eight hours a day, I’m talking to 50 people or more.
Steven Jack Butala:
It would stand a chance and I came up with this program, this methodology of sending out offers. I’m not slapping myself on the back here. I’m really not.
Jill K DeWit:
You should.
Steven Jack Butala:
I didn’t learn this from somebody and I didn’t take away that somebody was doing it and do my own offshoot of it and the offshoot version of it, go make tons and tons of money with Jill and then Launch Land Academy based on this concept. I came up with this and I failed at it a lot many, many, many times until I honed into actually sending people an offer.
Why? Did I come up with this in? Because I don’t want to cold call people. I don’t want to talk on the phone all day. Some people do. I want to send out a bunch of offers in a perfect world, not talk to anybody, get a bunch of offers, a much smaller number back in the mail of signed offers that the numbers that I can control and pick the ones that I want and do the deal.
I started sending mail out like this in the early two thousands and we never stopped because it works and we still don’t stop. Jill and I get thank you notes every week because we have a person in the advanced group in the career path alumni group that just sent out 80,000 units of mail. He said he’s got maybe 25 deals that he’s looking at that are… He ran out of acquisition money, which is a great thing. And so he is seeking deal funding. These numbers really work. The more mail you send out, the more deals you’re going to do.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s true. Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a look at one of our favorite land acquisitions from the weekly Thursday member webinar.
Jill K DeWit:
I am so excited. Here we are, 2023. Land Academy is open. We’re open arms. Come if you’re interested. I have career path coming up. We’re going to do two this year by the way. Career path is our high level, kind of… It’s like our…
People call it a mastermind group. I know you’re not a huge fan of that term, but it’s kind of our level of our mastermind group. That’s happening right now. We have one in the spring and we have one coming in the fall. So check out landacademy.com for more. I know our direct mail company offers to owners, it’s offers in the numbertwoowners.com is killing it too. There’s a lot of people following us and sending out a lot of mail. So if this is something you want to get into, go to Land Academy, download our free ebook or just send a note to my team via support@landacademy.com.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take another question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. Again, if you want a sneak peek for free, check out our Discord channel on landinvestors.com or landacademy.com.
Jill K DeWit:
Becky wrote, “Hello all. This was my Christmas present to me this year. I’m very happy to have found Land Academy and looking forward to learning and sharing with everybody. I’m narrowing my focus to land investing and have a couple of properties under contract after my first set of mailers in November, still filling the OMG! What have I done? What if I can’t sell them jitters?” That’s so cute. “And this seems like a great place to work through it and move forward.”
What was your question?
Steven Jack Butala:
What’s your advice to her? She’s got jitters.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, just the jitters.
Steven Jack Butala:
[inaudible 00:32:59].
Jill K DeWit:
I’m like I thought that was just like, “Oh, I’m just working through it.” Kind of comment. Like, “Oh, you’re fine.”
Steven Jack Butala:
I asked Jill this because I have to tell you that on a personal level with Jill, she’s fearless.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. I didn’t hear that was the question.
Steven Jack Butala:
For some reason, since the day that I met you, it’s always been like that. Just if I said, “Let’s go to Taiwan for a month.” Jill would say, “I can do it next Monday.”
Jill K DeWit:
Or one day. 24 hours, give me 24 hours which I did before.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’ve done that. We’ve gone to Paris that way and stuff. So it’s very easy. It’s drinking a glass of water for Jill to answer this question. She’s got, “Can I sell these properties?” Jitters.
Jill K DeWit:
I love this thing. It’s exciting to me. So you know what? Becky, you know what you’re doing. You just have to trust yourself. You know that you’re not going to buy them, put down the money if you’re not really, really feeling great about what’s going to happen on the back end and if you’re still not sure, run it by the community. Pot, toss it in Discord. That’s why everybody’s there. Say what they think.
Or save it up, ask us on the Thursday call if it’s something that… There’s something right away. I think that especially when you’re new, I do to… You’ve got to feel like, okay, I need to get going here. I understand. Trust your peers and trust your gut. Then after you get going, you’re going to be like, “I just saw how that happened. Now I really know this area. I know this. I know this kind of thing.”
And there’s still going to be a few that pop up now and then you’re like, “Am I having a little trouble making this decision?” Or before I write a check for $200,000, I kind of want to run this by somebody else. Make sure I’m making a good decision. I totally get it. But the best thing I could say is use us and move forward.
Steven Jack Butala:
I can’t emphasize this enough. If you’re in the land business or not or want to be, would you like you to memorize this sentence forever for your entire career. If you don’t think that you can sell a piece of land for how much that you think you should sell it, don’t freaking buy it.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
I did all this, put all this mail out. I got these six offers in front of me. I got to buy all six of them. I want to be in the land business. I don’t want to work for my W-2 job anymore. I’m going to take a chance. Don’t do that ever. Only buy the land that you are ridiculously confident that you can sell very, very quickly after you buy it.
How do you get that confidence? Well, that’s what Would You Do This Deal is for in Discord, the channel. That’s what the Thursday call is so you can ask us if you should buy it and if it’s the right price and what the logical outcome is.
Finally, experience. Partner up, there’s a partner’s wanted section in Discord also partner up with somebody who’s got 10 years of experience and a ton of money. They’re going to love to talk to you about the deals that you br you’re bringing in. It’s just more deals for them to fund.
Jill K DeWit:
I have a fourth way too.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, sure. Call Jill, here’s your phone number.
Jill K DeWit:
A fourth way is ask a local [inaudible 00:36:13] broker. I love this one. If I’m really… If I just need… Sometimes you have some Becky that you feel great about and you’re like, “I just want one more person to tell me I’m not nuts.” Call a local broker. Don’t tell them anything about what you’re paid for it. They don’t need to know any of that. Just like, “Okay. Hey, I’ve got this property. I’m looking at selling it. What do you think you could sell this for in, I don’t know, 30, 60, 90 days? Whatever makes sense to you?” See what they say and then you’d be like, “Whoa!” You’re going to go, “Whoa! Okay. Whoops. I’m glad I called them.”
Or a lot of times I get the, “Wow! It’s even better than I thought it was. I need to hurry up and buy this.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Don’t put yourself in a situation where you’re taking a risk. Here at Land Academy, we’re all about all but eliminating risk. Are you going to mistakes once in a while? Sure. Yeah. Are you going to buy a piece of property that everybody told you it perked and then it doesn’t and then you’ve got a liquidate it for a lesser amount than you originally thought?
Yeah. But that’s why we buy it so cheap. So if you buy it for 20,000 and you anticipate selling it for 80 or 90, some stuff really goes sideways and you sell it for 40, double your money, you’re good.
Jill K DeWit:
Yep.
Steven Jack Butala:
No risk.
Jill K DeWit:
Yep.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s second topic that we’re going to talk about is called the mistakes that we’ve made in the land business and how we actually turn them around. Jill’s going to parlay it into the mistakes that I make daily as her life partner.
Jill K DeWit:
Can I start there please? Because that list, that’s fresh on my mind. No.
Steven Jack Butala:
Geez. How many mistakes have you professionally made?
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, gosh!
Steven Jack Butala:
Talk to any adult, anyone who’s over the age of 22 and they’re going to save some version of, “Boy, if I could go back.”
Jill K DeWit:
All you do is you just have to fix some and move on. I’ve made mistakes from overpaying for a property. Actually, usually my most recent one is, I didn’t overpay for the property. The person I funded overpaid for the property, and I didn’t catch it. I trusted them too much.
But that’s on me. I should have caught that. Even if you’re like us and you have a staff and you have employees, sometimes you make mistakes and hire the wrong people and you’ve got to undo that too. So there’s all kinds of mistakes that can happen. Whew! The main point is, and well, I know we’re going to talk more in depth for me, is fix it as fast as you can. Don’t look back and just move on.
Steven Jack Butala:
In around 2009, 2010, Jill and I joined forces in and before that, I built a company from the ’90s to let’s say 2008, where my life was grand. The financial accomplishment that at that very young age was extraordinary by anybody’s measure. I had and lived on for quite some time a yacht in San Diego, and was pretty much living the dream by anybody’s standards financially.
What was I doing to get to that point? I was auctioning off real estate land on eBay. We were the largest seller of land in that category for many, many years in a row. I met all the executives, eBay, I did an annual meet and greet and seminar in Washington, D.C. every year where I would speak about why we’re successful at it.
I was traveling in those circles. What I didn’t realize at the time is that I had a single point of failure. We were buying land very, very efficiently, in some ways more, but sending out mailers just like we do now, very efficiently for a different product type and then auctioning them off on eBay and collecting the proceeds, the gap, and quite frankly, getting rich.
We got rich. Around 2006 to maybe ’07, people stopped buying property on eBay and it was a single point of failure. I don’t know what to do because the asset types that we were buying, which are very inexpensive, large acreage properties in very, very rural areas, west of the Mississippi, nobody had the money or the interest for, let’s call them luxury assets at that time. They’re not really luxury assets, but it’s something that you don’t need.
It was the second-worst recession in the history of this country depression. They called it the great recession instead of the depression from the 1920s. And so that was it. I thought it was over. Jill and I, a couple of years after that, I had very, very little money. And I’m being really honest here, because there are a couple of people who asked for this in Discord like, “Tell me some of that stuff.”
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. Yeah, that’s good.
Steven Jack Butala:
I joint forces with Jill. What I did have is a lot of real estate paid for real estate that was just collecting dust and collecting back taxes. And so I met Jill socially before we decided to join forces professionally. And we went about having a relationship successfully.
And then one day I said, “I’ve got all this real estate.” I heard her on the phone. I don’t know what you were selling. You were talking to somebody. I don’t know what your job was at the time, but I heard you selling something. And I said, the light bulb went off in my head and I said, “What if I give you these pieces of property and show you how we’re doing this? Would you be interested in that?” And she said, fearlessly, “Are you kidding me? Tell me where to start.”
And so a month later, she generated all this money off of assets that I thought were dead and gone forever. Why? Because she has the personality she has and I have the personality that I have. I’m not interested in doing that.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s one of my failures. Let me leave that one for me. Just kidding.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m very good at acquisitions. I want to be honest. I’m not that good at sales. I can do it, but I don’t have the raw in your gut drive that Jill does. So failures, geez, I had a single point of failure, but believe me, that never happened again.
Jill even took tranches of real estate that we had. I gave her a database of, I don’t know, 15 of the guys that are all crying in their beer just like me, and sent them, packaged up these deals and sent them to them and sold them at wholesale prices that they could not believe were so cheap.
We kept ourselves above water. Jill did. Jill got me out of that recession. And put us back on the map and what is it now? Geez, 12 years later. 10 or 12 years later. Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
14 years.
Steven Jack Butala:
But since we… We had to restart. We were just out of money. Luckily, we had a paid for house and we had some stuff to work from and a bunch of assets to sell.
Jill K DeWit:
But you still have to put food on the table.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. Exactly. And so here we are back in the saddle. So you can come back from nothing.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
You just have to really work at it to be incredibly organized. If you have to find a partner, find some, somebody who’s got talent. I didn’t even know she had this talent when I met her. Because a lot of it it’s just really lucky on my part.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Not you, not so much.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, I know. That’s one of my failures. Just kidding. Just kidding. I remember those days. That was fun. I always have trouble with questions like these because I look at everything as a stepping stone. Some people would argue, “You spent 17 years at American Airlines. Were you nuts?” I’m like, “Yeah.” In some ways probably spinning my wheels. I hit max pay.
That’s great. It’s still way lower than… I wonder what it is nowadays. But who wants max pay? This is it. This is all you can make. You can never make any more. Congratulations. Isn’t that funny? But I had seniority.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s not max pay, by the way. That’s a cute little name for something-
Jill K DeWit:
It’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
Max pay is not a number.
Jill K DeWit:
In our world, max pay is infinite.
Steven Jack Butala:
Elon Musk hasn’t hit max pay.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. So some people would argue that that might have been a failure. You know what? Maybe in some ways it was because you know what, it was keeping me from doing something else.
Steven Jack Butala:
But you changed it.
Jill K DeWit:
I did.
Steven Jack Butala:
You actively changed that long before I met you.
Jill K DeWit:
I did. I snapped long. One day I’m like, “I’m done. I can’t do this anymore.” I felt a little bit brainwashed, to be honest with you. The golden handcuffs, I had them and I went, “What am I doing?” This was crazy.
I knew that there was more for me. I knew I could do more. I just had to get out and find it and I just left. I up and left. And all my friends were like, “What happened to Jill?”
Steven Jack Butala:
I did the same thing in accounting.
Jill K DeWit:
They’re like, “She’s gone off the deep end now.” And then they’re like, “Oh.” And then I took that step out. I found another job. I was very, very happy making more money and I was trying to lure my friends. I’m like, “You know what? There’s life out here. Join me.” It’s like the prison and I’m trying to pull them out there that they’re like, “Oh, I don’t know.” It’s safe and cozy in here and I get all my meals and everything. I’m like, “You guys are nuts.”
Anyway, I found some of the jobs and then I found you and I knew there was more and so I was looking for you. So thank you and I was looking for this opportunity.
Steven Jack Butala:
Likewise. Obviously, we both were.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you. I knew that I had this in me and I knew I would never be afraid of who I’m talking to or the kind of deal or where it is or how much money or who they are or what they have. I don’t care. Let’s figure this out.
Steven Jack Butala:
Fast forward to 2015, Jill and I are along the subtle timeline between, let’s call it 2010 and ’15. We’re back in the saddle. We’re buying and selling land pretty effectively.
Jill K DeWit:
Having a good time.
Steven Jack Butala:
And this time, because Jill’s doing so much phone work. In the past there was no real, for years, we never had a phone number, published phone number. We just had instructions on how to get deals done once we auctioned the property off, which worked really well.
Fast-forward now and Jill’s doing a lot of phone work with our competitors. These are people that are very, very like-minded. People that are used to doing a lot of real estate deals, either in the eBay environment or in rural markets. We’re finding that there’s… What we found out when Jill started talking to these people on the phone was that they’re not interested in buying one piece of property from us. They’re interested in buying every single thing that we find.
It progressed itself into, well, how the hell are you guys buying this so cheap anyway? How about you just show me how to do it? And we did. And then they were sending out their own mail.
Jill K DeWit:
Most of them wouldn’t do it. Isn’t that funny? A lot of them wouldn’t do it. They’re like, “All right, thank you for filling me in. I’m not going to do that work.” I’m like, “It’s not that work. But whatever.”
Steven Jack Butala:
For whatever reason, they weren’t doing it. Some of them were. Some of them weren’t. So I put together a little 30-page document about how to send out mail and why, which I know now is the beginning of Land Academy. And so we decided to… We sat down and said, maybe we should just put this out to the world because we were always running out of money, acquisition money at that time.
We were doing great. We still had way more deals and there was no such thing as deal funding or at Land Academy community where we could go.
Jill K DeWit:
Well let me pause and say that’s one very, very positive thing about you too and we’re still this way to today, we don’t borrow money. All the stuff that we did was cash. We bought what we could afford. And you better believe. There’s times I’m like, “We need to hurry up and I need to sell this because I need the money to buy this.” Kind of thing. And just kept it going. So thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
We made a great living at the yacht level. We decided to launch Land Academy to create a group of like-minded people so we could solve that funding problem for ourselves and it worked.
Jill K DeWit:
And people were beating down our doors like, “Please tell us.” We’re like, “Okay.”
Steven Jack Butala:
But I’ll have to tell you, my point in telling you the story is that, and from 2015 to now, which is I guess 2023, we’ve launched little interior products within Land Academy based on what people wanted because that’s what Land Academy was in the beginning. It’s what people wanted. “Show us how to do this.”
And many of them, because this is about failure today, didn’t work. They didn’t work because people didn’t actually know what they wanted or they didn’t work because we weren’t operating them correctly. The most obvious one was Title Mind. Everybody wanted us to do their deals. They wanted us to be their transaction coordinator and the title company, to which I say, we’ve got all this pent up demand. Let’s do it.
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
What a mess in an internal mess for us. We ended up getting all the deals that people couldn’t do, any escrow agents couldn’t do because they were so flawed, wrapped up in liens and some worst-
Jill K DeWit:
Chasing people down. Probates-
Steven Jack Butala:
What do we do probate? Do we say screw it? No. No. Our answer to that now is Land Academy Pro, which we’re going to launch this year because we’ve got really good people in place now to complete transactions, not only for us, but for our members.
My point is us, you can look at it like a failure or you can roll with it, roll with the times, roll with the economy, get a partner. There’s all kinds of things that can happen that can get you back up on your feet pretty quickly.
If you’re willing to look at yourself in the mirror and say, “No more single point of failure, I really screwed that up.” Just because you screw something up doesn’t mean you’re a terrible idiot person. Just means you made a mistake.
Jill K DeWit:
The big picture is that’s why you’re here. I think and I know that’s why people are in Land Academy because we have the experience. The years that we’ve got separately and combined into this and the deals that we’ve done and the things we’ve overcome, try to stump me.
We’ve either been in that situation or I got a really good idea how to handle that situation because we had some similar and let me tell you about how this one went kind of thing, which is great. Things like… We’re always evolving too. Whatever we did five years ago with Land Academy, now we’ve got a better data solution. Do we look at it like it was a problem? No. It evolved. It’s better now.
We learn from that and now we’re going to do this and one of my favorites is selling on the internet or selling on social media. When we figured that out, I’m like, “Who knew?” 10 years ago, that was unheard of that you would be marketing a property and you know what I’m talking about. You see houses all the time on Facebook to buy. That was not a thing 10+ years ago. That’s right. It’s great and we’re going to keep doing it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Mistakes are good. Failures are even better. Jill, you have something inspirational you want to share?
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. You know what? Today I’m going to talk about just a few minutes on getting distracted and losing focus. It happens. I have to catch myself sometimes and this is coming up because I talked to someone about this recently too.
Let me paint the picture. People get into Land Academy and they send out mail and they started off really well. This is giving you a working example here. Starting off really well. And they’re like, they picked all the five acres. “I’m going to do five acre properties. This is a price range I’m going to buy them in. This is a price range I’m going to sell them in.”
Out goes the mail and here come offers. “That one, okay, that fits my criteria. That fits my criteria.” Like, holy moly, not only does that guy have this, but he has 10 mobile homes. I need to look at that too. Hold on a moment.
You could go down this rabbit hole and lose days, weeks, months, trying to make something work and you’re losing focus and you’re going to lose money, by the way, by chasing something shiny. It’s not that it couldn’t be a bad deal, but I want you to keep your focus and stay on track until you really have a good handle on it. And then start thinking of these things.
I was talking to someone recently about… We’re a niche and there are niches within our niche. How I stay focused and I don’t get distracted is I always remember every single day what it says on my thing. I’m land, I am a land person. That’s my number one thing. I know that the best. It’s the easiest, it’s the fastest, it’s the most fun for me, it’s the most profitable for me, land. I know how to do it. I have a well-oiled machine now. And that’s a niche. I don’t walk around saying, “I’m all real estate.” Okay, really? Pick one.
Steven Jack Butala:
I have to tell you that’s a common theme in Discord I’m seeing right now.
Jill K DeWit:
Which is people are just like… I’m just, everything real estate, whatever it is, comes at me.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’ve got the steal and it’s came back in. Yeah, there’s one in there right now about it’s next to an elementary school.
Jill K DeWit:
There we go.
Steven Jack Butala:
And so a massive-
Jill K DeWit:
It should be a liquor store.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yes, it should be a liquor store for teachers only.
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t know where that came from. I’m just thinking of foot traffic. That suck. That was totally subconscious.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yep. It was.
Jill K DeWit:
It just came right out.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’re about to go into the Super Bowl. Super Bowl is in Phoenix this weekend.
Jill K DeWit:
And the golf tournament.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’ll be over by the time this airs. But Jill’s thinking about liquor stores apparently, which works out well for me in the end. I slice it.
Jill K DeWit:
That should be every next… The elementary school zoning, liquor store zone next door. That should be automatic.
Steven Jack Butala:
Should be in the parking lot on your way out.
Jill K DeWit:
He said. But the parents need it, that’s for sure. Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Teachers only liquor stores. That would work. Look, [inaudible 00:55:27] so somebody, which it’s great. They sent the mailer out, they got a property back. They’re wondering what the use can be for this property. To which I say and it’s sparked a huge string of really intelligent responses. Well, you can do this, you can do this. People are spending taking time out of their day to talk about this property.
I know this is your section so I don’t want to, obviously take it over but look, please focus on this. Just focus this one. This is all we’re supposed to do to get rich. This is all Jill and I do to get rich. We send out mail very intelligently. We price it correctly and then Jill’s staff answers the phone and then she does a bunch of deals.
She doesn’t ask what’s going to happen and take the thing like it’s a rubrics cube and take the piece of property and really dig into it and bang her chest and say, “I am a real estate land person. I love this deal and I’m going to take this piece of property and it’s going to be something amazing.”
No, what she does is she says, “We’re buying it for 38 because it was priced right. I’m going to bang my chest a little on that. Jack did his job. It’s priced right. We’re going to sell it for $92,000 because everybody’s telling me it’s worth 92. Brokers and all the people that reach out. Cool. We’re buying it. Next.” That’s all we do.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. So I do ask this question. I do want you to ask this question too. When you get people and they call you back, is there anything else that you have? Bring it in, get it all in there. But if it doesn’t meet and match your immediate criteria right now, put it on the side. Move it down your spreadsheet.
Make a separate little air table thing for you to get back to those later on because you will go down that rabbit hole. Otherwise, if you lose focus, you’ll go down that rabbit hole. Now you’re not making any money, you’re not paying attention to your bread and butter.
Steven Jack Butala:
You’re not getting your mailer out.
Jill K DeWit:
You’re not doing all that stuff. You have to do that stuff later. I was talking about niches. So even though we’re a niche in ourselves, which I love but there’s niches within our niche. You might be the agricultural expert. You might be the I know how to get access in this area.
I figured it out. I had a tough one. That’s great. And now I know how to get legal access for all these situations. Now, I’m going to be that pro. That kind of a thing. That’s gold and I love that stuff. But if you’re constantly and people do that, like you said. You send out a really good big 10,000 unit mailer, you’re going to get back everything from a house to-
Steven Jack Butala:
A marina.
Jill K DeWit:
And a cemetery and hey, I’ve got a Dunkin’ Donuts. You want that too?
Steven Jack Butala:
Vacant hospital. These are real things that have happened to us.
Jill K DeWit:
They will come back to you. You can’t get distracted unless and the time is right. And if you really want to go there, and then you have to really have an honest discussion with yourself is how much time are you going to devote to this and then cut yourself off.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’re all entrepreneurs and so we all want here to make money and we’re all constantly challenging everything and looking at things. A strict definition of an entrepreneur, the French word literally means looking at something in a different way that everybody else would look at it. When a piece of land comes in as an entrepreneur, you’re going to say, “Are you kidding? This property’s adjacent to…”-
Jill K DeWit:
Elementary school.
Steven Jack Butala:
And then your mind goes nuts because you’re a good entrepreneur. Instead of, you just got to retrain yourself. Retrain yourself to say, this property looks like it would be… I’m buying this property so cheap. I don’t care where it is. It’s so cheap someone’s going to pay twice what I’m paying.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s it.
Jill K DeWit:
Good. Jack, what do you have for us today that’s informational.
Steven Jack Butala:
My topic is quite simply called potential lies within personality. Earlier, I described the scenario about Jill where I gave her a pile of real estate that I thought was dead and she turned it into cash.
I didn’t sit around and ask myself… Jill’s got some potential. She’s got some real estate potential. I’ve never said that about her. But you can start with looking at your personality first to see if we can reverse it. Look at your personality first and see where the potential is.
The first thing that we do on day one of career path land here at Land Academy is ask everyone to take a personality test. Why? Because we want a baseline and I want you to have a baseline about who you are. If you are a Jill and you jam yourself up every day trying to be a Jack, there’s no real potential in that.
Jill K DeWit:
You’ll be unhappy. Not because of you.
Steven Jack Butala:
You need to…
Jill K DeWit:
Just because it doesn’t fit your personality.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s kind of your problem.
Jill K DeWit:
I think exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
You make choices your own choices every day [inaudible 01:00:43].
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. Oh yes, I do.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s potential in your personality. There’s not potential… What potential did Jill get by working at American Airlines for 17 years? Nothing. She hit the ceiling. They don’t care. They don’t reward her for her potential.
Jill K DeWit:
No.
Steven Jack Butala:
If they would have, she’d be the vice president of sales right now. Can you imagine? You’re the vice president of Sales of American Airlines. How much more successful that company would be?
Jill K DeWit:
Are you kidding? Oh, would be. I thought you meant how much crap I’d be dealing with on a day-to-day basis.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, but you’d still be smashing it.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, true.
Steven Jack Butala:
Look for the potential in your own personality. Find out what your personality is. Take a test. What’s the name of that test? Enneagram or something?
Jill K DeWit:
Mm-hmm.
Steven Jack Butala:
Take a test or many, many tests online. Do it with your spouse. It’s hilarious how different and I, Jill are in these personalities, but we want to go to the same place. Once you know what your personality is, build yourself a little team, whether it’s partners or people that work for you or funding partners on Discord or all of that.
If you don’t want to send out a mailer because you’re real concerned about pricing it correctly, find some somebody to do it for you.
Jill K DeWit:
Do you think that if you have it, a little fire in your tummy, that you can change this? Say your said potential lies within your personality. What if you know that you don’t have that drive? You have some drive, but you don’t think you have enough? Can you train yourself?
Steven Jack Butala:
No.
Jill K DeWit:
This is one of the ways we differ.
Steven Jack Butala:
I said no because I mean no. But I know you’re going to counterbalance this and you should take some time at the end of the show here to talk about that because Jill literally, literally grew up next to Disneyland with all kinds of hope in the world and I literally grew up in Detroit with no hope.
Tell us about your hope. I was so driven. My personality was so driven to get wealthy and move to the West Coast that I would’ve done anything just about anything and I did do just about anything to make that happen.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. So that’s so funny. That’s a good point. I just see it so differently because I say there’s a fire in there. I think you can overcome some stuff. It may take you a long time. Some people are like me. I know they have no fear. I’ll go running into this. I’ll go running into a fire because you told me that this suit’s going to protect me and this is at the other end. Done, here I go.
Then some people are like, “Oh, I don’t know. I’ve got to see 10 people do it first and make sure they’re alive on the other side.” Maybe a hundred people do it first and then I’ve got to put my pinky in or whatever it is. I got to test this. I understand that, but I think that if you want to, I don’t know, maybe it’s me. If you really, really want it bad enough, I think you can overcome a lot and do it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s dig just a little bit deeper here. I know I want to buy and sell land for the rest of my life. I also know I do not want to talk on the phone not even one time a day. Not to my employees, not to our executive staff and honestly not to Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
We just painted the lovely picture.
Steven Jack Butala:
Does that mean that I’m going to fail? No. It means that I was smart enough to know that about myself a lot of years ago and put people in place that are actually interested in doing that. That are really literally interested in talking on the phone and selling stuff or talking to Land Academy customers or that’s what they’re interested in doing and they want a job doing that.
Don’t confuse giving up because, well, my personality is I’m a [inaudible 01:04:49] and I can’t get a mailer out.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is find somebody who’s going to work for you. I don’t mean on a W-2 paycheck, somewhere on Discord. There’s tons of people lurking that have my personality. They would love to do your mailer with you and split the profit.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s true. Thank you. That was good.
Steven Jack Butala:
Join us next Wednesday for another interesting episode. You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill K DeWit:
We are Jack and Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
We are Jack and Jill. Information
Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration.
Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
https://youtu.be/C5hx9aeQ64U
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
DescriptionWelcome to episode 1939 of the Land Academy Show with Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit. In this episode, learn how to negotiate a purchase price and discover what’s holding you back from accomplishing all of your goals. Tune in for a mix of Jill’s insights on land deals and Steven’s tips for making serious dough. The show has now transitioned into a weekly format where they answer questions from their Land Academy Discord forum and review land acquisitions from the weekly member webinar. Members and non-members alike can benefit from the valuable information shared in each episode. Check out landinvestors.com or landacademy.com to access the Land Academy Discord community in a free, read-only format.
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit, and this is the Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is episode number 1,939, if you can believe it. And today we are talking in depth about how to negotiate a purchase price down from $30,000 to $13,000. Jill’s going to handle that. And then, a little later on the show, I’m going to talk about what’s holding you back from actually accomplishing all your goals, personally and professionally.
Jill K DeWit:
Cool.
Steven Jack Butala:
Sounds like we got a good mix of Jill telling us how to do deals and me hoping maybe I can get you prepped to make some serious dough.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, the point here, too, is this podcast is not just for people who find us, but for members and anybody in our world. I know there’s a lot of people that listen and watch that are not in Land Academy. You have told me. And you get little nuggets out of this, and I appreciate that. Remember the time, it was so funny, I was looking for a broker in a certain area, and I picked up the phone, and I just was cold calling. I’m like, “I need a broker to sell this property.” And I called this guy, and he answered the phone, and he was like, “Jill DeWit.” And I’m like, “Have we spoken before?” He’s like, “You don’t know me, but I listen to your podcast.” It was so funny. It was really cool. So I appreciate that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Good. Hope you’re also enjoying our 2023 weekly show. This format’s changed. I think this is probably number four. Each week, we answer questions from our Land Academy Discord forum, review land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar, and take a deep dive into two land related topics that we just mentioned. And these are usually by request.
Jill K DeWit:
They are definitely by request.
Steven Jack Butala:
Now let’s take a question posted by one of our members in the Land Academy Discord online community. If you want to sneak peek about what that’s all about, you’re not a Land Academy member yet, check out landinvestors.com. It’s also posted out now on landacademy.com, I’m told.
Jill K DeWit:
It is.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s free in a read-only format. It’s pretty interesting. If you’re into this, it’s worth checking out.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay, Probacorn, I think I got that right, wrote, “Should most HOA properties be avoided entirely? Just received two accepted offers in North Carolina, but both have a $3,397 yearly HOA in a golf community. Both are infill lots.” That’s hefty. That’s really good. So here’s a couple comments that some members wrote. First of all, Will wrote… I like this. This is the power of Discord, and I was just helping someone about that this morning. Everybody right there is here and happy to help too.
So one of our members, Will, wrote, “Not necessarily, but a few things to look at for infill lots and HOAs in my experience in North Carolina. Number one, see if they’ve already paid the HOA dues for the year and if they will agree to transfer that amount in the sale. Number two, get details from the HOA on what the ownership transfer fees are.” We’ve been hit with that. “I had one under contract that has $7,500 owner transfer fee. Nope.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. We’ve seen that too.
Jill K DeWit:
Yep. “The lot wasn’t worth it and I couldn’t get it assigned to a builder to try to minimize the impact of two transfers.” That’s a lot. See, that’s the thing. You can’t get hit with that. “And if you do go forward, number three, make sure the doc prep fee for the HOA ordinances. They can add $500 at closing.” So yeah, there can be a lot of hidden fees. We always think about what are the annual fees, what are the monthly fees, and what are the restrictions? We don’t think about the transfer fees all the time and that’s important. And thank you Will. You are 100% correct. You need to check all that.
Steven Jack Butala:
What’s an HOA anyway? It stands for Home Owners Association.
Jill K DeWit:
Or POA. There’s POA’s, Property Owners Association, too. Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Exactly. So you have to decide if this type of property is something that you want to invest in. People make a lot of money buying and selling HOA property all the time. First, you need to decide who your customer is. HOA properties in general, or HOA communities, why do they even exist? Why are some properties in an HOA community? Why are some properties not in an HOA community? HOAs are relatively new in the world of real estate development and subdivisions. In the fifties and sixties, no one ever heard of what an… They were nonexistent.
In the seventies and eighties, it became a new business model. So not only do you build a condo community, or in our case, when we go and buy and sell land, a large swath of real estate subdivided into properties, and then sell those properties off and charge an association fee, which is usually responsible for road maintenance and some other stuff. Unfortunately, what comes with that is rules, a lot of rules. And if you’re in an urban area, the rules can get pretty ridiculous pretty quickly, like how long your grass can be.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, yeah. How long you can keep your garage door open and pulling in your trash things.
Steven Jack Butala:
Exactly. In my opinion, the spirit of rural living is you can do whatever the hell you want out there. And if it’s got an HOA associated with it, where you can’t have chickens, or anything you can imagine, that really narrows… The thick of it is it narrows your buyer base. When do we ever want to narrow our buyer base? Never. So now you’re selling real estate to a very specific buyer, and you better get it cheap. That said, Jill and I have made tons of money, literally tens of millions of dollars, in HOA communities in the southwest. So you just have to decide. We don’t buy HOA property almost ever anymore.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s rare, but it’s okay. But I know that it’s a $100 transfer fee, and it’s like $100… I’ll tell you what really comes up. The ones that I deal with now are like $100 transfer fee, and it’s $100 a year. Because all they do is there’s a sign, it pays for the sign, and maybe running over the roads, keeping the dirt roads relatively passable kind of thing.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you call the HOA, and if the HOA is large enough, there are people that are working there. And so, now all the people that are living in the community are paying in every month or every year, and now they’re paying these people’s salaries. And so, if you’re the kind of person who likes government, and you like paying people’s salaries to just create some type of fictitious work, then HOAs might be for you.
Jill K DeWit:
No sarcasm there.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you call the HOA and ask them for a copy of the CCNRs, their covenants, something, and restrictions. So right in the title, you are restricted. Covenants and restrictions. I don’t want to be restricted in the use of my land.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, you know what? And sometimes, even with this one, this $7,500 one, okay, if it’s a million dollar home HOA, it might make sense. So let me just back up and say that. Wherever this is, if these are lots that are sold between $100,000 and $200,000, and then the homes when they’re done are a million bucks, then $7,500, I can totally swallow.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s a golf course there, and a club, and that’s what you’re paying for.
Jill K DeWit:
And a bar and a restaurant.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s different. That’s not an… We don’t run into those at Land Academy.
Jill K DeWit:
Not very often.
Steven Jack Butala:
Those types of places are, it’s a country club type of environment. And some people could argue that you actually get value and you’re creating value in the house that you buy or the condo that you buy, and you’re having fun on the weekends too. So that’s different.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
In general, restrictions on real estate, not good. Today’s first topic is how to negotiate a purchase price from $30,000 down to $13,000 by Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
So let me paint this picture. Jack did everything right. The mail went out, Jack picked the right area, he downloaded the right information, the right comp, scraped it, all of the stuff that he does that goes into pricing to get these offers out to property owners. They get direct mail offers with a number on it. And let’s just imagine my number was $31,336.45. That would be what our offers look like. Because it’s a beautiful, I don’t know, 80 acre ranch-type property. Maybe it’s ag. It’s 80 acres of ag. That might make sense. I could-
Steven Jack Butala:
80 acres for 30 grand, huh?
Jill K DeWit:
Right? Let’s just go with that. I don’t know. Just follow me here. That’s good. So the offer comes back, and I look at it, and at first, I’m like, “This is great. Let’s see what we can do.” And the guy signed it and he sent it back, and we’re all ready to go. So now I dig in, I go, “Oh shucks, this one slipped in. This one isn’t zoned the right way. This one doesn’t have the access that we thought. This one’s not being used, farmed right now.” Some of them we get are being used kind of thing. I’m like, “Shoot.”
And it’s way on the outskirts. It’s on the other side of the train tracks kind of thing, where it doesn’t command that price. If it would’ve been over on this side of the train tracks, it would. But on this side of the train tracks, it doesn’t. That can happen. Can you account for that when you send out the mail? No. So this is a normal situation and this does come up, and you just need to know how to handle it.
So now I’m looking at this and running numbers again and it’s still a good property, so I’m liking it, but I’m not going to do $30,000, because I’m going to sell it for like $50,000. I can’t buy it for $30,000 and sell it for $50,000. That’s not going to work here. That does not meet my numbers, especially when I factor in escrow fees, and the way I do it nowadays, I’m not going to work that hard. I’m bringing in a broker to do it, and I have a great guy in the area.
By the time I took all that out, I might net $10,000, and if something goes sideways, then I’m really worried. So I’m like, “All right.” So I look at the property. I’m like, “I could do $13,000.” Buying for $13,000 with a commission, with escrow fees, and all of that to sell for $50,000, now it makes sense, now I’m going to do it. So great. That’s great, Jill. But you’re saying, “What now? How do you get the seller on board with you?” That’s a tough conversation, and that’s what we’re going to have right now. And even though we put negotiate in here, I’m really not negotiating.
Steven Jack Butala:
What are you doing? This is interesting.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. No, I’m explaining, it doesn’t work, and here is why.
Steven Jack Butala:
You’re explaining it. You’re explaining the actual-
Jill K DeWit:
Not explaining.
Steven Jack Butala:
No, I think that’s right. That’s great. You’re actually explaining to the seller why his property or her property is not-
Jill K DeWit:
It doesn’t command that.
Steven Jack Butala:
… not worth the original purchase price, to us, anyway.
Jill K DeWit:
And you know what? That person, just so you know, that’s the reason they signed it at $30,000. They know it’s like, “Whoa, that’s a good number.” Remember, I want to sell it for $50,000. So they know, “Woo. I’ll take $30,000 all day long.” So this is what you have to do. First thing I want you to do is everything I just said. Do your homework, do your due diligence, and get all your ducks in a row, and be sure that you still want the property. I love it. Access isn’t great, but it’s… It’s not paved, it’s dirt. Fine. And we have legal access. Fine. So that all checks out. We’re good with that. It’s not as close to town as I like, but at $13,000, I can make this work.
And I would write this stuff down. I want you to have a couple points, not 20, and try not… I don’t want you to make up stuff. It’s okay to say, “I wish it was closer to,” or, “It’s not as close to this.” I want you to have real reasons why it doesn’t work for you at that price. And you’re going to call the person back and talk to them. You probably had a conversation. I hope you had a conversation with them before. You may or may not have had a conversation. It may have just been they signed it and sent it back.
Either way, it’s going to start out with, “Hi, I’m Jill. I got your signed purchase agreement. I’m so glad that you’re excited and you want to sell this property. We got to talk.” Something like that, like, okay, you’re kind of prepping them. First thing I want to know is what do they know? Have you seen the property? When was the last time you’ve seen the property? A lot of people have never seen it. They don’t even know it’s out there. They may think that Amazon is next door and that’s why you’re sending this offer. They may have inherited it, owned it for 20 years. Who knows?
A lot of the time, they haven’t seen it, they haven’t been out there. It’s not their property next door kind of thing. So we got to find that out or just gauge what they know. And then you know how to come at it too, and go, “All right, well…” You’re either going to say, “As you may have noticed, nothing’s happening in that area,” if they have seen it, if they are not far from it. Or you’re going to say, “Let me tell you what’s going on with that area, because you haven’t been there in a while.” And this is where you start filling them in.
“All right, so I see that that was going to be hopefully the path of growth when you bought this back 20 years ago, but it’s not what’s happening now. So I looked around, I did all my numbers, and…” Well, actually, let me get to that. First, I’m going to start giving them two, maybe three things that are concrete of why it doesn’t command $30,000. “I wish it was closer to…” Fill in the blank. “Anybody that’s going to be out there, they’re kind of out there. They’re going to have to drive this far to get their mail and milk, number one.”
“Number two, I thought it was paved. Turns out it’s not. It looks like you do have legal access, so that’s…” I try to make them feel good, that it’s a good property, because I want it. “So that’s good, but I can’t really get every vehicle out there, so that’s going to be a little bit of an issue. And then the third thing is, I just looked at properties in the area, and they’re just not commanding that much. I looked back and…” Something like that.
I want you to have a couple good things that… So you’re kind of setting the thing for them, like, “All right. I kind of thought…” And let them talk while you’re doing this too. Don’t give them a speech. Let them talk. I want a dialogue. I want them to go, “I kind of suspected that,” or, “Yeah, I remember that. We all thought that was going to be a big airport, but it’s still just a little private thing, and I think there’s five planes a day that land there.” And you could say, “Yep, that’s exactly what it looks like to me too,” kind of thing.
So then you’re going to go, “So now here’s where we’re at. I do…” Now we’ve got them all knowing where you’re coming from and you’ve explained why it’s not as great as you thought it was when you sent out that offer for $30,000. So now what you’re going to do is say, “But I do like the property. I do. I do see some value there. And I ran some numbers, I did some work on it, and I really came up with the best that I can do, and that is $13,000. If that works for you, great. I will get escrow started right now, and I will get this… My gal in town can do these things in two weeks, if that. I’ll try to push it through so you can get paid out quickly.” And let them talk, let them breathe, let them think, and let them come back to you kind of thing. Do you want to ask me questions yet?
Steven Jack Butala:
I mean, what percentage of the time does it work?
Jill K DeWit:
More than 50. More than 50%.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s really important to retain from what Jill is saying here. She’s got a pretty patented, experienced way of legitimately reducing a purchase price so that it works for her acquisition criteria. See, in Land Academy you’re supposed to establish an acquisition criteria before you even start sending the mail out, before you even start to look for places to send mail. And so, if these properties come back and they’re not fitting your acquisition criteria, it’s extremely important to not just go ahead with the deal and see what happens. That’s what most people do in life, and it doesn’t work out. If you’re at all questioning the purchase price that you offered… This doesn’t mean that you sent the mail out wrong.
Jill K DeWit:
No, not at all.
Steven Jack Butala:
What it means is it came back and there’s some legitimate issues with the real estate that you could never see in the assessor data that we use to value property, and you’re adjusting the price legitimately. What you don’t want to do is make this your business model, where every single property… Because we all know people in our personal lives, they may be living in your own house that have to negotiate everything. That’s just who they are. And that’s not what we do and that’s not what Land Academy is for. We are not here to squeeze every single nickel out of a seller, so that we can make more money on the sell side. That is not this model. But if the property’s not fitting the criteria, it just doesn’t.
Jill K DeWit:
It just doesn’t command that price.
Steven Jack Butala:
What’s the cure-all to this? What’s the real cure-all to this? Send a ton of mail out. So now you’re looking at not just this one deal that needs to be reduced from $30,000 to $13,000, you’ve got 22 of them. And if she’s at a 50% strike rate, and you’re brand new and you’re at a 20% strike rate, you’re still going to do a bunch of deals.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, let me finish with this. And you’re right, because it’s like dating. I hate to say this. It’s just like dating. When you up your numbers, and you know that you’re going to have a date on Saturday night because you’re dating four people, you’re not hung up on one person because you had one halfway decent date, you’re dating four people, you’re going like, “Yeah, if this guy doesn’t want to go, I’ll go with another guy. I got three other guys in mind that I would love to go to dinner with or who would love to come with me to this concert.”
Steven Jack Butala:
This works both ways.
Jill K DeWit:
I know it does.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s not gender specific.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. Trust me, I learned it from a guy. We women didn’t come up with this. You men came up with this. I’m learning, and I’m trying to help every other woman.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you’re in the beginning of a relationship with a woman, and she’s not compliant, like a seller’s not compliant-
Jill K DeWit:
Compliant?
Steven Jack Butala:
… send out some more mail.
Jill K DeWit:
Is your girl compliant? Dude, that’s going to be next week’s show. How to have a compliant partner.
Steven Jack Butala:
How to make your seller compliant.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. It’s awful. No. No. Back to this. Okay, so let me tell you how this is really going to play out now. You’re like, “50%? What are you talking about, Jill?” Yeah. So remember, we had a conversation. This person and I are talking about this, and I’m explaining the situation. Sure, they’re going to be really disappointed right now. But you told them all the reasons why.
Now, if they’re not… There’s a couple things that are going to happen. One is they’re going to go, “Okay, fine. I get it. Let’s do this.” That’s the dream that’s going to happen right there, number one scenario. And then you do it, and you follow through, man. That’s what I’m saying. When you call him back and you have that number, you better be ready to go. It needs to be a number that you feel great about. If something else pops up, I don’t care, because I got it for 13 grand. I know this is going to work.
All right. Scenario number two is they’re going to go, “Oh, sheesh. That is not what I was thinking. Oh my gosh. Okay, I need to sleep on this. I need to talk to my wife. My brother expressed interest.” That’s going to happen. “I need to make some calls.” “Totally cool. That’s totally fine. I get it. You want me to call you tomorrow? When do you want to talk?” And set up a time that you’re going to call, have the right number, and be ready to go, so they can make their calls and be ready for you. That’s number two.
And then, number three is, “What the heck? Hell no. That is not going to work for me. I only wanted $30,000. I really wanted $50,000,” because they want retail or above retail. Let’s even go there, because they do. They don’t even know what it’s worth. “And $13,000? Nope, not going to work. Sorry. Have a…” Whatever. “Okay, totally get it. Would you just hang on to my offer. Tell you what. I totally understand and I get it and I know that would be hard to hear for me too. So please just hang on to my letter, leave it on your desk, think about it. I’m going to be available. I’m usually available in the afternoons. And if you change your mind, please give me a call back, and I can get this going really fast. I’m ready to go.” And let it go.
And watch how many times… You got to leave the door open. You got to be understanding to them, and you got to leave that door open. And they will come back. They will call you. It might be a day from now. Like the guy that we had, the first situation, he wanted $20,000, and I was at $5,000, and he called me the next day. He was like, “What?” And he’s like, “I’ll take your $5,000.” He’s like, “How fast can we do this?” And I ran to the bank and we got this thing done real quick.
But the other ones, they’ll probably make those calls, and it might be 30 days. It might even be a little bit longer. Usually it’s within 30 days, my experience is, that this comes back. And they do go, “All right, I’m ready to go.” But the ones that wait even longer, those are even the best ones. Because when they call you back six months from now, and they’re staring at their offer, and they know that you promised $13,000, and they need $13,000 right now, they’re calling you back in six months saying, “Hey, do you still want this? And would you still pay $13,000?” They’re even warmed up to say, “I’ll take what you’ll give me,” kind of thing.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you are thinking about doing this as a real career, or if you are already doing it, many, many, many of you are already doing this, the situation that Jill’s describing is something that you’re going to come across on a weekly basis, if not more. It’s something that you really need to think about and embrace and certainly not take advantage of. I think that goes without saying.
But prices need to be adjusted. It happens in all kinds of real estate all the time. Think about buying a house. You go to buy a house, everybody agrees on a price, the inspection comes back, and it needs a new water heater. Well, we need to take that off the price. If I’m the buyer, we’re taking that off the price. If I’m the seller, I’m going to say, “Well, it’s already so… The price is so reduced.” And so, there’s some discussion that has to go on, within reason. And so, it either works for the seller and the buyer or it doesn’t. It’s not anything to be really worried about.
The way to… Unfortunately, with a house you’re buying one house. You like that house for whatever reason, and it’s a little bit more emotional. For land, you’re just looking at the money piece here. You could have 50 of these things going on at the same time, and really negotiate the ones that need to be negotiated. They need to be valued correctly for you to make money. You have complete control over the situation. You might not have complete control over this one deal, reduced from $30,000 to $13,000, but if you’re looking at six of them because you sent the mail out correctly, you have entire control over what you’re going to buy that month and sell.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s the best part, like Jack just said. And usually you have more than six. If you’re doing it right, hopefully you got 20, and you’re like… So when you have that thing, and like I said, you leave the door open, and you say, “Hey, I’m here. Let me know if anything changes, and I’ll get it done real fast for you. Usually I can do it within two weeks. My escrow agent is amazing. I wish you all the best. Thank you. Bye.” Click. Next envelope. You don’t even care. You don’t even care.
Because you know what? Next one you open up, that’s… Next one you open up that you sent out for $30,000, you’re like, “Wow, I would’ve paid $50,000. This thing’s worth a lot more even than that. This one’s worth $100,000. Holy cow, I think I can get $120,000 for this thing. Let me check with the broker.” Now you’ve already forgotten. You are on your way, working on this next deal, and then someday, this sweet person’s probably going to come back, and like I said, say, “I called all my family, my wife’s going to divorce me if I don’t sell it.” That happens. I’ve had those… They say that. “She was mad at me from buying it in the first place,” kind of thing, “And I’ll take your $13,000.”
Steven Jack Butala:
What can really complicate this is if a seller is staring at three offers. Let’s say the State of North Carolina, because everybody seems to love to mail North Carolina. I’m not sure why.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s kind of funny.
Steven Jack Butala:
But that just happens. I’m not advocating… Just by the fact that I think I just said North Carolina, people think that I’m advocating sending mail there. And it’s quite the opposite. I’m saying, please don’t send any more mail to North Carolina.
Jill K DeWit:
If we list a county or a state, that means don’t do it.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s right. What ends up happening is-
Jill K DeWit:
Not because of us.
Steven Jack Butala:
If a seller is staring at three offers, I can tell you this from experience, and one of the offers is from us, and Jill’s talking like she just talked, and she’s… What she’s really doing is establishing trust and establishing a relationship with the seller. There’s a very good chance that one of the offers that they received, even if it’s for more money, they just went dark. They never followed up. They’re great at sending-
Jill K DeWit:
Happens a lot.
Steven Jack Butala:
They were great at sending mail out which is-
Jill K DeWit:
Happens to me.
Steven Jack Butala:
They were great at sending mail out, which is what I’m really, really good at, but I’m not really good at what Jill does. And so, all right, that offer’s off the table. Offer number two, they may have gotten a call back, and they may have gotten a call back with somebody that’s got a dry personality, like me, where I’m really… I’m on the phone with you. “Yeah, it’s $13,000. Here’s why. And please let me know what you think.” Click.
And then there’s Jill, and she’s befriended this person, talked to them for let’s say 10, 15, 20 minutes, probably knows their kids’ names by then. And so, who do you think they’re going to call back? Who do you think is going to actually get the deal done? And this is not an option. The piece of this business that Jill fulfills for us is not an option. It’s like sending out a well-priced mailer. It’s just not a… You have to do it. You have to do some version of this to be really, really successful at a real high level, if you want to make it work. And what surprises me about this is the amount of times that it works. 50%? I’m way removed from it, but I think 50% is low.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, thank you. It could be higher. It’s funny you brought up that situation, because I can remember one in particular where I had that exact situation. He’s like, “Wait a minute.” It was my $5,000 guy too, by the way. He’s like, “I had another offer for $20,000.” I’m like, “Great, take it.” I said, “Do you think it’s still going to be $20,000 by the time the person does all the recon and stuff like I just did? And I’m in it. I’m ready to go.” He’s like, “Yeah, you’re right.”
And that was the let me sleep on it guy, and he took my $5,000 over the one for $20,000, because I said, “You and I both know that that $20,000 is too much. My $30,000 was way too much,” kind of thing. “So by the time that person looks at it and figures it out and all that stuff… And you have me right now, Bob. I’m ready to go. My checkbook is open.”
I say this stuff. “I’m ready to go. My checkbook is open. I will do this for you. You can count on me. But it’s $13,000.” And they’re like, “I’ll take your $13,000.” I said, “Okay.” And they have… That’s it. And you had brought it up. It’s because they trust me and they believe in me. And why? Because I’m talking to them like a real person, and we’re having a conversation, and I’m not making fluff, and I’m not slimy, and all of that. And if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. I go, “Okay. I wish you all the best.” That’s the key there.
Steven Jack Butala:
What we don’t track really is how many people then call you back six months later and say, “I tried to get it done with this other person.” They don’t really tell you that. They just call back and say, “You know what? We decided to take your offer.” And they probably went up and down the path with somebody else that sent them a mailer that couldn’t get it done. Who knows why. Maybe they’re part of the LandGate group and they don’t know how to do deals correctly. Not sure.
Jill K DeWit:
I was going to say that a different way, but I was thinking the same thing. Because in Land Academy, that’s one nice thing about Land Academy and our group, is that you guys are smart. You know how to get a deal all the way, done the right way, and to talk to these people, and that’s why you’re here.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill and I go way back with Mark. We’re just horsing around. Mark’s got a pretty good program, from what I hear. I don’t know.
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t know.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a look at one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar.
Jill K DeWit:
Thinking of what to say. Do you want to learn more about us and what we do and learn more about Land Academy? Get our free ebook. It is awesome. It tells our whole backstory and gives you all kinds of insight to what we’re talking about, about sending offers, and getting this data, and pricing these offers, and how this all works. So go to landacademy.com, and download the free ebook, and then horse around there. There’s all kinds of great stuff there. You can see the back end of our Discord group. You can see testimonials from some of our members. There’s just tons of information there.
Steven Jack Butala:
Hey, don’t forget about Offers 2 Owners. Jill and I have a full-blown commercial printing company to fulfill your order for sending offers out to owners like we talk about on the show all the time. It’s the nucleus of our business. So check out offers2owners.com. They have specials and promos going on there all the time. Let’s take another question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. Again, if you want to sneak peek at the Discord channel, which I really highly recommend, please go to landacademy.com and check it all out in, let’s call it, read-only format. It’s free.
Jill K DeWit:
All right, so here’s another question. Clay wrote, “I received a signed purchase agreement via email yesterday and responded with thank you and a simple question about the property. I also called them since they had provided their phone number in the email as well. They responded saying they didn’t want to sell anymore because I was fishing and I should already know about the property already.” That’s hilarious. Has anyone ever-
Steven Jack Butala:
To which I say great work, because you did your job sending the offer out. Because if you send these offers out correctly… I don’t mean to interrupt you, but if you send these offers out correctly, they think that you only sent one offer.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, that’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
Not 70,000.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s true. “Has anyone ever had something similar happen to them? Any advice when it comes to receiving signed purchase agreements via email? Also, I’m curious if there is possibly a better way to approach a situation like this through email in the future. Thanks.” I’m kind of curious what the question was. Because if the question was zoning or something, it should be something like… If it’s something that you could have reconned on by calling the county or looking up yourself in ParcelFact or something, then that’s true.
But if it’s something like, “It looks like there was a mobile on there. Does the mobile still exist,” then that guy has an attitude problem and you just need to maybe come at it another way. I would call him and just say, “You know what? I’m not right there, and I’m not able to do a drive by this week, so that’s why I’m asking you. Is the mobile still there, and is anybody in it?” And that’s fair.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s different cultures. There are very different cultures around this country. And when somebody receives an offer for a value for their property that they think is less than what is in their head, it could be fiction, they’re going to respond certain ways. A lot of it’s based on the cultural area that they live in. People in… I’m from the Midwest, so I can say this very directly. Everybody has to argue and scream in the Midwest about everything, and then 10 minutes later, if it goes okay, and everybody plays the little chicken game, then everyone’s friends, and you might get a deal done. But there’s arguing first. In the West coast. Everybody hugs first, then they talk it through, and the deal may or may not get done.
Jill K DeWit:
This explains… Welcome to my life, by the way.
Steven Jack Butala:
In the Northeast, nothing gets done, because everyone’s angry for no reason at all. I think it’s the weather. And in the South, that’s mostly compiled of people that were sick of the northeast, and so they have a little bit of that going on, but you might get a deal done, in let’s say Florida, or God forbid, North Carolina. So you have to gauge this. I’m half joking here.
You have to gauge what this response is. Why did somebody sign an offer, seemingly take a picture or scan it in, and send it to you via email saying they want to do the deal, but you said, “Yeah, okay, cool. Let’s do the deal, but I need to know if you have physical and legal access,” and that sends them into the situation where they don’t want to do the deal?
Then you have to have what Jill has, the talent that Jill was seemingly born with, which amazes me on a daily basis. That sense of, “All right, I want to buy this property for the right price,” has to kick in. My innate response to that situation is, “Cool. We’re not doing the deal. I’m going to open the next one.” Her innate response to that situation is, “What’s it going to take to get this deal done? If I offended you with this question, I do have a few more questions. Where would you like me to get these answered so we can actually get you a check in the mail?”
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. Yeah. You signed it for a reason kind of thing. I love it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Sometimes no doesn’t mean no.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. I was going to say, yeah, I loved your thing. Sometimes people are just cranky, maybe had a bad day, who knows. It could be something. Or you know what my other gut instinct on that was? What if there’s something glaringly wrong that he’s trying to push this through and intimidate you to do the deal, “Watch me. This thing’s not worth anything.”
Steven Jack Butala:
She’s going to get the upper hand, Jill is. That’s just how it is.
Jill K DeWit:
I just need to know the truth, and then I’m going to make a decision. That’s it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Look, they’re not engaging you unless they want to sell it, no matter how mad they are. They want to sell the property.
Jill K DeWit:
Totally. He wouldn’t have done that.
Steven Jack Butala:
They’re just disappointed.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. It’s kind of funny.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s second topic is, what’s holding you back from accomplishing your goals? This is a really, really important topic, because I feel like I have a lot of personal experience in this. I didn’t walk out of college, and then got a light bulb over my head, and said, “Hey, I should buy and sell land, and we should do it out West, because it’s cheaper and easier, and I don’t think it’s as prevalent as it is in the Midwest.” No. You have to put yourself out of your own way and really look at what you want to accomplish, and why, and how, and map it all out. I would love to do this topic with you.
Jill K DeWit:
Do it. Ask me some questions.
Steven Jack Butala:
So have you ever been… What’s held you back, if anything?
Jill K DeWit:
That’s a good question. You know what’s funny? I do not suffer from this. And I think it’s because I, for whatever reason, have a lot of confidence.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, did you accomplish-
Jill K DeWit:
I’m not afraid of anything.
Steven Jack Butala:
You worked for American Airlines for what, 18 years? And I worked in a public accounting and did all kinds of stuff that I did not want to do at the time, nor would I ever go back to.
Jill K DeWit:
That helped me accomplish my goal. You know what my goal was back then? Goof off and travel.
Steven Jack Butala:
So it wasn’t money driven?
Jill K DeWit:
No, it wasn’t money driven.
Steven Jack Butala:
Wow. I’ve never known a single minute in my entire life where it hasn’t been money driven.
Jill K DeWit:
No. Are you kidding? I just wanted a job that I could afford to travel and I had all the benefits. So come on. My first trip by myself, I went to Greece. I mean, with my girlfriend. I’m like, “This is the greatest thing on the planet.” So that’s what we would do every weekend. My friends, we would go to London for Saturday night and come right back because you could.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’ve done that too, several times, actually.
Jill K DeWit:
And especially back then too. We would get first class tickets and you would get… It was like confirmed seating kind of thing, because they wanted you to know the experience so you could sell the product. And the flight to London was sometimes more fun in first class than the London part of it. So this was great. I haven’t eaten so well like this in a while. So no, that was my goal. I think the difference is, for me though, I don’t set crazy, crazy, crazy, $5 million in my bank account in one year goal. I wouldn’t do that.
My goals are like, I’m going to lose weight. I’m going to get in this size. And it’s attainable. Not, I’m going to be a supermodel, or I’m going to be a jockey. Not attainable. So I always pick attainable goals, but stuff that I got to work at it. And by the end of this year, I want to be able to take this trip, I want to afford to do this, and I want to pay off my car. Something like that. Those are my goals. I want to not worry about my mortgage. I want to have kid college funds started all that stuff.
And then, getting to those goals, to me, I set it out, I have it in my head, and it’s always on my mind, and I don’t beat myself up when I fall down. I think that’s a lot of it. Because I know a lot of people that are like, “Well, okay, here’s day seven, it’s January 7th, and I’ve eaten like crap all seven days, because I had the flu, and then this, and I was traveling, fill in the blank. Not going to happen. I’m just stuck, and it’s not for me.” No. So what? Pick it up the very next day. Pick it up the very next hour.
You’ve may or may not have heard me talk about, do you want to be a land investor? Well, great. Tomorrow morning, when you wake up, you are a land investor. That’s how I want you to think. You’re going to get up in the morning, you’re going to have it in your head. You’re going to start making decisions just as if you are a land investor. And why are you not? I mean, this is my crazy confidence. Who’s going to tell me I’m not? I mean, I’m making my website. I decided today I’m a land investor. I’m going to get a hat made. And I’m going to start getting my website done, and this, and this, and this. This is all the stuff that we do in Land Academy. And there’s no reason you can’t just go like that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s some things that I’ve heard people say in the past about why they can’t accomplish what they want. I don’t have enough money. That was a big one for me. I’m not smart enough. I don’t have enough time.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay, I’m listening.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m too busy with… I’m too busy with… I have two little kids. I can’t do that. I don’t have time. I’m a mom. I’m a single mom. These are things I’ve heard directly from people for years and years and years. All that means to me is that up to that point in your life, somebody’s been telling you, you’re not smart enough. Maybe you weren’t the best student. That doesn’t mean you’re not smart enough to do this at all. I wasn’t the best student. And so, you have to either overcome these things with a will to succeed, which is roots from some type of confidence, and believing that whatever was told to you up to that point, you just don’t believe it. Yeah, I am smart enough. I might not be smart enough to be a surgeon. In the end, I probably am. I’m just not really willing to put in what it takes to be that.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s it. I’m convinced that all these things… Okay, I love it. Smart, money, and time. I’m convinced they are all accomplishable, you’re just not motivated to do it. There’s some reason you’re like, “Yeah, I don’t want to work that hard.” Okay, let’s just be honest then. You don’t want to work that hard. That I can understand. Whatever it is. And money. I don’t have the money. I can’t start this. So what? So wait six months, save it up, get another job, do something else.
I used to coach in a past life, another job I would talk to kids about that want to go back to college, and they didn’t have a lot of money. And I’m like, “Okay, what…” And actually, back then, my favorite was like UTI and MMI. I worked for that school. Anyway, and these guys are all car guys. I’m like, “What’s stopping you from starting your own detail company? By the way, I know car detailers, they make good money. We pay well kind of thing. What’s stopping you from on your weekends and evenings or early mornings, having your own little car detailing company. It’s your own little business by the way. You’re going to learn a lot from that, and you’re going to get some great income coming in, and you get to set your own hours.”
So this is just one example. So whatever you come up with or whatever it takes, picking up hours, getting a second job, selling something, changing something in your life so you have more money. That’s an easy one, by the way. Maybe I don’t need to have a two-bedroom apartment all to myself in downtown San Diego. Yeah. That might be a way that you could get money in your bank account right now.
Steven Jack Butala:
So that’s a result… That whole thing is very popular with younger people, and that is a direct result of consuming popular culture to a point where… I just read something, just this guy got roasted really bad for saying if you don’t have a Lamborghini in your twenties, then… Yeah. And so, it went viral, and then they pulled it down.
Jill K DeWit:
That sends the wrong message.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s the kind of message that you will end up defeated, because it’s not realistic, and who cares anyway. If you want a Lamborghini, which I understand, then do it in your fifties when everybody’s college is paid for and your house is paid for.
Jill K DeWit:
You saved up, you worked hard, that was your goal
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. And you put it in your mind that you’re going to get a Lamborghini by the time you’re 48 or some obvious number, after your other responsibilities in life are all… And I mean responsibilities to yourself, a paid for house, or whatever they end up being.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
You’re going to set your own goals here. And setting… Jill is exactly right. Setting blank goals about being a supermodel is silly. Setting a goal to make $180,000 this year buying and selling land part-time is crazy, crazy accomplishable. And then increasing that to $300,000 in next year. And then maybe after 36 months of doing this, quitting your W-2 job so that you can make a consistent $300,000 to $500,000 a year because what you’re doing is very, very realistic, and it’s honest, and it doesn’t take a ton of time to do it.
Setting a goal like, within the next eight months, getting a novel completed part-time, getting up before your kids do or doing it after they go to school or something like that, very, very accomplishable, and potentially very profitable. Maybe writing software, in the same exact way, and selling a portion of it or all of it as an exit strategy. Those are all accomplishable goals. I know this for sure.
What holds me back at this point in my life, in my fifties, from accomplishing goals that I have, is that I hate what I’m doing. I have the confidence to do it. I know what I’m capable of and what I’m not capable of, but things change over time. And if I’m not interested in doing it, I’ll make reasons. Jill and I are famous for this. There’s a bunch of stuff that Jill loves about buying and selling land and running Land Academy, and there’s some stuff that she doesn’t, and it’s real obvious what she doesn’t like.
And I could be describing myself. It’s the same thing. And so, what we do together is to work on either hiring people to do that part of the business for us, or eliminating it. So that’s honestly what our goals are right now. Our goals are not so much financial any longer, because we’ve long accomplished those, both with land and everything else that we’re involved in. What I’m interested in more now is applying myself where I’m most effective and removing the stuff that I don’t want to do.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. That’s really, really good. I want to add to this about these goals that we’re talking about. You brought up that 180, we’re going to work with 180 a year. Maybe that’s your goal. I’m going to join Land Academy, learn how to do this. I hear all these guys making a lot more than that. Let’s just even just say $100,000. I want to make $100,000 doing it this year. That’s going to show me this is possible. It’s going to catch… I can breathe. And then after next year, maybe I’ll start looking at replacing my day job, if that’s what you want kind of thing.
So walking around going, “$100,000. I got to get $100,000.” Now you can’t look at it like that. Now you got to break it up and make it into attainable. And this is in our equity planner, which you’re going to do coming up in a couple weeks, a thing for our new members that just joined too, but in Land Academy, we have an equity planner sheet that we share with everybody, and we talk about often, especially at the beginning of the year.
What are your goals? You want $100,000? Let’s divide that up. How much is that a month? Great. Now how hard do you want to work? Do you want to do one deal a month, two deals a month, four deals a month? What’s your threshold? Because the more deals you do, the less you need to make on each deal. When you back into that, you could look at, “I don’t have to work that hard. If I do one deal a month, and they each net $10,000, well, heck, there’s my $100,000.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Netting $10,000 a deal in this world that we’re in is really, really easy.
Jill K DeWit:
So that’s a real… And that will show you what’s possible. Then now you know, “All right, now next year, do I want to double that? Do I want to quadruple that? If I do four deals a month now, now I’m at $400,000 a year. Huh? Look at that.” And you notice I have some wiggle room in there too. Maybe two months, you’re busy. I don’t know. You have some wiggle room there. So this is really good.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think the place to start about accomplishing your goals is to really sit down and have an honest conversation with yourself about what you want, what you’re actually interested in, and what you know you’re capable of. And if the answer is, “Well, I don’t really want anything, and I’m capable of being a stay-at-home mom, and that’s exactly what I want to do until the kids go to school,” then you’re good.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
But if there’s something else that you feel like you need to accomplish, whoever you are, whatever… Maybe you don’t like your job. That’s easily the most popular… That happened. That’s why we’re here. That’s why Jill and I are here, because we didn’t like our jobs. That is very changeable.
Jill K DeWit:
Totally. And I’ll never forget when I left my job to do this full-time with you, and I got into it, and I transitioned from… There’s a lot of moving parts. Let’s be honest. And again, that’s what Land Academy is for. We teach you and walk you all the way through this stuff. But when I transitioned, I just knew that this was my goal, being my own boss. That’s probably it. Because that’s part of my own boss. If I don’t want to work today, I don’t have to work today. Big deal. So I had a conversation with myself, and I didn’t even realize I did it till later, but my conversation was, “I will never go back.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Me too, Jill It’s funny.
Jill K DeWit:
If it comes down, and there were times years ago, you guys know this, have been with us for a while, boy, there were rough times during last downturn where it was you and me, baby, and we didn’t have a staff. We didn’t have an office. You’re buying it, you’re selling them. I’m buying them, I’m selling them. We’re keeping food on the table. I’m like, “I don’t care. I do not care.” If it comes down to you and me, I know we could have a nice life.
Steven Jack Butala:
I made partner at the accounting firm where I was, and I told them to go pound sand. And that was the best decision I ever made. And I went and took some money that I made from buying and selling long-term care facilities and applied it to this. If you read the ebook, it’s all in there, the Land Academy ebook. And that was it too. So my goal, I didn’t know it when I was younger, but my actual goal was to not work. And I don’t mean go to the beach every day at all. That’s not what I mean. I just mean to be in control of my own time. Jill was, I learned today, that she just worked at American Airlines for 18 years, eight hours a day, and all the crap that goes on with that type of position back then, just so she could travel.
Jill K DeWit:
I was having fun.
Steven Jack Butala:
So she didn’t want to work there. She just wanted the fringe benefit.
Jill K DeWit:
Ding ding.
Steven Jack Butala:
So I never wanted to work anywhere either. I just wanted the money. And it worked, and I got it, and I learned a lot. So yeah, in the end, we made a lot less money. I did extremely well through the 2000s, like on the back of a yacht, literally, well. And that downturn brought me to my knees financially. And Jill and I worked back our way back from there, and it worked. So, it just takes a sense of confidence and an actual interest. I’m actually interested in land. I think you are too.
Jill K DeWit:
I love it.
Steven Jack Butala:
I am not interested in renovating houses. I’m not interested in… Which I’ll talk about… Today’s Wednesday. Well, I talked about it on the Thursday call last week, the webinar, about why buying a trailer park or a multi-tenant building right now just pales, financially, in a comparison for buying and selling land. Buying a house and renting it out, I went through the numbers, extensively went through the numbers to show you why there’s no better real estate business that I can think of than buying and selling land. And I’m not trying to sell anything here. But whatever’s holding you back, just get ahold of it, and deal with it. Otherwise, five years from now, you’re going to be saying the same thing.
Jill K DeWit:
Perfect.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a look at another one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar. Jill, I think you have something inspirational to share with us today.
Jill K DeWit:
Yep. I just wanted to talk a few minutes about the value of this community and the value of a successful land community. It’s kind of funny, when we first… I was talking to someone about this the other day. When we first started Land Academy, it was because people asked for it. We had people going, “Can you tell me what you’re doing? Can you teach me what you’re doing? Can you teach me what you’re doing?” It was our buyers. They bugged us enough to teach them what we’re doing. And I’m like, “Okay, I can’t keep repeating the same thing over and over again.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Our land buyers.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, our land buyers. Other investors kept going, “I need you to tell me your secrets.” You got to go get the data, you got to do this, you got to do that. They’re like, “Oh.” So we did Land Academy. So here we are. The month we launched, here comes some questions. And they’re like, “We want to connect with you. We want to connect with other people doing this.” So I’m like, “Brilliant. You’re right.” This one, very nicely, sent me to California, made a website, had a different name. Now it’s evolved into, now it’s a Discord. But the point of it is there’s so much experience combined now. This online community now is eight years running with so much combined experience. Not just us too, but everybody else.
Am I in every single county, in every single state right now, today, doing a deal? Heck no. I wouldn’t lie and say I was. So if you need something in that part of the whatever, there’s good chance there’s somebody in Discord right now that can help you and someone in our Land Academy community can help you. And I love and appreciate how generous, and helpful, and welcoming our community is.
When we did our first live event in Southern California a couple years ago, I remember people going, “Yay. I talk to these people. It’s so nice to see them and meet them. I’m not on an island.” No, you’re not on an island. We’re all doing this together and we all have our own individual companies, which is great. So we’re not competing with each other. We’re all helping each other.
Because in the end, too, someone probably helped them. Someone was always a step ahead of them, which was probably us. We help them, they help you, and you’re going to help somebody else. And whether it’s knowledge or deal funding, there’s a lot of that going on too, this community is packed full of like-minded people with goals just like you. Did you want to add to that? How do you add to that? Aw. All right, Jack. Do you have something informational you would like to share?
Steven Jack Butala:
My topic today is business 101. And I think that a lot of this gets overlooked. I think people come to us maybe brand new, from not really experiencing any type of business. So I’m going to go over a few terms and concepts that really helped me back in the day. And then, if you’re more established and you’ve had a business, or you’ve been like, let’s say… For whatever reason, we have a lot of career, retired, or maybe at the tail end of their career, corporate salespeople. There’s some good information in here to think about maybe how you could potentially change your already existing land business. Your business needs to make money.
Jill K DeWit:
This is good stuff.
Steven Jack Butala:
If it doesn’t make money, it’s a hobby, and hobbies are expensive. But you’re here to make money, and that’s the first thing they teach you in accounting. You are here as an accountant to create shareholder wealth. So let me translate that for you. If you’re a public accountant, you’re brand new, you’re working 80 hours a week, and your client is Tesla, because it’s a publicly traded company, your job as a junior accountant for a big accounting firm is to create shareholder wealth.
That gets completely overlooked and undiscussed, especially in this environment that we’re in now, where share shareholder wealth is celebrated, but despised for some reason, in many, many, many circles. So you’re here to make money, and as an accountant for Tesla, it’s a lot harder to do that than it is to buy a property for $30,000 and sell for $60,000. You’re in a community like that. You have a decision in business to either make something or buy it. It’s called a classic make-buy decision.
A person who owns a manufacturing company buys raw materials, they machine it somehow, they injection mold it, they cast it, and then they do hopefully a ton of them because they’re filling an order. And that raw material, the cost of the equity that they generated from themselves, they’re making money because they made something. Or in a case of, let’s say, a television, all the components that went into it, the value of them altogether working as a television is worth more than the components on their own, just sitting on a desk, let’s say. That’s the make decision.
Or you can buy something and improve it, which is what we do. You can buy real estate for a very inexpensive price and resell it, create some equity for yourself, which is our business model. Or you can buy a piece of real estate and improve it, creating equity and selling it. It’s a make-buy decision. Think of McDonald’s. You’re taking in all this raw material in the back, you’re creating hamburgers, you’re utilizing all the years and decades of marketing and selling hamburgers. You made something.
You have fixed and variable costs. This is one of my favorites. Think of McDonald’s. McDonald’s has to build a building, put all kinds of equipment in place. They have to staff. They’ve got to train people. They’ve got to put in play lands or whatever else they’re going to do long before that first person walks to the door to buy a hamburger for $1.50. Those are all fixed costs, all of them. The only variable costs in McDonald’s are the food itself, so they’re very heavily fixed costs.
Think of a manufacturing facility. They’ve got to go lease space, buy huge, multimillion dollar machinery, and then they have to go, once they’re ready to make parts, go take in bids or whatever. There’s a lot of fixed costs and upfront costs. Everybody loves variable costs. The variable cost for us by and large is buying that actual piece of land. Buying a land for $30,000. We know it’s worth $60,000. So all we’re doing, the vast majority of the money we’re spending, a fixed cost could arguably could be your phone or your computer in our business, and potentially the mail.
There’s a chance that you’re sending out 5,000… I don’t know how this would happen, but you’re sending out 5,000 letters a month and you’re just not generating any revenue. So from a fixed variable cost analysis, buying and selling land is crazy favorable compared to a convenience store at McDonald’s or a manufacturing facility. Convenience store is another one. You got to put all this stuff in place. You got to get signs made. You have to hire staff. And then you’re buying Ho Hos and you get all that money back at about $1.50 at a time. It’s a tough business.
You are in control of your assets. And the more control that you have over assets… And this is including capital, capital meaning stuff that makes you money. One of those things is actual money. But the other things that would arguably… What’s capital in our business? Jill’s capital. Jill can take a deal that… This is a very valuable asset for us. Jill can take a transaction that otherwise most people wouldn’t get done and make it a deal. How do you place value on that? That’s extraordinary, when you truly think about it.
And so, you might have extraordinary access to capital. And the more assets in capital that you control… This is capitalism 101. And this is what governments try to do. They try to control assets. And nonprofits do. And nonprofits are not in the business of making money, which is a government. They’re in the business increasing their assets, and they only can do that by… That’s what hospitals do. They don’t make money. They just increase their asset value. To one end, I’m not sure. That’s why I don’t work for a non-profit hospital anymore.
You need to think about controlling the assets and how much capital you have access to and utilizing it correctly. If you have $80,000 in the bank, you join Land Academy, you spend some money on education, great choice. You spend a lot of time in Discord channels and learn everything. You get a mailer out. Now you spend a few thousand dollars on a mailer, great choice. You’re utilizing your capital and your assets. You’re controlling them. You reel a couple of deals in.
Darn, you don’t have the actual money because it’s costing more than $50,000 or $60,000 or $70,000 that you have left. You control going on a Discord to gain somebody else’s capital to get the deal done. And so, now you’ve taken on a partner. You have a little less control because you’re taking on somebody else’s capital. But in the end, if it goes okay… I constantly… I was in Discord earlier this morning. Constantly, the number of success stories in Discord is pretty amazing.
Customer concentration. You never want to have one customer. This crushes manufacturing. For some reason, that business, once the manufacturing businesses get rolling, they find one or two parts that are very profitable, and one customer wants a ton of them, and so it becomes 80% of their business. So they’re making parts for one, let’s say, assembly client or customer, and they stop ordering it one month.
Jill K DeWit:
Like Toyota.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. Or a company that supplies Toyota, and you make one of the components that go in the alternator, let’s say. And so, they have a bad year, and not in Toyota’s case, but a lot of companies in Detroit go out of business because they’re mismanaged. And 80% of your revenue one month is gone. You do not want customer concentration. Do we have customer concentration? Hell no. Every time we send out 7,000 offers, let’s say, we have 7,000 potential customers. Our customer concentration in this business couldn’t be any better.
Basic accounting, including budgeting and eventually income tax management needs to be something that’s addressed. If you’re brand new, it doesn’t need to be addressed at all. If you’re at a level in your career where we are, income tax is our largest expense. Income tax is larger than… Well, cost of good sold is our largest expense, which is land. But our second largest expense, way more than payroll, is tax.
And it’s something that you need to be aware of, and it needs to be in the back of your head right from minute one, before you start this. If it’s something that makes you want to vomit… And honestly, taxes make me want to vomit. Getting to taxes, not so much. But you need to be aware of it and it needs to be managed, and I’ve said this on the air many times, otherwise it’s going to manage you.
It’s very hard for people to digest this accounting and budgeting and tax thing. Because we have all been trained, and this is not any accident… I don’t want to sound like a conspiracy theorist here, whoever dreamt up paying taxes out of your paycheck, your W2 paycheck, and then filing a tax return, and then getting money back… And if you watch people that are just career W2 people, they just love that time of the year, because they get a 3, 4, 5, $8,000 check on money that they already paid in. And they say, “Thank you. Thank you, federal government, for giving money back.”
Jill K DeWit:
Giving me my money back.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s my money.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
And so, if you own your own business, you have to turn that switch off in your head that all of us have been so trained to do, unfortunately. Because you’re going to be writing big checks if you don’t do that. We’ve done this.
Sales is not optional. The biggest reason restaurants fail is because they do exactly everything wrong. They go into it saying, “I have my mom’s recipe and my grandmother’s recipe for meatballs, and there’s no way this restaurant could fail.” Well, guess what? It failed because you didn’t have anybody selling. You didn’t have any marketing program.
Sales are… I learned this the hard way. I used to laugh at people when I was in college, laugh at people who were getting marketing degrees, in my head, saying, “Well, if I make the perfect part,” because I grew up in a manufacturing environment, “if I make the perfect part, it’s going to sell itself.” That’s ridiculous. In fact, you know what?
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. I’m just going to sit on the corner and wait for them to find me.
Steven Jack Butala:
Mary Kay Cosmetics is classic for saying this sentence, which I think there should never be another sales module in anything that’s taught without this concept. Sales drives everything. First you sell it, and then you place the order. We’ll go make the order. We’ll go make it after you sell it. I think that’s the simplest, most genius thing I’ve ever heard. It all starts with sales. Everything. It’s not an option. If you’re not as good at sales, find somebody who is.
Everything needs to work on paper first. This is a huge mistake that people make. That’s what the equity planner is. I’m going to… I want to make $100,000 a year, and I want to do eight or 10 deals. Okay, good. I’ve got to make about $12,000 net for each deal, and I only want to buy for $30,000 and sell for $60,000. That’s good. It’s $20,000. Very accomplishable. Let’s take all that. We just did it all on paper. That was your whole budget right there, and it seems to work.
Now let’s go do what Jack and says, and we’re going to start trolling for property. We’re going to find areas. We’re going to send some mail out. Now you have a plan. You have a whole business plan right there. How many people do you know have never opened a spreadsheet who own businesses? Never. “Oh, I’m going to get my accountant to look at that.” It’s shocking that it works for even a week. It all has to be spreadsheeted out and work first. If you hate spreadsheets, a lot of people do, find somebody like me that doesn’t hate them.
Before you start anything or before you continue to operate your business, for better or for worse, you need to really take a real solid look at what your risk threshold is. I can’t talk about risk without, Jill doesn’t even know this, without thinking about my own mother. I’ve never met anyone in my life, to this day, who has a lower threshold for risk than my mother. She drove 55 miles an hour on the right lane. She never broke a rule in her life. She only ever wanted us to go to college, and get a job at General Motors, and hopefully rise up through the ranks, and live it a quiet little life. She never… Starting a business to her meant a nervous breakdown.
So if you’re one of those people, that’s cool. We are the exact opposite. Jill, our threshold for risk is cuckoo, and it gets us in trouble. I don’t think buying and selling land is risky at all. I think starting a manufacturing facility is very risky. I think buying a manufacturing facility that fits all the criteria that we’re talking about here, customer concentration and all of that, for a rational price, stepping into the shoes of the old owner and making improvements is very low risk. Startups are very risky. That’s why the reward’s so great.
I have a handful of friends who, for whatever reason, were original investors, not original, but early investors in Apple, and they don’t do anything anymore at all. For me, there’s a risk reward in that. There’s a huge risk. How much stock did they actually buy in different companies, too, where they lost their ass? Startups are risky. This is not a startup. Land Academy is not a startup. We’ve already done it all. You’re just buying into it. You’re stepping into our shoes and doing it for yourself.
Staffing and recruiting. This is the bane. Staffing and recruiting is the bane of everyone. Every business owner is managing employees. It’s been that way since the beginning. I cannot imagine what the industrialists of the early 20th century dealt with when unions became a thing. Did unions change the world for the better? Yeah, they did. That’s just my personal opinion. Are they appropriate everywhere? Absolutely not. What they are is expensive. But are you making a better product? The answer to that, we’ll never know. There’s pros and cons to unions.
But it’s dealing with labor. And dealing with that, as a business owner, you’re eventually going to have to do that. And if it gets out of control and manifests itself into too many sick days, that stuff can really bog you down, so you need to be aware of it. The good news is this, this entire world has never experienced the outsourcing of labor to this degree of success ever, like Fiverr, and temporary help, and all kinds of stuff. So there’s really way more options because of the internet than there ever was to effectively staff and manage that.
I can’t think of staffing without thinking of Steve Jobs. He said, “If you do everything in your career correctly, eventually, you just become a recruiter.” And I agree with that. Your business will live or die based on who works there. In the beginning, it’s yourself, and your business is going to do great in the beginning or it’s not, and that’s because of you. Between the two of us, Jill loves to do things herself. I can’t stand it. My first reaction to do anything, almost anything, is to find somebody else to do it, and then I’ll manage it, and go on, and start the next thing. Jill’s locked into doing stuff herself and that’s just what happens sometimes. She gets it done correctly.
And finally this, if you don’t have a sincere interest in what you’re doing in business, it’s going to eventually end not good. Nobody wants to do stuff they don’t want to do. I mean, maybe somebody does somewhere, if they have some self-punishment thing, but nobody should do, this day and age, do stuff they don’t want to do.
Jill K DeWit:
I agree. You won’t stay with it. You’ll give up.
Steven Jack Butala:
I mean, it’s amazing to me that you worked for American Airlines that long.
Jill K DeWit:
Had a good time.
Steven Jack Butala:
Then you didn’t do something you didn’t want to do.
Jill K DeWit:
No, I did everything I wanted to do.
Steven Jack Butala:
Every day I was at accounting, I didn’t want to do it.
Jill K DeWit:
I had a good time. I had good friends. We had a good time. It was great. And again, I had good vacation benefits and then I would split and be gone. You know what was nice about it at the time? Those were my goals, and it was also a job that, if I wasn’t there, the planes would still be in the air. It wasn’t dependent on me. So when I clocked out, I clocked out. That was different back then. That’s all I wanted. So now I clock out in a different way, and it’s still just as effective.
Steven Jack Butala:
You know what I hated about work?
Jill K DeWit:
It’s in our RV, or something like that.
Steven Jack Butala:
What I really disliked about working is whoever was above me was forever unpleased. They’re unpleasable. So whatever I was producing… And we had computers, but it was nothing like it is now. Whatever reports we were doing, “Yeah, go back and change this.” Everything got redlined. And it wasn’t because what I was producing was, I learned later, bad. It was just, that’s how they just justify their existence. It’s so inefficient to work for somebody else, especially in a big company. The inefficiencies crushed my soul. It sounds like you didn’t care. You just wanted to go to Paris.
Jill K DeWit:
Yes. That’s exactly right. You nailed it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Join us next Wednesday for another interesting episode. You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill K DeWit:
We are Jack and Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
We are Jack and Jill. Information…
Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration…
Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
https://youtu.be/KSb-dHzrUxU
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
DescriptionJoin Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit on the Land Academy Show for a deep dive into the Land Academy bucket system and how to build wealth through consistent land investing. In this episode, they discuss a recent live webinar Jill did this week and address the rise of women in the land investment world. Get insights on the relationship between assessed value and market value. Tune in every week for questions from our members only discord and deals from our weekly members call. Access the Discord forum for free on landinvestors.com or landacademy.com in read-only mode. Start building your lifelong fortune with Land Academy today!
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWitt and this is the Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is episode number 1938, and today we are talking in depth about the Land Academy bucket system and I’ll explain that in great detail, and also how to build a lifelong fortune by consistently investing in land.
Jill K DeWit:
I talked about that last night at a live webinar for people looking at joining Land Academy. If you were there, thank you very much. We had so much fun. It was much shorter this time. It was only two hours, but I wanted-
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s impressive.
Jill K DeWit:
I want to answer everybody’s questions so it was really fun. But we talked about how learning to buy and sell land, as you and I have proven you before me, proven that for decades this could keep food on the table. And so the conversation came up about can I get my child involved? And I think it was Casey, one person said, “Heck yeah, I’ve got my nine-year-old doing land deals and so they’re learning the value of this and how to make money.”
Steven Jack Butala:
What percentage of women were asking questions versus men? Because I know this is your-
Jill K DeWit:
That’s a really good question.
Steven Jack Butala:
… Third or fourth or fifth time during this. And I know we don’t continually do stuff if we don’t feel like we’re helping, and you’re obviously continuing to do this.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you. I’m going to go with about 50/50. I don’t know what’s happening right now, what shift is happening on the planet or maybe it’s me or maybe it’s us, but I am getting great feedback and I’m seeing so many more women investors come into this and I’m so excited. It’s awesome. And Atlantic Academy Ladies is coming back next month.
Steven Jack Butala:
Maybe that’s why.
Jill K DeWit:
Yay. It’s cool.
Steven Jack Butala:
Hey, I hope you’re also enjoying our 2023 weekly show. This is I think our third show where we’re gone from a daily show to a weekly show. And as far as the numbers go, they’re much better. They are. I just checked right before we sat down to record and on YouTube and on audio, the numbers are better. Each week we answer questions from our Land Academy Discord forum, review land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar and take a deep dive into the two land related topics that are requested again on our Discord channel.
Jill K DeWit:
Yep.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. If you want to sneak peek of our Discord channel, please go to landinvestors.com
Jill K DeWit:
Or landacademy.com. It’s there also.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s in both places now and kind of peruse it and it’s free. It’s a read only as you can see what the community is doing in real time.
Jill K DeWit:
So Probacorn says, “I’m reviewing my spreadsheet before uploading to offers to owners. I look up a parcel fact and I found out most of my offer prices are much lower than the assessed value, like 20 to 25% of the assessed value and sometimes 10 to 15%. Is it a common practice? I know we try to buy property undervalue, but when the owners look at my offers and then compare my property to their tax bill, they would just laugh at it and never call back. What are your experience?” I love this.
Steven Jack Butala:
So assessor value, this is a very good new person question. It’s been coming up through the years and a very honest truth of it is, in my soul, I looked at this when I started too. How can assessed values, what’s the relationship? Let’s just start there between assessed value-
Jill K DeWit:
And real value?
Steven Jack Butala:
… And market value and then the actual price that we offer. And obviously the offer price has to be lower than the market price for us to stay in business, but what does that have to do with the assessed value? Nothing.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
The assessed value. And this is hard for new people to digest and I’m really glad you asked this question because we haven’t talked about it in a while, and it just makes common sense that if you look at on the online and you look at any house anywhere and you ask yourself, well, what’s this house worth? It’s pretty easy to go on either side of the house and look at what the values are, those houses, maybe the history of how many square feet they are. And you can start down that the data rabbit hole of assessing what any given house is worth. In fact, there’s algorithms out there right now that do it for you pretty effectively, especially because there’s a bunch of algorithms. You can average those out and get a really good value for what the property is worth. With land, that’s just not the case.
You can’t look at a parcel on either side. Look at the activity, maybe it hasn’t sold since 1960. There’s all kinds of reasons that valuing land’s harder. So what do we do? We look at the assessed value as a natural course of trying to figure out real value because every piece of land has somewhere, has an assessed value and it’s almost always incorrect. Assessors don’t really care as much about rural vacant land, especially as they do properties that are improved with higher values because the taxes are higher and people’s interest is more focused on improved property. Assessed value, again, has nothing to do with market value. The market value of that property is set by what people are willing to pay. And the only way you can do that is to look at completed sales and active sales average.
All that stuff out in a place like where the zip, zip code, where the property is or whatever, we teach that in Land Academy. So the message I’m really trying to send here very, very clearly is please forget about assessed value. And then you go on to say, but when the owner will look at my offer and then compare it to the actual assessed value in their tax bill, they’ll just laugh. So that will never happen. I can tell you in the 16 or so 1000 deals that Jill and I have done, I don’t believe, I don’t recall anyone ever no saying, “Hey, my assessed value is 30,000. You guys offered me 20.”
Jill K DeWit:
It has come up. No, it has come up. And what’s interesting, you just have to, I just explain a little bit of what you explained very lightly, not that much for the seller, but I kind of go, “Let’s look at your house, shall we? Let’s see what your house has assessed at.” And it’s always so off and so different.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s a great way to handle that.
Jill K DeWit:
And it’s a year, and I’ve explained them too, like, “Hey, especially with property with land, it’s often a year or two behind.” All assessor data is often a year or two behind. It takes something for them. There’s got to be some trigger, like a sale for them to go in and reevaluate that. And then it’s really just a gauge too, and I tell them, “It varies all over the country. It’s often just a gauge to collect taxes.” That’s what they’re trying to do with it here is they base their taxes off the assessed value, so anyway.
Steven Jack Butala:
And if you go from county to county, state to state or anywhere, the methodology is completely different from county to county and state to state. And so the further apart the property is in general geographically, the different concept they used to assess property and then apply tax, and so you just need to forget it. As counterintuitive as that is, that number is just sitting there.
Jill K DeWit:
Here’s a good question. I’m glad you asked it because it does come up and it’s important to know just to know why am I ignoring this? That’s why.
Steven Jack Butala:
For instance, assessed values in California are really, really high. They still have nothing to do with the actual value of the property. Look, here’s an example. In California, assessed values are set by a percentage of the most recent sale. So if I go buy a new property in California, and we all know California’s property values are more expensive than the rest of the country, then I get a new assessment automatically of I think one quarter percent of the property that some small percentage between one and 2%, it constantly changes. That’s just not the case like let’s say in Michigan where there’s a millage rate that’s applied, which is very complicated even by today’s standards, a complicated equation to figure out how much taxes you’re going to pay. Completely two different markets, totally different ideology on how they assess taxes and send you a tax bill. Today’s first topic is the Land Academy bucket system explained.
Jill K DeWit:
I was just thinking about that. Talking about assessed values. I never want to talk about again, I hope that you’re talked out.
Steven Jack Butala:
These kinds of topics are not Jill’s favorite.
Jill K DeWit:
No, my answer is forget about it. Let’s look at what’s really happening in the market. That’s what you need to be doing, period.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’ve had in the past, before we made a big deal out of it because I talk about it in the programs now before people sit down to actually do a mailer. Hopefully they watched the Atlantic Academy Education program specifically 3.0 and I say, “Please forget about this assessed value situation,” because we’ve had people in the past members come back and say, “Well, I offered 13% of the assessed value and I didn’t buy a property.”
Jill K DeWit:
Cold on, that was a little hot, which is coming in way too hot.
Steven Jack Butala:
Which is really, really, this is great. While I’m glad you asked the question, ask the question.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
The Land Academy bucket system is something that I flippantly and on the fly came up with during one of our-
Jill K DeWit:
Career Path.
Steven Jack Butala:
Was it Career Path?
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, it was Career Path.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s not something I sat down and thought about. It’s something that I think Jill and I do anyway. I know we do. We’ve been doing it for a lot of years anyway.
Jill K DeWit:
Just didn’t have a name for it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, exactly. And I’ll have to tell you, well, here’s the buckets. Bucket one is fulfill your Land Academy typical deal scenario, buy whatever you define that as. For a lot of people, it’s buy for 5,000, sell for 10 for us right now it’s buy for 30, 40, 50, sell for 180, 90, 100, 110 or maybe more. It’s been like that for probably a year or so. It’ll probably go up and change with the market as it changes. So bucket one is whatever that acquisition criteria that you set for yourself and you find a target area to send mail using the systems that we have in the program. That’s bucket one. As fast as you can buy it and as fast as you can sell-
Jill K DeWit:
Can give us numbers?
Steven Jack Butala:
Sure.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. Give me numbers.
Steven Jack Butala:
Buy for 30, sell for 90.
Jill K DeWit:
Is it this bucket one?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, buy for 30, sell for 80, 90.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well what do you think it is? Actually, what are we doing? Because I’m not sure.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay, can we talk about the bucket, can we [inaudible 00:10:57]. For me to grasp this, and I hope that there’s at least one of you listening that’s can sympathize and understand, like me, I need to hear all the buckets and then I can put numbers in them.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what I was going to do. That’s bucket one.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay, got it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Bucket one is execute the system, buy and sells fast.
Jill K DeWit:
They’re easy and fast.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, that should be a bread and butter. Hopefully do a few of those a month, maybe more. Bucket two is I’ve got a property that came back in. Let’s say I offered $30,000, by the way, and this is what’s really, really important to take away from this segment of the podcast. I don’t do bucket based mailers. We send it all out the same way we price it and then when they come back, we look at each individual deal and we say, “Yeah, I would love this deal. No way. I’m not doing this deal at any price,” or just like we do on a Thursday call. And at some point we assign a bucket to it based on the land that comes back. So bucket two is, I love this property at $30,000 and they accepted our offer. If it were bucket one, we’d sell it at 80,000 and take the money and shove it back into the system and go and continue to do it.
But I don’t think so. I think this property for a lot of reasons is maybe it’s zoned for something very specific like a mobile home park, which is unusual to find. So we’re going to take some different steps. We’re going to buy it, we’re going to take some different steps and put it into a second bucket where we know it’s going to take longer to sell. We know it’s going to take more work, but maybe we sell it for two or $300,000 instead of 80 or 90. That’s bucket two.
Bucket three is, and I’m not a fan of bucket three is something that, and there’s a certain personality type usually in Texas that loves bucket three property where you buy a big piece of property, you know you can subdivide it and you know can sell it on terms. So you start down this long two to five year path where you get investors and you buy a big piece of property and that becomes your business model. And for some people, not for us, it’s great. We have people in Career Path, we have bucket three people in Career Path, every single run. That’s what they’ve been doing for a long time already. Anyway, they found out about Land Academy and they want to learn about the mail. That’s a typical bucket three person. I still love bucket one and I know Jill does too. If Jill had her way, she would have bucket one property only and that’s it.
Jill K DeWit:
I think. So the main thing is it’s about how you’re doing the transaction, the speed and how you look at it, I think. And what the end goal is for each property. Sometimes I feel like we have buckets four, five and six. Do you think I’m kidding? I know it’s certain-
Steven Jack Butala:
What’s bucket four?
Jill K DeWit:
Well bucket four might be, here’s a, here’s bucket four. Bucket four is Steven coming in my office saying, “Did you look at this property? We can’t sell it.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh yeah, well, yes.
Jill K DeWit:
And then I go, “But we have to sell it. There’ll be another one.” He goes, “Well then fine. I’m not letting it go for less than,” fill in the blank. It’s like his make me move number. So that’s bucket four.
Steven Jack Butala:
No, I think that’s bucket two.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, okay. Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
And we have a bunch of buckets here property now. And I’ll tell you what’s great about bucket two is it’s going to take longer to sell it. You price it at, or even maybe in some cases above retail. You’re fully prepared that you won’t get an offer for let’s say a year, but then you get an offer and somebody buys it. But it’s very difficult to do bucket two, in my opinion. Bucket two deals and certainly bucket three deals, if you’re not the entire time in the background doing bucket one property to pay your bills. So it takes some balance. This is, again, we brought this up one time and it’s just stuck, so people are still talking about the buckets.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay, well it’s easy to think about it like that. It’s good. That’s really good. Why are you looking at me for? Again, I see them all the same way. I don’t differentiate like that. And I certainly don’t need to hang on to him because I know there’s going to be more great property. So that’s the funny thing. Remember we haven’t said that in a while. We used to tell everybody the last thing you want to do is go look at your property because if you do, you won’t want to sell it. That’s what really happens.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill said, Jill loves Bucket one property because she’s a career corporate salesperson and so she needs to sell something and it works out great for me because I don’t get up in the morning needing to sell something. I get up in the morning needing to analyze something or I don’t feel right or making some system better and she gets up saying, “All right, I got to sell these properties or I’m going to buy a bunch of properties, or why is my phone not ringing every single minute?”
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
And I say that with the biggest compliment ever because if we were both analysts-
Jill K DeWit:
We’d be boring.
Steven Jack Butala:
… Nothing would be done. No deals would get done at all. We’d be bored. Is that what you said?
Jill K DeWit:
We’d be boring. Could you imagine? What kind of friends do we have? We’re both, I’m a data analyst. I’m a data analyst too. Well, nice knowing you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, that’s good. I’ll see you next year.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a look at one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday webinar.
Jill K DeWit:
Did you know Land Academy is now reopened and landacademy.com has a refresh? Yay. So have you’ve been following this, the site has got a beautiful facelift. We’re very excited. It’s much easier to navigate and I think you, you’ll see all the, I’m excited about all the great things that have coming this year. So go check out landacademy.com, check all the places that you can see where we’re communicating. You can get to the podcast, you can read more about Career Path and some of the exciting things we’ve got coming this year too. 2023 is going to be great for us.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take another question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. Again, if you want a sneak peek of our Discord channel, please go over to landinvestors.com. I guess we have it now.
Jill K DeWit:
Or landacademy.com.
Steven Jack Butala:
Landacademy.com. It’s free.
Jill K DeWit:
So Chuck M wrote, “Has anyone else experienced this for their recent red yellow green tests? The problem I’m finding with realtor.com data is that it only goes back one month. If I compare this to the active slash sold historical data on Zillow such as six months, one year, et cetera, the realtor data gives me a much lower score than Zillow because it’s only one month of data. The regular green test does not seem to work as well without comparing more historical data.”
Steven Jack Butala:
More data.
Jill K DeWit:
“In addition, the real estate market as a whole is slowing, so days on market is increasing, so only 30 days is not enough data to accurately do a red yellow green test. In my opinion. It’s very unfortunate that Redfin moved the zip historical data.”
Steven Jack Butala:
This is a once in a while, not once in a while, more than half the time people ask these brilliant questions at the beginning of their career, or I say to myself, “This person’s going to do amazingly well throughout their career if they stick with it.” And this is one of those questions. He’s questioning my methodology about how to do a mailer and how to price and mailer and the red green yellow test, which I think is the greatest thing ever. Lots has changed in the last 12 months with these websites to the point where I’m going back and re-recording or putting addendums into the actual education package and he caught this change. Realtor.com only looks at comparison values sold comps. They only go back one month and you can’t move it. It’s not a lever on the website.
For whatever reason, they only want you to seize, they want you to keep focused on what’s for sale probably because you have a better chance of buying something. Zillow gives you a sliding scale. You can look at one month, six months, 12 months, depending on what you feel is appropriate because of market conditions. We teach. I teach in the program to use Zillow for the red yellow green test for that reason because more data in anything that you’re looking at, I don’t care if you’re a healthcare scientist, you want a bigger sample, you want a much larger sample to get as much data as you possibly can to get those averages in those means in whatever you’re trying to solve for into a group that you can analyze and looking at real estate data is no different. Please stick with the program as I wrote, as I deliver it, especially chapters three and four about finding property, finding places to send mail and then actually price doing a mailer and pricing it with Zillow.
Jill K DeWit:
I would like to comment on questioning your methodology.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, Jill, is that I can’t get through a noon before Jill’s questioning my methodology on everyone.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, when Chuck does is it’s a great thing when I do it. It’s not a great thing. What was the last time you said, Jill? I am so glad that you sat me down and her questioning my methodology today.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think it was when I wanted a second date.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, well. I wouldn’t question that methodology because I knew that was smart. There’s other things that I definitely question.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, do tell. I’d love to hear this and so would everybody else know?
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t know, I have to think of something good right now, but there’s some things that have to come up and I’m like, “I’m going to remember that one.”
Steven Jack Butala:
One of the things Jill’s going to inspire us about at the end of the show here is how to work with your spouse, how that works, what it really takes to work with your spouse.
Jill K DeWit:
My friends question my methodology on that one.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, I don’t ever question it at all. I think it’s the greatest idea, you know, you should run out and work with your spouse.
Jill K DeWit:
Yes, me too. Talk about easy. You guys can keep the same schedule. It’s awesome. If you don’t spend enough time together, you should do this.
Steven Jack Butala:
Wow. Satiricaljill.com.
Jill K DeWit:
I know.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s second topic is how to build a lifelong fortune by consistently investing in land. And I should go on to say like we have, and many, many, many members have in our group and who have-
Jill K DeWit:
Been with us since day one.
Steven Jack Butala:
… Been with us since day one and gotten so good at it and wealthy at it now they’re gone.
Jill K DeWit:
They’re dark.
Steven Jack Butala:
They’ve graduated and they’re onto great stuff.
Jill K DeWit:
But they pop up again and that’s the best thing. I mean, the people that have been with us this whole time and they’re like, “We got it. I don’t need anything. I’ll see you later.” They pop up now and then with some, usually it’s an amazing deal, which is really nice and that I think was the ultimate goal here.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, they come back for deal funding.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s what I mean.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what Jill means.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, so they’ll pop up going, “All right, I haven’t heard from you. You haven’t heard from me in two years. I’m here. I’m still doing my thing. I just got a somebody’s portfolio. They’re retiring. I need some help taking it down with the best way to do it and financially how to get this done, how to eat this elephant.” I really love it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Before the second topic, let’s take a look at another one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar. How do you consistently create wealth for yourself in the land business? Well, I can get all nebulous about this or I can just simply say this, which Jill appreciates when it’s more simple.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, thanks a lot.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you learn how to do this, you give yourself the right amount of time, let’s say three to six months to really learn Land Academy and spend time on Discord talking to other people who have been through it, who are going through it and succeeded at it, and you get yourself on a mailer schedule and you never stop that mailer schedule regardless of what happens in your… Every mailer you’re constantly learning. You will become generally wealthy unless you’re missing huge parts of this. You will at some point get a consistent pipeline filled and buy and sell a lot of land.
Jill K DeWit:
I talked about that last night. There was someone on the call last night that said, “We’re now in a system. We’re doing 17, like 1740 units,” something like that, “a week.” Period.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, that’s good,
Jill K DeWit:
“We have it all plotted out. This is what we’re doing.” You can’t lose. You will not lose if you keep just doing it. And then what’s going to happen too is with us, the deals just keep coming from the new mailer and then your old mailer will start picking up steam. You’re going to get, after a year of this, you’re going to be looking at yourself going, “Did we even mail that county?” And things come back at the end of the year. They come back in the summer, just come back. We have stuff over 10 years that they come back.
Steven Jack Butala:
Because of the way interest rates have dramatically increased over the last 12 months, they’ve doubled. And I mean mortgage rates, not interest rates. When this happens, commercial real estate becomes available for purchase people who own, let’s say trailer parks or strip malls or any type of commercial real estate that it can be analyzed on a capitalization rate because of that increased cost of capital. It’s very common for commercial real estate to be on funky type loans. So there’s variable rate loans that are tied to interest rates or 30 year amortization loans that really only have a five-year term.
So at five years you have to renegotiate the loan and of course you’re going to do that in prevailing rates at that time. So the whole result of that, when interest rates go up like this and don’t really show any signs of going down, at least not this year when people have a marginally good deal, let’s say it’s a trailer park, we’ll use that as an example. That extra interest rate, especially it doubled, their cost of capital has doubled in 12 months. Their rent didn’t double, their operations didn’t get incredibly much better that much better to offset that extra expense. They sell.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
They panic and sell. And so I ran a whole analysis on what it takes to buy a trailer park and right next to it, I ran an analysis on what it takes to be successful at buying and selling land and buying and selling land in 2020 is exactly the same as it is in 2023. Why? Because we don’t have a cost of capital. And to make things even better for our own situation for land investment in 2023, people who do have a lot of commercial real estate or anything else that is tied to an interest rate, like let’s say a house with a variable rate mortgage are going to run out of money.
And if they have extra land laying around, that’s one of the first things they’re going to sell. And if they have an offer stuck to their refrigerator for you to buy it, whether it’s from this year, this month, or like Jill said three years ago, they’re going to call. We know that because we’ve been sending out mail since the early two thousands and we’re getting these calls and we’re getting these emails now way more than we were a year or two ago.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
And that’s the result of consistently sending mail and consistently creating wealth. I don’t know if we’ve ever had a bad year buying and selling mail. I mean buying and selling land.
Jill K DeWit:
No. Isn’t that interesting? Because I was talking about that because everybody’s really worried about recession and things like that and they’re like, “How’s it going to affect the land business?” I’m like, “This is not my first rodeo.” Not my second, not your third. And I can say I watched our peers, other investors not make it through, especially the last one, like nine, 10 around there, and I felt really bad. Thank goodness you set us up correctly. And that’s another point about this too. One of the things that we do is we buy these properties.
I’m not running around with contracts, I’m not assigning things. I own this property and we bought it right. And we bought it so we know we’re going to make money on it no matter what happens. Maybe I’m not going to three x my money, maybe I make 90% big deal because I’m fine with that. We have consistently proven it, and I think that’s why a lot of people are here with us for decades, kept food on their table thanks to land. And we’ve done other things. Have I thrown renovations in there? You threw renovations in there. I loved it. You hated it. It was funny. But then my joke now is I never worked so hard for $35,000 in my life.
Steven Jack Butala:
She means renovating houses.
Jill K DeWit:
Not doing that again. But yeah, we’ve done renovations, commercial properties, office buildings, all kinds of other things that we’ve done and in the land space, that’s great. When you put it something on it’s not our forte.
Steven Jack Butala:
And that’s just because we’re land people. There’s so many people that would disagree with the-
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s still people in this world that do really well with office buildings.
Jill K DeWit:
Have the stomach for it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Just read that office buildings are 50% occupancy and they’re at 80% occupancy a year ago. This is all because of Cast Costa Capital going up, which is the reason that the feds are raising interest rates like this pretty consistently, and they’re actually going to raise them again about a quarter point today if they, I haven’t already, they probably have, is because inflation, it’s a that way to hedge off inflation. The fact that eggs are made more expensive than they were a year ago. Well, what cause of inflation? The feds generally printing too much money. So it’s this cycle that goes on with fairly uneducated politicians that I won’t go into now, but actually I’ll never go into it. Our job is to not judge these people.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you. We all thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Our job is to sit down, run the numbers without emotion and say, “Here we go again. Now how am I going to change what I do? How am I going to change my mailer? What am I going to do with my business partner? How are we going to make some changes to actually capitalize on the fact that the market’s changing?” And forget about any emotion or politics or any of that.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s great, Jack. I don’t have $300 million like you guys seem to have. Every time an acquisition comes up to go write a check and I realize that and so does Jill. That’s why we put together a Discord and landfunding.com. I think that’s the name of the website. And so we have a massive community of people that have a lot of money because they’ve been through this too. Some of them have gray hair, some of them don’t, where you can go to them and if you have a good real estate deal and fund your deal, and it’s not tied to interest rates, it’s equity funding, it’s not debt funding and travel forward until you don’t need their funding anymore.
Jill K DeWit:
And these people, they’re not your typical lender, if you will. They’re people in our community.
Steven Jack Butala:
They’re your partner who understand land.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
And who are educated about how to buy and sell land and how inexpensively you can do it just like you.
Jill K DeWit:
Yep. They might be six months, a year, three years ahead of you sitting on a bunch of cash going, “Yeah, that is a good deal. Yeah. I remember working in that area a while back or I didn’t even know this was going on over here,” whatever it is. “That’s a great deal. I’ll absolutely give you the money for that.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Yep.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s awesome. I love it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill, I have something inspirational to share, I think. Maybe you’re not so inspirational.
Jill K DeWit:
I know. So I want to talk a little bit today because this is coming up a lot and it came up last night in the live webinar that I did. I’m noticing this shift with more and more females and more and more couples and I love it. And it was really sweet. Oh gosh. Is it Melinda? I think we were talking about it and she was saying how much we have helped her because she and her husband are in this together like us and listening to us and hearing us.
And when we talk about, which I want to talk about a little bit with you right now, some of the things that we had to do to survive and work together and be supportive and move forward. It’s hard with your spouse. You have different ideas. It’s like whether it’s not your spouse, your spouse, your partner, your best friends, anyone that you’re really, really close with and you’re saying, “We should do this together. This is the greatest idea.” It all sounds romantic and great in the beginning until you realize you both want to work on the same thing where you both don’t want to work on the same thing.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s nothing romantic about working with your spouse.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, stop it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Doesn’t sound romantic in the beginning to me at all.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, well you’re a guy. I don’t know. I know some guys that think… No, I’ve talked to guys that said my dream would be to have my wife come in and do this with me, and I think that’s great.
Steven Jack Butala:
You want me to translate that for you?
Jill K DeWit:
Go right ahead.
Steven Jack Butala:
My dream is to have my wife work for me.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh. I am not even going to comment on that right now at all. Because you kind of got your dream, didn’t you?
Steven Jack Butala:
No. That’s exactly the opposite of what I got.
Jill K DeWit:
All right.
Steven Jack Butala:
It may have been that like that for 14 minutes, but-
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
And that was never my intention.
Jill K DeWit:
Thanks. That’s great.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m really just horsing around.
Jill K DeWit:
There we go. No, but so I love it. I love that we are attracting and helping couples do this and I was thinking if you could think of one thing that has made this work for us, please and share it. What is your one thing?
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m going to answer your question, but I do have something to follow up with.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay, go ahead.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill and I, the reason this works at all and for how many years has it been? Geez, it’s been-
Jill K DeWit:
14.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, 14 years. The reason this works is because Jill and I way out in the future, she and I can see what we both, we want. And it’s the same thing, and I didn’t know this when we started working with each other, honestly, it was just dumb luck period. We didn’t develop this after we met or started working with each other or any of that. She wanted to be very successful at what, and I found out way later that she was at whatever she was doing and wherever she worked, she showed up in the morning, she met her goals, her sales goals in most or all cases and smashed it and was constantly the best person in the office selling and reselling and all of that.
And I was very successful at the stuff that where I wanted to work. I was very successful at it. So you have to have that long vision. And the first thing I would do if you’re considering working with your spouse or even if you’ve worked with your spouse for a while, is get out of the office and sit down somewhere and say, “Where do you see on this all of this in 15 or 20 or 30 years or five years?” And see what they say. You’re going to be shocked at how it’s not the same, I think.
Jill K DeWit:
Do you think you can get them on the same page?
Steven Jack Butala:
So this is a big, huge difference in between you and I, a massive difference. I don’t want to sway anybody or beat a path for them so that they start following down a path that I want them to follow down where I think it’s better. I don’t think that’s healthy in a relationship, professional or socially.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t want anything to change. I want the building blocks of it to be built before I get there.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, what if there’s a way to get each other’s goals separately? What if my goal is to have this? It’s like let’s just, for example, my goal, maybe your goal is retire early and my goal is to have my beach house. Maybe we could do both.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think that’s a… Oh, if you want to set goals and then work together, however you work independently or together to hit those things, I think that’s a great idea.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay, good.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s fantastic. But to change, somebody’s like-
Jill K DeWit:
No, you’re going to change your mindset.
Steven Jack Butala:
… Work habits or your mindset or hours.
Jill K DeWit:
That’ll never work.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. People are never going to change.
Jill K DeWit:
Very early on, Jack taught me this phrase and I never forgot it. Here’s a definition of compromise. Great. Now nobody’s happy.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s right.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’ve just used that off 100 times since then.
Jill K DeWit:
Yes, you have. Do you know what my number one thing is? My number one thing, if you’re going to sit down right now and you want to work with your spouse and you want to make this successful, stay out of the other person’s lane, period. I think you need to, even if you, like I talked about in the beginning, you both want to work on the same things and you both not want to work on the same things. So you know what? Divide it up. Make it fair. Go. All right. Because there’s a stuff like even within us, right? I’m like, “Look, I hate doing this, but I hate doing that more. So if you’ll take that on, I’ll take this on.” You can have those conversations and be like, “You know what? Great. Thank you.” Then, once you have that and we’ve done this, we haven’t done it-
Steven Jack Butala:
We still do it.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, exactly. It’s been a little while, but we would draw, take a sheet of paper, draw line down the middle. This is true. We still do it. Okay. You’re marketing, you’re O two O, you’re this, you’re that. We divide up responsibilities in our, really, it’s our other companies. The land is just, it kind of come, really comes natural for us, the land part. But when you agree that’s on data. Why would I even question it? By the way, his data, his picking areas, his pricing offers.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well see, you know that now. That’s the thing. We have the luxury of hindsight.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, yeah, but somebody’s going to naturally be better at it. I think. I really do. And someone’s going to be naturally better at answering the phones, getting the deals done, things like that. The nice thing too is though, because of us and our experience, now you listen to me when I say, “Hey, I know you’ve got a mailer going out. Can you please roll in this area and this size?” And you’re like, “Sure, fine. I don’t. Whatever you got working on, great. Let’s roll that into it too.” But the part about staying in your lane though, when you draw that line and you say, “You’re data, I’m the phone,” whatever, the other person can’t say, “Oh, I answer. I want to do this too. Oh, I think I can do it better.” You got to stay out of their stuff because then you’re going to fail. If you come along and critique the person, try to get all up in their business, try to do it better, try to change their process. That’s not point.
Steven Jack Butala:
You know what Jill’s describing is a boss.
Jill K DeWit:
No.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you think that you’re going to be the boss of your wife and in a workplace, you can stop right now. In fact, you can turn this podcast-
Jill K DeWit:
Even the home-
Steven Jack Butala:
… Turn this podcast off.
Jill K DeWit:
Do you think you’re going to be the boss of your wife in the home and with child raising?
Steven Jack Butala:
And the same thing as the reverse. If your wife thinks she’s going to sit you down at work and tell you what to do all day and have you deal with it-
Jill K DeWit:
Yes.
Steven Jack Butala:
… Then there’s something wrong with you. Not her. Listen, all kidding aside, in every single couple I’ve ever met, and usually people in business make this mistake. You can’t just let it happen. Oh, I’m going to work with her next week. She’s quitting her job. She’s put her in two weeks notice and three weeks we’re going to be working together. We’re going to figure it out. We’re going to sit down together and she’s going to do sales and I’m going to do acquisitions, and that makes sense to me.
Jill K DeWit:
I need to run a buyer.
Steven Jack Butala:
I give you one week. You can’t just let that happen. Just like you can’t let a mailer happen. You have to really manipulate a mailer and you have to seek help out from Discord, all the education products that we provide, and sit down with yourself in a dark room and map all of it out. And so you have this, what you’re really doing is building a sense of confidence.
It’s the same thing that happens with working with your spouse. You need to put some rules in place. Jill and I, about two years ago, decided to have a meeting, we call it a partners meeting, that’s what it’s called in our calendar. I think it’s at 9:30 in the morning, like three days a week. And so all the stuff that goes on that she needs to talk me to talk about, if something’s not on fire, she writes down and so do I. And in this partner’s meeting, we talk about it and do the meetings get heated sometimes? Yeah.
But what it does is it stops her and me from barreling into each other’s office to talk about something with that. It’s going to end up being entirely meaningless anyway. And then everybody wastes an hour talking about something or debating something that just has nothing to do with whatever. So you can’t just let it happen. You have to have a plan with some rules in place. For instance, this podcast, it’s always been my baby, and she knows that. Now in the beginning, she wanted to be all involved in the sound checks and camera angles and backgrounds and all of that.
Jill K DeWit:
And as you can tell, I lost every battle.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. I mean, she’s not happy. She’s constantly to this day, God, this podcast is like eight years old.
Jill K DeWit:
I know.
Steven Jack Butala:
Why is it so dark in here? Because it’s dark in here. Because I’m dark. And if you look at Jill’s stuff, it’s all light and airy and fun and because that’s who she is.
Jill K DeWit:
Pretty, I have colors. Yes.
Steven Jack Butala:
And so you got to let that stuff go and we’ve all accepted it. But I’ll tell you, getting that first deal done and then maybe getting the first 10 deals done, all of it goes away. Not all of it. 95% of it, all this stuff goes away because everybody’s got-
Jill K DeWit:
Feeling good.
Steven Jack Butala:
… Confidence. We’re in their spouse now. Confidence in themselves, the system works. We’re consistently getting mailers out. Money’s coming in and it’s going out. It’s coming in and that’s how what’s going to work.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, I agree.
Steven Jack Butala:
But you can’t just say, yeah, let’s-
Jill K DeWit:
Let’s try this.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
We got this.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’ll see you on Monday.
Jill K DeWit:
Everybody else does it. Jack and Jill do it. We can do this too.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s push our desks together. Let’s stare at each other all day.
Jill K DeWit:
Could you imagine?
Steven Jack Butala:
We would last 20 minutes.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh no.
Steven Jack Butala:
20 minutes. You and I would last in the same. We just now can work in the same building.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
For years, we worked in, not in different buildings, in different zip codes.
Jill K DeWit:
Yes. This is true.
Steven Jack Butala:
With the different staff in different everything.
Jill K DeWit:
One of us had the home office and one of us went to the office and that was it. Or remember the time we were on different floors. That worked out kind of.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yes.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. But one of us would pop down to the other person’s floor too much. But that helps.
Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s my final thought, and this is not just working with your spouse. This is living with your spouse. The concept of blame has no place in a relationship. And I learned this not because I wanted to from my parents.
Jill K DeWit:
Keep going.
Steven Jack Butala:
You can’t blame somebody else if a deal goes bad, deals go bad. We have bad deals, probably one or two a year where stuff’s still for sale. We have accumulated properties for sale that they’re either not priced right, we didn’t buy. It’s usually because I want to sell them for too much, but stuff goes wrong. Computers die. Cash flow is not what you expected.
Jill K DeWit:
We forget about it.
Steven Jack Butala:
You can’t blame-
Jill K DeWit:
Sometimes you’re like, “I still own that?”
Steven Jack Butala:
And it’s what I’ve found over the years is this is a personality type. There’s some people that just need to blame somebody, and if they’re sitting next to the closest person’s going to get blamed.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
And that sprouts from who knows where it actually comes from. It comes from some type of personal, I can’t fail or you know, you got slapped on the wrist too many times when you spilled milk when you’re a kid. I don’t know. I don’t know where it comes from, but I know that blaming people for stuff that is not going well, doesn’t end well for anybody.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m still laughing at the thought of putting out two desks facing each other and how horrible that would go. Because it’s invariably when someone leaves their desk like, “Well, how come I’m the only one working?” That would be, and it would be nonstop critiquing. “You know, you missed this on that call.” You’re like-
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. Can you imagine if I listened to your sales calls and you got done and hung it up?
Jill K DeWit:
And you’re like, “Well, why? Here’s what you should have done.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. “I don’t know about that. About 15 minutes into that, you were talking about something that I don’t think had really had anything to do with land, Jill.”
Jill K DeWit:
“I think you should have done this. You could have been more efficient, you could have got it cheaper.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Right.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s hilarious. All right. How about you? Jack, do you have something informational that you want to share with us today?
Steven Jack Butala:
Your topic kind of rolls into mind.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
My Jack informational topic is as follows, what’s the role of your emotion in your land career? And I would argue that the role for emotion in land is none. I think the more that you can check your emotion at the door when it’s buying and selling land, especially if you’re working with your spouse, the further and faster you’re going to get. And is it possible? Sure it’s possible. Have I ever seen it? No. Even I get emotional about buying land because it’s awesome. I love land. I get way too emotional about the sales price. Not in the beginning of my career, I just wanted to sell everything constantly. Now I’m like, maybe we should hold on to some of this property. It’s really, we’re getting it for 10% of what it’s worth. Now what’s this going to be worth in 25 years?
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
So I’m starting to have those thoughts which cross over into emotion. Is it effective to make money? No.
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
Is it effective for Jill to come to me and say, “I don’t think we got the best mailer yield out of this last mailer. That it’s not your best work.”
Jill K DeWit:
You need to up your game buddy.
Steven Jack Butala:
“And I expect more out of you, Jack.”
Jill K DeWit:
That’s awesome. That’s great.
Steven Jack Butala:
Is that effective? No. It’s ridiculous. It’s emotional and silly and a fireworks are going to happen after that.
Jill K DeWit:
“Where was your head when this went out?”
Steven Jack Butala:
Yep.
Jill K DeWit:
“Thanks a lot. Every single person wants to sell. Congratulations.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Right. “25 years of professional sales, Jill, and you can’t sell this piece of land?”
Jill K DeWit:
That’s great.
Steven Jack Butala:
“This is it?”
Jill K DeWit:
You know what?
Steven Jack Butala:
“This is what I’m stuck with?”
Jill K DeWit:
“Our college freshman could have priced this better.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Keep your emotion at check. Yeah. Tony Robbins has a whole thing on this.
Jill K DeWit:
Does he?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. A huge tenure thing about what’s stopping you from where you want to be. He’s famous for saying this. Your emotion.
Jill K DeWit:
You listen to Tony Robbins? That’s good.
Steven Jack Butala:
Sometimes.
Jill K DeWit:
I like that. That’s really good.
Steven Jack Butala:
I said this on Career Path once and there was a, I don’t know, it was a while. Long time ago. That’s cool. And people, there were two women in a partnership, in a business partnership, they lost it. They didn’t lose it, but they had a lot to say.
Jill K DeWit:
What do you mean?
Steven Jack Butala:
“All the best deals I’ve ever done was because of emotion.” And they just went, they were being emotional. And it’s not gender specific. Trust me. It’s not. Men express emotion in rage, which is still emotion.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, we love that. It’s great. That’s funny.
Steven Jack Butala:
Join us next Wednesday for another interesting episode, you are not alone in your real estate ambition. We are Jack and Jill. Information.
Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration.
Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
https://youtu.be/LGk1xVwXlEk
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Description:Welcome back to the Land Academy Show, episode 1937. In this weeks episode, Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit discuss the importance of data in making decisions for land investing and share tips on how to avoid sending overpriced mailers. They also share their personal experiences and insights on maintaining a balance in home and life maintenance in the industry. Tune in to get a deeper understanding of the land investing industry and stay updated on the latest trends and strategies.
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m Jill DeWit, and this is the Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is episode number 1937. Today, we are talking in-depth about the data. How the data will tell you exactly what to do. Then later on in the show we’ll talk about how to avoid sending overpriced mailers. Two really popular topics that our staff tells us are popular in Discord, and popular in the whole customer service environment for Land Academy members.
Jill K DeWit:
Always. It’s funny, if you send overpriced offers, you know right away because everybody calls you back, and they love you. It’s hilarious. I have to pause and say something right now, I just realized. As I’m walking into your office here to record this, I realized for whatever reason, at this point in my life, I’m excited about the weirdest things. Let me tell you what I’m excited about this week. We just had two cars serviced, and our air conditioning check-up kind of thing at the house, and it all came back that nothing was needed. I’m like, “Really?” It always seems that your car goes in, it needs something, and we had two cars go in, nothing. I’m like … Now, granted it wasn’t cheap getting them serviced, but there is that. But at least they didn’t come back and go, “Oh, you’ve got to have …” Fill in the blank, and it’s $900.
Steven Jack Butala:
Now that you said that, something horrific’s going to happen before the week’s over.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, wait. Hold on a moment. That’s okay. We just bought a new pool filter, or pool pump, excuse me. So don’t think that it’s all peachy over here.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s endless.
Jill K DeWit:
It is endless.
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t know we got on this so fast.
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t know. I don’t know. You know it’s funny, you go back and forth where you want to live and lifestyle and things like that. We do, anyway. I do, anyway. Right now, Jack is, “I can feel it. You are becoming an association, HOA, I don’t do anything outside the walls person really fast.” Like “That wouldn’t be bad,” right?
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s just people. There’s an underlying theme today, that about … We’re going to talk about data, which is a real easy discussion, and how data really tells you what to do. So the underlying theme is you don’t really have to be emotional, or pay attention to a lot, except for data. [inaudible 00:02:30].
Jill K DeWit:
You don’t have to be emotional. That’s a whole nother topic. I’m writing that one. No.
Steven Jack Butala:
Topic number one. And then the next we’re going to talk about pricing mailers. There’s no emotion in that.
Jill K DeWit:
No.
Steven Jack Butala:
And then, at the end of the show, Jill and I always put in our 2 cents with some opinions about stuff, and there’s some interesting things going on in the world right now, as it pertains to land, of course, that I’ve never seen before. And I think it’s a result of … Everything’s a result of sign of the times. But no, I don’t-
Jill K DeWit:
I agree.
Steven Jack Butala:
Me inside of an HOA is maybe not the best thing.
Jill K DeWit:
No, I know, but I know that’s not the what’s going to happen. But I can feel you kind of going, “What’s wrong with that?” Like maybe then I wouldn’t have to care about … I don’t have to do anything. Someone else would be responsible for my roof, and the pool, and fill in the blank.
Steven Jack Butala:
The pendulum swings too far sometimes. And our pendulum for home maintenance and life maintenance has swung a little too far in one direction. In case you can’t tell. Jill’s little speech here.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. Next thing you know, I’m just going to give up all together. I’m just like, I’m going to walk around in sweats.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh my god.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m going to wear sweats every day and just say, “Who cares?” No.
Steven Jack Butala:
And now we do the show.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
I hope you’re enjoying our new 2023 weekly show. Each week we answer questions from our Land Academy Discord forum, review land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar, and take a deep dive into two land related topics by popular requests. As I mentioned a couple minutes ago. Let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. If you want to sneak peak of our Discord channel, please go to land investors.com. It’s free, and it’s in read only format so you can kind of observe what we’re all silly about.
Jill K DeWit:
Most of the channel, not everything’s there, which is cool too. All right. Dan S rants. It says, “The crazy people are coming out of the woodwork right now. I keep having people that want to sell, but are requesting weird stuff. I have never included earnest money until now. People are asking for it.” Interesting. “I have never had anyone want to bring in a realtor when we already have an escrow until now. I’ve had people previously asked to use a standard realtor purchase agreement, until I explain what that actually meant. Now, I have people insisting on it, even though I mark through literally everything, and I just add an amendment with my single page wordage.” I love that.
Steven Jack Butala:
[inaudible 00:05:05].
Jill K DeWit:
Could you imagine.
Steven Jack Butala:
[inaudible 00:05:05].
Jill K DeWit:
I want to do that. Line every single darn page out, and put an amendment. I would do that. This is great. “They’re all good deals, but my goodness, they’re upping the stress and difficulty level for nothing.” This is good. This is a good point to make.
Steven Jack Butala:
For the three over four of you who are listening or watching to this who don’t know this, you don’t need a real estate agent to do a real estate deal in this country.
Jill K DeWit:
Even it’s your house.
Steven Jack Butala:
National Association of Realtors has spent decades of hundreds of millions of dollars to change this opinion, so that you think you need a real estate agent. And the result of that is that many, many, many people subconsciously, or consciously for whatever reason, think that you need a real estate agent. It’s interesting, because we all know that we don’t need a car dealer to buy a car.
Jill K DeWit:
Right, exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s the exact same thing. It’s just a convenience. And so, again, the three or four of you that who may see using a real estate agent as a convenience, you just don’t need it. We’re all land professionals here, real estate professionals. We can do our own deals. All you need is a title agent, and really, even then you don’t need that.
Jill K DeWit:
Correct.
Steven Jack Butala:
So no, you don’t need a real estate agent. For some reason, I can envision the stories behind all of these things. I love Dan, by the way. Dan’s up in the Pacific Northwest. He’s been with us for a while. Career Path alumni. Does a ton of deals. Pretty laid back guy. And he’s just always fun to talk to. We interviewed him a few months ago, so if you go back in our podcast archive, if you want to, he’s always got a lot of interesting stuff to say, including this. I’m going to talk about this at the end of the show, but this is the world we live in now. And it’s not just real estate, but there’s strange, strange things going on, where … And I’ll talk about it at the end, but …
Jill K DeWit:
I was going to add, some of the things he mentioned were like … You talked about the contract. Do we need that? No.
Steven Jack Butala:
No.
Jill K DeWit:
If they want it, you could do what he did. Like, “Fine, I’ll get my hands on one.” I’m sure you could find a PDF version by Googling it, and you could print it out, fill it out, cross everything off you want, just so they feel good about it, and use that to open escrow. That’s fine.
Steven Jack Butala:
Real estate agents are, in this case specifically, they’re just getting in the way, and then they’re getting paid for doing nothing. You already put the deal together.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, you know what’s funny about that, too? Say they want the paperwork, but not the agent, they think they need to sign that. That paperwork’s not designed for us. So you should be marking things out, because you’re not taking a commission. This doesn’t apply to you, this doesn’t apply to you. All these things don’t apply to us. It really does apply to agents, and what they’re required to do. Earnest money. You know what? I can’t remember the last time.
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t think we’ve ever done earnest money.
Jill K DeWit:
I have, but very, very rarely do I do it. Just because we connect, and I’m just making the deal. “Here you go, we’re going for it,” kind of thing.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill is acting as a real estate agent in our own transaction.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s the point.
Steven Jack Butala:
The only reason you would ever need a real estate agent is to calm everybody down, both parties, in case that some stuff happens in the middle of the deal, which usually is way more likely to happen with an emotional real estate deal like a house. Like, it’s specifically a primary residence where, “Oh, you said you were going to change the curtains out, and you didn’t.” We don’t want to scream at a seller and lose a $200,000, $300,000, $400,000, $500,000 transaction because of that. You scream at the real estate agent, and they go and calm it all down.
Jill K DeWit:
You know what I think?
Steven Jack Butala:
That doesn’t happen in land.
Jill K DeWit:
I think people are just seeking a little bit of a level of security. They think that by having some unrelated third party in here overseeing the transaction, that it’s going to make it better, just safer, whatever. Well, that’s what escrow’s for. So in that situation, and these, what we’re talking about here, that’s really all you need. Especially if you’re doing higher dollar amount transactions. Like you’re buying for $30,000 and above. Let’s just say it used to be $10,000, was our threshold for us.
Jill K DeWit:
But even in those situations, so you know, and it’s clear, it’s not required. It’s just your comfort level. But for the transactions we are doing, I don’t have to. I could say I’m buying it directly from a seller, like we’re talking about here. Whatever my seller and I work out, we do it. And I choose to, on the higher dollar amounts, go through escrow. Because for us it’s just easier. And on the sell side, the people that I’m traditionally selling for, they’re going to want it.
Steven Jack Butala:
And it’s worth it.
Jill K DeWit:
Right, and I bake that cost into the transaction, because I’m buying for $30,000 and selling for $80,000. I can afford a $1400 escrow close. It’s totally fine.
Steven Jack Butala:
I hope we all see value in the numbers that Jill just said. $1400 to close a deal, get Title insurance, get it recorded properly. You don’t have to do a lot of paperwork yourselves.
Jill K DeWit:
Not even properly. It’s like we do it properly, I just don’t have to do it.
Steven Jack Butala:
But it’s [inaudible 00:10:07], and if something goes wrong that you can go back to somebody and say, “This person didn’t do this right. Not me. I didn’t record it.” Because I’ve recorded a lot of wrong stuff in my life. And that’s one of the reasons I use Title now too. So we all see some value in it. And that business model really works. And I think it’s value … For the most part, there’s value in getting Title insurance. Not all the time, but for the most part. There’s no value in paying a real estate agent 6%, when they’re not finding. All they’re doing is posting it on the internet, and waiting for somebody to call. So we’re long past any value for a real estate agent. If real estate agents, however charge $1400-
Jill K DeWit:
A flat rate.
Steven Jack Butala:
Flat rate for an $80,000 deal-
Jill K DeWit:
Do you remember that was a thing.
Steven Jack Butala:
… might do it. If they charge $1400 for a $3 million house, we might do it.
Jill K DeWit:
Where did that go?
Steven Jack Butala:
We might all see some value in it.
Jill K DeWit:
Where did that go? Remember, that was a thing for a while back.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think a lot of things. The internet.
Jill K DeWit:
That all went away.
Steven Jack Butala:
The internet made a lot of things cheap to free. And it kind of eroded away at … It didn’t in the long run. I can’t sustain that.
Jill K DeWit:
There were flat rate real estate brokers, and I haven’t seen anything like that in years. It breaks my heart, because that made sense.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s right.
Jill K DeWit:
There used to be like $2,000-
Steven Jack Butala:
Remember, help you sell?
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. Yes. Totally, stuff like that.
Steven Jack Butala:
So Dan’s completely right here.
Jill K DeWit:
This is funny.
Steven Jack Butala:
And this is not going away, and I’ll talk about it at the end. This world, the way, it’s really a result of years, and coming on three years now of this post COVID environment we live in. Where everybody’s online, and everybody’s got an opinion, and for whatever reason that’s valuable, and they feel like they can insert themselves into anything and everything that’s going on, just for the sake of insertion.
Steven Jack Butala:
Not because they’re going to make the transaction better. That’s what’s been happening in Dan’s deal here. This deal’s not becoming easier now, it’s becoming more difficult because more people are getting involved, and-
Jill K DeWit:
That’s what happens.
Steven Jack Butala:
[inaudible 00:12:06] the price isn’t changing. He didn’t sit here and say, “Oh, the prices are changing.
Jill K DeWit:
Isn’t that funny.
Steven Jack Butala:
And they changed the price, or they changed the terms, and it’s going to make it more … It’s not now a deal that I want to do under the Land Academy model [inaudible 00:12:17] or whatever. That would be one thing. That I understand. They want to come in and change the price, I understand that, because they talk to their Aunt Sally or something. That happens, and I get that.
Jill K DeWit:
I hear you.
Steven Jack Butala:
But not, let’s bring somebody in, and change a contract and make it harder. Today’s topic, the data will tell you what to do. This is half of the meat of the show.
Jill K DeWit:
Got it.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m getting used to the new format too.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m going to start off with a little anecdote. My New Year’s resolution was to get more healthy. And so, Jill and I joined a group called Forward, goforward.com. I’m not plugging it. I can’t [inaudible 00:13:02].
Jill K DeWit:
No affiliation.
Steven Jack Butala:
No affiliation. We don’t get any money, and we don’t want any. I’m just sharing a personal experience.
Jill K DeWit:
I wouldn’t turn it down.
Steven Jack Butala:
And the first thing they do … Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
Hold on a moment. So if you work for Forward, call us, we can help.
Steven Jack Butala:
It would be an easy endorsement for us because we’re sold. Both of us are sold-
Jill K DeWit:
Totally.
Steven Jack Butala:
… on this. It’s for I think $125, $150 a month, each.
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t know.
Steven Jack Butala:
It does not replace health insurance in any way. But what it allows you to do is to get into a schedule, and get into their technology to establish the results of a blood test, and respiratory tests, and EKGs, and ECGs, and all of the things that are very important, in my opinion, for people that are specifically our age where there’s nothing wrong with us. We just want to prevent things from going wrong. We need a baseline, a medical history. And that’s all data. So they start by taking blood, and running all kinds of tests, and putting it into their tech system. It’s essentially an app. Pretty amazing app. And once in a while we take our blood pressure, we monitor what we eat, we exercise, and then we get another blood test three to six months later.
Steven Jack Butala:
And Jill’s case, it’s a year later, because she doesn’t need anything at all. And it’s the data. The data tells us what to do. So now, truth be told, I have slightly high cholesterol. Completely changed my exercise scenario, and completely changed what I’ve eaten. And that’s coming back to where it should be. And so the data, I didn’t do this because I want to eat more vegetables to feel better. Although, that happened. What I did was unemotionally had blood drawn, got it into a computer system that said, “Yeah, you probably eat too much meat or too much … Your cholesterol’s too high for a bunch of reasons,” and got it back down to where it should be. There’s data in everything, and there’s always been data in Land Academy. We built Land Academy around data. I guess it’s sort of on accident, but [inaudible 00:15:06]-
Jill K DeWit:
That’s just how you roll. That’s how you make-
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s data in everything.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s a good point. From the moment I met you, you research everything. You’ve probably researched where we’re going to dinner tonight, and why it’s a good restaurant. Back then, and, “Here’s our trip we’re taking. Here’s where we’re going to …” Oh, you know what? Here’s a truth time. I just had a-
Steven Jack Butala:
She got that look.
Jill K DeWit:
I just had a, “Oh, I just remembered this.”
Steven Jack Butala:
If you’re on YouTube, rewind just a few seconds, and look at that. Look at Jill’s little lip right here. It goes up like that.
Jill K DeWit:
What does it say?
Steven Jack Butala:
Here it comes.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m going to get it.
Jill K DeWit:
I forgot. I was planning a weekend trip with the whole family, with the kids, and I had to put together a spreadsheet.
Steven Jack Butala:
I do remember that.
Jill K DeWit:
Yes.
Steven Jack Butala:
It was a long time ago.
Jill K DeWit:
Yes, this is a long time ago. So you want to talk about data, welcome to my world. We can’t do a vacation. Well, that was back then. Now it’s okay, but times were a little bit tighter, and we needed a budget. And I had to budget out every darn little thing. Gas, where we’re staying,-
Steven Jack Butala:
We’re skiing.
Jill K DeWit:
… the cost,-
Steven Jack Butala:
We went skiing.
Jill K DeWit:
… the tickets, the hotel, the meals, drinks. [inaudible 00:16:19]-
Steven Jack Butala:
What was it like? I have to ask you. Did that disgust you? Or was it kind of like, “I kind of respect this?”
Jill K DeWit:
No, it was more the first one.
Steven Jack Butala:
You hated it?
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, I hated it. I hated every minute of it, but I did it because that was the only way it was going to happen. So yeah. No, I don’t go, “Oh, this makes sense. This is really smart.” I’m like, “Are you flipping kidding me? I got to do this now? I just want to go on vacation.”
Steven Jack Butala:
You know we came in under budget on that trip?
Jill K DeWit:
Yes.
Steven Jack Butala:
Way under budget.
Jill K DeWit:
Yes. I had to show it to you and prove it to. You’re like, “Okay, we can go. Thank you.” Back to the topic.
Steven Jack Butala:
That was early on in our time together, but that could’ve blown up in my face pretty easily.
Jill K DeWit:
I guess that’s a little story about how Jack is with data. Jack does it … You don’t know how to run around on this planet without using data.
Steven Jack Butala:
Look, here’s the thing, there’s a lot of things to be emotional about in this life, in your life. Being emotional about the person that you’re choosing to spend the rest of your life with, ding ding, I’m all for it.
Jill K DeWit:
What day did you use on me, by the way? Hold on a moment now that you-
Steven Jack Butala:
Just let me get through this.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
Being emotional about your children growing up, and watching them growing up, and the first … I’ll never forget the first time our kids tasted a french fry. For some reason, that just became a thing because they just … The first time you eat a french fry, it’s like the world is just the greatest place there ever was. So there’s all … And emotion in movies, and all kinds of … There’s lots of places for emotion. Making money, there’s no place for emotion. There’s no place for emotion when it comes to staying healthy and maintaining your health. There’s all kinds of places for no emotion at all. Like Jill just said, the cars went in, they came back out, they maintain them, they regular maintenance. There’s no emotion in that. And even if they came back and said, you need a new alternator or whatever ends up happening in cars these days, no emotion.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think you have to get through times and realize which times there’s to be emotional, and what times are not. It’s really interesting to go through Discord … If you’re a member, go through Discord, and look at the questions, especially in the newbie section where people are brand new, and they’re asking questions, and how it’s typed out, or in the tone of the question.
Jill K DeWit:
This is good.
Steven Jack Butala:
And you can see, I can see very, very quickly who’s acclimating themselves to this, who’s overcoming the little questions that they have? Who’s going through the Land Academy program and re-watching, and watching, and re-watching the modules, or the chapters that they may be harder for them to understand, and how they’re responding. Go to the, Would you do this deal, section, and you’ll see in the notes, if this person’s struggling or if they have a huge sense of confidence.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s like, “I need some funding on this, because I love this freaking deal. Let’s do it.” I think this is a place to just check your emotion at the door. The data will tell you exactly what to do. When I started out in this, I would try to make markets work. There was no such thing as a red, yellow and green tests. No such thing as getting … There was no such thing as DataTree, Redfin, Zillow. There was not such-
Jill K DeWit:
It didn’t even have RealQuest. We didn’t have CoreLogic.
Steven Jack Butala:
There was nothing. All there was, was AssessorData. That where you literally walked into the county, sometimes flew there, walked into the county, bought a CD if you’re lucky, and put it on your … There’s many times I would go back to a motel room and put it on, into my laptop, and then spend two or three days trying to get the data into the right … And so, there was no opportunity, or no real data from which to make a decision. And so, this is why this is such a luxurious time.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh gosh, yes.
Steven Jack Butala:
From a data perspective, and a real estate investment perspective. Because we have all this stuff at our disposal, and it’s damn near free. It’s not free, free. It’s not zero, and I’m leery of zero anyway. But it’ll tell you exactly what to do if you let it. Trolling is a great example.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you’re trolling through the markets like we talk about, all over the place, especially in Land Academy 3.0, and constantly-
Jill K DeWit:
That’s what I think, yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
… [inaudible 00:20:34] environments. If you’re looking at a market and the numbers aren’t immediately coming up to fit your criteria, of let’s say, like Jill’s buy for 30 [inaudible 00:20:43], or 80, or 90, and then you send a mailer out and expect that, the data told you what to do, and you just didn’t listen. And so, that’s a easy thing to control. Well, the data’s telling me exactly what to do. I don’t have any emotion about it. I’m going to send mail there, or not send mail there.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s my first thought when I read this topic, it was … And I’m going to get back to the other thing here in a minute. My first thought was, “Data’s going to tell you what to do,” and that just starts with picking at county, picking an area. The data’s right there. And we didn’t, like you said, we didn’t have that before. I can’t remember the last time I heard someone say, “Oh, I missed the boat, didn’t I?” That doesn’t come up anymore. Isn’t that funny? Used to be years ago, people was like, “Oh shoot, I’m probably late to the game, aren’t I?”
Steven Jack Butala:
I hear it lots. I hear it.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, you do?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, I don’t hear it at all.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, the kids are out of the house, so we don’t hear it. You don’t hear it.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, no. Not the kids. No, no, I mean in Land Academy. People like wanting to be investors like us. Like, “I’m sure all the good deals are gone,” or something like that. That used to come up. And I used to say, “Hold on to your hat because that’s definitely not true,” and this was like a year or two ago. It was the last time I heard it, and-
Steven Jack Butala:
A year or two ago they may have missed the boat, but I’ll tell you, 2023, you’re in it now. In a great way.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, my comment was always though, “But hold on a second, the data keeps getting better.” We’re getting our hands on more and more land data, land focus, and more accurate ZIP code data, things like that, that we didn’t have five, 10 years ago. That, you’re coming in now, it’s going to make it so much easier. Even just when I look at properties, and I’m doing my due diligence on do I want to buy it now? The data that I have, and how I can quickly put in a state and county, and APN, and look at it. What they paid, all the details, zoning, all that stuff. I didn’t have that back then. These were all phone calls to the county that we had to make to uncover this information. It’s so nice. So it just keeps getting better.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you picture … I did a blog about this a long time ago, maybe five or seven years ago. You picture three houses lined up next to each other. Five houses … this is a 2023 version of that. There’s five houses together. They’re all valued at $280,000, $250,000, $290,000, $110,000, $250,000, which one are you going to buy or which one you need to look at?
Jill K DeWit:
The $110,000.
Steven Jack Butala:
$110,000. Why is it valued at $110,000? Well, for whatever reason, that algorithm that you’re looking at, whether it’s Zillow, Realtor, or a combination of them, which I prefer, is there’s something that’s creating less value in there on the acquisition side. So go in there, take a-
Jill K DeWit:
Figure it out.
Steven Jack Butala:
And you can do this with land. Go in there and find out why it’s valued for less, and you have two choices. Buy it cheap and resell it for more, which is what we do. Or buy it and change whatever the value deterrent is to get it up to the rest, and sell for that amount. That’s what we’re here to do. The data’s telling us what to do. I’m not going to try to buy the one on the left that that got valued at $260,000 and try to buy it for, I’m just not going to do that.
Jill K DeWit:
$110,000.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s just silly to … It’s a round peg, square hole scenario, and I don’t get emotional about it at all. Yeah, I’m buying this asset for $28,000 that I know I can sell for $33,000 or $92,000, or whatever the number is, or I’m not going to buy it. I’m going to move on to the next one.
Jill K DeWit:
I would like to address something here that I still see happening, and I want to let everybody know-
Steven Jack Butala:
She’s pointing.
Jill K DeWit:
… what you should do. Yes, I am pointing. This could be you. I see people entering into areas where there is no data, so they really have no idea. And they’re brand new.
Steven Jack Butala:
Flying blind.
Jill K DeWit:
Totally.
Steven Jack Butala:
I see that too.
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t even do that. Yes, it’s great when there’s no data. Because hey, no one even knows what it’s worth. Well, that’s partially, but you don’t even really know what you’re doing. And if you’re new, please don’t do that. I want you to go to areas that there is data, that you can really make good, accurate decisions. So if you’re like, “Well, I really want to mail this area because I heard all this stuff,” come back to it. Don’t do it. Move on to one that you have. It’s okay. I know you heard the Amazon plant is going there. Fill in the blank. Move on. Go to a place that you really can assess, make good decisions. Not guess.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you’re trying to date a man, and all the signs are saying, “This is not the man to date …”
Jill K DeWit:
This is what I was going to ask you. Keep going.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh yeah? I don’t want to steal your thunder here.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh no, I was going to … Well, go ahead and finish your sentence, and then I have a direct question.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m almost sure he’s not a good man to date.
Jill K DeWit:
What data did you use on me?
Steven Jack Butala:
You know what, Jill, the truth of it is, my entire … I’m a former accountant.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m sure there’s data.
Steven Jack Butala:
My entire … I can truly say this. I’m not sure I chose you, by the way. I think it was the other way around. But you’re just a lot of fun. That’s truly … That’s all I … I never expected that this would be a lifelong thing. I figured we’d just have a bunch of fun. Jill and I are-
Jill K DeWit:
For a few months, and then it would-
Steven Jack Butala:
… from very different geographic locations, but very similar backgrounds, and we’re very similar aged. And just that, I guess that’s data. I didn’t even think of that.
Jill K DeWit:
There we go. And now it comes out.
Steven Jack Butala:
The more we talked about our upbringing, our parents, and how things got handled and just-
Jill K DeWit:
Where we graduated.
Steven Jack Butala:
… similar music,-
Jill K DeWit:
Music.
Steven Jack Butala:
… all of it. That is all data. There are more similarities. So every time you see a romantic comedy, and people have a first date, “Oh, I’m interested in this, I’m interested in this, we’re all … It’s very similar. That’s data. So no, I didn’t consciously do it, but that’s what happened.
Jill K DeWit:
I figured there’s a spreadsheet running around here somewhere that you have hidden.
Steven Jack Butala:
Why do you continually put up with this? Is it data, or just worn out?
Jill K DeWit:
I like that. Yeah, you wore me down.
Steven Jack Butala:
Permanently? That’s good. That’s a show. That’s a whole new program. How to wear her out so she just doesn’t care anymore.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. “Fine, what do I have to do now? I have to do this to go on vacation? Fine. I’m doing it. I don’t really care. Bring it. That’s it.” I am sure that happens.
Steven Jack Butala:
[inaudible 00:27:42] vacations are really different.
Jill K DeWit:
We know couples like that. They’re older than us. Like, “Yeah, I don’t really care at this point.”
Steven Jack Butala:
We do. A lot of them, the majority.
Jill K DeWit:
We do.
Steven Jack Butala:
Boy, they’re different. Our vacations are different now. We just got back from Vail, and there was no … No one looked at the price tag of anything on that vacation.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you, I didn’t [inaudible 00:28:01] if anybody … You did the spreadsheet before you presented it to me.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m the one who’s saying, “We should go in this jewelry store and see what they have, because it looks like they have some good stuff.” No one looks at the prices, and Jill walks out with a ring.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
That literally happened.
Jill K DeWit:
I know. That was really nice. Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
I was my idea, not your idea.
Jill K DeWit:
[inaudible 00:28:18]. I know. That was very sweet. That was like the Christmas day or the day after. It was very sweet. You’re awesome.
Steven Jack Butala:
So, that’s not data.
Jill K DeWit:
No, that wasn’t data.
Steven Jack Butala:
All I’m saying is, we can wrap it up with this. There’s data in everything, and I think that you’d be much better off, especially when it comes to money. So look at the data of everything. I get a, for whatever reason, in my feed, the Dear Abbey version of financial things going on. Financial, and people’s lives pops up in my newsfeed, probably because I click on it too much. And I have story, after story, after story of people that make [inaudible 00:28:58] their households make $200,000, $300,00, $400,000, $500,000. There’s two people, and they don’t have any money.
Jill K DeWit:
I know.
Steven Jack Butala:
And that’s all just … You can turn that around in a week.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, I was thinking that, and it made me think of, if you don’t use data, whether or not to decide where you should live and buy a house, and what job you’re going to take, you’re nuts.
Steven Jack Butala:
All that. What car you drive, how much it costs, where you get your gas.
Jill K DeWit:
Food.
Steven Jack Butala:
When Jill and I are on the road with the RV, we are always looking for cheap gas that’s 10 cents cheaper a gallon.
Jill K DeWit:
There’s things we-
Steven Jack Butala:
And where to get it.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, all kidding aside, most of our lives were very budget conscious for everything that we do. Even right now, I was just working on stuff for our staff at the office, and I’m really budget conscious about that. There’s a few things and a few times that we let our hair down.
Steven Jack Butala:
I probably spend a cumulative month of full-time work hours managing our taxes. It’s the single largest expense that we have in our company, and I’m bent on doing it. It goes without saying, ethically, and legally, and correctly, and within the limits of what the law allows, which is a [inaudible 00:30:12]. I haven’t talked about this in a while, but we live in a beautiful place. Where the tax law is in our favor as a small business owner. Let’s take a look at one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar.
Jill K DeWit:
When is this going to … Okay. I’m thinking of an ad, and I know this is going to get cut. One second here. What do you want to plug?
Steven Jack Butala:
The ebook.
Jill K DeWit:
The ebook for Land Academy?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. All right. Is this all making sense to you? Is this something that you think you want to do? Learn to be a land investor, and get involved in Land Academy? Well, to find out more, go to landacademy.com, download our ebook, and read it. It’s, I don’t know, 10 plus pages long, and it really does tell our whole story.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s like 37 pages, but that’s okay. Have you ever read the ebook?
Jill K DeWit:
I have, but I thought it was condensed. Well, I used the click notes version.
Steven Jack Butala:
Everything’s a little shorter [inaudible 00:31:29].
Jill K DeWit:
Read like I do. It’s maybe 37, but there’s only 10 really good ones. Just kidding. Whatever it is, check it out. And then, if you have any questions, send us a note, support@landacademy.com.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take another question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. Again, if you want to sneak peek at our Discord channel, it’s something Jill and I are super proud of, please go to landinvestors.com. It’s free.
Jill K DeWit:
Hi, Jemay. Jemay and I communicate in Discord in other areas and stuff too.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s a prelude to Land Academy ladies is coming.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, good. Okay. So Jemay wrote, “Hey everybody. I’m looking at a market narrowed down by ZIP code, where the sold numbers range from $50,000 to $115,000 for five acres. Now I know that I have to narrow it down more by neighborhood. I got that. Question, when using offers to owners for your mailers, has anyone narrowed down their mailers by neighborhood/subdivision or is that too detailed? And am I overthinking this? Thanks.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Boy, you are not overthinking this. Because, to answer your direct question, you’re not overthinking this. There’s a response here that, by Dan again-
Jill K DeWit:
[inaudible 00:32:54] he wrote-
Steven Jack Butala:
[inaudible 00:32:54] Northwest Dan that it’s worth … Somebody responded. Dan responded, and-
Jill K DeWit:
Cool.
Steven Jack Butala:
… with some great advice, and then I’ll follow up.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. So he wrote, “Assuming the lower numbers are not lower, because they have no access, or are not some other easily discernible anomaly, or just a freak outlier, I have taken both approaches. On some mailers, I’ve just adjusted the offers towards the lower end of the range and send it out. Unless your data set is very homogenous, you could see this kind of range in a lot of places. Where I send mail, there’s a lot of landlocked hillsides, and waterfront buildable lots, all the same size. You check for reason, and do your best off the data that you have. I might spend more time checking my pricing to make sure that the parcels I would actually want to buy, if they came back, and are not [inaudible 00:33:49] price. You could go neighborhood based or APN based pricing, but you really don’t want to delay getting the mail out indefinitely while you go line by line.”
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, that’s not a good idea. “I tend to go more into specific neighborhoods, APNs, on a re-mail, or an area that I know better. There’s definitely a balance between caring enough, and spending enough time to work your data to get pricing reasonably done well, but also not overthinking, and spending a month on the same mailer trying to get it just perfect.” So true.
Steven Jack Butala:
So true. That’s why I included Dan’s response here, because there’s a balance in everything. You want to … I don’t think … This is really what the topic is here. Here’s a prelude to this topic. There’s a balance between spending too much time on a mailer, and too micro pricing it. And essentially making a very, very, very, at the end, educated guest and saying, “Let’s get it in the mail.” You have to decide who you are as a person, and where you are in that spectrum. I’d lean toward, let’s get it in the freaking mail, and let’s see what happens, and let sales work it out.
Steven Jack Butala:
Or let Jill’s environment … And honestly, within reason, she wants to do that too. She wants an opportunity to buy-
Jill K DeWit:
I’ll fix it.
Steven Jack Butala:
… some really cheap property by using her social skills. And so, let’s get into the topic because this is really … Jemay, this is a very good question. It’s something that I’m going to include in the next program, maybe in its own whole module, avoiding to over overprice mailers because-
Jill K DeWit:
That’s good.
Steven Jack Butala:
… the way we are now into a new data era, which we didn’t have when I did 2.0, when I recorded Land Academy 2.0. The good news is we have better data, and more data. And so it’s causing the way that we price mailers to be slightly, in some cases, overpriced, and we don’t want that.
Jill K DeWit:
There we go.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s second topic is how to avoid sending overpriced mailers. So what Jemay said is this, “I did everything right. I trolled, I found a great area that I liked. I applied the red, green, yellow test. It seems to work for multiple ZIP codes, let’s say even for a county. And I downloaded all the data, did everything that I’m supposed to do, and my range is too big. My sold and for sale price per acre,” or however she’s looking at it, “Is too wide. It’s between $50,000 an acre and $115,000.”
Steven Jack Butala:
And like Dan said, you have a couple choices. You can go on the low end, and get it out there, and let Jill work it out. Or you can get a little bit more micro about it, and a little bit more … Let’s call it educated about which breaking those areas of geography down, and repricing them to make it easier on the sales piece, which I’m a huge fan of.
Steven Jack Butala:
So what you need to do is implement some version of … I don’t want to call it neighborhood, because neighborhoods, there’s not neighborhoods in rural areas at all. It’s just land. You want to implement some version of APN pricing, and it’s very simple to do at the tail end of the mail area. You take a ZIP code that’s got all these variances and prices, and you resort it by APN. Let’s say an APN scheme that starts with the number one, and then it goes from one, and then obviously changes at two. You look at APN scheme number one as its own pricing set. And so, 20 or 30%, or maybe 15%, or some number might be appropriate to price that number one set of property. Number two might be higher. You might come in at … It might be coming in at a very, very, very low number.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s say on Jemay scenario, it’s coming in at $50,000, and you might want to price that a little bit higher, and on, and on, and on. And you’re going to knock out a lot of hate, and make that a lot more accuracy. What you’re giving up for that, sadly, and there’s no way to avoid this, is the opportunity for home runs. Once or twice a year, all of us who’ve send a ton of mail out, once or twice or three times a year, we buy a property for $20,000, $30,000, $40,000, whatever number that we offered, because they just want to sell it. And we sell it for a hell of a lot more.
Jill K DeWit:
Like $120,000.
Steven Jack Butala:
$120,000, $150,000.
Jill K DeWit:
You’re like, “What?”
Steven Jack Butala:
And it sells immediately, because the person who’s buying it realizes it’s worth a lot more. And so, you could live on that. You could live that one deal, and send a ton of offers and just wait for that. I wouldn’t recommend it at all, but you could. So the point is avoiding … If you implement this last step of what I call approaching APN pricing, you’re going to avoid a lot. A lot of problems.
Jill K DeWit:
I was going to say a lot about this. What’s the whole reason we’re even talking about this? Why do we even care? Because it’s so much easier to add money. If you come in hotter, send out lower offers, if you’re going to screw up, that’s the way I want you to screw up. Like Jack said, I want you to send them too low. Because it’s easier to add money A, and B, you might find a home run in there. Someone’s going to go, “I don’t care what they would’ve offered. I’m signing it anywhere. I need to get rid of this,” for whatever reason. “Today’s the day. I don’t care. I’m settling my estate. We’re all done. I’m not needing any money.” There’s so many people out there like that too, like, “I don’t need the money. You just do the work, you can have these dumb things.”
Jill K DeWit:
So you remove that if you overprice, and I can add money. And there’s reasons why when people go call up and say, “This is funny. Tell me, you just sent me an offer for $14,000. The thing’s worth $40,000.” That, or, “The thing’s worth $400,000.” Let’s just even say that. I’ve had crazy things happen. And sometimes let’s all be honest too. People think their asset is priceless, and I have to reel them back in.
Jill K DeWit:
But sometimes there are extenuating circumstances like waterfront, or it backs up to these BLM land, and there’s a path, something. There’s the location, the nature of the access, all kinds of things that might really mean I would pay more. I just missed that. So I can, and I do add money where it’s appropriate to make, but I still am not going to buy anything retail. That’s not what I’m here, unless it’s for me and my personal use, which that’s never what I’m doing. And what’s funny about that, even our personal properties, I wouldn’t buy it. You know what I mean? I don’t get emotional. Maybe that’s part of it too. You taught me a long time ago that you need to-
Steven Jack Butala:
I taught you something?
Jill K DeWit:
You did.
Steven Jack Butala:
[inaudible 00:41:07].
Jill K DeWit:
One or two things. Just kidding.
Steven Jack Butala:
Shocking.
Jill K DeWit:
You teach me a lot. Stop it. You teach me a lot. That you told me that you have to see all these properties as a line item. You can’t get emotional. Even when you’re sending out offers, by the way, you’re … Maybe you’re spot checking before the mail goes out Jemay, and you’re like, “This is waterfront. This is worth more. Don’t change it.” Don’t get yourself emotional on it. Let it go. See what comes back. See who wants to sell, and then start making decisions, and checking and see if you want to buy it. But you always, no matter what, have to just see it for what it is. You can’t get emotional. I even had this happen recently to me, by the way too. Montana property submitted to me from a Land Academy member, and I’m trying to make it work.
Steven Jack Butala:
[inaudible 00:41:56].
Jill K DeWit:
Because I really like the property. Yes, to fund the deal.
Steven Jack Butala:
Isn’t that terrible?
Jill K DeWit:
I know. And I even wrote-
Steven Jack Butala:
I hate trying to make it work.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s so funny. I wrote a note about something. We had the cutest conversation, and here’s how our conversations go. Comes in to my transaction coordinator, it’s input into Airtable, I’m tagged. I reply to the person in Airtable, and then my transaction coordinator sends them the notes. So it’s all through Airtable, right? We’re not even talking at all. But we’re cracking jokes in there. And I’m like, “Look …” At the end of the day, I said, “Look, I think I’m trying to make this work, and I just can’t at this price.” I’m actually catching myself on this one. And it’s very, very rare that this happens. I’m clearly getting emotional about this Montana property, and we can’t spend that much money.
Jill K DeWit:
This is it. And I said, “By the way …” It was so cute. You know who you are. I sent a note and I said, “Did I just pick up on an HOA? Am I”-
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh no.
Jill K DeWit:
Hold on a moment. I pick up on a $100 a month HOA. Something popped up on the listing that I found in that sub, and they’re like … And then they wrote me a nice note back. And it was like, “Jill, it’s not right, it’s a $100 a year. All it does is for roads. You taught me better than that.” And I went, “Touché, that was really good.”
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s outstanding.
Jill K DeWit:
That was great. I thought that was really funny. The whole point here is, like Jack covered, spend some time, not too much time. Do your best not to overprice. If you’re going to overprice or underprice, I want you to underprice.
Jill K DeWit:
If you think you’re underpricing it, then you did it right. Let her rip kind of thing. And you can still … Say it all goes wrong, “Oh gosh, we did overprice on this,” you can still save those. Have those conversations. So many people, the people call back and they want, like, “This is great. Here’s a purchase agreement. How fast can we close?”
Jill K DeWit:
And you look at it going, “Uh-oh.” Like, “Shoot, I can’t pay $40,000. Now I want to pay $4000. It’s really, I’d pay … What do I do? I’m just going to go dark. I’m not going to call him back. I’m just going to go dark, and let them walk away.” Don’t do that. Call him back and have that conversation. “Okay, now I know why you called me so fast. Are you aware of how far this is from …” Fill in the blank.
Jill K DeWit:
“And are you aware that because you timbered it a year ago, it’s not pretty like I thought it was.” Or whatever it is. [inaudible 00:44:28]. Usually, the conversation goes, “Yeah, I was kind of wondering why you offered $40,000 for this.” Then you go, “Okay, we’re all on the same page here. Here’s the deal. I do still like the property, but the best I can do is $4,000 or $14,000.” Whatever it is. It’s the number that now makes sense to you. You can still fix these, and that we’ll talk more on another show.
Steven Jack Butala:
What you don’t want to do is extremities. On the far underpriced extreme. I’ve done both of these things multiple times. You don’t want to say, “I’m going to send a $500 out, per parcel offer out on every property in this county, because I just don’t feel like going through what the Land Academy talking heads tell me that I should do, and I’m going to see what comes back.”
Steven Jack Butala:
I can tell you with confidence, nothing’s going to come back. And what’s what will come back is extreme anger, and that’s it. And you’ll never send another mailer out again, and we don’t want.
Jill K DeWit:
[inaudible 00:45:26].
Steven Jack Butala:
We want you to succeed. On the flip side, we had a person in career path about three or four career paths ago where he spent … Has a big staff, and prices every single piece of property individually.
Jill K DeWit:
Line by line.
Steven Jack Butala:
And he came into this, he found he’s from-
Jill K DeWit:
France.
Steven Jack Butala:
From Central Europe.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
And he came into this business here in this country because his father was extremely successful, so he says, in Central Europe doing this over the last two generations, which I’m sure is the case. Farmland in Europe is incredibly expensive and valuable. The whole royal family is built on farmland all over the place in England. So what you don’t want is to individually price every single offer. It’s going to take way too long. And you’re going to buy some property, but you’re not going to buy it cheap enough. You’re not going to buy it at embarrassingly cheap prices, which is what we’re here to do. And so, when you picture it as a bell curve, you don’t want to be on these two sides of the bell curve. You want to be somewhere over here where it’s going up, and retail’s right here.
Jill K DeWit:
Right. I hate that. I can’t stand that.
Steven Jack Butala:
I hate it too.
Jill K DeWit:
I hope no one’s doing that anymore. “I’m just going to send the whole state an offer for …” Fill in the blank.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s pretty reckless.
Jill K DeWit:
It sends wrong message.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, it’s expensive as hell, first of all.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
And pretty reckless.
Jill K DeWit:
You know what? Because I really think that there’s a lot of people that just don’t take that seriously. I would not. And based on numbers, it doesn’t come back that well. So let us save you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a look at another one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar. Jill, if you have something at the end here, inspirational, I think that you might want to share.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly, my little nugget for today. I was thinking about confidence. You know what it is? I’m thinking about Land Academy Ladies. And that’s going to start up here in the next couple months. So if you are a Land Academy member, and you are a female, check it out. And if you want information now, you can just send a quick note to support@landacademy.com, and they’ll fill you in. But we have our own … And by the way, I’d like to point out, Land Academy Ladies is the only land focused female investment group, period. There isn’t one. This is it. I love that. So anyway, so I was thinking about Land Academy Ladies for 2023, and we’re going to kick that back up here. Took a little hiatus, and everybody’s asked. I’m bringing it back. And one of the things that I think we all even need, I was going to lead off with this for part of our Land Academy Ladies first session, is confidence.
Jill K DeWit:
We all need confidence. Everything’s just so much smoother with confidence. Ma’am, when these calls come in, if you’re confident, you’re going to handle it so much differently than like, “Hello.” Just like, “Hey, this is Jill.” It’s very different than, “This is Jill,” because you don’t know what’s coming at you. You need to have confidence. And one of the quickest, fastest, easiest ways that you can build your own confidence, and I mean in life and everything, is just start with a little mantra. I always have mantras in my head. I’m all the time talking to myself. I don’t know if you know that. You probably do know that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Sometimes it’s out loud.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, that’s true. Well, if it’s a mantra, if it’s about you, it’s not a mantra. Just kidding, but-
Steven Jack Butala:
We don’t have any more kids in the house, but they used to say, “Is she’s talking to you?” “No, she’s talking to me.” “I don’t think she’s talking. I think she’s talking to herself.”
Jill K DeWit:
I do constantly have little mantras in my head, all the time. And one of my favorites, and I want you to start using this all the time. It’s just, I like myself. You need to start saying that. If you’re not saying that, you’re not walking around with your head high and your shoulders back, just feeling good about you. In your day, walking around situation, how messy your desk is, or what meeting you’re walking into, whatever it is, you … I want you to start saying that all the time. Just, “I like myself,” and you’re going to feel your shoulders … You think, “What?”
Steven Jack Butala:
No. I mean, go ahead.
Jill K DeWit:
You don’t believe this to be true?
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m sure it’s true. I’m not going to do it. I’m sure it’s true. I’ll save my stuff for the end.
Jill K DeWit:
Fine. Well, I’m telling you it works, and I really encourage you to try that.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think you should walk around and say stuff like, “Where’s my next deal?”
Jill K DeWit:
Yes. Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s, that’s it. That’s your whole talk?
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, okay.
Jill K DeWit:
What are you talking about?
Steven Jack Butala:
I thought I would be more-
Jill K DeWit:
Well, you kind of interrupted it. So you poo-pooed it.
Steven Jack Butala:
No, I didn’t. I just didn’t say … It’s not for me.
Jill K DeWit:
Now you know why I have other mantras in my head.
Steven Jack Butala:
[inaudible 00:50:32].
Jill K DeWit:
I like myself, and-
Steven Jack Butala:
Try to stay in this relationship?
Jill K DeWit:
… and don’t let him get to you. Don’t let him get to you. Don’t let him get to you. Ignore, ignore, ignore, delete.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s a mantra.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
You know what? Ignore, ignore, ignore is a, I think a great mantra. Walk around and say that. And not because of Jill, just because of stuff. Stuff that … Actually this leads-
Jill K DeWit:
Well, actually I do that.
Steven Jack Butala:
… into my talk, [inaudible 00:50:57].
Jill K DeWit:
That is true. When I’m driving, if someone’s pissed off, I’m like, “Whatever.” I do that all the time, out loud and in my head. That’s your problem. That’s another [inaudible 00:51:08]. There’s all kinds of mantras, but I want you to be confident, and if you start with that little one that this one’s poo-pooing, you know what, please ignore that. Like I said, and try mine. It works. Jack, do you have something informational to share?
Steven Jack Butala:
Hold a second, I’m-
Jill K DeWit:
I’m not going to shoot holes in it, like you did mine.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m not done with this yet.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you have to say, “I like myself,” I think what it really implies is you don’t like yourself, and that you’re trying to get yourself to like yourself.
Jill K DeWit:
I disagree.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s all. I think you need a psychiatrist, if that’s going on.
Jill K DeWit:
Nope, you are not correct, sir.
Steven Jack Butala:
All right. So I’m missing the point, go ahead.
Jill K DeWit:
You are missing the point.
Steven Jack Butala:
Please explain, because I represent half of the people who listen and watch this.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
The other half are like-
Jill K DeWit:
All right.
Steven Jack Butala:
“Jack’s an ass, and Jill’s awesome.”
Jill K DeWit:
Let me give you the guy version.
Steven Jack Butala:
Okay, good. Thank you.
Jill K DeWit:
First of all, do you use mantras?
Steven Jack Butala:
No.
Jill K DeWit:
Ever?
Steven Jack Butala:
Never. Except for ignore, ignore, ignore. I only use a mantra to talk myself out of bashing someone over the head in public.
Jill K DeWit:
Control, control, control.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yes.
Jill K DeWit:
Walk away, walk away.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yes.
Jill K DeWit:
All right. All right, here’s a man version.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s not worth it. I use that one a lot.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m trying to think of a good one that the other half of the population-
Steven Jack Butala:
The unhappy half.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, can relate to. How about this mantra? Whatever you do, you’re walking around, “I’m badass. I deserve this. I’m really good at what I do.” Can you use one of those?
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t need to. I’m already [inaudible 00:52:53].
Jill K DeWit:
Well, maybe you’re subconsciously doing it.
Steven Jack Butala:
[inaudible 00:52:53] truthfully-
Jill K DeWit:
Well, if you think like that, you’re subconsciously already doing it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s the truth, and I’m glad we’re talking about this, because I … And I’m not poo-pooing anything. I’m really, I honestly think this is super valid. I’ve never had an issue with confidence. [inaudible 00:53:08]. I’m not patting myself on the back. There’s many times in my life, maybe one of them right now where, “Yeah, some changes need to happen for sure.”
Jill K DeWit:
Do you know what-
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m not so overly confident that it’s narcissism or anything like that at all. I’m just, and I’m completely, I think very open-minded to new things, especially when it comes to data and all of it.
Jill K DeWit:
Do you know what percentage of the population you probably are?
Steven Jack Butala:
Confident?
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t know.
Jill K DeWit:
Probably less than 10%. Maybe less than 5%. You think you relate, that half of the people listen to you here relate to that here? If you do, congratulations, you’re also in the top 10%. But I don’t think it’s that many. So I’m talking to the 90% people here, or the 95%.
Steven Jack Butala:
I get confidence from-
Jill K DeWit:
Sometimes we fall down.
Steven Jack Butala:
I get confidence from completing stuff successfully. I don’t get confidence from saying stuff in my head.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s okay. Then this isn’t for you, because you’re the 2%.
Steven Jack Butala:
I say, get a deal done, and feel great about yourself.
Jill K DeWit:
But don’t you … See, how do I say this?
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m not burning this down at all, Jill. I think there’s huge value in this. I’m just not sure that, I like myself-
Jill K DeWit:
And that’s okay, and I know you don’t like yourself at times. There’s times I don’t like you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Just so you know that-
Jill K DeWit:
I’m just kidding.
Steven Jack Butala:
Like right now.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is one of those times where I wonder if this is ever going to air. A few times over the years [inaudible 00:54:44]-
Jill K DeWit:
If you’ve never said this …
Steven Jack Butala:
… [inaudible 00:54:45] have to rerecord this.
Jill K DeWit:
If you’ve never said this to a family member, kudos to you, but I got to … “You know what, I love you. I’m just not sure I like you right now.” If you’ve never said that to a family member, or yourself, then you’re lying, because that happens. I’ve said that to every one of our children. [inaudible 00:55:11] and you. I know.
Steven Jack Butala:
I just don’t see … I mean, I think the mantra thing’s great. I really do. I’m not knocking any of this.
Jill K DeWit:
All right.
Steven Jack Butala:
I just think the phrase, “I like myself,” there’s something wrong there.
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t think so. It’s simple, and it’s an easy place to start.
Steven Jack Butala:
Get a mailer out. That’s a good one.
Jill K DeWit:
Just, ignore, ignore, ignore.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is perfect for what I’m about to talk about.
Jill K DeWit:
Jack, what do you want to share? Because I can’t wait to hear what this is.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s talk about the world we live in right now.
Jill K DeWit:
All right.
Steven Jack Butala:
As it pertains to land, and I wrote this little sentence that I’m going to talk about here, because of what Dan said. Dan’s going along in his life, smashing it, doing a bunch of deals. He’s been with us for … The first question in this episode, and he’s like, “All of a sudden, people want earnest money. The real estate agent wants to get in the middle of my deal after it’s already been negotiated, and escrow’s open. What’s going on?”
Steven Jack Butala:
He’s looking around going, “Everything’s been going great.” This is, in my opinion, an acute sign of the times. Jill and I are old enough, and Jill comes from the airline industry. We were old enough to remember, and none of us will ever forget the first flight we took after 9/11. And because we walked into the airport, this may not have been a surprise for you, because you were in the industry at the time.
Jill K DeWit:
I worked at American Airlines at the time.
Steven Jack Butala:
I walked into an airport, and I traveled for a living with KPMG. I walked into an airport and there was a line of people with all their shoes off, and their clothes off, and their bags open. And I said, “What the hell is this? Is the airport on fire?” It was so foreign. Well, it turns out it’s something now that we do anyway. It’s the TSA. We walked through, you have take your … It was really bad then. You had to take belts off,-
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, it’s much relaxed now. It’s changed.
Steven Jack Butala:
… shoes, and the whole thing. But it didn’t go away. It’s here to stay. The TSA is it here to stay-
Jill K DeWit:
We still walk through with machines.
Steven Jack Butala:
… worldwide. It has changed how we travel. Has changed how we travel, and it will forever change how we travel. Before then, multiple times would pull into the high paid parking area, screech in, because I’m late, run down the jet way, and there was an ATM like machine where you’d pop your card in. You’re usually a business card, a credit card, and they would spit out a ticket. You would hand it to the ticket … The flight attendant.
Jill K DeWit:
Agent.
Steven Jack Butala:
Not even at the beginning of the jet way, in the plane. You just had a bin, and you would throw it in there, and you could fly under Jack Black. It didn’t matter. They didn’t care who was on the airplane. They just wanted … They wanted to get the thing off the ground. And so, we had no idea then how much of a luxury that was. My point is that it’s changed forever.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’ve all accepted it, and it is what it is. It’s added a massive amount of financial expense, which the airlines have, and the whole industry has passed through to us. So now it’s way more expensive to fly. On the flip side, it’s created some jobs. My point is, Covid has changed everything, and will forever change what goes on in the world.
Steven Jack Butala:
And this is the world that we live in right now. And it’s hard for people who are older, especially … We’re not super old, but older like me. It’s getting harder and harder to swallow the mandatory changes that are happening. And some of them are mandatory and some of them aren’t, in everything, including doing a real estate deal. And that’s what Dan said earlier. I don’t understand why people are … One of the unintended consequences of Covid is that people sat home for two years, and provided their opinions on everything, all across the spectrum, their opinions loudly on the internet, and got attention.
Steven Jack Butala:
And so when people have unfounded, uneducated opinions, in a loud manner, and get attention for saying those opinions, that’s not good. And it’s permeated into everything, including a seller doing a deal, or a buyer buying a piece of property, or dealing with a escrow agent. Everybody now has an incredible amount of opinion that’s unfounded. It’s just rooted in emotion, or getting some type of response. And we have a couple choices. We can get real mad about it, or we can laugh about it on the show, and you have to laugh about it. Maybe a mantra is appropriate in managing it.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Maybe-
Jill K DeWit:
This is stupid. This is stupid.
Steven Jack Butala:
But dealing with it stupid is not … You have to deal with it if you want to be successful. It’s no longer an option. Real estate deals are more complicated, just like the TSA has made flying more complicated. And this is the world we live in right now. You know what? I say that to myself all the time to calm myself down. So I guess I do have mantras.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is the world we live in. Driving has never been worse. Driving on the road. And again, it’s because people think that they have … The common courtesy is just no longer part of everyday life.
Jill K DeWit:
No, I’m always-
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s certainly gone.
Jill K DeWit:
Isn’t that funny?
Steven Jack Butala:
From the real estate deals we do.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m surprised when it does happen. When someone’s out of their way nice. I’m like, “Oh boy, that catches me off guard.” You remember the other day at the bank, that woman, she’s like, “Okay, and how many …” She waited for me while I got all these checks out that I’ve been collecting to deposit. [inaudible 01:00:58] that was easy. I’m like, “I know.” What did I just hit her at the right time or what?” It’s funny.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s beautiful rays of light everywhere. You just have to focus on that, and concentrate on … What I do is concentrate on light kind … There were, about six months ago, somebody put something that was really inappropriate in Discord that none of our staff caught. Was not really inappropriate, it was a political view, which we have … I have no patience for. There’s no politics on Discord. And somebody started down that path, and somebody else was commenting on it, and none of us caught it, and then it became a thing.
Jill K DeWit:
I didn’t know that.
Steven Jack Butala:
And somebody went in. I’m not going to name names, but you know who you are. It’s one of your Land Academy Ladies-
Jill K DeWit:
Good.
Steven Jack Butala:
… went in and said, “This needs to end right now.”
Jill K DeWit:
Good.
Steven Jack Butala:
Like your mother would say it when you’re young. I don’t know what she said. “Jack and Jill have put this all together, and this is created an environment. This is what social media is supposed to be like, and we all respect each other.” Big, long speech, had stopped at all. We didn’t have to intervene.
Jill K DeWit:
I probably know who the person is.
Steven Jack Butala:
We didn’t have to intervene at all. So you know who you are, and thank you very much, but that’s just … Land Academy, there’s a common courtesy. We have courtesy for each other and respect, and once in a while it dances along the line, but except for that one time, it just never crossed, so I’m proud of that. I’m proud that we’re like a little oasis area where we can concentrate unemotionally on buying and selling real estate, and land, and not get all nuts about … The worse it gets, or as far as it goes, it’s like Dan’s [inaudible 01:02:43] here. Is he going to get all those deals done? Of course. Is it harder? Yep. Maybe a little bit more expensive? Slightly. More of a pain in the butt? Sure. Just like the TSA. This is a world that we live in now. And if you buck it, you’re not going to win, and we want you to win.
Jill K DeWit:
He gets it. He gets it. He gets it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Who, Dan?
Jill K DeWit:
No, you. It’s my mantra.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, the mantra. Join us next Wednesday for another interesting episode, because you are not alone in your real estate ambition. We are Jack and Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
We are Jack and Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
Information.
Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration.
Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
https://youtu.be/kBViWyEdy7Q
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
DescriptionWelcome to the Land Academy Show, episode 1936! Join Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit as they share their journey to becoming leaders in the land flipping space and maintaining that position from 2015 to 2023. They will also talk about talking and bonding with sellers and the importance of the first inbound phone call. Get insights on how to make quick connections and learn about the area you’re interested in, all in just a matter of seconds. Tune in to this episode to learn more about the land investing industry and stay up to date with the latest trends and strategies. Plus, get sneak peek into the Land Academy Discord online community by visiting landinvestors.com
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit, and this is the Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is episode number 1,936. And today we are talking in depth, actually, about how and why we became the leaders in the land space and held that position from 2015 to 2023. That’s topic number one. And then later in the show we’ll talk about bonding with sellers. Jill here is going to talk about bonding with sellers. On the phone from the actual initial first inbound phone call, so incredibly important. And honestly doesn’t get talked about enough.
Jill K DeWit:
You know what’s funny about this, is that people think that this bonding needs to take, I’ve heard anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour. You don’t need to do that. You do not, I’m here to tell you. If you have the time, good for you, if you want to talk for an hour. But you don’t need to do that long. I don’t have the time.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill and I bonded the first time we met in about 13 seconds. And I think that’s average for her.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s great. You know what? You were pretty quick. I won you over pretty fast.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill can bond with a checkout clerk over any topic-
Jill K DeWit:
Oh yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
… in about 13 seconds.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, this is so true. We walk out of the store and he’ll go, what took so long? Or not even what took so long? We’re getting in the car and I’m like, did you know A, B, C and D as we’re rolling through a town? And he’s like, “How did you find that out?” I’m like, “I just asked the girl in line. She told me all about where we’re we should go for dinner tonight, what sites we have to see, and where the best place is to get a snowmobile.”
Steven Jack Butala:
I’d much prefer to bond with the bottom of a scotch bottle myself.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. That’s good. So we hope you are enjoying our new 2023 weekly show. This is the outline, so each week we answer questions from our Land Academy close member Discord forum, we review land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar and we take a deep dive into two land related topics by popular request.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. If you would like a sneak peek into our Discord channel, please go to landinvestors.com. It’s in read only format for the public and it’s free there.
Jill K DeWit:
All right, so Will wrote, thank you, Will, “Loving the new podcast format. I do have a question from the episode that came out yesterday. I posted it on YouTube, but I figured I’d duplicate here in case…” This is in Discord, of course, “…some of you had insight that you could share. So I’m trolling for areas, it’s a trolling for areas question. This is a bit geeky and maybe it doesn’t matter.”
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s why we’re all geeks here.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, we are geeks. “As I’m sitting down on my computer opening up Zillow, how zoomed in should I be? Do I want to be looking at about a 20 to 30-minute drive from west to east or south to north on the screen? Do I want to be a 50-mile diameter from the center of the screen?” I get this question, so do I understand? “And then, what count level is interesting? So if I’m at a 20 to 30-minute drive…” So he’s dropped a pin here and he’s trying to troll for new areas. So he is like, okay, how far out do I expand this bubble to see it as a good candidate to possibly mail to and to take that further and do the red, yellow, green test is what he’s asking.
So, all right, “What count level am I looking at? So let’s just say example, I’m at a 20 to 30-minute drive from east to west and I have 18 properties listed for sale and then 30 shows sold in the last 12 months. Is that enough? Or do I need to be going further out or just finding area more busy that shows 50 listed for sale and then 150 sold?” I have an answer. Do you have an answer yet?
Steven Jack Butala:
You have an answer about trolling?
Jill K DeWit:
I do. I do this. Oh my gosh, you’re so funny.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, good. I’m going to talk about bonding with the seller next.
Jill K DeWit:
You should. I’d love to do that. So honestly, I like both of these.
Steven Jack Butala:
I have the correct answer after Jill’s done.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, here’s why I have an opinion, because when I do my due diligence, I go looking at this. When a property comes in and I’m making sure that either, A, I’m going to buy it or, B, I’m going to fund it, I’m going to go to Zillow. I’m going to see what’s for sale right now, how many sold in the last 12 months?
Steven Jack Butala:
So you do drop a pin.
Jill K DeWit:
Of course, I do. Well, especially, I’m looking at that property because it’s that property right now I’m looking at that exact zip code to see are things even moving in that area now? Do I want to buy it? And maybe it may not even be a current mailer, let’s think about this too. This is a good question because we all need to be thinking about this. What if it’s a mailer that you sent out two years ago. And it’s because it’s 2023 the person’s hitting you up from a mailer you did two years ago. This is stuff you’re going to look at right now and you’re going to make these decisions like, wow, two years ago, I don’t even think it was this good, but, man, look what’s sold now. Or, ooh, two years ago was a better time, and now what’s happening, 2023 is not a good thing based on this.
Steven Jack Butala:
Silver lining Jill today, everybody.
Jill K DeWit:
What? Just today? What do you mean, today?
Steven Jack Butala:
I never looked at trolling the way that you are from a due diligence standpoint. You troll based on a target property that comes in, a target acquisition, and see if it checks out.
Jill K DeWit:
Or maybe I’m talking to someone and we’re talking about areas and I’m giving them some pointers about trolling.
Steven Jack Butala:
So first he asks, how far out should you be?
Jill K DeWit:
I’ve learned a lot from you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh my gosh, that’s sad for you.
Jill K DeWit:
Thanks. On two or three topics.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, exactly. First he’s asking, how far out should you be? There’s a lot of ways to troll, and that’s what everybody said in Discord, many people answered, many, many people weighed in on this. And one thing all of us said was, there’s a lot of ways to do this. When I troll, I set my price parameters like I talked about last week, and then I get to the, let’s call it the altitude in Zillow where-
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, nice. Sorry.
Steven Jack Butala:
… where I can see all the property. And usually, if you go too far out, the number of properties that load into your view, it’s real hard to do on the phone. I do it on the phone all the time, but it’s way more effective on a computer with a bigger screen. And so, when you’ve got a lot of real estate and you’re up at the right altitude just far down enough where you can see all the property. And what’s nice about Zillow is you can see the prices. So there’s a price attached to each little pin. And so, to answer your first question, that’s as far out as you should go. As far as mileage, this is trolling for a place to send mail. This is not due diligence trolling like Jill does. When you’re trolling for a place to send mail, it’s going to hold you back if you’re doing it from an ideological place like a pin.
Like, let’s say South Chicago or an hour out of Chicago I drop a pin and I start to troll. Super, super, super bad idea. What you’re doing is presupposing. You’re not now using data to make a decision. You’re using some preconceived, my grandmother used to live in central Illinois, and I think… That’s not the way to do this. The way you want to do it is keep an open mind, set your parameters, again, like I talked last week, and go all over the country and figure out where the numbers come out the best so that you can run a very accurate red, yellow, green test. So if it ends up being 30 or 80 miles out of a city center and maybe that’s your thing, then maybe you only troll areas like that because, for whatever reason, that’s your acquisition criteria. That’s fine. But don’t drop a pin, is my point. I think I answered it, do you?
Jill K DeWit:
There you go.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill asked me last week about… Because, obviously, we did a whole topic about trolling. It’s super important. It’s imperative that you troll to find a place to send mails that supports what you’re trying to do from a money standpoint.
Jill K DeWit:
Do you know what’s cool though about this?
Steven Jack Butala:
Take your time on this. Spend a week. That’s how important it is.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, then you find the areas, you come back, you look at different things which you sleep on a little bit. One of the things, too, that I find that this is what we do, in my exercise, maybe it was an old mailer or something that a property’s come back and I go, oh, look what’s going on in this area? And then I start digging a little deeper. And then I send it over to you and say, “Hey, can we please roll this area into our next mailer please,” because I just found this and this. You’re like, “Sure, you made the cutoff, Jill. We’ll get that in there.” Like, “Thank you.” I’ve had some little funky little nuggets that I found and we’ve done okay. Like that Northern California one, that worked out great.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s really important to keep an open mind when you’re doing this. It’s important to do stupid stuff. If you like an area like I just mentioned, Grandma’s Central… Then send some mail there. It has to, at least, somehow, a little bit, support what you’re trying to do. I love the Pacific Ocean Coast. We don’t send any mail there, because the numbers just never support what we’re trying to do.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, we have though.
Steven Jack Butala:
And we have not bought any. We’ve funded deals there for sure.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, we bought some Northern California ones. We’ve had some.
Steven Jack Butala:
In Oregon, in that. But as bread and butter types of property, that doesn’t work for us.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. I’m going to agree to disagree.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, you know what the truth is, I don’t know what we have right now because Jill does.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s okay. Thank you very much for saying that. That’s what needs to happen. Do you know what’s funny? I just picked up on something. We should maybe dive deeper into this on another show, which is we used to always say data’s cheap, mail’s where you spend the money and that’s where you be more strategic about what you’re doing. I’m finding you and me, screw the mail cost even.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, I don’t. That’s-
Jill K DeWit:
Right? The more you get into this…
Steven Jack Butala:
… long past. I say that for the better benefit of new people, I’m long past how much mailers cost.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, I want people to know this. I want people to know that you’re worrying about the mail prices in the beginning, but when you get going and you start realizing I’m starting to yield $100,000 every month, you’re going to not even care what mail costs and that’s the right attitude.
Steven Jack Butala:
At the end of every career path, Jill and I teach a mastermind course, let’s call it, called Land Academy Career Path. And at the end I ask everybody, okay, so we’ve been through 10 modules and we spent 10 weeks together. What’s everybody going to go do now that you’ve learned in incredible amount of detail? What are you going to go do? Send more mail, have an amazing transaction coordinator and answer the phone correctly. It comes down to those three things. But in the end, when I look at people who make millions and millions of dollars a year doing this in Career Path, they all don’t care about the mail. They don’t even think about it.
Jill K DeWit:
Don’t even think about it.
Steven Jack Butala:
They try to hit 10 to 20,000 units a month. They force themselves.
Jill K DeWit:
And they don’t care about the yield percentage, by the way, that’s the last thing they care about. All they care about is, wow, when I send 15,000 or 20,000 units a month-
Steven Jack Butala:
I buy four properties.
Jill K DeWit:
… I consistently make $200,000 a month. That’s all I care about.
Steven Jack Butala:
And I’m not knocking anybody, but maximizing mailer yield, meaning the lowest number of mailers that you can send out to get a good acquisition is a newbie, fictional. I’m not knocking anybody. And the people who generally ask those questions about how to maximize mail efficiency are on their way to having a great career. They’re on their way to not carrying about the mail.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. Don’t get hung up on that.
Steven Jack Butala:
So my point with this question is, please do not put yourself in a box when it comes to trolling-
Jill K DeWit:
That’s good.
Steven Jack Butala:
… and where you’re going to send mail. We see this over and over again on a Thursday call, that for whatever reason, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Florida are the vast majority of the deals that we look at on behalf of members.
Jill K DeWit:
I think it’s going to change.
Steven Jack Butala:
I do too. And I’m not being negative about it. I’m just saying that might not be the best place to send mail.
Jill K DeWit:
Right. Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
The first topic is how and why we became the leaders in the land space and held our position from 2015 to now this year, 2023. This topic is-
Jill K DeWit:
Can you believe it’s been eight years?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, I can believe it.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s my fault for asking that question.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’re going to toot our own…
Jill K DeWit:
That’s what I get.
Steven Jack Butala:
This topic sets us up and sets me up specifically to toot our own horn and puts me in a space of not comfort.
Jill K DeWit:
Not comfort?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, I don’t like sitting around saying, I’m great or we’re the best at this. And that’s about to happen here. And I’m going to try to keep the humility and the humbleness about it, about ourselves here. But the fact is-
Jill K DeWit:
That’s the first thing that comes to mind when I think of Steven.
Steven Jack Butala:
What?
Jill K DeWit:
Humility.
Steven Jack Butala:
Self humility?
Jill K DeWit:
And humble. Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Do you think I’m running around saying I’m great?
Jill K DeWit:
No, but you know-
Steven Jack Butala:
What?
Jill K DeWit:
It’s so good. No, just teasing.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill misconstrues my disgust with people and the general things that happen in the world with separatist/elitist.
Jill K DeWit:
There we go.
Steven Jack Butala:
Elitism. And that’s just not true.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
Stuff’s got to make sense in the world and that’s it.
Jill K DeWit:
I understand.
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t care where you’re coming from, if it doesn’t make sense-
Jill K DeWit:
Okay, let’s back up here.
Steven Jack Butala:
… nothing good’s going to happen.
Jill K DeWit:
This, I love this. A lot of people don’t know that we’ve been around this long and we’ve been doing land since, gosh, from the ’90s. So one of the things that we set out to do in 2014 when we sat down and planned out Land Academy and thinking how we were going to do this and what we want to include and how we want to do it, our goal was sharing our whole business model, and I mean our whole business model down to do I even need to get business cards kind of thing. It’s day one, I decided I’m going to do this. What do I need to do to prepare for it? Really committing. We decided at that same time too, how big we want this to be, what we wanted to accomplish here, and getting to that point.
And what we decided was, our first focus is being land investors. That’s first and foremost who we are. And then, Land Academy is a way for us to A, give back, and B, create a nice, awesome, healthy, brilliant community of people to do deals with. And then how do we do that? Buy. And this is why we’re here listening to you, helping you and providing the tools and the support that you need. That’s my point here. So I want to talk about that. And I also want to share what’s coming for 2023, because I want you to know that we are continuing to listen and we’re still listening. And we have some great things coming in 2023. So when you tell me ready, I’ll start spouting them off.
Steven Jack Butala:
When we started this in 2015, it took a pretty solid year, let’s just say six months, pretty solid six months of discussions between Jill and I, about whether or not we want to let the cat out of the bag on how to do this.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, true.
Steven Jack Butala:
And one of the real serious factors that pushed us over the edge to actually record the first program and create the first community, landinvestors.com and all of that, what pushed me over the edge was that at the time, I’m going to name names-
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, this is great.
Steven Jack Butala:
… all throughout the section.
Jill K DeWit:
I like this.
Steven Jack Butala:
There are exactly two other places that you could learn about how to buy and sell land at that time. One is Jack Bosch’s program. He was the first person to do this. Jack Bosch’s program called Pennies on the Dollar or something like that.
Jill K DeWit:
I think that was right, yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
And I have nothing but respect for Jack and his wife, I think Michelle’s her name. He’s from Germany and I think she’s from…
Jill K DeWit:
South America. Brazil or something.
Steven Jack Butala:
Brazil or… I hate to say it wrong.
Jill K DeWit:
I know, I don’t want to say it wrong.
Steven Jack Butala:
She’s from South America.
Jill K DeWit:
We’ll go with that.
Steven Jack Butala:
So they came to this country and really built an amazing life for themselves in a very short amount of time, largely buying and selling land. And so while they do it very differently than we do, they didn’t, at that time, utilize direct mail. I have a lot of respect for that. And so-
Jill K DeWit:
Just figured it out.
Steven Jack Butala:
… whether or not they’re great teachers, you can go look at their stuff and find out. But it was a deciding factor at looking at what they were saying about buying back tax property. His whole program back then was about back tax property. And there was a ton of it back then. There’s not so much of it anymore, largely because he teaches you how to buy it. And then there’s Mark Bielski’s program that was loosely based on Jack’s program, Jack Bosch’s.
Mark and I go back way before all of this personally, he and I worked together in an investment bank. Then, during the last downturn for a brief amount of time, Jill and I and Mark worked together in the same office and mutually learned that the way we do things and how he does it and how we do it is very different. And so, then we proceeded for several more years. Jill and I buy and sell land through direct mail very, very successfully. And ultimately learn that the world needs to know about direct mail, not just go to auctions, buy back tax property, buy liens, foreclose on them. Those are all good business models, but you’re not going to get the scalability and the fantastic freaking real estate deals that we generate, to this day, by sending out direct mail, which is exactly what we teach. My second point is that in 2015, how we did business was based on the availability of data at the time.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
And boy, think about what your phone looked like in 2015 and what it looks like now and what it can actually do and the amount of applications that are available, just the technology. I’d like to think, and I’ve assigned this to myself in life, staying on the edge of technology as it applies to buying and selling land. And we’ve got a tech staff right now that’s just, literally, they’re using AI to edit these videos. And that’s here to stay. That’s what’s going to happen in 20… I think, in general, artificial intelligence will ramp up in 2023, and you can be sure-
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, it’s huge.
Steven Jack Butala:
… that we will be explaining how to use it as it unfolds. So that brings you up to 2015. I’m not sure that Mark and Jack are keeping up with technology and utilizing direct mail the way that they should. I do know this, and this brings us now beyond 2015, because what Jill and I have done is inadvertently taught people how to teach land courses.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. Oops.
Steven Jack Butala:
And what they’re really good at is being better showman than Jill and I are on a camera like this, and they’re very good at tick top type marketing. And the two that I’ve mentioned so far are better marketers than we are, but they attract a completely different type of customer. If you’re listening to this, you’re probably the customer that we want to attract who’s a little bit brainy. Maybe your career in the past was an engineer or a pilot or something technical, or maybe you’re in real estate and you’ve bought a lot of real estate and you just want to learn how to do the direct mail component of it. And those seem to be the people that we attract, and very happy with that. Because at some point, you’re probably going to bring deals to us to fund or as a partner or for whatever reason.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
And so again, what’s happened since we’ve done this is I think that, I was thinking about this a couple days ago, Jill and I make this look easy. It’s not easy.
Jill K DeWit:
There’s a lot of moving parts.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s a lot involved. And so, a lot of people go out there and teach it. Maybe they went to college for online marketing, social media type marketing. So it’s unfortunate, but they’ve got six deals under their belt. They know how to build a website. They know how to-
Jill K DeWit:
This is all true.
Steven Jack Butala:
… attract, usually, young people who want to implement things in their life called sidekicks. What is it called?
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t know.
Steven Jack Butala:
Side hustle.
Jill K DeWit:
Side hustle.
Steven Jack Butala:
Side hustles. I’ve never said side hustle on this show ever, and never will again.
Jill K DeWit:
That was the first and the last.
Steven Jack Butala:
You’re like, “What’s that thing?”
Jill K DeWit:
This is not a side hustle.
Steven Jack Butala:
No. Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
This is not passive of income.
Steven Jack Butala:
No. This is our career.
Jill K DeWit:
This is a way to make a couple million dollars a month.
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t want it to be a side hustle. I want it to be full time.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, you know what’s funny about that? What happens too, and this may be you listening, that some people come to us because you found those other people, they got your feet wet and you got to taste for it. Now you’re like, oh, this is now going to be a career. And then you come to us. And I think that’s actually worked out nice over the years how I’m very happy to say, “Hey, I don’t think all education is good. The more education, the more you… Whatever got you interested in it, I think that’s awesome and great. And you’re probably here with us now because you see, all right, I can really automate a lot of things with you guys. I can figure out what I need to work on. I can take this to the moon like you guys. Now I’m ready to do that. I’m not here chasing people for $99 a month anymore.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m ready to make this a thing, an empire.
Steven Jack Butala:
In the last, probably, 12 to 24 months there’s been a ton of people that have copied our stuff.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s like, what?
Steven Jack Butala:
And most people have failed. Two groups specifically. One in Ohio and one in Texas have literally copied everything that we’ve done and said. And they’re-
Jill K DeWit:
Almost chapter by chapter.
Steven Jack Butala:
… attracting and they’re selling programs. They’ve done less than 10 deals. And I don’t really care, I truly don’t. At the point now where we’re taking legal action in certain cases. But I don’t really care because I don’t care that it affects Jill and I. It doesn’t affect Jill and I at all. It doesn’t take a dollar out of our her pocket. What upsets me is they’re not teaching it right.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
They’re just regurgitating stuff. They have no real deal experience. They’re just a smiling face on a camera and it’s too bad.
Jill K DeWit:
And that’s the stuff you need to know.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think I feel bad for the people that are involved in their group because I just don’t think they have the credibility.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, they probably don’t even know. So that’s what we’re solving.
Steven Jack Butala:
So back to the positive, not the negative. We are here to create potential members, potential partners for ourselves, and create an environment, which we have created, for people who want to make a lot of money and enjoy buying and selling land or whatever else together with other partners.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, not only that, and have the lifestyle. There’s two parts of what we do. One is getting rich. Another one is being able to have the time that you want to totally goof off. I had a wonderful conversation with a girl the other day and she’s like, “All right, I wanted to be with you guys when I figured out how you’re going around an RV and having that life.” And she made the cutest comment like, I see it, I get it. And if I work an hour a day, I feel like I did something. I’m like, “Right? Me too. That’s awesome.” And you can get to that point where you’re really only working an hour a day, looking at deals and approving them, and then going off and having fun. For us, it’s getting in the RV, for her it was spending time with a grandson.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, that’s good.
Jill K DeWit:
Totally. That’s just like, this is the life I want. And she’s a broker, and she’s done all kinds of other things. She’s like, “That’s where I need to be.” I’m like, “Well, shoot, we’ll get you there. That’s easy.” So that’s the thing. I want to add, I want to use this time to announce some of the things that are coming for 2023, because this is huge.
What we talked about in the beginning is, we listened to you, and we want to give you what you need. Our hearts are in this to really help you. One of the things that was very successful in the past, and I’m bringing back this year, is Land Academy Ladies. It’s going to start in February. I’m telling right now, I’m 90% sure this is going to be the date. So those of you in Land Academy can be thinking about this. It’s probably going to be the first Tuesday of every month. I don’t know what time yet, so bear with me. But look at the first Tuesday of every month. For those of you who are in the advanced group say, well, we’re the first Tuesday of every month. You’re right. So they will both happen on that same day.
Steven Jack Butala:
So what is Land Academy ladies, Jill?
Jill K DeWit:
It is an accountability group. It’s for ladies only. You need to be a member of Land Academy yourself. I have a lot of women that are, or you’re in a partnership situation, maybe even a couple girls working together, whatever it is, you’re “loosely” a member of Land Academy yourself.
Steven Jack Butala:
Just have your man stand four feet behind you and out of the screenshot.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, he can’t be in the screenshot, no.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what I do.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, exactly. You can come and go behind the camera all you want-
Steven Jack Butala:
Until I can’t take it anymore, I do.
Jill K DeWit:
… and sit and listen, write things down, and hold up notes.
Steven Jack Butala:
He did that for the first couple-
Jill K DeWit:
That happens.
Steven Jack Butala:
… of sessions and then Jill’s like, you should just not be in this.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s for ladies. We’re going to talk about deals. It’s going to be a place that I can talk with girls too, and really help them. Maybe it’s a confidence thing. I don’t know. Maybe they need money and they want to work with me. There’s a difference working with another woman. We look at things differently, so we’re going to talk about that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Maybe it’s a sewing circle for land.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s not that. So it will be-
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m completely joking and trying to get a [inaudible 00:27:49] out of you.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s totally fine. You know what this is, by the way? Land Academy Ladies is the first, and the only, woman focused land investment community-
Steven Jack Butala:
Excellent.
Jill K DeWit:
… period. How’s that? Do you need me to explain to that anymore?
Steven Jack Butala:
Nope.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s not a sewing circle.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s not a sewing circle.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s Badass Land Investing, howtogetrich.com when Jill’s a ringleader. That’s what Land Academy Ladies is.
Jill K DeWit:
Number two, this is huge. You ask, we listen for bringing back accountability groups. Those are most likely going to be looking in the evenings.
Steven Jack Butala:
Can men go to this?
Jill K DeWit:
Yes. Men can go to this.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, thank you.
Jill K DeWit:
This is everybody. This is going to be held by you. It’s going to be in the evenings starting in February, and it’s going to be four-week groups. It will be led primarily by Jack, and you’re going to have some other guest hosts and things that will join you and/or do different weeks depending how you have this planned.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you are a woman or a female in any way, you’re welcome in my group.
Jill K DeWit:
There you go.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill’s group is closed.
Jill K DeWit:
Yep.
Steven Jack Butala:
My group is open.
Jill K DeWit:
There you go. No problem. I’m building up here because we have some good stuff. I know there’s a lot of people like, please say live event. I’ll get to that. So number three is Career Path, Career Path number six. We are tentatively planning this to be an eight-week program. Our next dates are, be Wednesdays again, going April 12th through May 31st. So have that in your head. Be thinking about that. More information will be coming out again. Career Path is our highest level personalized coaching taught by Jack and I.
Steven Jack Butala:
Personally taught.
Jill K DeWit:
Personally taught by Jack and I.
Steven Jack Butala:
We didn’t hire actors.
Jill K DeWit:
And it’s a lot.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s all of it.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s everything. You do not have to be a member going into it. We have had very successful people, already in real estate in some way, come to us and dive into Career Path and kill it, like Carl and Samantha Lapis. So they’re a perfect example. So you don’t have to be a member already going into it. This is not Land 101. You do need to have some experience, preferably as a business owner and preferably having some real estate experience going to it because that’s who this is set up for.
Steven Jack Butala:
So let me stop you for a second.
Jill K DeWit:
Sure.
Steven Jack Butala:
Why are we doing this.
Jill K DeWit:
Because everybody wants to do this because they want to grow their businesses.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s rhetorical. One second.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, I’m sorry.
Steven Jack Butala:
Why are we committing all this time, Jill and I personally, to provide stuff that is essentially not going to generate any real money for us. We’re doing it because of what I talked about earlier, because we made a commitment to instruct people how to buy and sell land or lead, let’s say, the right way. And people are asking us for accountability group. People are asking Jill to bring back the Land Academy Ladies. They like it. And Career Path, geez, what a smash hit. People are asking for it. In our group, they’re asking for more leadership and more of our time, and we’re doing that.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, I’m so glad. Announcement number four. So we have the Ladies’ Accountability Groups Career Path number six. And by the way, because it’s happening now, for anyone who was in Career Path one through five, you want to come back to number six? The answer is yes. I’ll hook you up with something special if you want to come back, because that’s how it goes. It’s that good.
Steven Jack Butala:
We have multiple people return to career path from former career paths. That makes me personally feel great.
Jill K DeWit:
Totally. And by the way, too, I’m going to tell you right now, at the most, I’m doing two career paths this year. That’s it. So if you’re thinking about Career Path and you’re like, oh, I’ll wait for the next one. The next one will be in the fall sometime, and that’s it. There’s a springtime one and a fall one, and that’ll be it this year. Now, number four is super excited about Land Academy Pro. Do you want to explain what we’re talking about here?
Steven Jack Butala:
In the last three career paths… No, it doesn’t matter. In many of the career paths, not all of them, we thought it was a good idea for Jill and I to introduce our staff members, our key staff members on the land side, not on the Land Academy side, about how Jill’s staff closes deals and finds great real estate agents to post a property once we purchased it and liquidate it, turn it back into cash. We have some key players there. And how Mail gets out effectively, essentially the people that run Concierge Data Plus for our mailers. We introduced our staff to the people in Career Path, and both of them, on separate occasions, did pretty extensive in-depth presentations on how it works, why it works, what it’s like to work with Jill, what it’s like to work with me, you name it. And immediately half the people in Career Path tried to hire those people, which I had to say, honestly, I probably would’ve done the same thing.
Jill K DeWit:
Totally.
Steven Jack Butala:
So of course that got right back to us immediately. And what we decided in the end is to make those people available to real serious people who are buying and selling land via a product called Land Academy Pro. And so, yes, we are providing access through our staff for you so that you don’t have to do your own mailer anymore, you can outsource it. And you don’t have to do your own transactions anymore, you can outsource it for less than half of what it would cost for you to actually go hire these people and do it all yourselves.
Jill K DeWit:
Here’s an outline of what Land Academy Pro is going to be. It’s going to come with a CRM. You’re going to have an Airtable set-up ready to go for you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Same one we use.
Jill K DeWit:
You’re going to have a CRM, you’re going to have a transaction coordinator, you’re going to have your own concierge, you’re going to have prepaid mail ready to go. And you’re going to have someone calling you and making sure that you get the mail out as you want it to happen, pushing you forward.
Steven Jack Butala:
Exactly.
Jill K DeWit:
And my staff, by the way, this is what’s great about Land Academy Pro-
Steven Jack Butala:
Same thing we have, by the way.
Jill K DeWit:
… so think about this, here’s what you’re going to only have to do. You’re only going to be trolling, finding the places, setting the pricing that you want. You’re not doing any of the downloading, any of the scrubbing, any of that stuff. You’re approving that stuff and it goes out. And then we’ll even help you, if you want, set up the inbound calls. If you want to take the calls, fine. If you want my team to help you set up that so you don’t have to take the calls, fine. They’ll help set you up, no big deal. And then all you’re doing is approving deals and walking away because then my staff, like I do, they’ll find the title company, they’ll open escrow, they’ll babysit it all the way through. And then, if you want, they will go and get you a nice broker in that area and get it listed and sold for you.
Steven Jack Butala:
How great is that?
Jill K DeWit:
This is all a draft. This is not completely done yet, and I’m not exactly sure how it’s going to pan out. I will tell you this, I will personally interview people that…
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, that’s true.
Jill K DeWit:
This is not just go and sign up.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is not at all… Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t want a high maintenance personality. We don’t need a high maintenance personality at Land Academy Pro. We have enough of them in Atlantic Academy itself, and it wears on our staff, number one. Number two, we’re not going to make this an a la carte. “Well, I already prepaid for some mail, and I’m going to do that over here. But all I really need is a transaction coordinator and I want to go get my own…” That’s not how this is.
Here’s the CRM I use, and this is how it’s going to work.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. It’s too hard on our staff to acclimate. You have to acclimate to this product. It’s not going to acclimate-
Jill K DeWit:
And last time I checked, our stuff works.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, exactly.
Jill K DeWit:
So we’re rolling you into the fold, and it’s going to be, I don’t know, five or 10 people to start.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m being really honest here. This is truth time. Jill’s making it sound like we’re going to do the deal for you. We’re not.
Jill K DeWit:
No.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’re not going to choose where to send mail. We’re not going to price your mailer.
Jill K DeWit:
You’re doing that.
Steven Jack Butala:
You’re going to do all of that.
Jill K DeWit:
And you’re going to approve the deals. You’re going to pick them.
Steven Jack Butala:
And you are going to return the phone calls for the sellers that come in.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
What we’re doing is taking the mechanics out of this, the stuff that is very mechanical, and quite honestly, we’re better at than you are. We’re better at getting a mailer out really effectively and probably better at getting a deal done on the backend from a-
Jill K DeWit:
Through escrow and all that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Escrow, exactly.
Jill K DeWit:
Solving those issues.
Steven Jack Butala:
What we’re not as good at as you are is create places to send mail. We’re not as good at, probably-
Jill K DeWit:
We are, but we weren’t going to pick it for you.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’re not the best person to tell you where to send mail, you are.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’re not the best person to price that mailer, you are. Or otherwise we would do it.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
And so, it’s an amazing product for the right select few people, and we’re only probably going to pick 10 people, I think.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s what I thought. Can I get to my last event?
Steven Jack Butala:
Am I holding you back here?
Jill K DeWit:
Little bit. It’s all good. There’ll be more on this coming, so stay tuned. This is just letting you know what 2023 is all about. Last thing is live event, live event, live event, live event. You have been asking, and I know we’ve been listening. We took a COVID break like the planet, so we’re going to do it. So mark your calendars for October 2023 here in the Scottsdale, Arizona area. So I don’t have the exact dates. We’re going to have them in the next couple weeks, but that is what we’re going to do. We are committed to that. There’s going to be a couple different sessions. There’s going to be a day of only the Pro people and maybe the Career Path people. We will have special days for just those groups to have intimate time with us and intimate time with our peers.
Steven Jack Butala:
Intimate time with Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
Intimate time with Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s in my calendar, actually.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you. It’s not Saturday night with your little stars that you’ve got. That’s funny.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s a whole topic for next Wednesday’s, intimate time with Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
There you go. If you want to put stars on in October, but your wife might have something to say about that. I’m just saying, “What the heck is this, babe? So going to Scottsdale for what?”
Steven Jack Butala:
What live event are we going to? Well, I’m going to an event called Intimate Time With Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
It might be a felony.
Jill K DeWit:
Thanks. No, that’s not that. And then, we’re going to change it up this time. For those of you who’ve been with us for a while, we did several back in California pre-COVID. And it was only members. We had a smaller room. We were really limited in what we can do. So it was a only Land Academy member live event. So we’re going to open up to the public. But we don’t worry, we’ll have member pricing and special things for you members. It’s going to be, because we know you, we appreciate you. So that’s coming.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s more?
Jill K DeWit:
No, that’s it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, okay.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m looking at my other things here. So, no, that is it. I’m so excited.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a look at one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member call.
Jill K DeWit:
Did you know that we have a full-blown commercial printing company called Offers 2 Owners. It’s offers, and the number 2, owners.com. We talk about direct mail, and it’s so important to be able to have a place that knows you, gets you, understands you, oh, and by the way, is price better than anywhere that you can get this. So check out offers2owners.com. Also, there’s a free e-book that explains the service, what’s going on. So check that out. And that’s also where you find Concierge. You hear us talking about Concierge Data, Concierge Data Plus, these different products where we will go in and get the data for you, download the data, scrub the data, and get it ready for you to price. All of that can also be found there. Check it out.
Steven Jack Butala:
Hey, you’re probably or might be watching this on YouTube. If you like this, the content, please say you like it, or put a comment in there. Really helps us. Or don’t like it. If you don’t like it, the little thumbs down, it helps us to create better content in the future.
Jill K DeWit:
If you do a thumbs down, would you please tell us why, so we know, by the way, don’t just go, eh.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take another question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. Again, if you want a little sneak peek for free at what goes on in Discord, the minute by minute community that you can take a peek at, go to landinvestors.com. It’s free, and you can check it out in a read only format.
Jill K DeWit:
Cool. Chris wrote, “So I’m still working on my first mailer, and I found a really good area where it’s around 150 sold and 50 listed for sale. So the problem I’m facing is that in the area, price per acre is anywhere between $20,000 and $200,000. And I’ve taken the outliers off the top and the bottom, and it’s still a gradual price change over the properties. If I use the average, I’m going overprice a lot of the cheaper properties. So I went through the module on several pricing on pricing several times.” Thank you very much, Chris. “And I don’t see a solution. Any help would be appreciated.” As a side note, I do think, because he’s watched it several times, this is very cute. I do think Jack has a black belt in Excel-jitsu.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, jeez.
Jill K DeWit:
Which is true, I love that. So I do have a note here that Kevin wrote, one of our moderators on the site. And he wrote, and then I’ll let you jump in, “The data’s telling you zip to zip code price…”
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m going to stop you right there.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
The data is telling you fill in the blank. I modeled Land Academy and how we buy and sell land after that sentence. And so, I love this question. I personally picked it, actually. Chris says, “This thing is happening. There’s a huge spread. I did the trolling, I did the red green yellow test. I downloaded the data, I did everything I’m supposed to do. There’s too much of a variance in the same like-kind property in the zip code. It’s from $20,000 to $200,000. What do I do? I don’t want to overprice my mailer.” and Kevin is saying, the data is telling you something. There’s too much of a spread. This is exactly how this should go. Go ahead, Jill. The data’s telling you…
Jill K DeWit:
Oh. The data’s telling you zip code price or the neighborhood price. You are correct. You cannot just take the average when there’s so much span from low to high price break or…
Steven Jack Butala:
More urban areas that you get into, the more this is going to happen. You’re going to have a massive variance in what you think are like-kind property, but the data is telling you it’s not like-kind property. So this is a master’s degree level pricing. This is what I do in the situations, and it happens a lot. I take the regular mailer that I’m working on and I sort by APN. And so, now I have a bunch of property. What you’re going to find is that the values in certain APNs, you’re going to see most of them bunched up in the closer to the $20,000 range, and I’m a bunch of them at the end bunched up at a $200,000 range. And now you’re doing exactly what Kevin said. Now you’re down past the zip code pricing, down to neighborhood pricing or APN pricing.
That’s option one. You have exactly two options when this happens. Option one is, if you’ve got a lot of confidence and a bunch of mailers on your belt, do what I just said, please. If not, and I do this often too, I say, screw it, everyone’s getting a 10% offer. Does one way yield a better response than the other? I don’t know. We do it either way and we buy a bunch of property. I hope that answers it. There’s a lot people who get into the land business brand new that think for whatever reason, and I’m not saying that this person is liked this at all, this is a great question, that it’s like trading stock where there’s just one way to do it.
And that’s what keeps tons and tons of people out of this business who shouldn’t be in it, probably, anyway. And it allows a select view, or let’s say the top 20% to make hoards of money because they figure out issues like this along the way. This is a fantastic question. These are the kinds of questions we talk about in Career Path for hours until we get it resolved. In fact, I’ll look at somebody’s mailer live and do what I just did and we’ll fix it together.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you very much. Glad you shared that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s second topic is Jill’s going to talk about bonding with sellers on the phone from the first inbound call. And I’m going to fill in my opinion here so that she can buy the property at the price she wants.
Jill K DeWit:
What the heck?
Steven Jack Butala:
By the way, in my entire personal life, I’m on the recipient end of, let’s call it, in the nicest way possible, ‘Jill gets what she wants’ manipulation.
Jill K DeWit:
I love that. Thank you for saying that. That’s so flattering.
Steven Jack Butala:
I wouldn’t have any other way.
Jill K DeWit:
Why do you say that?
Steven Jack Butala:
Because, Jill, you are a go-getter. Jill’s an intense person, and she’s a type A personality that’s turned up to volume nine during her waking hours. And part of that is getting what she wants so she can move forward and go have fun.
Jill K DeWit:
Last time I checked you were benefiting from all that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
This isn’t a complaint.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay, got it.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m just saying I hear her talk to sellers and I’m like, she’s going to get that property for what she wants.
Jill K DeWit:
Yep.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m very aware of how that works.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. Well, a lot of it starts with this. You have to, right away, get on the same page. And that’s my goal in life, by the way, not just talking with sellers. So let me paint the picture here. So the mailers go out, they come back. I still, to this day, answer the phone off and on when we hit new areas because I don’t know what’s going on. I’m going to learn some stuff here too, and keep my skills up. And I just love it. I’m not afraid of these calls. That’s a thing, you never know who’s going to call you. So my philosophy is, hey, it could be a seller calling you, it could be a buyer calling you. So number one, have a good attitude when you answer the phone. So that’s actually the very first way that I bond with them instantly. I’m not a next, there’s no monotone, boring, Mike. I hate that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Mike?
Jill K DeWit:
People do that.
Steven Jack Butala:
What’s Mike?
Jill K DeWit:
No, they just answer the phone, they just say their name, “Mike.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, that’s crazy. I never do that.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh yeah. People do stuff like that. If anything, my unusual response is, “This is Jill.” I say it exactly like that. I’m nice, I’m happy, I’m friendly. And so, my first thing is, no matter who’s calling me, if they’re in a good mood, it’s going to put them in a better mood and be like, “Oh, good, this person’s happy too, this is going to be great.” If they’re mad, it catches them off guard and they don’t know what to do with that for a second. It like, “Oh, crap. A, I’m talking to Jill, her name’s on the mailer. And B, she’s having a good day. How am I going to scream at this person because I’m not happy about this letter?” So that’s the first thing that I do. The next thing I do is quiet and listen, let them get out. “Hi, this is Jill.” “All right, hold on a second. Okay. You just sent me this letter,” la, da, da, da, da. “I hate this price. It’s been in my family forever,” fill in the blank. This is how it really goes.
Let them get that out. The next thing you want to do is like, “I get it. I understand. And if I made a mistake, I’m sorry about that.” Now I’ve calmed them. I’ve agreed with them. I let them get it out. They feel good about this. Now it’s like, “Whew!” Now they’re coming down another notch. I’m happy. I’m not arguing with them. That’s the last thing you want to do is say, “No, I was right. No, I meant that.” Who cares? And we will let all that work out. So we get that out of the way. I agree with him. Now, the next thing is, this is me, and I agreed with them, and that’s bonding with them too. I’m happy, I’m agreeing with them.
The next thing is making it a relationship like, we both want something out of this here. Do you want to sell? I get it, whatever, I said that sentence, and I’m saying, whatever it is, let’s first just understand, do you even want to sell the property? I get the price was wrong. “Yeah. I do.” Great, we’re further bonding again. We’re on the same page. And now I have uncovered we have the same goal here. And by the way, this is less than two minutes in, we’ve got all this out of the way. Now, the next question is, “Awesome. All right. You know how I roll. I’m not an agent, I’m the owner. You’re talking to me. You can see my name on that. What is the bottom number that you would sell this for? And let’s see if we can make something work here.” That’s it, that fast, that easy. We’re on the same page, and now the conversation will just unfold.
Steven Jack Butala:
So, notice all, what I got out of what Jill just said is that she didn’t say the word price one time. Many, many, many people in this business, and in real estate in general, think about pricing and prices first. I’m one of those people. Jill takes, this is a relationship approach because I think subconsciously Jill believes that if she gets this person on her page, then she’s going to get the price she wants.
Jill K DeWit:
Yep.
Steven Jack Butala:
They potentially may be calling because they’re not happy with the price, but she doesn’t address that. She addresses the emotional and the relationship part of all of this first, and if she assesses whether they not they really want to sell, and then she goes to work on the price.
Jill K DeWit:
Yep.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s because, if they want to sell the property and we like the property, the chances are she’s going to get it for the prices she wants. You know how we spend so much time deconstructing a mailer talking about pricing. We spend a tremendous amount of time on that when the fact is, and then we answer the phone like Mike. That’s not… You need this component of this in your business to make this work. And when Jill deconstructs it and says, okay, this is what we do first, step one, step two, step three, step four. I’m not sure enough people take that really seriously.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you. When you learn how to do this and you really master it, you can solve so many problems with overpricing and underpricing and get good deals. That’s the huge thing. And I’ve done this. I’ve had people in the past, I’m like, “All right, let me call them. Watch what happens. I’ll get it. I’ll get it where we want it to be.” People immediately go, “Well, what’s the number…” That’s where you don’t want to go. You don’t want to go, “Well, do you have the reference number on there?” And start pushing back. You don’t want to do that. Take them in. Understand where they’re coming from and figure this out together. And what’s so funny is when you do this and you have this relationship with them, now you’re a real person. You have your own little company, and they’re going to recognize that. And sometimes it’s just a little like maybe we offered $16,500, and they just say, “Can you make it 20?” I’m like, “I could. Yeah, I could probably do that. Let me see if I can make that work,” kind of thing. That’s all it is.
It’s not like they’re saying 16.5 should be 45. They just seem to get that out. And sometimes too, by the way, see, if you piss them off too fast, you don’t even get a chance.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s right.
Jill K DeWit:
This is a problem.
Steven Jack Butala:
You’re closing the door. You’re slamming the door closed.
Jill K DeWit:
And they’re like, click, gone. Good luck getting them back. But by taking this approach and having this dialogue with them, you are going to yield so many more deals. Part of it is, too, sometimes, maybe there’s a real reason that I didn’t know about, and this conversation, I’m going to find out.
I’m going to go, “What’s the number?” Well, they’re going to say something like this, “Did you know that I am right next door to the new Amazon that is half built?” I didn’t know that. And that changes it for me too. Okay. “Did you know…” Fill in the blank? Oh my gosh, I did not know that, because I’m not looking at it yet. Remember too, I have not even looked at it. And the way we do our mailers, I don’t sit and pick out what’s waterfront and have a little star on it and says, the reference number has W for waterfront on there. Heck no. We’re going to figure all that out later. And that’s by design. We just need to get people back that are interested in selling. Then we try to work a deal here. And often my number does work sometimes too.
Let me get back to this first one. You’re going to get more information. Let’s just say there’s really good information as to why it should be more. And you’re going to take that in. You’re going to learn about that on this call, and you’re going to adjust it and make a deal. Sometimes too, they have it in their head that it’s worth three times as much. And it might not be. So I want to just set this up, this will be another time where we can talk about adding money and I can talk about taking money away, but this exact scenario, I’m set up to do it all, and I’m even set up to take it away. We’re going to have a little bit of relationship. They’re getting to know me, I’m a good person. They’re going to give me a number and I’m going to try to make it work.
And I’m going to say, “I need a day or two to work on this. When’s the best time to reach you? What’s the best number?” After I taken in all the information that I need to go look at it and spend some time on it, then I’m going to call them back as promised in two days, like I said, because the conversation, calm down, we all talked, we’re all feeling good. They walk away thinking I’m trying to make this deal. And when I call them back in 48 hours as promised, and I have to say, “I heard you. I got it. And I know you said my 16.5 Should be 20. All right, I hate to tell this to you, but that Amazon thing is a bust. It didn’t happen. You may have not seen that, but it actually didn’t. They walked away from that.” Who knows whatever it is? Things like that happen. And I’ll say, “And/or your property’s not where you think it is.” Maybe that’s even it. Amazon is like 10 miles away. It’s not next door like you thought it was.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s the property in a different state that you think you own.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. So these are all real stuff that can happen. But if you don’t have this bond with them and get this relationship, you’re not going to have these conversations.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s right.
Jill K DeWit:
And I’ll call back and say, “All right, and I know you wanted 20, if that was a situation, I would’ve paid 20. That would’ve happened. But this is a real situation. And now even my 16.5 is now 10. So this is the story.” And then we go from there.
Steven Jack Butala:
Before Jill and I joined forces professionally, my business model was as follows, send out 10,000 units of mail. On a county basis there was no such thing as zip code pricing or anything like that for $1 amount. So let’s say I’ll send out 10,000 letters in southeastern Colorado in a county that I pick out for $5,000 for every single five acre property that was in the entire multi county mailer. And then I would not answer the phone, intentionally not answer the phone, intentionally not listen to the messages. I would only look at mailers that came back signed. And I made a small fortune. You cannot get away with that anymore. It’s just not how it works. People want to know that you’re a real person. And, Jill, you know what? Maybe you could get away with it. Maybe you could send out 10 or 20,000 units and get-
Jill K DeWit:
Some do.
Steven Jack Butala:
… one or two deals and go on your happy way.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s true. But you’re leaving a lot of stuff on the table.
Steven Jack Butala:
The first couple of career paths that we ever instructed, that was their model. For some reason, they learned how to do that from some other past place. And the reason that they were in Career Path, because they’re unhappy with the results that we were describing. And the first thing, what Jill and I said was, well, you’re not answering the phone and establishing a recent relationship with the seller so you get the price that you want. And that did not please them. The people that were already down the path, they wanted to know the secret way to price mailers to get a better mailing result. And the answer is, there’s no secret way to price mailers. You know everything about pricing, you, as a listener, or a Land Academy member, or a career path graduate, let’s say, than I know about pricing. If you want to increase your mailing yield, you need to learn how to do this like Jill does. Or better yet, do what I did and find a partner who is just as natural at it, maybe a career corporate salesperson, and team up with them.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s really, really good advice.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a look at another one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar. Jill, do you have something inspirational to share with us today?
Jill K DeWit:
I do. I was thinking about this. You know what, this is going to be our year. I can feel it.
Steven Jack Butala:
I can too, actually.
Jill K DeWit:
With everything that we’ve done, we’ve got our staff where we need to be. We’ve got our heads where we need to be. We’ve identified some more awesome niches where we can really help people and provide really great value to help them grow their businesses. So I’m so excited. So I just wanted to say this is going to be our year and I hope it’s going to be yours. How about you, Jack? Do you have some informational nugget for us today?
Steven Jack Butala:
I mean, before I share my little bit here, I really believe that 2023 is very special, much more special than the last three or four years because there’s a lot of volatility in real estate. Interest rates are up. I talk about it every Thursday. There will be a huge price correction, specifically in houses and commercial real estate, and obviously land follows all that. So I agree with you.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you. So what’s your info nugget for us?
Steven Jack Butala:
So my little title here is, Learning by Association from the Best in the Business in 2023. I’ve watched Jill, in the last two or three years, slowly stop looking at price tags. It might be something simple like a grocery store run. It might be something huge like an Acura NSX. She is slowly, and I’m going to say graduated, this is not a character flaw.
Jill K DeWit:
This is hilarious.
Steven Jack Butala:
Because in the back of her head, she’s learned… And I shouldn’t say just Jill, it’s me too. We’ve unilaterally done this together, not even ever talking about it until this moment. Just wants what she wants, and she wants the best of stuff. And she has assigned that to herself. When we lived in California a few years ago, and we were looking for office space, and it started with a conversation like this, “Wow, we need some better office space.” And I said, “Well, we should get office space right on the Pacific Ocean because we can afford it and we’re doing great and we’ll film.” And then, about three weeks later, we said, “Screw it. Let’s put the studio in our house and live on the ocean.” And-
Jill K DeWit:
That’s right.
Steven Jack Butala:
… we’ve assigned. And forever since then, Jill says, “Jack just wants to live in the first row.”
Jill K DeWit:
That’s true. Front row Jack.
Steven Jack Butala:
So I’ve assigned only the best to myself.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m not boasting. I don’t need a new car, ever. I don’t ever buy a new car, ever. I’ve had maybe one new car in my entire life. And I’m not saying I’m better than anyone, but for whatever reason, we have assigned this, I want the best… Not material possessions, I want the best educational experience. I want the best, let’s say, a culinary experience, although that’s not my thing. More of Jill’s. But we’ve just learned to expect and enjoy at this age and our income and all of that, the best of stuff. So I think you should think about that as a listener or a viewer and think about… We had a guy in Career Path this last time that makes $6 million last-year. And he was in career path because it wasn’t good enough for him. He will never stop.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
He’s assigned that to himself to be better. I’ve said this in the past, Neil Pert, who recently passed away, was a drummer for the Rock Band Rush. And I learned late in his life that he was still taking lessons. Long, arguably one of the best rock drummers ever since the history of time was taking lessons almost till he died. And so, with that type of improvement to reach just a higher place constantly, and hold yourself accountable like that, I think that’ll take you a long, long way in your land investment career.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, we do that too. We’re constantly reading and picking up new things and trying to have an open mind to new ways, new ideas, new products, everything.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yep.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Join us next Wednesday for another interesting episode because you are not alone in your real estate ambition. We’re Jack-
Jill K DeWit:
And Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
Information-
Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration-
Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
https://youtu.be/JkwTwLJYmgM
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
DescriptionJoin us on our first of many long-form podcasts as we navigate the 2023 real estate market and share the top tips and strategies for finding winning land investments. Discover what top land investors are doing differently in 2023, how to classify your properties, and see real-life deals our paid members have secured. Learn how to identify new markets and determine if they are a good fit for your investment portfolio. With decades of experience in the land business, we have seen it all and are ready to share our knowledge with you. Tune in on iTunes, Spotify, Amazon, Google, or watch the video version on YouTube. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to take your real estate investments to the next level in 2023.
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m Stephen Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m Jill DeWit, and this is the Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is episode number 1,935. Today, we are taking an in-depth look at a couple of topics called What Top Land Investors Are Doing Differently for 2023 and How to Troll for New Land Acquisition Markets Like A Pro. It all starts with trolling.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, before that, I would like to point out a couple things. Number one, this is our new format. I want to let everybody know this is it. Glad you’re here. Get your coffee. Get your tea. Get your Coke. Settle in. This is going to go probably, I don’t know, anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour or so. We’ll see where this takes us.
Jill K DeWit:
So our new format is instead of the weekly short shows, where a lot of you have said, “Oh, wait, I really wanted to hear the whole deep dive about it,” which is a snippet, we’re going to give you those deep dives because you guys have really asked for that. So we’re excited to do that.
Jill K DeWit:
The other thing I want to point out is when we say show number 1,935, we really do mean 1,935 starting with episode zero, basically, because I’m sure there were negative zero because there’s probably a few that we started with years ago and since replaced, probably pulled down and replaced because I don’t know how great they were, but we’ve been doing this for a while. So I’m really looking forward to this. So what’s going on with you?
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m just ready to … I’m embracing this new format. It’s going to give us a chance to really take an in-depth look at some of these topics versus just skipping along the topic.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. I want this to be like you get to imagine you’re in the room with us right now, and as we’re just discussing things, like we always do, just now with cameras on and mics on, we’re going to have these longer conversations. We’re going to have our partners meetings right here with you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, gosh. Please spare them, spare the listener.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, all of them. I’ll remove the arguing. I’ll remove the, “That’s stupid,” or you know what? Actually, we might leave that in. Maybe all the, “That’s a stupid idea,” we’ll leave those in because we don’t always agree.
Steven Jack Butala:
So like Jill says, new for 2023. This is our weekly show now. We’ll take a couple of member questions from our Land Academy Discord forum like we always have. We’ll review some of our favorite land acquisitions from our Thursday member webinar, and ultimately take a deep dive look into two land-related topics that are requested on the Discord channel. If you’re a member, go on Discord. There’s a place called Content Topic Suggestions. Please, if you want us to talk about anything or ask a question-
Jill K DeWit:
Put it in there.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yup, we’ll happily cover it.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s awesome.
Steven Jack Butala:
All right. Let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. If you want a sneak peek at our Discord channel, please go to landinvestors.com. It’s embedded there, read-only, and it’s free.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s pretty cool. All right. So Sid wrote, “I need some advice on how to structure land purchases. To date, I’ve only purchased one piece of property at a time, and sold it in the name of my Texas LLC. Since joining Land Academy, I’ve ramped up, and I will have three in escrow or purchased in the next 30 days. I know there’s not a lot of liability in land, but I’m looking at putting each in a land trust that has my LLC as a beneficiary. To set up the trust, I would’ve named a trustee who resigns immediately, so no link to the beneficiary.” That’s interesting. “I’m just trying to protect my assets. Is this too complicated or is there an easy way to do this? Thanks for the help.”
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. It’s already sounding … By the time you get to set up, Sid, I would’ve had his soul. Number one, I see that problem right there. Seriously, right?
Steven Jack Butala:
A land trust, the benefit to a land trust. Land trusts are brilliant, by the way. They originated in the early 1900s, maybe the late 1800s in Illinois for the sole purpose of leaving, of creating a document, the trust itself, so you can’t easily trace back ownership. It was specifically done because people were getting sued. The first thing that lawyers would do was try to locate all the land that somebody owns, and then decide whether or not if they have-
Jill K DeWit:
The dough-
Steven Jack Butala:
… the dough.
Jill K DeWit:
… to be sued.
Steven Jack Butala:
So land trust make it very difficult to do this because when you look up property records, it could be XYZ trust, and there’s no real way, unlike corporate commission.
Jill K DeWit:
You’ve got to get your hands on the documents to see who are the people in the trust.
Steven Jack Butala:
If the documents are locked away in a safe somewhere, then you’re ultimately not going to find out. It’s not impossible, but it makes it very difficult. So that’s the real benefit of a land trust. Sid’s asking us if he’s making it too complicated here, and yes, you are making it too complicated. I think that a Texas LLC is, I mean, 99.999% of the time is going to be great. I’m very aware of land trust.
Jill K DeWit:
We don’t do it.
Steven Jack Butala:
They’re appropriate in some cases, but-
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, for this kind of a thing.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you’re after anonymity, then go for it.
Jill K DeWit:
I was like, “Are there extra costs and accounting stuff involved in this?”
Steven Jack Butala:
No, because the trust … I don’t know if the trust files a tax return. I don’t think so.
Jill K DeWit:
Hold on a moment. That’s the whole thing. Since we have the time, I’d like to ask.
Steven Jack Butala:
Extra costs?
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. Are there going to be extra costs due to work incurred by my accountant untangling this at the end of the year?
Steven Jack Butala:
No, because I don’t think an accountant’s going to care whether the property’s under land trust or not. All the accountant cares about is the financial statement that’s associated with the LLC.
Jill K DeWit:
How about the attorney? Do I need to have an attorney on staff, basically, or at my, well, to move properties in and out of the trust, how does that happen?
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s the equivalent of how we used to do deeds out of escrow. So you’re-
Jill K DeWit:
The trust is established
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, and you can do the trust, and literally come back to the-
Jill K DeWit:
So I just put it in the name of the trust like, “The grantee is the Jack and Jill Family Trust.”
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s right.
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t have to do anything with the trust documents. It’s just established.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s correct. That’s the beauty too is that.
Jill K DeWit:
So you could do a land trust in lieu of the LLC. I don’t have to go buy the property to my LLC to my land trust.
Steven Jack Butala:
What you could do and what you should do is the trust … Now that you’ve got 40 acres in Illinois, let’s say, and it’s in Jack and Jill Trust, what you would do is convey the trust to the new buyer. You know what? You’re right. We do have time to talk about this in this new format.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, I want to hear this.
Steven Jack Butala:
What’s really going to happen here, in reality, what will happen is that this is going to set … It’s a red flag for certain buyers. You’re going to have to put yourself in a situation where you’re constantly explaining why you’re not redeeding the property that you’re just-
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, selling them the trust. Oh, they don’t want that.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s right.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s a nightmare to explain that one. You don’t want to put it into the trust, and then back it into the LLC, and then back it into that one. You can’t. No.
Steven Jack Butala:
What would probably end up happening is you would convey the trust to the … The title agent would do this. The title agent would convey the trust, rewrite the trust, put it into the new owner’s name, and then simultaneously grant from the trust to the new owner, and rerecord deed anyway. I wouldn’t do it on this path.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. Sid, if your head is not hurting by now … Right now, Sid’s like, “I’m sorry I asked.”
Steven Jack Butala:
All of our listeners are sorry you asked too.
Jill K DeWit:
Like, “Nevermind.”
Steven Jack Butala:
The six listeners that are left listening to this are sorry about that also.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. Let’s go back. So what is the right way to do it? I would like to explain. So here’s the right way to do it. If you’re brand new starting out, is there anything wrong with putting it in your name? Nope. For the first couple deals, no, there’s no problem with that. Then go ahead. Dude, you don’t have to spend the money, and do all that work ahead of time. Some states, it’s a couple of hours to get an LLC. In other states, it’s very expensive like California, and time-consuming, and it costs $800 a year just to have the dumb LLC, which I don’t get, whatever.
Steven Jack Butala:
In California.
Jill K DeWit:
So anyway, my point is the right way is either of those are perfect and what you need. Sid, if you’re a secret celebrity and we don’t know who you are, I apologize. That’s why you’re hiding. I don’t know. Sid’s name is probably not even really Sid. It’s funny. Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s first topic is called What Top Land Investors Are Doing Differently for 2023. This is the meat of the show, by the way.
Jill K DeWit:
I forgot my little timer, so I’m making a little bit note here. So I would love to ask you questions.
Steven Jack Butala:
Sure, sure.
Jill K DeWit:
Because this is really important to me, and I’m sure it’s very important to you listening and watching because we’re all getting a little freaked out. Let me tell you why. I’m personally going like, “What’s happening?” Everybody keeps saying, “Don’t worry about it. There’s going to be a minor readjustment, and we’re watching interest rates, and it’s nothing drastic.” They’re talking about probably a little bit more increase. It’s going to be fine. Then we see XYZ company laying off, and then this company laying off, and that company laying off, like a lot of people. Then I’m seeing things like So and So is exiting office space, whatever, the office space environment. I get two different stories about what I should really be concerned about in 2023. I’m saying me, and I’m coming to you, Jack, from the general community here.
Steven Jack Butala:
I do a lot of news type real estate related research every week largely because I do a short talk about what’s happening in the US real estate market at the beginning of our Thursday call for our close call for our members on Zoom. Here’s what I think is really going to happen. One thing is for sure. 2023 is going to be a volatile real estate environment. I personally love volatility in markets. I don’t like when they’re consistent and predictable, and then they’re the same.
Steven Jack Butala:
Real estate, I’ve long said, is very, in my opinion, predictable. Unlike the stock market, you have really no idea what the stock market’s going to do tomorrow or this year. Real estate, you can follow trends, and look at data, and in the end, I think that interest rates are going to park themselves around 6% or 7%. I don’t think we’re going to see crazy hyperinflation like we did in the ’80s. I think that we’re going to see a nationwide market correction from the tip top of pricing for mostly houses, not necessarily commercial real estate from July of 2022. That was the top.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’re going to see about a single to very light double digit market correction, meaning 8%. It’ll be reduced. In some markets, I think it’s going to be way more acute ,markets that were … and you can really easily research which markets are those. It’s the southwest and the west, western part of the country really-
Jill K DeWit:
Maybe in the south. What about even some of the other markets in the south?
Steven Jack Butala:
In the south like Florida.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.
Steven Jack Butala:
Florida, Las Vegas, and Arizona are the three markets that typically really increase and then really decrease.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m going to pause for just a second. Will you please share with the planet here? One of the things that … Not only are you so data-focused and hyper in tune with all of this stuff, but please explain to all of us how many times you’ve been through this because that’s so important. Let me just make a note here. What do you hear how long this guy’s been investing in land, and how many times he’s done this? You can make these statements. This is not your first rodeo.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill, I hate to break it to you, but you and I have been through the same number of recessions.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, I know, but hold on a moment, not while being hit. I’m 20. That’s not what I meant. That’s true, but I had a W-2 job for the first several. For the last two, for this one and the one before it, I was with you, but you were doing this way before me. So you’ve lived this. You’ve lived through this as a full-time real estate investor. That’s important.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. So as that’s true, and I’ve been through three market corrections, three recessions.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Five in my entire life, but three while I was full-time buying and selling land.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s what I’m trying to get out.
Steven Jack Butala:
The one that you and I, last one that you and I went through together was brutal.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, that was fun.
Steven Jack Butala:
It brought Jill and I to our knees financially.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, I luckily came into that. I jumped into the business with you in the middle of the bottom.
Steven Jack Butala:
She saved us, actually. Jill got on the phone like she does all the time and took the … We had thousands of properties, literally on thousands of properties. She got on the phone and wholesaled them all out to … We paid cash. That’s the only thing that saved us. We just don’t fund or finance anything ever when it comes to land acquisitions. She got on the phone and liquidated a lot of the properties. Some of it is a slight loss, but thank you. Thank you.
Jill K DeWit:
Not much really. I don’t even think really there was-
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s probably one or two deals and that’s about it.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, not much, really. It was just we sold them for not what we wanted to sell them for, but big deal. So we only made 50% profit instead of 100% profit. I can handle that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, what ended up happening then too, since I guess we’re talking about this, is that it allowed us to raise our own capital, convert that real estate into cash to go do even better acquisitions because-
Jill K DeWit:
That’s the point.
Steven Jack Butala:
… that’s what this topic is really about.
Jill K DeWit:
There we go.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is going to be an absolutely extraordinary acquisition year for us and I hope for you. I hope for all of our members it’s going to be a topic. It’s not going to be. It is. It’s a topic.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s not often enough. Well, you know what? I see it now and then, but that’s the point. What are top land investors and other real estate investors doing right now in 2023? Gathering chaos.
Steven Jack Butala:
Preparing for war. That’s right.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. To buy up all the great stuff that’s coming. That’s the thing.
Steven Jack Butala:
A typical deal for us is maybe we buy a property for 25% to 35% of what the retail value of the land is, and it’ll be way less than that now, 15%.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, you can talk about houses at that prices. Back in the last recession, buying houses at, I don’t know, for $20,000 that are worth, now they’re 200, people are like, “What?”
Steven Jack Butala:
Two or three.
Jill K DeWit:
No. You can go back. You can literally go … Look in West Phoenix. If you really don’t believe this, I’ll tell you. Go on Zillow or Realtor or something like that. Look in West Phoenix and look at some of the, I don’t know, 1200 square foot homes around there and dig deep into bought and sold. Look at the numbers in there and you’ll find them back in ’07, ’08, ’09 selling for really inexpensively and then what they’re worth now.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill and I were buying houses back then for 20, 30, $40,000 and selling them for 60, 80, 100.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly, and now, they’re $200,000.
Steven Jack Butala:
Who thought?
Jill K DeWit:
I wish I would’ve held on them even longer.
Steven Jack Butala:
Without doing anything. In fact, we have a company called House Academy that we never talk about. We’re going to bring that back this year because I think there’s, especially in rural markets. What’s different now is the availability of the internet. If you follow the show at all, you know that we spent last summer testing Starlink from an RV all over rural America and it’s just a game changer. I think that there’s a lot of towns that have never gotten high speed internet. I think you can live literally anywhere now, certainly in this country with Starlink and work remotely.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s the greatest thing. You know what’s so funny? I got a note from someone on my team earlier today like, “Hey, just a heads up,” because they’re remote and they’re like, “Hey, my internet’s down and I expect it to be up around 1:00.”
Jill K DeWit:
I’m like, “Big deal. That’s what hotspots are for.”
Jill K DeWit:
They’re like, “Yeah, you’re right.”
Jill K DeWit:
I’m like, “You didn’t even need to tell me anything. I would not have known.”
Jill K DeWit:
We’ve done that on the road. There’s times that we’re in a location where we didn’t want to deal with it, get it out or it takes a little bit to get it juiced up, basically. If you have Starlink, you probably know this. Jack learned this, but so what? Hop on your phone and hotspot on your computer. That’s all I need to do. It’s great.
Jill K DeWit:
So I’m trying to think of other things. I hope that, and know it’s true within Land Academy, you and I are really hardcore about buying the property, buying the property. Don’t take a equitable interest in it and try to double end it. All this stuff could go wrong. Please don’t finance it. If you need the money, get a money guy in who you together buy the property. So I know for us and our community of really solid good investors, that’s what we’re doing.
Steven Jack Butala:
One of the things that separates professional land investors from maybe novice investors is how they use capital. I would encourage you, no matter where you are or who you are or where you are in your career or how you go about this, I would encourage you to seek funding, whether you need it or not, to one of the higher funder, higher profile funders in our group if you’re in our group because I think it’s something that it will change how you send mail out. You’ll shoot a little higher.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, you can go for anything. Just find a great deal.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s now two million dollars properties. It’s completely and totally within reach.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
So if you’re buying a two million dollar property that’s worth 10 million, people are going to come, they’ll find you and fund your deal or maybe-
Jill K DeWit:
Wouldn’t you? That’s my comment when everybody are like, “Hold on, just think about this for a minute.” If someone came to you and said, fill in the blank, you’re not going to believe this classic car that I know is worth, whatever, 90 grand, this guy wants to get rid of it for 25. “I need 25 grand,” I’d be like, “Yeah, duh. We’re going to buy this.”
Steven Jack Butala:
So I would seek funding more to just open your mind. You don’t want to give yourself a glass ceiling. There’s enough things in the world that give you a glass ceiling automatically. You don’t want to do that to yourself unintentionally when you’re an investor. Am I saying if you’re brand new, go and seek funding? No, not necessarily. I’m just saying if you’ve done a few deals or a bunch of deals and … I have incorrectly been really hard hardcore on this topic, only spend your own money, don’t ever borrow any money, and that’s just not the case.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill and I pretty quietly buy one, two, maybe three houses a year. Sometimes we get funding from other people, sometimes we don’t. We usually pay about, I don’t know, 20% on the money and almost always come out making at least $100,000 on the house. We don’t renovate anything. We just send a ton of mail out.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s house academy stuff.
Steven Jack Butala:
Then just relist the property for sale.
Jill K DeWit:
Yup. I was just thinking about too another thing that I … Oh, I’m going to say one thing. I do tell new people, by the way, just so you know. Again, like I told you, this is going to be a partner’s meeting. So I do tell people on the phone, if you only have 10 grand or 20 grand and you’re jumping into this and you’re trying to hold back money to buy property, don’t do that. Spend it all on mail. Spend it all on your education. Get all that stuff out there and then do that. Even if it’s your first deal and you need someone else to fund the deal, there’s nothing wrong with that. I encourage that. So I’ll fund it. I don’t care.
Jill K DeWit:
I always say this. Look, when I know who you are, if I can see you’re involved in our group, I can see you, you’re watching everything, you’re doing your work, and you come to me with a deal that I can look up and go, “Yeah, you’re right. This is great.” I don’t care if it’s your very first deal, I’ll fund it. I know you’re doing your homework. I know how you found it, so I trust you. It’s good, but I was going to say another thing that I’m trying to think other than financing. Oh, go ahead.
Steven Jack Butala:
Interest rates.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. Got it.
Steven Jack Butala:
So this is a significant and, in my opinion, largely probably permanent, not permanent permanent, but long-term interest rates. We lived in a beautiful scenario for the last 10 years having really, really low interest rates. So interest rates-
Jill K DeWit:
Everybody’s used to it, unfortunately.
Steven Jack Butala:
Interest rates went from, mortgage rates, anyway, went from about 3%, two and a half to 3% to now 6%, and they seem to be hovering there. What does that really mean? It means that if you buy a hundred thousand dollars asset and you finance it, your cost of capital used to be $3,000 a year and now it’s six. So that’s double the price of owning a house. Monthly payments has doubled in the last six months, really five months.
Steven Jack Butala:
So what does that mean for us? What it means is this, and we try to target … Our beautiful sweet spot for land investment is around buy for 30, sell for 80, 90. At 80 or $90,000, people are usually writing checks. They’re not financing anything. We’re selling it to people who are writing a check. So this interest rate scenario doesn’t affect them. Interest rates don’t widely affect rich people.
Jill K DeWit:
Good point.
Steven Jack Butala:
So that’s who you need to be. Now, is it really, really likely to sell a $250,000 asset for cash? It’s a lot less likely than to sell a $90,000 asset for cash.
Jill K DeWit:
Does it happen? Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Sure. So there are people, a substantial number of people, and those numbers get higher and higher every year. There’s more rich people every year worldwide sitting on the sidelines or-
Jill K DeWit:
You’re welcome. I know a lot of them very well.
Steven Jack Butala:
We get thank you notes to this pod all time.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s it.
Steven Jack Butala:
People sitting on the sidelines with just too much cash looking to invest it in things like land, and land is a fantastic place to park money.
Jill K DeWit:
You know what’s funny? I have to say this real quick. Words getting out a little bit. It used to be everybody poo-pooed land like, “Oh, you guys.” They don’t see the value in it because there’s nothing done to it. It’s not improved in any way. Every person, not in our world, I swear, when they think we’re all vacant land, if I say that, they think it’s 20 miles out there. Really, it’s stupid. So when I used to say we’re land investors, they’d be like, “Oh, not talking to those guys.” Now, it’s a little bit different. They’re like, “Oh.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Why is that?
Jill K DeWit:
I know.
Steven Jack Butala:
Because when we started this-
Jill K DeWit:
I know. We weren’t big.
Steven Jack Butala:
… everybody would just look at the wall.
Jill K DeWit:
They’re like, “This is stupid.” Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
I really wonder why that is.
Jill K DeWit:
I think words getting out that we’re making money. They’re somehow seeing the value in it or they … Come on. It all has to start with land.
Steven Jack Butala:
The reason that classic real estate investors look down their nose at land people is because it doesn’t generate income. If you take the simplest form of a real estate investment, which is buy house and rent it out, you’ve got two dynamic, two serious money-making boxes. You’ve got the cash that’s coming in every month from the rent and you have the balance sheet aspect of the value of the property is just naturally going up.
Steven Jack Butala:
So when you expand that thought to a class A office building in an urban center or a huge garden apartment complex somewhere in a city, in a mid-size city, those numbers get large. They get very, very big. So land, unless it’s a farmland or leased land, you don’t have that second component. You have the balance sheet component, but you don’t have the income statement component.
Steven Jack Butala:
So what do we do? Why does it make sense that we buy land and we’re so serious about, lifelong serious about it? We sell it. This is our income statement because, and the only reason we can sell it quickly and efficiently is because we buy it so cheap.
Jill K DeWit:
Right. Here’s going to be my new line. Next time I’m in an elevator with somebody like this and they’re like, “What’s the point? That’s not making any money?” I’m going to say this. I’m going to say, “Well, I doubled my money in 30 days. How long is it going to take you to double your money?” and that’ll shut them up.
Steven Jack Butala:
The other thing too about land is that there’s literally no moving parts. Every other type of real estate that I know has got all kinds of moving parts and stuff goes wrong.
Jill K DeWit:
Totally.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s tenants. The things that really, unless you’re big enough to have a full-time management company doing all the nuts and bolts work for you, land is, there’s probably … Jill and I have done 16,000 deals. I bet I’ve seen less than a hundred properties in person.
Jill K DeWit:
By the way, let me make sure this too. This one here has owned office buildings. Dream it up. We’ve done them all.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’ve failed at a lot of stuff real estate related.
Jill K DeWit:
Pretty much owned it all, deliberately or unintentionally. So that happens. I want to add another thing about what I think that we’re doing that other top land investors are doing, and then I want you to know about, listener, is buckets. Will you please explain? We joke about this. Explain the buckets, and then we have bucket seven now going.
Steven Jack Butala:
So buckets are … I have three basic buckets that we drop real estate acquisitions into, and I’ll tell you, this isn’t something I set out to do during the mailer phase of the acquisition. So I only decide what bucket of property it’s going to go into after Jill and I have decided, well, really, Jill decides that we’re going to buy it.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s so funny. It’s like the mail goes out, I’m like, “Nope, nope, nope.” No, just kidding.
Steven Jack Butala:
The buckets are as follows. So you send out, you do a mailer, somebody signs an offer, they send it back, and you’re on your way to buying a $30,000 asset that we know both of us very strongly, feel strongly that we can sell it for 80 or 90. 80 or 90 is not retail. That’s bucket one property. 80 or 90 is wholesale property. Get it, buy it, sell it, get your money back out, go do the next deal.
Steven Jack Butala:
Bucket two property is, and I love bucket two property is, “Okay. We’re going to bite for 30, anyway, and we’re going to list it for 150. That’s about retail,” and I know it’s going to take a year to sell. We’re okay with that because it’s just like putting money into a bank account. For whatever reason, we’ve determined, usually this is me because Jill wants a bucket one at everything. I’m happy waiting a year, maybe sometimes longer, to get some right person to come along and write the check.
Jill K DeWit:
I have to tell you, I am changing my tune on that even right now. There’s a few properties that we own and I’m like, “You know what? I know if we sit on this even longer, it’s just going to keep going up.” So I’m okay. It’s not like I’m hurting for cash.
Steven Jack Butala:
Bucket three is something unusual is happening and you can dream it up on that. Maybe we subdivide the property or split it. Maybe we grade it a little or blade in, it doesn’t happen too often, blade in a little area so that if anybody actually goes to see it as a potential acquisition for themselves, they have a great experience. We blade in a little tiny driveway or road through their trees, all that.
Jill K DeWit:
They can get to it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. So bucket three is very profitable. It’s also now you got to do stuff, and I don’t like to do stuff that much.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. That’s good. Thank you. I’m trying to think if there’s any last things before we go on to our next topic and that’s tough.
Steven Jack Butala:
Listen, yeah, we’ll go onto our next topic, but listen, you got to send the mail out now more than ever because these people, there’s all these layoffs that Jill was talking about. People are going to need money, and the first thing that they do when they need money is liquidate assets they’re not using. If they happen to own property, they’re going to put your offer that you send them on the refrigerator and they might not call you immediately. We have multiple people calling us all the time now when they were laughing at us, laughing at our offers last year and now they’re interested in selling.
Jill K DeWit:
Yup. We were just talking about it on our Thursday show. A lot of people raised their hands. They’re like, “Yup, six months ago call, and nine month ago mailer call.” We had one, Carl and Sam. They said there was a mailer that they didn’t even remember mailing. They’re like, “I didn’t think we even. Did we mail this county?” kind of thing, and they did, and it was somebody now coming back saying, “Hey, would you still buy this?” What’s nice too is these sellers know like, “Hey, I know your offer’s expired. I know things have changed. What would you give me for it now?” So it really opens the door for you too to make some great deals.
Steven Jack Butala:
2023 is going to be great. Nothing is going to happen for you in 2023 if you don’t send any mail out.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, I agree.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a look at one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m going to restart this since we’re cutting right here, anyway. If this sings to you and you want to learn more about Land Academy and everything that we do, go get our free ebook. I don’t know how many pages, 13 pages I want to say, something like that. I’m going to say between 10 and 15 pages is what it was condensed to, believe it or not, but it’s our whole business model and it’s free. All you got to do is go to landacademy.com, find the link for get the free ebook, pop in your first name, last name, and email address. I think that’s all you need, and it’ll pop right in there and then read it. It will really talk about Jack’s background, some of my background, how we got here, and how we’ve grown this business, and everything about us and what we teach.
Jill K DeWit:
So in Land Academy, just so you know too, we teach our business model. We did not set out to be educators, if you will. We are investors first, and we just happen to share our business model all bundled up for you start to finish, and that’s Land Academy. So go get the ebook and check all that out.
Steven Jack Butala:
Hundreds of people do this every day. Hundreds of people download the ebook every day. It’s worth it. Let’s take another question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. If you want a sneak peak at that community, go to landinvestors.com and take a read-only look. It’s free.
Jill K DeWit:
All right. This time we have Chris. So Chris wrote, “I just rejoined Land Academy after originally joining back in 2020. My business never hit the ground running due to some unforeseen events that made me set it to the side. I’m looking forward to diving back in and getting my first mailer out within the next two weeks. That being said, back in 2020, I was told to give the desert land a try so that I could get some deals under my belt. Is that still a valid suggestion or is that too competitive? I live in South Carolina, so desert land is foreign to me. Any advice starting out would be much appreciated.” By the way, did you put my comment in there before I read this one?
Steven Jack Butala:
No, because I figured you’d just do it.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, okay. You could have put it in there because I replied to this too. So I’ll read what Jamay wrote. Is it Jamay is the only comment you put in here?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. So Jamay in our community wrote to Chris, “Hey, Chris, this is exactly how I got started. I wanted to make sure that I liked the land business first. So before I invested in education … I liked the land business before I even invested in education.” Got it. “So I bought a few desert squares prior to joining Land Academy, all self-closed and worked through each transaction. I did six deal.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Amazing.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. “I discovered that I did like the land biz and then I joined Land Academy. If you want, send me a direct message and I’ll go into further details on just how I did it.” How nice is that? So my advice was skip it, you don’t have to, and go to some areas that you know, follow the new program, learn to troll, and just get the mail out. What were you going to say?
Steven Jack Butala:
Exactly that.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, my goodness!
Steven Jack Butala:
Exactly, but do you know what? Jill and I are pretty aggressive people.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’re pretty intense when it comes to if we’re going to set aside some effort, if we’re going to go do something, we’re going to do it.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, yeah. We scare people.
Steven Jack Butala:
So I don’t want to swing the fence. Yeah, our children and everything.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
I swing for the fences. If you swing for the fences, you’re going to hit some singles. If you try to hit singles, you’re going to hit singles.
Jill K DeWit:
You know what it is? You just have to get up and do it. We’ve talked about this. This is a whole another show that we’ll do another time, but how do you get that confidence? You just do it. When I talk to people about adding a zero, stop buying for 1,000, buy for 10,000, they’re like, “Oh, that’s scary.”
Jill K DeWit:
I’m like, “Well, how much you have in the bank?”
Jill K DeWit:
“50,000.”
Jill K DeWit:
I’m like, “So buy one. What’s holding you back?”
Jill K DeWit:
“I’m just afraid. It took me a while, but I got it.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Just use other people’s money here.
Jill K DeWit:
No, but I’m just like, they’re even afraid to send those mailers out, afraid to talk to those people, I’m like, “You just have to do it. Then once you do it, you’re like, ‘Oh,’ and then you realize, ‘Now, I’m never going back. I can’t believe I hung out for another extra six months because I was afraid of it, buying all these things for one, two, and 3,000. Now I can buy for 10, 20, 30,000.'”
Steven Jack Butala:
The real answer to this question is it’s up to you. If you feel like you need some practice, I don’t think self-closing property without a title agent is that necessary.
Jill K DeWit:
For little, you have to for little properties because you’ll eat up your whole profit.
Steven Jack Butala:
I mean, no, I understand. There’s many, many properties that we’ve purchased that the closing costs were larger than the actual acquisition price.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, but that’s because they’re worth way more.
Steven Jack Butala:
My point is I don’t think you necessarily have to start small here.
Jill K DeWit:
No, that was my point.
Steven Jack Butala:
I wouldn’t buy a commercial piece of real estate for $2 million for my first deal, but I would-
Jill K DeWit:
I’d go for $10,000.
Steven Jack Butala:
… 10, 20, 30,000 and list it with a real estate agent and hopefully sell it quickly for 50 70, 80, 90. I think that’s an okay first transaction. It just needs to make sense. It’s up to you and how much confidence you have.
Jill K DeWit:
Yup. It’s so good.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s second topic is how to troll for new land acquisition markets like a pro. It all starts with trolling. When I decide to go into a new market, it’s usually around 8:00 PM at night, and Jill and I are probably sitting in front of the television watching something meaningless, and I pick up my phone and start trolling.
Jill K DeWit:
You told me you liked all that Megan and Harry stuff.
Steven Jack Butala:
I would not.
Jill K DeWit:
Could you imagine?
Steven Jack Butala:
If somebody paid me, if somebody said-
Jill K DeWit:
“Here’s what we’re watching tonight.”
Steven Jack Butala:
… “Here’s $10,000. Why don’t you spend some time researching the royal family?” I would say, “Keep your 10,000.”
Jill K DeWit:
Come on. You mean, oh, that’s the guy version of faking it.
Steven Jack Butala:
What is it with this royal family?
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t know.
Steven Jack Butala:
Look, I understand that it’s a massive money maker for England. I understand that how much land they own. I’ve actually really looked into, what the hell, because I originally thought it’s 2023.
Jill K DeWit:
Are we still doing this?
Steven Jack Butala:
We’re not sure we need a royal family, really. It turns out that England really does need it. It’s a huge tourist attraction and it’s a massive money maker. The way that they have it set up with land leases and the deal that they have with the British government, it’s pretty cool. You should look into it. They have just thousands and thousands and tens of thousands of acres-
Jill K DeWit:
The media.
Steven Jack Butala:
… that they lease for various all over the country, probably all over the world, I don’t know, and the media. So no, but I don’t need to watch a documentary on, especially a fictitious one. Take your pick now. There’s about nine of them.
Jill K DeWit:
You know what’s funny? It’s true. I mean, I guess it probably always was like a British soap opera. I like British soap operas and this is just another British soap opera.
Steven Jack Butala:
I just-
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t like the American one.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s a sign of the times. I don’t know what these really wealthy, rich people who now live in California have to complain about.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, my goodness. Right now, it’s rain. So I’m writing myself a note. For those of you who know what this is, I haven’t caught up on EastEnders in a while. So I’m going to catch up on EastEnders. It made me think of this.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill has some type of, and she’s not the first person that I’ve met like this through the years, some type of unhealthy interest in England.
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t know. You know what? It started with Depeche Mode? It has to. No. I don’t know what it was, but anyway, it doesn’t really matter. No, it’s just funny. I guess, you know what it probably started with? My dad.
Steven Jack Butala:
Food’s terrible.
Jill K DeWit:
Do we need to go here? Is this going in a bad way? Tell me if I should shut up.
Steven Jack Butala:
No, go ahead. The food’s terrible.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, my dad got me watching Faulty Towers.
Steven Jack Butala:
The weather’s terrible.
Jill K DeWit:
My dad watched Benny Hill.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, I don’t think that’s funny, that stuff.
Jill K DeWit:
No, Faulty Towers I like. Faulty Towers is cute and funny. It’s not like Benny Hill. So that one, and there was another one. I can’t remember what it was, but didn’t you watch the Canadian guys? They’re like that too.
Steven Jack Butala:
Canada and England are real different.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, but there’s some off Canadian humor that’s similar too, not just Bob and Doug McKenzie, other stuff.
Steven Jack Butala:
No, I just didn’t … England is, I don’t know, they had the shortest industrial revolution in the history of ever. I think it lasted about 20 minutes in the early 20th century.
Jill K DeWit:
All right. I’m going to bring it back-
Steven Jack Butala:
I wasn’t even done with the list. Oh, I’m sorry. Their cars are terrible.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, yes.
Steven Jack Butala:
They’re steel rusts.
Jill K DeWit:
The tea is good.
Steven Jack Butala:
They, for whatever reason, decided that all throughout the 19th and the 20th century that they need to colonize the planet. I don’t think that’s okay.
Jill K DeWit:
Things I like about England, wait, tea, cookies.
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t know. Asia’s got some great tea too.
Jill K DeWit:
The chocolate, I’m sorry, whatever that chocolate, I can’t remember the name of it, that’s not that good. What else do we have? I’m sure they make great umbrellas.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m sure they make great umbrellas.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m so sorry. I’m running out of things. By the way, I am like, maybe this is part of my problem because I am more than 50% Irish.
Steven Jack Butala:
They produce some amazing rock bands in the middle of the-
Jill K DeWit:
That they have is music.
Steven Jack Butala:
… middle of the other century, but all of them admittedly said, “Yeah, we modeled all of our music after Texas blues.”
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t watch Cricket, so none of that. So anyway-
Steven Jack Butala:
It was fun.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you. Okay, back-
Steven Jack Butala:
I love bashing England. I don’t know why.
Jill K DeWit:
Hey, maybe every every week we’ll pick a new country to give a hard time with the bash. So stick around, your country might be coming up next week.
Steven Jack Butala:
Now, there’s all these documentaries about whining kids in the royal family and how that they’ve just been wronged somehow. We get 50 million dollars for being quiet.
Jill K DeWit:
I know.
Steven Jack Butala:
We didn’t get it.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. Well, here’s how I think this topic too ties into topic one, by the way, loosely, but we talked about 2023 and thinking about being investor, and it all starts with finding great property, period. You have to find the deals, not how you buy it, not how you sell it. It’s sourcing it first. Doing that is we call it trolling. Jack came up with this whole thing, trolling for new markets. So please explain more.
Steven Jack Butala:
So we’re trying to profile it in general with this new format. We’re trying to profile what makes some people so successful at this. I’m patting ourselves on our back a little bit. One of the things is choosing new markets. Every Thursday, we have the Land Academy closed webinar, and most of the content that happens during that webinar is, “Would you do this deal?” where people, they find assets that they’re potentially going to buy, they present them on the show, and Jill and I and we usually have guests talk about whether or not we would do the deal.
Steven Jack Butala:
For some reason, we get a disproportionate amount of acquisition targets to talk about in three states, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Florida. I don’t know why this is. What ends up happening, I think, is there’s tons and tons of people that attend this webinar, the closed Land Academy webinar. They decide for some reason that that’s the place to send mail. So it just becomes worse.
Jill K DeWit:
Everybody else is like, “Well, I’m going to do that. You found that deal over here, then I’m going to mail that county too,” which is great, but if you’re on Land Academy, you know how to find areas that no one else is hitting. That’s the best part.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill and I instruct a mastermind course called Career Path twice, sometimes three times a year. We’ll do it again this year at least one time, maybe twice. One of the thing, and that class is packed full of people that are making six million dollars a year, and you know where they don’t send mail? Those three states.
Steven Jack Butala:
One of the thing, again, along the lines of what we’re trying to do with this longer format is to profile these incredibly successful people. They troll. They troll. They send out 10, 20, 30,000 units of mail at a time in five different markets, and one or two, it’s risk diversification. No one can argue with that. The only downside is that, yeah, it’s expensive, but look, all you have to do is one deal.
Jill K DeWit:
Expensive compared to what?
Steven Jack Butala:
One single deal.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, then it pays for it.
Steven Jack Butala:
You’re going to cover your entire mailing effort for the whole year.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. I don’t see how that’s expensive.
Steven Jack Butala:
I shouldn’t say expensive. What I mean is it costs something and-
Jill K DeWit:
It’s not free. It costs something. That’s hilarious.
Steven Jack Butala:
I like to say-
Jill K DeWit:
From zero to not zero is expensive for some people. Wait, wait, I got to tell you, I have to tell you one thing that I’m going to throw our staff under the bus a little bit here. They said, they made this comment about our Land Academy community and you know who you are. This is met with love, but it’s like, “We have the cheapest rich people in our community, it’s hilarious.” Sometimes-
Steven Jack Butala:
I heard that recently too. Keep rich people.
Jill K DeWit:
I have to admit I do that too. There’s times that I’m like, “Oh, oh, well, that’s the way how it goes,” and then there’s times, “No, I’m going to stand in line and make sure I get my $2 for my coupon,” because they forgot my coupon. So I get it.
Steven Jack Butala:
So how do you troll? This is what you do. Sit down at a computer, not on your phone for the first time, and log into either realtor.com or zillow.com. Zillow’s probably easier to use the first time, and set yourself a parameter. First, we’ll do the price parameter. Let’s say a land only, and we’ll set a price parameter of, I don’t know, whatever your target price is, 80 to $90,000-
Jill K DeWit:
To sell?
Steven Jack Butala:
To sell.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. What you want to sell it for?
Steven Jack Butala:
So your price parameter is between 70 and 90, let’s say. Your acreage criteria is maybe one to five acres, one to three acres, maybe five to 10 acres. Jill would probably … Larger is better, in general, for sales. Then start on the West Coast or the East Coast and start moving around and move through your mouse, move all throughout the country and you’re going to see where properties get populated. You’re going to see clusters of all kinds of land that’s listed for whatever parameter you put in, 70 to $90,000. Then do it for sold.
Steven Jack Butala:
You’re going to find these little pockets of places all over the country where there’s a lot of property. As you’re doing that, either write it down or make a mental note that Tulsa, Oklahoma, let’s say, I’m just throwing one out, seems to fit the criteria. So hypothetically, it might work. We don’t know yet. We don’t guess at anything here at Land Academy. We’re going to find out for sure in a minute whether Tulsa works or not.
Jill K DeWit:
Say you’re moving your mouse around, tell me if I’m right or wrong here. I know the answer, but I’m doing this for everybody. I’m rolling my mouse around Tulsa and I see, “Oh, look at this. There are 95 properties listed between 70 and 90,000, between one and five acres that I put in. Oh, this is good.” Then I toggle over to the sole properties and go, “345 sold in the last 12 months. Ding, ding.”
Steven Jack Butala:
So now you’re not guessing anymore.
Jill K DeWit:
I’d be like, “Whoop, there’s something there.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Because we don’t like risk. Risk and investment don’t go together. So Jill’s exactly right. So you can take a look. You compare sold and active listings and you want that to be two to one, maybe even three to one in certain cases. So what do you do now? You deconstruct that market into zip codes. Then you run the red, green, yellow test, which is I explain in the program in great detail. You test each of those zip codes. Probably, most likely they’re going to be adjacent to each other. You pit them against each other to find out who has the best statistics, days on market, and this is all in our program.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is what rich people who buy and sell land obsess on. They obsess on new markets and trolling. I do. I obsess on it. If I have free minutes to do anything, I don’t know, standing in line at a bank or something like that, I just immediately start trolling.
Jill K DeWit:
Yup. Well, here’s the thing, and what it does for you, like Jack’s explaining, when you pit the zip codes together, you think you know, “Oh, it’s going to be this area’s the hot area, not this one, not this one, this one.” This either confirms or lets you know like, “Oh, shoot, I was looking on the west side of town. I should be looking on the east side of town.” That goes even hotter.
Steven Jack Butala:
Some of the people who run the red, green, yellow test in career path, now, these are very successful land investors, have their own red, green, yellow test or they’ve taken mine, which is good enough for me. The three or four statistics that mine generate to make one zip code better than the other, they expand that into nine or 10 or 15. So now, you’re not guessing at all. Now, you know what’s going to happen when you send mail out at 20% or 30% of retail value in that market, and you know how fast it’s going to sell and you know what the values are.
Jill K DeWit:
I want to add that this is new. So people who think, “Oh, I missed the boat. I’m jumping at the wrong time.” No, you’re not. It keeps getting better. So this data that we’re now collect on Zillow and Realtor wasn’t there five years ago for land deals, maybe a few, maybe a handful, but now, there’s so much on there that we can see and it’s great. So we used to say that land is a little bit harder to price, houses are easy because of the data, but now we’re getting more and more land stuff. It is awesome.
Steven Jack Butala:
Houses we price different, since Jill brought it up. Trolling for houses is a lot easier because there’s consistency in pricing. Two houses that are next to each other in a relatively newer area are going to be, and I say newer from the 1950s on, because they’re similar. That’s just how developers scaled their companies by building the same houses. It’s close to each other or at least the price per square foot. So it’s really easy to price house mailers, and it’s a little bit more challenging for land, but boy, we’ve taken just about all the mystery out of will this mailer work or not.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m going to explain too some real world stuff. So Jack’s saying get on your computer, but real world is he’s sitting on his phone. So he is on his phone, he’s standing behind me in line for fill in the blank, whatever we’re doing, and he’s like … Let’s just say we’re at BevMo.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill’s watching Prince Harry whine about how much money he has too, by the way.
Jill K DeWit:
No. Say we’re on line at the grocery store or BevMo or something because we’re not usually at the grocery store, but we might be there. Anyway, so Jack’s on his phone looking at whatever. So he’s not doing his hardcore research there. He’s just making mental notes for, “I’m going to go back and look at this area. I’m going to go back and look at this area and go back and look at that area.”
Jill K DeWit:
So then next day, next week, whatever his time is to sit down and be looking at new places to send mail for our next mailer going out, that’s when he is going to sit and run these red, yellow, green tests and pit him against each other and do all that. So I want to ask, how much time? Can you please tell me? I’m brand new. How much time should I spend on just the high level trolling to come up with, say, three areas?
Steven Jack Butala:
A bare, bare minimum of eight to 10 hours beginning, in the beginning. I can do it now.
Jill K DeWit:
Without doing the red, yellow, green test.
Steven Jack Butala:
Honestly, I have the country memorized. I know where-
Jill K DeWit:
Wait, before you even do the red, yellow, green test?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. You only spend at least equivalent of a full day digging into this.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, and I wouldn’t do it consecutive either because your eyes will fall out of your hut.
Jill K DeWit:
So a couple hours here, a couple hours there, and then by Friday, little bit on Monday, a little bit on Wednesday and a little bit on … By Friday, I got a good idea.
Steven Jack Butala:
I got to tell you too on a personal note, you’re going to find out if you enjoy it. You’re going to find out if the land business is for you. I hate the stock market. I hate it. I’ve taken classes. I just don’t like it.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, me too. It doesn’t make sense to me.
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t like that there’s … I don’t like gambling either for the exact same reason.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, but I love this.
Steven Jack Butala:
Me too.
Jill K DeWit:
I lay in bed and like, “I only need …”
Steven Jack Butala:
Me too. I know you do.
Jill K DeWit:
I lay in bed and look at cobs for fill in the blank. Sometimes it really is a hobby like, “Gee, what would it be like …” We just got back from Vail for Christmas, “Wonder what the Vail markets is going with today.” I’m just sitting there looking at it. Why not?
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill and I met each other this way. We were screwed up when we met. I didn’t even mess her up.
Jill K DeWit:
Thanks a lot.
Steven Jack Butala:
I didn’t make her join the Jack cult.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s hilarious. That’s good. That is true, and I’m good. I like it because you’re right. So I think maybe my Native American heritage has made me a land person too. Maybe that’s part of why. That’s probably it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, maybe it’s in your soul.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s in my blood.
Steven Jack Butala:
I haven’t even thought about that.
Jill K DeWit:
I was thinking. As I’m digging into that, I’m like, “Oh, maybe this is why I love land so much,” and I’m begging you to keep our real grass in the backyard. Don’t take my grass.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’re the last people in Phoenix to have a lawn.
Jill K DeWit:
I know, and I’m okay with that.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m not.
Jill K DeWit:
Stop it. It’s my one thing.
Steven Jack Butala:
You brought it up.
Jill K DeWit:
You get the garage, I get the backyard. So eight to 10 hours just doing the trolling. Okay. Now, I’ve got Tulsa, I’ve got a city.
Steven Jack Butala:
Please don’t send mail at Tulsa.
Jill K DeWit:
No, I’m not going to say. I’ve got that city. I’ve got a city. How about this? I’ve got a county in the Northwest, I’ve got a county in the Midwest, and I’ve got a county on the East Coast. Let’s just say that.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think that’s brilliant.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. Now, I’m going to do my red, yellow, green test, and I have three counties. Tell me how much time I need to spend on each one.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, the red, yellow, green test is either something that’s going to come really easily to you or it’s going to be very, very difficult.
Jill K DeWit:
Painful.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s obviously easy for me. I’ve long said this since Jill and I started Land Academy, we’re way better together, and if you need to find a Jack or a Jill, there’s a lot of people in Discord that are waiting to hear from you. We have a ton of career corporate salespeople that do extremely well buying and selling land because they have Jill’s personality. They like talking on the phone, they enjoy people, and the people end of all this. I don’t. I’m a tech person and an accountant, former, recovering accountant, and that’s just not … You need to find somebody that may work with you. Maybe it’s your spouse. Maybe it’s not necessarily another Land Academy member, but it’s maybe your, I don’t … Didn’t we have somebody who their kids are working for them in the last career path?
Jill K DeWit:
I believe we’ve always had that. We’ve always had people with kids and stuff too that do it. They might be in college, they may be out of college. Maybe it’s your brother, maybe it’s your cousin. Who knows?
Steven Jack Butala:
You can do a red, green, yellow test for three or four environments in less than an hour. If you’re brand new, maybe two hours. What it’s going to do is lead you to, “Well, what about this zip code?” If these all zip codes are coming out, I almost always run a red, green, yellow test for let’s say seven zip codes, and then I just decide to mail everything regardless of how it comes out, unless it’s really red, which is a very unusual.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. I have another followup question. So with those parameters that you have spelled out for us, cream’s going to rise to the crop, right? So I have this county here, county, county. Now, do I look at them all together? What if this county looks great, these zip codes look great in this county, but they’re still not as good as that county? Do I pick something in all of them or what would you suggest?
Steven Jack Butala:
So you can’t, in my opinion, pit counties together or zip codes together that are in different parts of the country.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Is that what you’re trying to get here?
Jill K DeWit:
Yup, I want to clarify this, yes.
Steven Jack Butala:
What happens in Western, let’s say Western Washington State is going to be very different than what happens in Arizona or Massachusetts. That’s just how it is. It’s the nature because they’re completely different real estate environments, but what happens in the seven major zip codes that are in and around Tulsa, for example, they should be relatively the same, especially the land market. So no, don’t even, you’re wasting your time to compare-
Jill K DeWit:
DOM of all of them in one spreadsheet. You can’t do that.
Steven Jack Butala:
You can’t say, “Well, all this stuff in Tulsa came out great so I’m just going to mail there.” What you want to do in Washington State or anywhere else for that matter is look at seven or eight zip codes in a market that you’ve trolled and it makes sense from a trolling standpoint that you want to-
Jill K DeWit:
Pick the best ones.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, make sure they’re local, apples to apples.
Jill K DeWit:
Can I have a follow up to that too?
Steven Jack Butala:
Sure.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m brand new. Do you want me to mail all three?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay, and how much? Last I’m going to ask you and then I’ll leave you alone. How much volume?
Steven Jack Butala:
I think you should, I mean, for me-
Jill K DeWit:
Per area.
Steven Jack Butala:
Man, I wouldn’t. I’m not sure I would do a mailer.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m brand new and money’s not a problem.
Steven Jack Butala:
I wouldn’t do a mailer for less than 5,000 units.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. Per area or of those three? I have three identified. So 1500, 1600, 1800.
Steven Jack Butala:
Sure. I still think that’s a little thin. I think three to four in each area would be ideal.
Jill K DeWit:
3,000 to 4,000?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. Thank you. So for those of you who are brand new and money’s not a problem right now, that’s what you should do.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, because if you find any level of a good transaction or a good land deal, people will throw money at you in our group, including us.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, that’s the end result. So the end result is after it all goes out and comes back, you’re going to go, “Oh, well, I’m going to focus on this area. I know what I found. I’m going to move everything over here, all my efforts, send more mail. I bought all the one to five acres. Now I’m going to buy the five to 10 and I’m going to buy the 10 to 20 and be here for a while.” Then maybe still while that you’re doing that, always be looking for new things to roll in with that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, exactly.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s awesome. Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a look at another one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar.
Steven Jack Butala:
Welcome back. So Jill, you have something inspirational to share with us at the end here?
Jill K DeWit:
Yes, I do. So here’s my thought. I’m thinking about hangups people have. What? I didn’t mean to look at you when I said that.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m so sorry.
Jill K DeWit:
Hangups that people have.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m sorry.
Jill K DeWit:
If you are in a long-term relationship and someone says, “I was thinking about hangups that people have,” you know-
Jill K DeWit:
I was just hypothetically speaking.
Steven Jack Butala:
… what she means is, “Here it comes. Let’s hear what’s wrong with me today.”
Jill K DeWit:
Did you know … I’m sure many people have trouble picking out X or whatever it is. That’s awesome. That’s not what I meant. No, but my last little thought today is as we’re going into 2023 and with this new year, I want you to help with your confidence. I want you to decide what your new title’s going to be. Is it-
Steven Jack Butala:
I like this.
Jill K DeWit:
You like this? Is it president? Is it CEO? Is it, fill in the blank, owner, principal, whatever you want to do? I want you to, because this is it, and if you’re like us and you want to be an investor, pick your title.
Steven Jack Butala:
Not Failing Husband. That’s not a title.
Jill K DeWit:
No, that’s not a good title. Oh, that is a title. That’s definitely a title. It’s not a good title. So yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Not college Dropout.
Jill K DeWit:
No, that’s not a good title. That’s a title, but don’t do that. Endlessly living on my parents’ couch, that’s not a title. I mean, that’s a title, but that’s not a good one. I want you to decide what your title is. I want you to put that on your hat, basically, and I want you to own it. I’m dead serious. As crazy as it sounds, I see other Land Academy people, not that often, but I see them have their own little company logo on their shirts.
Steven Jack Butala:
Like this.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, like this, owning it and loving it because you can wake up tomorrow and say, “You know what? This is it.” Whatever’s going on in your head, and if you have a bad day, so what? Wake up tomorrow, put that hat back on and say, “I’m going to do better today. I’m going to solve whatever problems I had yesterday, and we’re going to move forward.”
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s interesting. I never thought about the real impact of embroidering something on your clothing like the name of your company. I think that there’s a huge subconscious like, “It’s real now,” kind of thing. Used to be business cards, but no one does that anymore.
Jill K DeWit:
So big deal. You spend a couple hundred dollars on Fiverr or Upwork and have somebody make you a logo that you think is cool. Spend another $50 or so getting a shirt embroidered or something or a hat and there you go. It makes a big difference.
Steven Jack Butala:
In a deeper way, there’s all kinds of stuff that makes you think something’s real. For me, I have to spreadsheet it out and see how it’s going to end, and then I start down the path of getting to that end and then it’s real.
Jill K DeWit:
You know what? By the way, next week, before I move on to the ask you a question, after I make myself a note, but next week I’ll share with you something that I had embroidered.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, I know what you’re talking about.
Jill K DeWit:
I should have brought it today, but I didn’t. So I will share it next week. So you know what I’m talking about. So Jack, how about you? Do you have something informational to share as we wrap up today?
Steven Jack Butala:
I do. So like everybody, I just sat myself down and said, “Well, how’s your year going to go in 2023, and what do you need to work on? Do you want to make more money? You want to kick more kids out of the house? What do you really want to have happen?”
Jill K DeWit:
I like that.
Steven Jack Butala:
You know what? I really did a mental inventory on what I think I need to work on in ’23, and what kept coming up is not money, for the first time ever, not money. It’s not working harder, more or any of that. It’s healthcare, personal health and wellness. So I really started to … I did this in Vail, by the way, started to philosophically think about how we go about buying and selling land and why we’re so successful in how we run Land Academy and continue to launch products as our members are requesting them. There’s a data piece for everything, and I really realized that there’s no data piece for health and wellness. Well, there is now.
Steven Jack Butala:
So I joined a group called Forward. Jill and I both joined together, where they take blood as frequently as you want them to and to look at all the numbers, look at all the data just like we do in real estate and decide whether your cholesterol is an acceptable range and on and on and on, all your vital signs, blood pressure and all of that. So I deconstructed, backwards deconstructed what I want December of 2023 to look like from a healthcare standpoint, and I started down that path. Completely changed my diet, changed exercise routine, meaning I got one and-
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you for saying it before I. I was waiting for this. I’m like, “Let it go, let it go, let it go.”
Steven Jack Butala:
So I track what I eat, what I eat, what I drink, how many calories I’m burning from an exercise standpoint, and it’s a daily tracker. I’m sitting here-
Jill K DeWit:
That’s what works for you. That’s the point.
Steven Jack Butala:
… looking at myself in a mirror going, “Why didn’t I do this 10 years ago?” I’m so data-driven about everything.
Jill K DeWit:
Again too, thank you for saying so I didn’t have to. Why didn’t you do this 10 years ago? Just kidding. That’s good.
Steven Jack Butala:
It takes maybe a half hour a day. I don’t think so. Maybe 10 minutes a day.
Jill K DeWit:
Really? To do all that?
Steven Jack Butala:
To do the whole thing, and I know where I am now.
Jill K DeWit:
I totally don’t know what I’m doing. I stopped your thing. I screwed you up. I’m sure you can fix this up. Oh, see, you’re so good at this.
Steven Jack Butala:
Hey, join us next Wednesday for another interesting episode.
Jill K DeWit:
We hope.
Steven Jack Butala:
You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill K DeWit:
That was awesome. So glad you’re here. Three, two, one. We are Jack and Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
We are Jack and Jill. Information-
Jill K DeWit:
… and inspiration-
Steven Jack Butala:
… to buy undervalued property.
https://youtu.be/qkfSvRjTS0E
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Announcement: Our New Podcast Schedule
Hello everyone,
We are excited to announce that Land Academy will be moving to a longer, more in-depth podcast format starting Wednesday, January 11th. For the past eight years, we have shared daily podcasts to help you buy and sell land profitably. Beginning this month, we will be releasing weekly shows that will still include member questions, interviews, and information on how we do deals. We are lengthening the podcast so we can dive even deeper into what’s important to you and how to be successful as a land investor.
While we have enjoyed bringing you daily content, we have decided to switch to a weekly format in order to provide more in-depth and comprehensive coverage of each topic. We believe this new structure will allow us to deliver even more value to our listeners.
We hope you will continue to tune in and join us on Wednesdays for our new weekly podcast. Thank you for your support and we can’t wait to bring you this new format.
If you have any guests or topics you’d like us to talk about let us know!
2023 promises to be a turbulent but profitable year for land investment and we will cover it as it unfolds in-depth. Don’t forget to join us every Wednesday and be sure to catch up on past episodes in the meantime.
Sincerely, Jack and Jill
https://youtu.be/83PZ9v45hjQ
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
Jack and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit:
Howdy.
Steven Jack Butala:
Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s Jill Friday and she’s going to talk about how to-
Jill K DeWit:
Qualify.
Steven Jack Butala:
… qualify a seller in a minute or less. Does it take that long?
Jill K DeWit:
I’ll tell you. In a minute or less. That’s exactly right. You can do that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Before we get into it, let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It’s free. And back in the day, it was very, very difficult for Jill and I and anybody during that time to locate real estate without a post office address, like 123 Main Street. We developed a tool to take all 150 million properties that are in the country and develop a backend database so you could look it up by state and the county that the state’s in and assessor’s parcel numbers. We rolled it all up, put it together and called it ParcelFact, F-A-C-T.
Jill K DeWit:
With a bow on it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Check out parcelfact.com.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. So the question Sid wrote is, “Guys, Whitetail is” … Oh, this is a comment it sounds like. So Sid wrote “Guys, Whitetail is just like any real estate brokerage. While they specialize in land, they have inexperienced agents learning the trade, so you have to vet them for their experience in accuracy on comps. Other agents only want to deal with the end seller and buyers because they don’t understand our model. I toured 160 acre ranch with Whitetail agent last week. He brought his ATV, UTV. Had the ranch mapped out in MapRight and a folder with comps in the area. If I get lucky enough to get a PA, he will get the listing even though I’m a realtor and I could sell them myself.” Oh, so he was just not impressed with the guy. That’s what they are.
Steven Jack Butala:
But my point in including … I was impressed to start with this. My point in including this is this. This guy’s a realtor and he’s looking around saying, “You know what? Being a real estate agent on my own land deal doesn’t make sense from a money standpoint, a time standpoint.”
Jill K DeWit:
It’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
“This guy’s better at it than I am.”
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
“I’m good now at just buying land,” which is what we all should be focused on this year. This one thing: buying land really, really, really well. Not selling it well. Maybe choosing who to sell … Which he’s doing. He’s choosing a great person to sell it better than himself. I see people make this mistake all the time. They go get their real estate license, they want to represent themself. All it ends up doing is … It’s expensive, time consuming. And now you’re in a different business, not in the acquisition business.
Today’s Jill Friday and she’s going to talk about how to qualify a real seller in a minute or last. This is the meat of the show.
Jill K DeWit:
You know how it goes so fast? All you have to do is figure out three things.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh this is good, Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
Three easy little things that you could figure out really quickly in less than a minute. Are you ready? Right seller, right situation, right price. That’s it. In one minute, you can figure that out. Right seller. Am I talking to the guy that owns a property and/or couple and/or church and/or person who can make the decision? That’s easy, that’s fast. Number two, right situation. What’s going on? They’ll tell you really quickly, “Thank God you sent me this offer. I didn’t know what to do with this. I just inherited it.” Fill in the blank. “I just lost my job. I wanted, whatever it is, I need the money. My dog’s dying.” We’ve had all those stories. So that’s the situation. And the third thing, the last thing is the price. Do they love it? Do they not love it? What’s their price? Get that and get it fast. That’s it.
People who spend lengthy amount of time on the phone, I don’t think it’s necessary and it’s really going to slow you down in your business. You can really quickly, anyone who’s really experienced in talking on the phone like I am, you know that in a few minutes you can get on the same page with these people and figure out really quickly if it’s going to result in a deal or not.
Someone who’s calling to yell, even if they’re mad at you. You send them an offer. They don’t like the offer. Big deal. “You said your name is John Wilson. Great. Okay, so you’re the owner.” “Yeah, I am.” “Got it. Well, okay, you didn’t like my price. Well, what price does work for you?” Well, great. I just knocked two out of them in two sentences. Number three is they’re going to say, “No, hell no. I don’t even have a price because I’m going to die here. My wife’s buried out whatever. My dog’s here,” fill in the blank. All right. It’s not the right situation.
Steven Jack Butala:
They’re not selling, yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
There was one minute and we’re done. Nobody’s unhappy and mad. You don’t waste their time too. I’m not here to try to talk someone into selling at all. I’m trying to really quickly get to the bottom line and see if there’s a deal there that we could both walk away happy.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think that’s super, super important. You’re not here to sell somebody something they don’t want or need or don’t want to do. The right seller’s going to call you back and say-
Jill K DeWit:
“Where have you been?”
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, yeah. “This is a perfect time. I do want to sell this property.” So what’s the next step?
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
They’ll qualify themselves usually, not usually, but sometimes. It’s interesting because everybody’s got a different take on this, on Jill’s side of the business. I don’t think that there’s a lot of people that have the opinion that you have. I’ve had people in Career Path that say, “Oh yeah, we talk for an hour. We talk for an hour once or twice a week until the deal’s done.”
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, but we talked about that and I said, “That’s great. So how many calls can you do a day? Well, at that rate, maybe three or four. Well, shucks, do you know how many sellers I talked to then in the same time that you talked to three or four? Think about that one.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Look, it’s imperative. What I got out of Jill just said is that she has a plan when she picks the phone up. She wants to get these three things out of the seller in the-
Jill K DeWit:
Really quick.
Steven Jack Butala:
… nicest way and the most professional way that she can do, and the quickest way, the most efficient way.
Jill K DeWit:
So I need to get those things out of the way. The whole point is how to qualify a real seller in a minute or less. Now I’ve qualified them. Do I spend an extra few minutes getting to know them so they fall in love with me? Heck yes. But I don’t do that on everybody yet until I know if it’s a real deal. Because then you’re going to still be wasting your time, like great. I spent 20 minutes with this guy. He thinks I’m great. He wants me to come over and have lunch, yada yada yada. Turns out he doesn’t even own the property. Do you really want to do that? No. Because that can happen. So this is the whole point. Make sure you’re spending your time wisely on the right people and keep track of this stuff.
So here’s a little tip. So I did everything right. The three minutes or less or minute or less, I got those three things out of the way. Now I’m going to breathe a little bit and go, all right. Now I’m settling in and finding out more about the property. Right person, right situation, loves my price, right price. Now I need to know, do I still want it? So tell me what’s going on in the area and how long have you owned it? Got it. When was the last time you saw it? Okay. So did your dad ever do anything with it? Your dad said he was going to do a cabin. Did he go down that process at all? Now you’re getting not only getting to know the seller a little bit, but finding out more pertinent information that you need about the property. Have you guys paid the taxes on it this year? Well, okay, when was the last time you guys paid the taxes on it? All right. What about the area? Fill in the blank.
You’re going to get all that stuff and they know you’re serious too. You get more information about the property and you’re forging a relationship with this person all at the same time. This is how you get these deals done. I don’t have much more to say.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think it’s fantastic. Did you develop this on your own?
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, just in 30 seconds. I just came up with this too. I’m like topic today, well there’s three things. This is all you’ve got to do.
Steven Jack Butala:
So you just innately … I guess my question is this just comes natural to you.
Jill K DeWit:
Totally.
Steven Jack Butala:
Like doing the spreadsheets and the data part of this comes natural to me.
Jill K DeWit:
Yes. I did not go to a webinar taught by somebody else.
Steven Jack Butala:
So what advice would you give somebody that it just does not come natural to?
Jill K DeWit:
Learn those three things and have it written down. Have those first three … Reword it to what’s comfortable for you and memorize sentences that you do right out of the gates.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s great.
Jill K DeWit:
Maybe even carry around a three by five card, I’m not kidding, for when these phone calls come in, that you can quickly get this information. That will help with your confidence, help with your time, your efficiency. You want to do more deals. You just don’t want to spin your wheels on property, stuff that’s not going to make any sense. You’re going to burn yourself out and you’re wasting your time if you’re not doing it that way.
Steven Jack Butala:
I would take it just a step further because we have a few minutes. You need to have a meaningful conversation with these people and you need to be memorable and pleasant.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, yes.
Steven Jack Butala:
So yeah, while your goal is those three things, the practice part for me in the past was, in past lives, and I used to have Jill’s job, was to slow it down. I mean, not really slow, but for me it was always just, if we can agree on the price, then I can work everything else out.
Jill K DeWit:
As long as you have the right person.
Steven Jack Butala:
Right. Well I’ve since learned that. I guess I learned that today. It just needs practice.
Jill K DeWit:
If you are new and you haven’t done that, you probably will at some point. You’re going to go down that process and go, I can’t believe that just happened.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let me phrase it this way. Let me-
Jill K DeWit:
This guy doesn’t even own the whole thing.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let me cut to the chase. Or he sold it two weeks ago.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is not optional, this part of this business. We attract a lot of technical people to Land Academy who understand data, spreadsheets, pricing and that are in industries like aerospace and engineering and software development and things like that. So having a personality in a lot of those fields is optional. That won’t work here. You need to either develop a personality, which for people my age might be challenging, or you need to get a partner like Jill, who has been doing some version of corporate sales for a very long time and it just comes natural. You can develop a relationship like that and both make a ton of money.
Jill K DeWit:
Do you know what’s interesting about this?
Steven Jack Butala:
But it’s not optional.
Jill K DeWit:
Here’ll be my last little thing. I was a child. I was very young when my parents identified, we’re just going to call it a skill. I’d had a really good strike percentage of getting what I wanted out of a situation because I identified, I’d stop for a moment because it didn’t naturally come to me. But I’ll give you the secret. Before you answer that phone, you have to have in your head what you want the outcome to be. So before every phone comes in, seriously, I want to buy it. In my head, I know whoever’s on the other end of this phone, I’m going to buy it or I’m going to sell it, or at least we’re going to end on the same page and be happy with each other.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s great, Jill. Oh, that’s great. I mean it.
Jill K DeWit:
So I go into everything like that.
Steven Jack Butala:
I do too.
Jill K DeWit:
I’ll walk in, and I don’t even know I’m doing it. I’m doing it subconsciously. For example, maybe you’re going to return something and you missed the 30 day window on the receipt, but you had a valid reason for it. I’m on my way into the store, in my head, running through how I’m going to phrase this and how I’m going to explain the situation so I can get this refund done outside of the 30 days because I really have a valid thing and I just need to get to the right person. And you know what? I know I can do it. And more than 90% of the time, I accomplish what I need to accomplish because I go into it like that. So you just, like I said, three by five cards, not nuts. I’ve talked about this, my 3, 2, 1 ready to answer the phone.
I’ve done training on this in the past. We did those incentives last year on it. Have a quick little, phone’s ringing, pause for a moment, think about what’s going to happen, who it might be, have a little bit of something in your head, be ready for it and watch how great the outcome is.
Steven Jack Butala:
Great advice.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you. Happy you could join us today. Don’t forget, we are changing the format. So coming soon, we’re going to have … I don’t even know what the new format’s going to be. I would say five days a week, but there’s a new format coming up this month, so just stay tuned. It’s going to be awesome and you’re going to love the new setup we’re going to do here.
Steven Jack Butala:
You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m excited.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is so important. All kidding aside, Jill’s piece of this is so, so important. I had no idea. I can’t even imagine how many deals we didn’t do because I didn’t turn on the charm on the phone with sellers a lot of years before Jill and I joined forces. So it’s really, really, really important. We’ve had a lot of people come to us specifically in Career Path and say, “I had no idea. We were just emailing people back. We weren’t getting on the phone with them and getting a price.”
Jill K DeWit:
And missing deals.
Steven Jack Butala:
And really doing the deal.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, they missed deals if you don’t do that. Can I just ask one real quick last question? Can you give me an example of you turning on the charm?
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, you’ve never seen that before?
Jill K DeWit:
I’d like to see it. Show me again for everyone.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill, you’re so pretty today. What’s going on?
Jill K DeWit:
Aw.
Steven Jack Butala:
It works though.
Jill K DeWit:
That worked. Thanks. We are Jack and Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
We are Jack and Jill. Information.
Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration.
Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
https://youtu.be/JgvqQP_Fj5k
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
Jack and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit:
Hello.
Steven Jack Butala:
Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s Jack Thursday. I’m going to talk about confidence. I mentioned yesterday that I don’t think this topic gets enough attention and I think that it’s an underrated topic that needs to be talked about more often than it should. And I came up with this concept because we just got done with Career Path, Jill and I, for last year-
Jill K DeWit:
In the summer-
Steven Jack Butala:
And the last group of Career Path people, it was pretty clear which ones had confidence and which ones didn’t. And it’s very, very interesting to hear everybody’s stories and how they present their land acquisition stories in Career Path, and see how confident they are. Before we get into it, let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the land investors.com online community. It’s free, and please don’t forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel. Comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit:
Evan wrote, ‘When sending neighbor letters to find a buyer from my property, has anyone found it more effective to set filters on who receives a letter? For example, I could send a thousand letters to all the property owners within a two mile radius of my property. Or I could send a thousand letters to everyone that owns two or more parcels of land within a 10 mile radius. I’d love to hear opinions on this.’ It’s a good question.
Steven Jack Butala:
I would do both because let’s do the math-
Jill K DeWit:
[inaudible 00:01:31]-
Steven Jack Butala:
A thousand letters to everybody in a two mile radius, that’s $500. A thousand letters to everybody who owns two or more properties in a 10 mile radius. Yes, do that too. So now you’re spending a thousand dollars marketing expense, let’s call it, to reach, geez, thousands and thousands and thousands of people who already own real estate surrounding the property that you have-
Jill K DeWit:
To 2000 people. A thousand dollars to reach 2000 people who are likely buyers.
Steven Jack Butala:
Very, very logical buyers.
Jill K DeWit:
I agree with this.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’ve never, ever… Stop me if I’m wrong here, [inaudible 00:02:05] this-
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, I will.
Steven Jack Butala:
But I’ve never, ever had anyone in Land Academy or anyone else come to me and say, “Yeah, this neighbor letter thing-
Jill K DeWit:
Is stupid-
Steven Jack Butala:
And it doesn’t work. And I must have missed it because I didn’t get any response.” No. Everybody’s going to respond. The amount of response that you’re going to get in that little community because you have a property that’s for sale and it’s undervalued.
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
Everybody wants to know what their property’s worth. They want to talk about it.
Jill K DeWit:
And you’re also going to drum up buyers.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yep.
Jill K DeWit:
That often happens too. I don’t want to sell, or I’m not interested in this one, but what else do you have over here? Now I know how you roll, that kind of a thing. That happens on the sell side too, or with our regular mails too. I love it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s Jack Thursday. I’m going to talk about confidence. This is why you’re listening. Confidence really is a huge indicator about how successful you’re going to be just about anything in life. I think that it’s something that you can develop. I don’t think you’re necessarily born with it. I think that-
Jill K DeWit:
I agree.
Steven Jack Butala:
Obviously there’s nature nurture to everything. But I really believe that working on… If you’re going to work on yourself, let’s say, and-
Jill K DeWit:
Let’s talk more about that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill loves this topic. I think most women love this topic.
Jill K DeWit:
Please tell me. All right, finish your sentence and I want to ask some questions please.
Steven Jack Butala:
You know what we should do? We should spend about eight hours a week working on our relationship together.
Jill K DeWit:
No, no, no-
Steven Jack Butala:
And another eight hours working on ourselves.
Jill K DeWit:
Please tell me. Wait-
Steven Jack Butala:
And then we can file bankruptcy.
Jill K DeWit:
Please tell me, Jack, what are you doing working on yourself right now? I would like to know. I’m sure Jill spends eight hours. Jack spends eight minutes. I get new face cream. You’re like, “Hmm, maybe I’ll cut my nails today. Maybe I won’t.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Yep. Probably not.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. Eventually they break and it works out fine.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think that if you pick up… If somebody’s calling you to sell their land and you have a real sense of confidence. I’m not saying cocky, I’m not saying that at all. I just mean confidence about your pricing, confidence of the real estate and a little bit of basic knowledge of the area where you’re sending property, what comparison values are and you know that waterfront property is more valuable than not, and just basic stuff. And you’re presenting yourself in a way that is confident, it will dramatically increase your success percentages on a mailer. And that goes with everything. What I found after we started Land Academy in 2014 or ’15, there’s a lot of confident people that join this group.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh gosh, yes.
Steven Jack Butala:
Because I think confident people are whatever the motivation is to join this group, aside from getting rich, like we talked about earlier. Confident people don’t want to work for somebody else their entire life.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s very true.
Steven Jack Butala:
They also don’t want to be told what to do in their relationship.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s for sure.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think I would go so far as to say there is no replacement for confidence. And this is why I brought up working on yourself because I’m sure, I haven’t looked, but I’m sure if you Google how to be more confident, there’s going to be all kinds of classes you can take and groups you can join and books you can read or however you become a better person as you go through your life. Confidence should be at the top of the list.
Jill K DeWit:
How would you become a better person, Jack?
Steven Jack Butala:
You know Jill, I’ll let you answer that for me.
Jill K DeWit:
Because I will. Here’s what is going to happen.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, it doesn’t involve toenails.
Jill K DeWit:
You’re going to be a better person right now and here’s why. I’m just kidding. No, no. What’s funny though, I’m thinking about confidence and this comes up often when I’m working with people and they’re getting ready for the phone to ring. Everything they’ve done up to that point, they haven’t had to talk to anybody really. They’ve followed the steps to [inaudible 00:06:19] came and the mail goes out, and now calls are going to come back like, “Oh, I don’t know this area, I don’t know this, I don’t know that. I don’t own anything yet. I’ve never done this before.” That’s the first big time that I experienced people like, “Jill, I need help with confidence on this.” I’m like, “Okay, so here’s what you do. You need to have practice. Just do practice with your friend, practice with whoever, seller phone calls, and know what questions you need to ask and what information you need to get. That will help you be more comfortable and that will give you the confidence that you need.”
So what do you do real quick? In Land Academy, it’s in your program material or if you just go on landinvestors.com, I think it’s on the left hand side if you scroll down, I still think it’s on there on our website. You can have a sheet, Jill’s inbound seller checklist. Print that out and have that seriously on your desk or however you want to do it. People have made it all automated and made it fancy before and made where it just goes into Airtable for themselves. You don’t have to do all that. But just that list of questions right there will help your confidence right away. If you know, okay, I need to get their name, check. Contact information, check. Do they like the offer price? Okay. Things to ask about the property, that kind of a thing. That helps right there.
Steven Jack Butala:
What you don’t want to have is a false sense of confidence.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
Knowing-
Jill K DeWit:
That’s cocky.
Steven Jack Butala:
Knowing the subject material like Jill just said, is really the fastest way to get confident on anything. And then maybe sharpening-
Jill K DeWit:
And then just do it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Voice intonation in your speech and how you talk on the phone and a lot of that, which you can learn on the internet fairly quickly, and find somebody who is a great example that you can follow. One of the first things you do before you get a YouTube channel is they tell you to find somebody out there who’s a celebrity or maybe somebody in your life that you want to follow, and you want to sound like them and come off like that.
Jill K DeWit:
I never read that. Isn’t that funny though? You were the first time I’d ever heard that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, it worked for me. I love Tim Allen. I just think he makes a lot of sense for a lot of reasons. And so what ends up happening with a false sense of confidence and I don’t know where this comes from, is you don’t know the material and you start spewing all this stuff like you do know the material, and what you’re really doing is regurgitating what somebody said a few minutes ago in a different environment. We have direct experience with this right now because there’s a handful of people that over the years have copied the entire Land Academy program and recreated it for themselves with their own names and their own stuff and word for word.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh yeah!
Steven Jack Butala:
Copied it all and they’re out there hawking it with the false sense of confidence.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s true-
Steven Jack Butala:
They’ve done about five real estate transactions in their entire lives.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s true. Five minutes and five deals and you too are a pro.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’re addressing that, how we think that’s appropriate.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. That’s kind of funny.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’ll leave it at that.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
All kidding aside, confidence is really important for everything. Like I said yesterday, starting with attracting somebody else, whatever that means to you, who’s got the same level of confidence you have and then growing together. Like I said, I couldn’t get a girl like Jill if I didn’t have at least some confidence. Or at least I fooled her long enough so that she thought I had a sense of confidence.
Jill K DeWit:
Fell for it. You know what, the thing I’m going to end it on this for me is the nature part of me. There’s nature and nurture. So nurture is get the checklist out and practice and gain confidence. But there’s a lot of you in Land Academy, like you’re an eight on the Enneagram test or I’m a seven, maybe you’re like me, and you naturally just go for stuff. You’re not afraid of it. You’re not afraid of making mistakes. That for me is beautiful. I love that. There’s healthy people in our community that are like that. They’re like, “Okay, what do I do? Great. I just do that.” So if you don’t have it too, you can follow our steps, put your head down and we’ll guide you. Lots of ways to do this. Happy you could join us today. Five days a week you can find us here on the Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
Tomorrow’s Jill Friday. She’s going to talk about how to qualify a real estate, a real seller. How to qualify a real seller in a minute or less. You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill K DeWit:
I want to make a comment here about what’s coming up this month. This is January 2023 and you asked for it, we listened. We are changing the format of our podcast. It’s going to be longer. We’re going to get to go more in depth on some of these topics, and it’s going to be a once a week thing so we could do some more deep diving into it. So I’m pretty excited about that, so stay tuned. That’s going to be changing over here quickly.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’re Jack and Jill-
Jill K DeWit:
We’re Jack and Jill-
Steven Jack Butala:
Information-
Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration-
Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
https://youtu.be/kh_PmeyQp0I
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
Jack and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit:
Howdy.
Steven Jack Butala:
Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today, Jill and I talk about the pros and cons of partial land ownership.
Jill K DeWit:
Are there pros?
Steven Jack Butala:
There are.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s a bunch.
Jill K DeWit:
I can think of one situation where there’s a pro, and I’m going to save it and see if you cover it, and if not I’ll throw it in at the end.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s an equal number of pros and cons-
Jill K DeWit:
Huh?
Steven Jack Butala:
… that’s the fastest… Well, here’s a little tea, a little test, a little taste. If you own half of a property, you only have to come up with half the money. If you own 1/3, and on, and on, and on.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s my pro.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s a great way to…
Jill K DeWit:
On the buy side. It’s not a pro on the sell side.
Steven Jack Butala:
On the sell side, you’re cutting it all up.
Jill K DeWit:
Like, great now I have to share half the profits. That stinks.
Steven Jack Butala:
Before we get into it, let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community. It’s free. Last year, a ton of people, Land Academy members actually-
Jill K DeWit:
Well actually, 2021.
Steven Jack Butala:
Two years ago?
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
… needed help getting their mail campaigns in the mail, which I understand. There’s a lot of moving parts to that. We created a concept called Concierge Data Plus, which is an offshoot of our mail company, Offers2Owners, to help you get the amount of mail that you think you need to get in the mail monthly, and keep it on track so you can hit your goals. Go to Support@Offers2Owners.com, and check it all out. Or, just call those guys. They’ll tell you exact… We have a lot of customers utilizing this tool and doing deals.
Jill K DeWit:
Can I just add clarification for new people real quick? Here’s the big picture, this has been a thing forever, since people started joining Land Academy and following what we do, like “How the heck are you doing that?” There’s a mail merge involved. There’s getting the data, but there’s scrubbing the data, there’s pricing the data. I don’t have a PhD in Excel like you do, Jack, so this is why we solved this. We are letting you use our team to help you download, scrub, pull comps so you can price the mailers how you want. You tell them what percentage you want, and then they price it. Then they get it in the mail for you. It’s really awesome. It just takes that work out of it for you.
If it’s something you’re not into or not comfortable with, or you’re just frankly too busy, that’s the greatest thing for me. I really thought that the majority of people that would be using Concierge Data, which is a product of Offers2Owners.com, number two Owners, would be people that are just like, “I can’t handle this. This is just too much for me to grasp right now and figuring this all out.” But no, it’s our heavy hitters. The majority of the users are people that have been with us for several years. They’re like, “I’m just done doing my own mail. I use Concierge Data. It saves me time. It keeps me on track. It rocks.”
Steven Jack Butala:
We used to be the biggest customer of Concierge Data, and we no longer are not.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, now we’re not.
Steven Jack Butala:
By leaps and bounds we’re not.
Jill K DeWit:
There’s other people sending more mail than us, and it’s awesome.
Okay, so back to the question. Will wrote, “I have a counter offer on a commercial property. Is there someone that could chat with me about some of the due diligence steps, and how they would or should be different for a commercially zone property?” Well, there’s an easy answer, [inaudible 00:03:36] people have said, “Put the details here.”
Steven Jack Butala:
They did.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay, good. That’s all you have to do. There’s so many of us, myself included, have deals like this going on all the time that if you want to say, “Is this normal? Is this normal? Is this normal? Is this normal?” We’ll go, “Yes, yes, no, weird.”
Steven Jack Butala:
I can chat-
Jill K DeWit:
And help you.
Steven Jack Butala:
I can chat about it here with you too.
Jill K DeWit:
Cool.
Steven Jack Butala:
Commercial property comes in all different shapes and sizes, as all land does. Commercial property could be, depending on how it’s zoned, it could be zone agricultural or general, and so there’s a lot of uses for that kind of property. Everybody loves agricultural property because you can use it for so many different uses. All property originally was agricultural property. With that comes very loose rules, do whatever you want out there, it’s okay.
Well, now there’s industrial property and office use property. It’s all based on use. A lot of commercial property now has been master plan zoned where it’s zoned for one specific use. It might be zoned for light industrial, or warehouse, or heavy industrial. It might be zoned… Jill and I did a deal where a property was very specifically zoned for hotel/motel. It was in an interstate intersection or off ramp. It really comes down to how that property’s going to be used, and then finding [inaudible 00:05:02] compared property that’s either for sale or sold, and assigning it a value that where you know you can make some money.
I love commercial property. I love it.
Jill K DeWit:
Another thing I was going to say too, Will, about the due diligence, that’s usually a more lengthy, more time consuming… On a commercial type of property, my buyers traditionally ask for a 45-day due diligence process where they might be doing everything from traffic count, to getting their own soil analysis, to figuring out where the culverts are going to go kind of thing with the city. Fill in the blank. That kind of thing is not nuts.
I price it well, and they are that serious about it that they’re paying for that stuff, by the way. That’s usually how we work it out. There’s all kinds of variations to that. Just like I said, just like you did, put more specifics. Discord is a closed environment, and we will help you.
Steven Jack Butala:
It all comes down to use with commercial property. All of it. It starts and ends there on a buy and the sell side.
Today’s topic, the pros and cons of partial land ownership. This is the meat of the show. Every property that Jill and I buy, a vast majority of the properties that she and I buy together and then resell, are in an LLC that I own, an LLC that she owns. There’s LLCs that we both own. There’s all types of partial ownership that can come in all different shapes and sizes with land.
In general, I believe partial ownership is a great way to spread the profit and spread out your acquisition costs, and get another set of eyeballs on the deal that you’re doing. Jill and I, not so much anymore, but we used to have to agree. We had an unwritten rule. We’d both look at the deal and say, “Yeah, this is a good deal,” or it’s not. Not so much anymore. Jill just decides now because honestly her track record’s a little bit better than mine acquisition-wise.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you. Appreciate it. Girl power.
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t know if it’s gender or girl power, or lack of empathy on my part, or age, or what-
Jill K DeWit:
Or maybe it’s lack of empathy on my part because I was like, “Nope, not buying it. Nope. This is it. This is a take it or leave it number.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Apathy, not empathy.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh.
Steven Jack Butala:
No matter what, apathy is involved in I don’t know to what degree in both of our products.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s good.
Steven Jack Butala:
Partial ownership is great that way. Where we run into partial ownership that’s not so great, and this happens probably once a month at least, you send out a bunch of mail, a seller calls back real excited and says, “I’d love to sell this property. I own it with my two sisters and my brother who has been in Mexico for 28 years, and sometimes he calls me back and sometimes he doesn’t.” So now, you have four owners. They usually inherited it.
Jill K DeWit:
Yep, that’s how it happens.
Steven Jack Butala:
Sister A is all ready to sell it. The other two sisters, they don’t care, but you know where to reach them. Then there’s the brother.
Jill K DeWit:
And we don’t know where he is. He doesn’t have power in the evening, so good luck there too.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is actually a loosely-
Jill K DeWit:
He’s in remote Mexico.
Steven Jack Butala:
… based on a real example that we’ve experienced.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
This story. So, you know you’ve got a perfectly great piece of property, an amazing real estate deal.
Jill K DeWit:
I hate it when this happens.
Steven Jack Butala:
And you’ve got partial ownership standing in the way.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
All they had to do was, during the estate scenario, put it into a trust or with an executor, and hopefully Sister A, because she’s the more responsible one, is the executor of the trust. She can sign for it. The trust sells the property to Jill. They get a check, and then they can go chase Brother D down-
Jill K DeWit:
Maybe they will, maybe they won’t.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. Maybe they’ll find him. Maybe they won’t work too hard at it.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, exactly. Would’ve given you the money, but we don’t know where you are.
Steven Jack Butala:
To make it worse, you can buy, on the con side of this pros and cons sheet here, you can get 10, 20, 15… You can syndicate a real estate transaction. You’ve got 100, 200, 300 donors just like let’s say Tesla who has thousands and thousands, and tens of thousands of shareholders. To organize that, you need to have a ring leader, and that’s what property managers are. If you develop a land trust, someone’s go to manage the trust.
Partial ownership is very powerful. It’s a lot easier to raise $5.00 from 25,000 people than it is $25 million from one person. Or however the math works. It’s powerful, just like leverages, just like loaning money or borrowing money, and loaning money can work great. You just can’t abuse it. You have to have a plan, and you need to point people to make decisions for the rest of the group.
Jill K DeWit:
The recent deals that I’m involved with… Number one, when I do deal funding, it’s already right there, partial ownership. Loosely. Usually, I’m putting up 100% of the money but we’re splitting the profit in our contract, so the deed is in my name, so I kind of own it, but we have an agreement that we’re sharing it. So, there’s that. The other thing is, sometimes we have deals going on, like right now, where I’m one of three, one of four, because it was a bigger deal and it just made sense. Everybody feels good putting in $100,000.00 versus putting in $400,000.00 by one person. I’m like, “I’m great with that.”
Then of course, the con is, “Well great, now I don’t get as much return on my money, but I didn’t have as much risk.” [inaudible 00:10:53].
Steven Jack Butala:
You don’t know before that happens, too. It’s really interesting, the psychology behind if there’s a $200,000.00 piece of property and you sell it for $400,000.00, on the buy side if you buy it, you get deal funding. Somebody writes a $200,000.00 check. You post it for sale. It sells in 35 seconds. And it’s like, “Well, if I knew it was going to sell in 35 seconds I would have done it myself, and I would have kept the $200,000.00 profit for myself.” But you don’t know.
Jill K DeWit:
You don’t know.
Steven Jack Butala:
Then maybe it takes a year and a half and you’re like, “Wow, I’m glad that I deal funded that.”
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, that’s one right now. I think we’re going on two years on this deal. It wasn’t my deal. I was the last person to come in and throw some money in there, but that’s okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
Partial ownership, I’ll kind of end it on this, is an amazing tool. You just have to use it correctly, whatever that means for you, and not get in your Brother D situation.
Jill K DeWit:
Can I add one little thing?
Steven Jack Butala:
Sure.
Jill K DeWit:
The best thing you can do in this situation too, the one like I think we’re one of four or five, I can’t remember what it is seriously, parties in this deal because it’s a big deal, is you can’t all have all five. You can’t expect all five to be agreeing on it, so you have to pick one or two people to call the shots. Everybody agrees on that. So, we have that in writing, that two of us, I’m one of them, get to call the shots as far as if we get a new agent, if we change the price, if we accept a price. Something like that, you do have to spell that out now. It’ll make your life much easier.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yep.
Jill K DeWit:
The four people that did this, you’d have one person calling the shots in that family.
Happy you could join us today. Five days a week, you can find us here on the Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
Tomorrow is Jack Thursday, and since it’ the beginning of January here, I’m going to talk about confidence. You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill K DeWit:
I look forward to tomorrow.
Steven Jack Butala:
I would be nowhere without some element of confidence, and I don’t think that Jill would either. I couldn’t get a girl like Jill if I didn’t have any confidence, first of all.
Jill K DeWit:
Aw, well thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Confidence is so underrated and so not talked about enough, in my opinion.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s good. That’s really good. I feel like we talk about it. Women talk about it, but maybe it’s just my own little inner circle.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m going to have some questions for you tomorrow then.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, good. I would look forward to that. Hey, thank you for tuning in. By the way, we would love to connect with you live on Clubhouse. It’s like a radio show on your phone. So, check it out. On your phone, whether you’re Android or Apple, doesn’t matter, find the Clubhouse app. Download that, log in. Join the Land Investing Club. Follow that. Follow us. You can connect us the first and third Thursday of every month at 12:00 Pacific time. Again, it’s live. You get to ask us questions. It’s a whole lot of fun. We really enjoy it.
Speaker 3:
We are Jack and Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
Information-
Jill K DeWit:
… and inspiration.
Steven Jack Butala:
… to buy undervalued property.
https://youtu.be/pq0uhjjmTwk
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
Jack and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit:
Hi.
Steven Jack Butala:
Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today Jill and I talk about how small is too small in your land transactions.
Jill K DeWit:
I have two things. I want to talk about the deals that I do, and I want to talk about the deals that you should do.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s great. And I’ll tell you right out of the box here, this changes all the time. A regular deal for us used to be buy for $500 and sell for 1500. That was like a standard deal for us for a lot of years. And certainly not anymore.
Jill K DeWit:
Because they were every hour.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
That makes a difference. Isn’t that funny? Wow.
Steven Jack Butala:
Stick a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It’s free. I hope you know by now jill and I own a full-blown commercial printing company called Offers 2 Owners, the number two owners, to get offers into owner’s hands that you’re sending out to buy their property. We started it a lot of years ago out of frustration because we couldn’t get the service and attention that we needed from an outside vendor. So we started our own. And fast forward today, we do almost a million offers a month. Sometimes, we actually go over a million offers going outbound a month. Check out support@offers2owners.com.
Jill K DeWit:
Will wrote, “Going through the six As. And right now, I’m looking at access. I have an opportunity on a property that is at the end of a dead end road. So there’s access. It’s a small lot 0.6 acres. This is good. It’s over half acre. So how much should I be worried about the fact that it’s a dead end road, that it’s only one lane wide, but it’s paved right up to the property, but not beyond it.” Are you kidding? I love that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. Zero. You should worry about it zero.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s the best possible scenario. I’m like, “Who wouldn’t want that road ends at my house?” No one’s going there, unless they’re going to my house. First of all. I don’t have the through traffic and the noise and that kind of a thing and it’s paved. I’m like, “That would be the seventh A,” which is asphalt.
Steven Jack Butala:
Don’t keep saying that.
Jill K DeWit:
I know. I’m sorry. We’re joking about that one. That was a career path inside joke, but I think it’s awesome. What do you think?
Steven Jack Butala:
Dead end roads are great. The only con, or downside, to having a dead end road property is that the signage, the for sale signage that you put up, might not be as attractive because you’re not reaching as many people as you possibly can to sell it. But from a livability and a buy-ability standpoint, everybody loves dead ends.
Jill K DeWit:
Totally.
Steven Jack Butala:
Do you know that it’s not politically correct to say dead end anymore?
Jill K DeWit:
What?
Steven Jack Butala:
No through traffic or what… I don’t know. Dead end is just a… I read this is a while ago, like a year ago.
Jill K DeWit:
What? Well, who is that possibly offending?
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t know, Jill. Whoever it’s offending, I don’t know. I don’t know what they would be upset about. The word dead, maybe.
Jill K DeWit:
What?
Steven Jack Butala:
I know. I knew you’d have that extra… That-
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. Are you making this up?
Steven Jack Butala:
Nope. No. All the news signs you see, it says no through traffic.
Jill K DeWit:
Wow. That’s hilarious.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s topic before Jill gets all-
Jill K DeWit:
How much money is that going to cost?
Steven Jack Butala:
Exactly. Today’s topic, how small is too small with land deals? This is why you’re listening.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. So first, we need to talk about your deals and then we’ll talk about my deals. So how small is too small? You know what? There is a number, but it’s unique to you. But there’s some things that you need to know when doing small deals, like Jack just referred to. There’s lots of people like to buy for 500 and sell for 1500, like, “Woo-hoo. I tripled my money and I did it overnight.” That’s great. And I agree with that/however, the quality of the properties are not as great obviously. And the sellers are a whole different customer.
Think about this one. Who’s writing a check for $1,500 and who’s writing a check for $15,000 and who’s writing a check for $150,000? These are all very different customers. And the more money they’re spending, the easier they are to work with, I got to tell you. They’re professional. They’ve done their homework, they’re not asking silly questions. And they’re not going to ask for a refund on $150,000 because they did all their due diligence before they got to that point. And they wired the money or however you’re doing it, usually through escrow at that point. So we don’t have to think about that.
But the $1,500 people, that can be hard. And like Jack said, you’ve done a lot of those deals. How many of those people wake up and go, “Oh, my kid took my credit card.” Or I’ve even dealt with that back in the day. I was way, way, way back in the day. We did a lot of auctions online and they’re like, “Oh, my toddler had my computer.” Really? Your toddler’s on your computer bidding on an land auction. I’m not sure how that would happen, but wow. You have a brilliant toddler.
So there’s just weird things that people come up with because, again, it’s a different customer. But as you’re starting out, getting your feet wet, I understand that. I understand a lot of people started there because, I’ll tell you why, a lot of people start with other Land Academy offshoot education programs. Let’s just say that.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s a nice way to say that.
Jill K DeWit:
There you go. And those Land Academy offshoot education programs might be preaching doing smaller deals because that’s all the money you have. You don’t have to do that. But maybe you did that and you got your feet wet. But then you found your way to us. That’s very, very, very common. I’m like, “All right, I’m done doing these small deals now. I want to make this an empire. This is my career. This is going to be my life. I’ve tested it.” And then, they find land academy me because we’re the ones that are on the bigger deals and helping you get to that level. Because that’s who we are. So, again, there’s nothing wrong with that, but you don’t have to go there if you don’t want to. Or when you’re ready to switch, you just do it. I’ve said for years, “Add a zero.” $500 can be $5,000 tomorrow.
Steven Jack Butala:
Buy for 5,000, sell for 15,000.
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
Absolutely.
Jill K DeWit:
And then buy for 5,000 should be really quickly buy for 50.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yep.
Jill K DeWit:
Those are my numbers. So now, we’re transitioning into my world.
Steven Jack Butala:
Me too.
Jill K DeWit:
So I don’t do those deals anymore. Truth, I just don’t. I’m not going to spend… Because I’m going to spend at least the same amount of work, maybe more work, struggling to sell a $1,500 property versus I’m not even trying to sell the $150,000 property. I have a broker doing it for me. Think about that one. So that’s why it’s even easier and arguably more fun.
Now let me take it to the next level. “Okay. That’s great, Jill. But I don’t have the 50K.” Well, guess what? I do, as do many people in Land Academy. Right now, today, I don’t really have a good number on it, but I’m going to tell you. There’s a healthy percentage of people in Land Academy, some that are only in Land Academy to fund deals. They have no desire to send out any mail on their own. They’re only here in our community because they know how smart you are and how savvy you are at finding these deals. Because you learn from the pros and they are just sitting there waiting to fund your deals and just cash out with you on the end.
Steven Jack Butala:
No matter what you choose… And you should choose all of the above, I think in the beginning or at least after your 10th deal, and see which one fits for you. But they all have one thing in common. They’re undervalued, where the perception of the property when you put it up for sale after you bought it, is that it’s undervalued for what the current market is in the area and the whole thing.
Jill K DeWit:
Hopefully, you priced it that way. I want you to price it that way.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s not lose sight of that. But none of this works if you buy overvalued property. It only works if it’s undervalued. The pros to selling cheaper property and making less money are it sells faster. It’s just common sense. More people have $5,000 than have $500,000. That’s just how it is. Also, there’s a lot more properties that are smaller and cheaper. So there’s a chance that you’re going to buy more deals and flip more property and really sharpen your skills on the whole thing.
The cons are, it’s obvious, again, you’re not making as much money per deal. There’s a balance. We’ve found a balance over the 20 years where buying a property for $500,000 and selling it for 1.5 million. That can happen. We’ve done that. I’ve done that. It takes a really long time. It’s usually commercial property. The due diligence periods are very, very long. There’s usually financing, almost always financing involved, and there’s a lot of moving parts in. That type of customer is very easy to deal with. But they have a lot going on in their life. They’re usually doing multiple deals right now. Maybe they’re a home builder. There’s just a lot of stuff going on. That’s not for me. I mean, we could easily do one deal a year like that and not work that hard.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, that’s bucket whatever. Is that bucket three?
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s bucket three. So it’s harder. It’s harder. So the in the middle is buy for 30 or 40 or 50 and sell for 80, 90, 100. We just bought a property for $30,000 and sold it for 80 and we were all jumping down about it. And it went fairly smoothly without… Not flawlessly, but fairly smoothly. So, again, it’s not hard to fit in anyone’s schedule one deal a month, making 70 to $80,000 at all and make an incredibly good living very, very quietly and just kind of found your… And also, there’s enough meat on that deal so you can go get funding.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. Completely agree. I love it. Then, whatever level you’re at, I want you to don’t let yourself hang out there too long. I think get comfortable. If you spend six months in a year at one price point, I’m good with that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, me too.
Jill K DeWit:
But if you’re going over a year now, I want you add a zero.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yep.
Jill K DeWit:
And I think a lot of people are happy in the $5,000 range, and you could do the same thing in the $50,000 range. I love it. I promise they’re out there. And if you’re in Land Academy, you know how to troll. Or you’ve watched some of my videos, you know how to troll and you know how to sit back into it and look at the whole map of the country and find areas where things are selling over $100,000. And so you can back into where to send mail and how to make it easy for yourself.
And of course you have us. You have our whole community. You have all the support that… We’ll help you. We won’t let you make a big flaw. You know what I mean? As long as you ask. You have our Thursday calls. You have us. We’ll make sure, as best we can, give you another pair of eyes so you make good decisions on those. Love it. Happy you could join us today. Five days a week, you can find us here on the Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
Tomorrow, the episode on the Land Academy show is called The Pros and Cons of Partial Land Ownership. You are not alone in your real estate ambition. Yeah. Why would three people own one property? There’s tons and tons of reasons. Jill and I are two people and we own all kinds of property.
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
When there’s 30 people, that’s a different story. We’ll talk about a little bit about that tomorrow.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s really funny. It’s good. Thank you for tuning in. Like I was mentioning on the show, Jack and I are really aware that not a lot of you have even 100 grand lying around to buy land and do these deals. Those are great numbers, Jill, but that’s okay. Don’t worry. We fund many, many member deals, us personally. And we love doing that. So check out landfunding.com. And as I mentioned too, just within Land Academy, there’s so much money. I haven’t done a survey in a while to see how much money’s flowing around, but I do that now and then. So check out support@landacademy.com if you have any questions and we will get back to you.
Steven Jack Butala:
We are Jack and Jill. Information…
Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration…
Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
https://youtu.be/uM8LcqGBzAc
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
Jack and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit:
Hi.
Steven Jack Butala:
Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
And I’m Jill Dewitt, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today Jill and I talk about getting rich in 2023.
Jill K DeWit:
Yay.
Steven Jack Butala:
Who doesn’t want to talk about getting rich?
Jill K DeWit:
I’m just saying happy 2023. I’m excited. Aren’t you excited?
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m excited about rich.
Jill K DeWit:
I love starting a new year. It’s great. I’m really excited. Oh, I know you have a lot… This is all on your side of the sheet-
Steven Jack Butala:
Not really? Do you have a lack of enjoyment and fulfillment for getting rich?
Are you at a loss for words about making money?
Jill K DeWit:
You know what? I’m over it. It’s overrated. Just kidding. Who flipping cares?
Steven Jack Butala:
I actually had somebody to say that to me one time, really long time ago. I don’t know, this was like in high school when we were all sitting around talking with somebody’s parents and they said, “Yeah, making a lot of money has really been a letdown in my life. There’s a lot of other things-”
Jill K DeWit:
“It’s only money. We’ll make more.” Just kidding.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s silly.
Jill K DeWit:
I know it’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
Before we get into it, let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it’s free.
Jill K DeWit:
Kim wrote, “I’m looking for advice on offer percentages for higher value properties. So I offered $85,000 for a 20 acre property. The seller wants $203,000 and comps are between $340,000 and $400,000 for this size / area in the last few months. I typically stick to 40% of comps as my absolute highest offer price to keep me in check when I call sellers back. For higher priced properties, am I right in remembering that a percent of comps may increase? For example, do I shift my highest percent up to 45 or 50% or more?”
I think they go down.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well yea-
Jill K DeWit:
For a bigger size.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s a good question.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is so… It’s personal.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
In general, we’re all used to doubling our money on just about every deal. In most cases, the deals that we do. I’m not bragging, I’m just saying how it is. Largely because of Jill’s real specific acquisition criteria. It’s more than that. So for larger properties, some people go for a dollar amount, like on houses. When we buy houses, we have to make $100,000. We might spend 300 to sell it for 400. And again, that’s certainly not doubling our money at all, but it’s a different deal. For land, we like to double, sometimes triple the money.
Jill K DeWit:
Mm-hmm.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s up to you.
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t know. You know what my whole thing is, Kim? I need wiggle room in case anything goes sideways.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
So the numbers that… Can I see the numbers again? We’re at 200 to sell for 340 to 400. Okay. That’s not nuts. That’s really-
Steven Jack Butala:
I love your 85 though.
Jill K DeWit:
No I know. 85 was awesome then you can’t go wrong.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
So can you meet them in the middle? That’s a very normal thing where you make an offer, they counter, we meet in the middle, whatever it is kind of thing. So that would be my first goal. But otherwise, I mean, how good do you feel About 340 to 400? If you screw it all up and you sold for 300 and you paid 203, are you okay with that? I’m okay with that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah-
Jill K DeWit:
As long as it goes fast and I can’t lose and I really want it to go fast because I’m tying up $200,000. Because if I’m tying $200,000 for a year, that’s a no bueno for me.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, me too.
Jill K DeWit:
Because I could do a lot with that $200,000 in a year. But if I’m tying up $200,000 for 60 days, I’m okay with that.
Steven Jack Butala:
You’re also in the range where getting funding is really a viable option because you are going to split 100 grand. So now everybody’s making $50,000. So maybe-
Jill K DeWit:
Something like that.
Steven Jack Butala:
… use another member’s money to do this kind of deal just to see how it goes might make sense.
Jill K DeWit:
I like these. This is a really good question.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. Today’s topic, getting rich in 2023. This is the meat of the show. What’s different about 2023 than 2022?
Jill K DeWit:
I’d like to know that too.
Steven Jack Butala:
Nothing.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s just January 2nd.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
And every single year that goes by, technology gets better. The data quality and the deliverability and how it gets used is better.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
We have more tools at our literal fingertips to make great decisions about real estate acquisitions. Land and houses.
Jill K DeWit:
Yup.
Steven Jack Butala:
What I really want to talk about here is, getting rich is why we’re here. We talk about a lot of stuff in the Land Academy environment on our Thursday call and career paths, certainly on the podcast and advanced call and on and on. There’s a lot of talking, but what probably doesn’t get talked about enough is, “Hey, why are we here? Are we here to do real estate deals?” Yeah, but to what end? To get rich. So what is rich? What is rich to you, Jill?
Jill K DeWit:
You what’s funny? Our numbers keep changing. So what’s funny is my numbers are not as high as your numbers. Isn’t that interesting? You have a higher goal as I think. So every time you sit me down and you go, “Here’s what we’re doing for… This is what we’re aiming for this year.” I’m like, “If we do half that, I’m happy.” And then I’m always walking around happy because I’m like hitting half that and it is easy kind of thing. So you know what, rich to me now is more about not working that hard.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, me too.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s really where I’m at. So-
Steven Jack Butala:
Here we are working.
Jill K DeWit:
I know, but when I take a step back and I look at all the time that I put in all of our companies, the one company that demands the least of me is the land company. So I love it. It’s the best thing ever. So getting rich to me is having the time to devote to the other things that I want to do. Travel and fun and people and adventures. That’s what I really want to do. And then doing deals on the side and just fit them in whenever I want to. That’s great. That’s rich to me and I’m happy and I know there’s a number and I know you’ll cover that. I know you make sure that we are there. So it’s no big deal.
Steven Jack Butala:
Getting rich for me is all numbers. So to the end of, I don’t have to work.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah-
Steven Jack Butala:
And I’ve had that, “I don’t want to work for a living” goal my entire life and I don’t mean to sit around and do nothing at all. That’s not what I mean. I mean not have to go to work if I don’t want to.
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
Unless it’s for what we do.
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s three or four basic stages of wealth that I think really made sense to me. Number one, you at some point have to make or generate the amount and enough money to pay your bills, to pay your rent, food, whatever else ends up… Whatever you have. So that’s stage one. And I remember exactly when I got a job and that allowed me to do that. So… That’s amazing. That’s a euphoric… I was walking on the clouds for that week. I remember when I got the job-
Jill K DeWit:
You could breathe and you could afford everything you needed. You could afford to pay all your whatever and breathe-
Steven Jack Butala:
Nothing special. Okay, I’m just making more than I’m spending or at least just covering it.
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
Stage two on that is making enough so that you’re actually, I call it “getting ahead”. You’re ahead of the bills. You’re probably saving, even if it’s $200 or $300 a month, I don’t care. But if you’re making and you’re putting money away like that it’s just, that’s stage two. And you’re obviously traveling down this path hopefully to wealth. Stage three is you don’t have any debt and you don’t have any rent. So-
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
You buy a house or wherever you choose to live. It doesn’t have to be anything special, but you now have removed the largest expense of your life.
Jill K DeWit:
We just had a member in Land Academy in Discord posts that they’ve just paid off their mortgage.
Steven Jack Butala:
Mm-hmm.
Jill K DeWit:
In the last 30, 60 days.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah-
Jill K DeWit:
How great is that?
Steven Jack Butala:
It took three and a half years to do it, which I thought was just amazing.
Jill K DeWit:
That was really good.
Steven Jack Butala:
And so now you don’t have any rent, you don’t have any mortgage that accounts for 25 to 30% of your after tax income usually, which is a ton. And now you can seriously work on step four, which is where all of us in Land Academy strive to be, which is creating some serious wealth.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
In the process, Jill’s absolutely right. Especially when you get older. In the process, you’re not working as hard. In fact, you’re working less. So we didn’t create Land Academy or we didn’t start to buy and sell land and continue to do it for decades now because the numbers don’t work on it.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
We did. We it because that business model achieves all those things.
Jill K DeWit:
Totally.
Steven Jack Butala:
And you can work as hard as you want or as little as you want. And you’re probably going to end up doing, in Jill’s case, 10 or 15 deals a year. And so 30, 40, 50, 80,000, $100,000 net margin on each deal. That’s millions a year
Jill K DeWit:
I do more than that, but because I have a good team, it doesn’t feel like it. You probably only hear about them-
Steven Jack Butala:
I’ve been asked to be realistic.
Jill K DeWit:
I do more than that.
Steven Jack Butala:
I know you do. I know you do. For sure. So we were talking in career path about the deals that we’ve all done this year and those kinds of numbers were being thrown out.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
I did 10 deals this year. We made netted 80,000 on each deal. So it’s a comfortable 800,000. Not a lot of work. Those kinds of numbers are being thrown out and I think that is really, that’s wealthy.
Jill K DeWit:
You know what’s so nice about it? That’s what we were talking about the other day is, within our group we have all levels. How hard do you want to work? How much do you want to work? What’s your comfort level on the dollar amount and fill in the blank. We have some people that are just coasting that are not working that hard. Like you said, averaging a deal a month, making close to $100,000 a month and that’s it. And they’re really happy. They know they could do double that and make double the money. They’re like, “Meh, I don’t know if I want to.” And then we have other people that are like, “No, I’m going for it man. Out of my way.” And maybe they do 10 deals a month and they make 30,000 a deal.
Steven Jack Butala:
Sure.
Jill K DeWit:
Because that’s their comfort level. Nothing wrong with that. That’s great too because we only think about, it’s a couple a week. Okay. Really, really good. We have all of that. So you coming into Land Academy, I know this is January 2023. We had a lot of people that just joined us and we’re really happy you’re here. So whatever level you’re comfortable at or whatever level you want to get to, that’s why you’re here. And that’s Land Academy and that’s a career path and that’s all the other things we got coming up for you to help you push this up and get rich in 2023.
Steven Jack Butala:
January’s a great time to really sit down and plan.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
And see what your average month looks like from a time where you’re spending your time. How much money are you spending on resources? But I can tell you for sure what will not happen in the Land Academy environment. Nothing will happen if you don’t do two things. Number one, have a plan and be ultra organized. And number two, make sure that sending out a lot of mail correctly is involved in that plan and answering the phone correctly and all of that. And so whenever we start something like this, or Jill and I are still after all these years, improving our land acquisition and sales operation-
Jill K DeWit:
Mm-hmm. Always was tweaking it.
Steven Jack Butala:
…making sure that the people that are involved directly, like Jill’s transaction coordinator, Jan, making sure she’s happy she has all the research that she needs from us and that it’s all continually moving forward and then the machine’s in place.
Jill K DeWit:
Yep. I like what you just said about planning. Have your equity planner open and on your desk and filled out and check it often. That way you won’t go sideways. You know what my team just told me, all in on this, my team was just telling me the other day about someone, they’re like, “Gosh, this poor person, he’s been with us for how long? And he hasn’t sent any mail out.” I’m like, “What’s up with that? You got to send the mail out. You got to do that.” And you know what, who cares if you’ve been with us for one year or three years and you haven’t done it yet? Make this the time. This is it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, that’s right.
Jill K DeWit:
And we’re right here. Like he says, “You’re not alone in this.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Keith says.
Jill K DeWit:
And you’re not alone in this. And we’ll make sure you don’t fall that far. We’ll help you. Happy you could join us today. Five days a week, you can find us here on the Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
So around the episode in the Land Academy show is called, “How Small Is Too Small With Land Deals?” You’re not alone in your real estate ambition. Talking about getting rich is easy.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, it’s fun. What’s not to love?
Steven Jack Butala:
Exactly.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. Hey, by the way, if you think that this land investing gig might be for you, check it out. Go to landacademy.com. Unfortunately this is January and I had to close up a membership because we hit our cap and I really want to give this community, we want to give them a lot of attention to get them where they need to be. So sit tight. Sometime in February, I will probably reopen. You’ll be posted. I think there’s a wait list on there. So go to landacademy.com, check out all you can. Check out the wait list, you can get on that. And if you have any other questions just send a note to my team via support@landacademy.com.
We are Jack and Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
We are Jack and Jill.
Information-
Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration.
Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
https://youtu.be/e0NvGjVpLag
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Transcript:
Jack Butala:
Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit:
Hi.
Jack Butala:
Welcome to the Land Academy show entertaining land investment talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWitt broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Jack Butala:
Today, jill and I talk about the fantastically interesting topic called taxes in your land business.
Jill DeWit:
I’m excited.
Jack Butala:
Me too. I can’t wait to talk about taxes. No, here-
Jill DeWit:
We talk about this often, all the time. Gosh, it’s a topic that warms my heart.
Jack Butala:
The truth of it is it’s pretty necessary because if you do everything right, this is maybe the second or third or fourth most expensive line item in your expenses for your company. And with ours, it’s probably number two or three.
Jill DeWit:
True or false. If you do everything right, you’re a little bit teary eyed when tax time comes/however, that means you did well.
Jack Butala:
That’s right.
Jill DeWit:
Okay.
Jack Butala:
It’s a bittersweet situation.
Jill DeWit:
Oh, okay.
Jack Butala:
Before we get into it, let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It’s free.
Jill DeWit:
This is a long one, I will warn you. Chris asks, “I’m new to the land business and looking for others to join an accountability group. Whether you just joined land Academy as I did a few days ago, or are otherwise somewhat new to the business, it’s all good. I anticipate we’ll be running into a lot of the same questions and hurdles around the same time as we do our research, get out our first mailers. Mine will go out next week. Field our first phone calls, et cetera. More answers and knowledge than we could ever ask for are here in the forums, education/podcast/ [inaudible 00:01:50] calls, et cetera. So, we’re covered there, but what we can do is provide each other some accountability and encouragement as we rack up our first success stories, not to mention learning from whatever unique talents/experience we each bring to the table. And that landed us in this business.”
And in parentheses, Chris says he’s an experienced software developer and business owner himself.
Jack Butala:
Excellent.
Jill DeWit:
That’s great.
Jack Butala:
Excellent.
Jill DeWit:
“Perhaps a biweekly networking call over Zoom and a free Slack channel to stay in touch in the meantime. Anyone interested? Please reply to this thread or send me a PM. Private message. Thanks.”
Jack Butala:
And there were about 20 people in there that replied to this almost immediately.
Jill DeWit:
I bet. This is a hot topic.
Jack Butala:
Right. So what do you think?
Jill DeWit:
I think it’s great. I think it’s something we should do and I think it’s something we are doing.
Jack Butala:
Go ahead.
Jill DeWit:
We are going to put together something for you. So in the meantime, Chris, I’m so happy. And for those of you who have created your own groups, because you know that that’s the one thing that you uniquely need. Some people do, some people don’t. It doesn’t … Nobody’s right or wrong. It’s just some people need it, and those I’m so impressed and proud about everybody that have taken this on themselves and just said, “I know I need someone making me check in and keeping me on track.” And I think this is awesome.
Jack Butala:
So do I.
Jill DeWit:
And our group has grown to the level where you have enough people, obviously, that this has become more of a thing. And so, we’re going to take it. We’re going to provide tools and resources to help you.
Jack Butala:
This falls under the category for me of what could possibly be bad about this? What’s bad about exercising? Nothing. What’s bad about more education? Nothing. So this, I think, accountability is just one of the cornerstones of succeeding at anything. And so, since we started Land Academy, I’d love to know your opinion on this too, and we’ve been doing this for five or six years now. I’ve learned a lot of stuff. Jill and I are just natural born self-starters. She can go off and I won’t talk to her about a specific topic for three or four days and come back and say, “Okay, we’ve got six properties under contract. Here’s the numbers. I think we’re going to net this. I took the money out of this bank account. And do you have anything to say about it?”
Which I think the first time I had some stuff to say about it years ago. This is years and years ago. She’s just a soft starter, period. So am I. So, I incorrectly assume everybody else is. And I think that this would be great, and we’re working through how we’re going to do … We are going to do some version of this.
Jill DeWit:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jack Butala:
A couple of weeks ago or a week ago, I guess, and we’ll talk more about it on the Thursday call if you remember, the Thursday webinar. We asked everybody to tell us what … The next level of Land Academy, what they’d like out of it, and this is what came up the most. Some type of accountability group. So, we are going to … This will develop itself or we will develop some version of this pretty soon, actually.
Jill DeWit:
It’s like when you think about anything you think about … I was just thinking about education. If I was [inaudible 00:05:07] … There’s some people that you give them the semester’s work, right? So you’re in a college class. Some people, if they have the whole syllabus, it’s kind of like me, it’s kind of like I want to get through it and then goof off and read it. I kind of read ahead. I like to work ahead, have it done, so that means I can have more play time on the backside.
Jack Butala:
I’m the same way.
Jill DeWit:
That’s my motivation. That’s really the reason why.
Jack Butala:
Same personality.
Jill DeWit:
And then there’s people that they need week by week by week by week by week kind of thing. But either way, it’s good to have. I’m just thinking … So I was thinking about college courses and how people are different and it doesn’t mean you’re better or smarter or anything like that. It’s just how you roll, number one. And then some people I know personally that will fall if they don’t have these deadlines. What’s really interesting to me is that I think what you and I do, what’s different is you and I create self-imposed deadlines, and some people can’t do that.
Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
I really think that’s the difference. And if they do, they can’t stick to them. And that’s where this comes in too.
Jack Butala:
So, I was thinking about this because I’ve really spent a lot of time on this and it will come to reality.
Jill DeWit:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jack Butala:
Nowhere in college is there a class called … In your senior year how to interview or how to find a job. Maybe there is now, but there certainly wasn’t when I had it. That would have been maybe the most useful class there ever was or a mandatory job fair on Tuesday.
Jill DeWit:
Why is that? We had a home ec … We talked about this today.
Jack Butala:
Yeah. Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
I had home ec where I learned how to make a dress, but no one taught me how to fill out a resume.
Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
Like, okay.
Jack Butala:
And especially at college, there should be some type of course. I think there are … I think community college is packed full of stuff like this, but I think the universities don’t do it or maybe they do now.
Jill DeWit:
I don’t know.
Jack Butala:
They should have a course like a personal financing. Personal finances.
Jill DeWit:
That would be great.
Jack Butala:
How to mortgage a house. How to get through your life. [crosstalk 00:07:12]. That’s the course. The course should be called how to get through your life.
Jill DeWit:
Why not take out a new credit card to pay off X? Don’t do that people.
Jack Butala:
All that.
Jill DeWit:
People … It’s a good one.
Jack Butala:
So that’s what this kind of is.
Jill DeWit:
Okay.
Jack Butala:
And it’s based obviously on the knowledge that we’ve developed on how to buy and sell land. It’s based on a massive amount of mistakes that Jill and I made collectively and individually to help you not make those mistakes.
Jill DeWit:
What was your latest mistake?
Jack Butala:
Oh jeez. Personally or socially?
Jill DeWit:
Oh, wait, wait, wait. I did the same. Business or social?
Jack Butala:
[crosstalk 00:07:45]. I’ll answer it.
Jill DeWit:
All right. Go ahead.
Jack Butala:
If you do too, though, after this.
Jill DeWit:
Okay.
Jack Butala:
Most recent business mistake that I made [crosstalk 00:07:54].
Jill DeWit:
[crosstalk 00:07:55] own business.
Jack Butala:
And it’s recent. No, it’s in the last few days. Is getting some extremely high level private equity people involved in this big picture mobile home thing that I’m working on to the point where they’re trying to take it over. And we’re still in the discussion stages and it’s pretty funny that … Here’s what I came out of that with. There’s an incredible amount of low level work and attention. That’s required to succeed at anything. Operation stuff and failing and succeeding and one deal at a time kind of thing. And then you get to 10 and then you get to 100.
Private equity groups in general will raise a fund, a five, two, three, four, $500 million fund and say, “Let’s go buy as many mobile home parks as we possibly can. We’re going to put the management company in place that’s very expensive, nationally recognized because that’s the easiest way to raise capital.” It’s all driven. And then let’s just kind of see what happens. And that’s just … Oh, and by the way, here’s a two inch contract that you need to sign, and if something goes wrong, we get to take your house and your kids and every other company that you own.
Jill DeWit:
Right. There’s no guarantee. No, thank you.
Jack Butala:
So, I didn’t actually get it … To answer your question directly, I didn’t let it get to the point where it could have been a mistake, but you get to a point in your life where it’s … Things are going great. And yeah. I mean, we get opportunities, Jill and I, to double our income and revenue and triple it sometimes for all kinds of stuff. Do we need to do that and complicate our lives?
Jill DeWit:
Right.
Jack Butala:
What’s the most recent business mistake you’ve made?
Jill DeWit:
You know, it’s funny. It’s a little bit of accountability. I didn’t … I have a project that I started a couple of years ago and I even paid five grand to hold myself accountable. I actually … I can’t believe I’m admitting this. It’s obviously not important to me. If things are important to you, you follow through. If they’re not important to you, they don’t follow through. But I started a project a while back and I let it … I keep pushing it down on the to do list and I need to bring it back on the to do list. So, it’s holding myself … For Land Academy, I have no trouble. I am here. I show up. I do everything. I’m here for our community.
Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
I’m here for the shows.
Jack Butala:
Me too.
Jill DeWit:
The calls. You name it. I’ll get pulled out of stuff. But my own little personal projects that I do, I push those down, and I don’t know why it sounded [inaudible 00:10:29].
Jack Butala:
That’s not good.
Jill DeWit:
I know. It’s okay. Because you know what? This other stuff brings me such joy that it …
Jack Butala:
I know. I’ll tell you. Ironically, this isn’t the topic we will get to topic here in a second.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah, exactly. Eventually.
Jack Butala:
Our last child is still in the house. He’s 17. And I incorrectly assumed that he was as much of a self starter as Jill and I are. And so, now we’re going to have to take a bunch of steps back and really … If you’re a parent, you know exactly what I’m talking about and kind of retrace our steps back and say, okay, all right. He’s not as much of a self starter as I thought. He’s kind of making some decisions that he shouldn’t be. Some of it’s COVID, some of it’s not. It doesn’t matter. It’s life. It’s lifestyle. It’s not just owning a business.
Jill DeWit:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). It’s true.
Jack Butala:
Today’s topic. Taxes and your land business. This is the meat of the show.
Jill DeWit:
Everybody’s like “Finally. Thanks.”
Jack Butala:
I know.
Jill DeWit:
Geez.
Jack Butala:
No, they just hit the fast forward button.
Jill DeWit:
Oh, that’s it.
Jack Butala:
Like when you’re watching a movie [crosstalk 00:00:11:33].
Jill DeWit:
Skim, skim, skim, skim, skim. Got it.
Jack Butala:
With an Apple product, you can plus 10 seconds on the TV, you just hit it until … Okay. Yeah. So this is the topic anyway.
Jill DeWit:
Does it sound like we’re avoiding talking about taxes? Because maybe we are.
Jack Butala:
Just like real life.
Jill DeWit:
Because nobody wants to talk about it.
Jack Butala:
I got several questions about 1031 exchanges recently. It’s kind of a topic actually also in land investors. So here’s the deal. 1031 exchange is a way to postpone paying capital gains taxes on real estate and some other types of assets. So, if I’m an accountant happily going along and Jill’s a lawyer happily going along and we buy a mobile home park and it gets improved and everything’s great and a couple years later, or a few years later, or whatever the numbers end up being, we do decide to sell it. We make a million bucks. We are very subject to capital gains. And so, we are pretty heavily taxed on that.
As an alternative, this is years … 1031 exchanges are ancient. They go way before me. They started … As an alternative, when we go to sell that and we made a million bucks on it, We can go buy a like kind of piece of property. In this case, in the simplest terms, buy another mobile home park, probably because we have so much capital now, put a little bit more money down, and then go do the same thing and on and on and on. It’s the government’s way, in a healthy way I think, to encourage us to continue to keep putting money back into real estate and money back into the market, so everybody kind of wins. That’s the theory, anyway.
The question becomes, okay, great. I just joined Land Academy. I don’t want to pay taxes … I’m buying these pieces of land anyway. I’m going to buy another one next month. And if everything goes great, I’m going to buy two the month after that. And so, I don’t want to pay taxes on it. I want a 10 … It’s called 1031ing your way up to exit is what I call it. If this is your business, and please, I need to disclaim this. Jill, you said this right before the show. We’re not accountants. I have an accounting background. Stuff changes all the time. You can’t take my word … Don’t run out there based on this information that you’re getting solely on this show and go do this stuff. Check with accountants. I hope this goes without saying. I hate when people disclaim stuff.
Jill DeWit:
But you need to.
Jack Butala:
We have to.
Jill DeWit:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Jack Butala:
The way that Jill and I buy real estate and the way that most people who have been in this for a while buy real estate, it falls under ordinary income the same way it would if you own a convenience store. So, that’s the same type of taxation that you fall in. So, can you 1031 your way up to an exit strategy with land? Maybe if you’re a full time accountant and you’re doing this stuff on the side, but even then, I don’t think … I’m not sure. Check with your accountant. I don’t think you can. So what ends up happening … What’s the real deal with taxes in your land business?
You’re going to pay federal income tax. You are going to be taxed in an ordinary income fashion just like you own any type of company. I always use a convenience store. So, you have 50 convenience stores. They make a bunch of money. You’re going to file a tax return at the end. Just the way that you would any way out, but I’ll tell you, here’s a friendly tip. The feds love W-2 income withholding. It’s been that way since as long as I can remember. And they give you some pretty good tax advantages for it if you structured it in an LLC. So, talk to your accountant and make sure that you’re maximizing your tax benefit with W … Meaning you give yourself a paycheck when you can. All of this matters when you’re making money. None of this matters in the first probably two or three years of doing this.
Jill DeWit:
Part time or full … Part time. Until you’re full time.
Jack Butala:
Yeah. Until you’ve got an LLC, you quit your job and you’re rolling some money in and then you’ve got to really get serious about it.
Jill DeWit:
Right.
Jack Butala:
There’s several people that I’ve seen professionally throughout my career, not necessarily just with land, but in all types of businesses that let the tax tail wag the dog. They’re obsessed. I can’t pay any taxes. I’ve got to do this. I got to do this. I’m going to put my money into the stock market. There’s all endless tax advantages that you can reduce your taxation down to a minimal amount, within the limits of the law. It’s no funny business. All the rich people I know, and Jill and I know a bunch of rich people way more wealthy than us say some version of this. Pay your taxes.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. I was going to say one thing too. I have learned … I personally experienced and then I’ve talked to people in our community that have experienced this too. Different accountants give you different feedback and it’s not necessarily state driven. I just think it’s how they interpret the rules. So, I just wanted to say, don’t go with that first accountant that you call and says this is the way it is. ABCD. I would interview a couple accountants kind of like interviewing brokers. It’s like if I want to get a broker’s opinion on a property, I’m going to call a couple of different brokers and I’m going to see two are on the same page, and then I’m going to mesh with one of them. I really want you to do that with an accountant too. I want you to interview like five accountants and there’s going to be two or three, they’re on the same page, that they are saying the same thing.
You’re like, “All right. I believe these guys to be knowledgeable.” These three are all in general consensus. This guy’s way over here and this guy’s way over here about what I should do. These three are in the general consensus of what’s the right way to run my business and file my taxes. And then I want you to pick the one that is responsive and you mesh with.
Jack Butala:
I mean, in layman terms, what she’s saying, and she’s absolutely right, is this: there are some accountants who are so incredibly conservative and they read the IRC, the Internal Revenue Code and they say, “All right. So for every state you buy a piece of property in this year, you have to file a state tax return. And just to be safe, because want to make sure we do it right, we’re going to file each state tax return on the federal level amount, because that’s how it works.” And you will tax yourself into …Out of business if you do that overnight.
Jill DeWit:
Right.
Jack Butala:
So there are some accountants that say, “You know what? Come on over here. Come over here.”
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Jack Butala:
You don’t have to pay any taxes. I’m going to show you how. So, you don’t want that. You don’t want either extreme of that in any way. Jill’s right.
Jill DeWit:
Thank you. Yeah. I’ve [inaudible 00:18:16] also too, I’ve talked to accountants. It’s like there’s a sweet spot. There’s a … I love … Usually like a pilot. I would like an older seasoned pilot who’s been through all kinds of stuff. An accountant, I kind of want an older seasoned accountant, but not one that’s so old that he doesn’t read all the new stuff. I don’t want … And I’ve had attorneys and accountants like this in the past that were like, “This is not going to work.” Because they’ve said, “Look, I’ve been doing it this way since 1962 and we’re not going to change it.” I’m like, “Well, you know what? Things have changed since you started this in 1962.”
Jack Butala:
Things changed last week with taxes.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly.
Jack Butala:
That’s one of these things you really need to be up on it.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. Truth time. We are personally transitioning to a different accountant/financial planner. We’re interviewing right now and probably going to make a switch because we’ve kind of outgrown our guy. And it’s not that he’s not a … He’s a great guy. We love him and he was great. But we’re dancing in a different level of finances that are a little bit beyond his expertise.
Jack Butala:
We’ve really grown in the last couple of years, the last few years, and our tax … Just the raw tax dollars that we’re we’re spending now are massive. It’s in the seven digits. So it just needs to be looked at there’s. A lot of longterm planning. What’s missing from our tax situation is longterm planning. We take a look at everything in September, October, right about now, and make some adjustments to make sure that we hit our goals, both revenue and net income wise, by the December 31st, but there’s more to it than that now. There’s long term planning.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly. Woo. I know.
Jack Butala:
That was painful.
Jill DeWit:
That’s a tough topic, but I think it’s a good topic. I think everybody wants to know. I wish there was one … I wish there was a one size fits all, but there isn’t. I’m sure you tuned in hoping that we can say, “Do A, B, C, D, and E and you’re set.” Unfortunately, it’s not that easy.
Jack Butala:
And I’ll tell you one last thing about this topic. There’s something about this topic. There’s a few topics in the world like this in the planet. This topic, for some reason, if it ever reaches on any type of forum or it comes up once in a while on our Thursday call as a question, it just becomes this heated, massive debate about the right way to do it. And Jill nailed it. There’s no right way to do it. It’s what’s right for you. It’s just like how politics just enrage certain people. For some reason, this topic enrages certain people. And they just … We all know these people professionally and they’ll … If you go to dinner and start talking about taxes, you might as well excuse yourself.
Jill DeWit:
Or just bring up religion or bring up anything. Yeah.
Jack Butala:
It just sends some … I’ve never heard a woman getting raised over taxes, but it’s just-
Jill DeWit:
I will.
Jack Butala:
Older men for some reason. And I don’t mean mad about paying taxes. Yeah. We’re all … No one’s happy when they pay taxes I don’t think.
Jill DeWit:
Oh, dig their heels in about [crosstalk 00:21:25].
Jack Butala:
Just angry, just livid. Or, “No, you’ve got it wrong. This is how you do a 1031 exchange.” People listening to this right now are all … They’re probably throwing their stuff all around the room. Certain people. It just makes … And it’ll be on YouTube. Watch the comments on YouTube. These guys don’t know what they’re talking about. He’s got this that. It’s hilarious.
Jill DeWit:
Everybody has their own opinion.
Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
[inaudible 00:21:47].
Jack Butala:
I have been doing 1031 exchanges since 1959. I haven’t paid a dollar of taxes. First of all, if that’s true, why would you say it out loud? Because they’re going to come for you.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. Yeah. Now they know where you live. Thank you.
Jack Butala:
I’m happy you could join us today.
Jill DeWit:
Five days a week you can find us here on the Land Academy Show.
Jack Butala:
Tomorrow, the episode on the Land Academy Show is called math on rental property versus in buying, reselling land. You are not alone in your real estate ambition. Now, that’s a fun topic.
Jill DeWit:
Are you going to have numbers for us, or is it big picture show?
Jack Butala:
Yeah. I can create numbers in my head very quickly.
Jill DeWit:
I’m just curious.
Jack Butala:
I mean, we’ve … Here’s a little prelude to it.
Jill DeWit:
Okay.
Jack Butala:
I mean, we’re going to look at spending $400,000 on a house, or 300,000. I think national average now is like 300 grand. If you’re going to spend $300,000, leveraged or not, what do you want to … How can you maximize that money in real estate? That’s what this is really about, because everybody who starts off in real estate, me included, probably Jill included, I don’t know, we’ll find out tomorrow, started with houses. It’s just what we know.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Jack Butala:
We live in a house. Our parents bought and sold a house, some of us.
Jill DeWit:
We all watched it.
Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly. Thank you for tuning in. We hope you find our content valuable and we appreciate your support. If you haven’t already, please check out our YouTube channel, hit the subscribe button.
Jack Butala:
And your comments and suggestions help us to create the type of content that you’re here for. Hitting the like button helps to support our channel’s algorithm, engage your interest for future shows. We are Steve and Jill.
Jill DeWit:
We are Steve and Jill.
Jack Butala:
Information.
Jill DeWit:
And inspiration.
Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
https://youtu.be/VkWB6HojNk0
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Transcript:
Steven Butala:
Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit:
Hello.
Steven Butala:
Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit:
And I’m Jill Dewitt, broadcasting from sunny Southern California .
Steven Butala:
Today, Jill and I talk about the types of blind offers to send and the types not to send.
Jill DeWit:
Oh, I have a list. Believe you me.
Steven Butala:
This is one of those topics that just gets a little passionate about, and I love it.
Jill DeWit:
Well, only because we’ve done it all. I mean, I can honestly say, we haven’t been doing this… Well, you, because you’re much older than me, since the ’90s, and tested every possible thing. There’s a reason why we got to this point. The reason why we’re successful, is the reason why our community is successful, and we all have the secret, and I’m happy to share it.
Steven Butala:
Awesome.
Jill DeWit:
For $10,000. Just kidding, I want to share it right now today.
Steven Butala:
Before we get into it, let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It’s free, and if you’re a Land Academy member, please join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit:
James wrote, “I’m in one of the states with a lot of rural lands and with thousands of lakes.” Well, how lucky are you, James? You’re bragging a little bit, and I think that’s awesome.
Steven Butala:
You can brag, but those lakes are frozen, right now.
Jill DeWit:
Oh, well, there is that.
Steven Butala:
I’m from a place like that.
Jill DeWit:
Okay. “I ran the red, yellow, green test, and many of the counties look like good spots to mail. My problem is, it’s hard to find any good average for the pricing, because of all the lakes. On a coastal lake are often higher priced, where a half mile to mile away are much cheaper. I was thinking I need to use in-fill lot pricing, but even on the zip code level, there’s a lot of price variability. Do I have to price APN by APN? Or is there a way to price to get me in the ball park of a decent sized area?” This such a good question, because this is stuff that we talked about in the show yesterday. That’s a common thing here, if you’re doing an area like where we’re sitting in Southern California. Ocean front and on the west side of PCH is a whole different pricing point versus one mile or even half mile or even yards away.
Steven Butala:
James, this is a question I asked myself, even today. I’m working a certain, very specific area in a specific state right now, and I looked at and studied and studied and studied pricing variances based on attribute, that’s really what the issue is. And the red, green, yellow test, was designed to solve that for you. So, even in a rural area, if you take each zip code, if you’re lucky enough to get the data and drop it into the red, green, yellow test, you’re going to see where property is selling, and where it’s not. So the theory is, property that’s close to the lakes and cheap or cheaper, will sell faster. And then, so you can price that that way, so that’s one way to look at it. And then if that’s the case, and it almost always is, it’s pure supply and demand, pricing and supply and demand go together.
Steven Butala:
Then you can extrapolate that and run the data sets that way, based on what you find from a zip code standpoint. But zip codes don’t often comply with, let’s say, shoreline, so what do you do? You have to pretty much run an APN scenario, and I just did it. All of this is more theory than reality. The fact is, if you stick 42 fishing lines in the water versus three, you’re going to catch more fish and some of the fish that you catch are going to be small, and you’re going to throw them back, because you don’t want them. Some of the fish are going to be awesome, you’re going to keep it. And some of the fish are going to be, you’re going to shake your head and say, “This might be a record for this lake, for the biggest catch of all time, ever.” So, you have to really get a lot of lines in the water and see what happens.
Jill DeWit:
Here’s what I think you’re saying in Jill terms. Let me, Jillify this. Number one, we do not want you to go line by line by line, that’s ridiculous.
Steven Butala:
No.
Jill DeWit:
You cannot do it, because you’re sending out thousands of offers, it doesn’t… That’s not possible, and we know that, but you can get an APN scheme going. We’ve done that, when I say we, I mean, Steven has done that in certain areas, where you can kind of get a feel for all the properties, starting with 103, are kind of priced this way, all the 104s are priced like this, and all the 205s are like, there are way over here, and we price them this way.
Steven Butala:
Or 205 isn’t something we want.
Jill DeWit:
Right. And you could kind of sit and figure that out. And that’s kind of advanced level stuff.
Steven Butala:
Way advanced.
Jill DeWit:
And-
Steven Butala:
This is master’s degree, PhD stuff.
Jill DeWit:
… it takes a little time. So, what do you do if you’re new? Okay, Jill, that’s great. You know what? This is what I would do. And I mean, you can tell me if I’m right or wrong, I would go with kind of a median in between there. I’d still try to get a feel for, what offer is not going to piss off the lakefront property people too much and not make the people way over here jump up and down too much? So I’m kind of in the middle, so when they call me back, I can adjust.
Steven Butala:
And when she says adjust, she means turn their opinion around and buy their stuff for the price that she wants.
Jill DeWit:
Or-
Steven Butala:
… that’s the whole point here.
Jill DeWit:
… add money or takeaway money.
Steven Butala:
That’s the whole point here. If you throw a bunch of lines in the water, some are going to get bitten on, some aren’t, some are going to steal your bait. Jill wants lots of lines in the water, so that when they do bite, she can, with her talent, reel them in.
Jill DeWit:
I can adjust. So what happens… What’s the worst that’s going to happen, James? You don’t want to sit and learn this yet. You’re going to send them out like, “All right. I know that waterfront property is really 3000 an acre is what I should be buying. Away from the water, should be buying at 1000 an acre. I’m going to go 2000 an acre and see what happens.’.
Steven Butala:
Or 1000-
Jill DeWit:
So then you’re going to go with, or something like that-
Steven Butala:
1000 for all of it.
Jill DeWit:
… 1500 or something. I don’t know. When they call back, you can adjust, and say, “All right, now I know what’s going on. And thank you for telling me, I was waiting for some of these ocean for properties or this lake for properties to come back. You’ve got one, I love it. And you’re right, that was too low. Let’s talk.” And have that dialogue.
Steven Butala:
Jill’s absolutely right. That’s not going to happen. You cut yourself off from the chance of that happening, when you… This happens so often with the new people, they try to… I don’t know if you’re one of these people, James, or not. I’m saying this happens. The mailer efficiency and mailer yield and pricing efficiency and pricing yield, the importance of it, is so blown out of proportion that it makes me want to make everybody stop, and say, “Look, the county’s only got 4,200 properties in it anyway, why not just mail them all?”
Jill DeWit:
It’s true.
Steven Butala:
Jill’s example is 3000 shorefront, 1500, a little above, and then inland is a 1000. Why not just send everybody an $800 an acre offer and see what happens, and you’re off to the races? Your lines are in the water. You don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t know of anyone who’s completely and entirely struck out this way.
Jill DeWit:
I would like to add, it’s not like we’re one-upping each other, but we’re not. No, but-
Steven Butala:
Yeah, we are. It always happens.
Jill DeWit:
No, no. But I’m just thinking of one, as an example though, there have been times… James, this is going to help you feel good. I don’t want to the planet off. What’s the worst that can happen. You know what’s the worst that can happen, James, you could send somebody a crazy low offer and they don’t even care, and they say, yes, to it. Because that has happened, and that could happen.
Steven Butala:
And there was… It does happen to.
Jill DeWit:
So, let it rip. And again, don’t go APN by APN. I don’t want you to do that. Pick a number that feels good, and you got this.
Steven Butala:
The reason I just spent all this time on an APN scenario is because these are very specific lots that we’re going to do certain stuff with, and I know that there’s a crazy different demand for this certain APN, to these three APNs versus all the other APNs in the County. And believe me, the other property owners, throughout that whole county, are going to get an offer, just not in this run at that price. But I’ve been doing this tens of millions of offers I’ve sent out and data sets I’ve analyzed, so, you shouldn’t have want to do that. You can’t play the guitar like Eddie Van Halen the first time you pick it up.
Jill DeWit:
It makes me happy.
Steven Butala:
Today’s topic, types of blind offers to send and not to send. This is the meat of the show. You’re spreading down a lot of notes, I can’t wait to hear this because-
Jill DeWit:
Oh, I did.
Steven Butala:
… this is a one of your peeves.
Jill DeWit:
Do you want me to start with what kind you should send? How about I’ll do the opposite. I’m going to pick it. I’m going to do here’s what not to send. And then, I’ll tell you what to send. Okay? When you are trying to buy property like we do from owners rather… And I want you to send them to, by the way… Number one is, don’t send them to only people that are out of state. I want you to send them to instate out of state. And then what do I send? You do not send letters of interest. Like, “Hey, I want to buy your property. Call me.” That’s a waste of time. Every single person’s going to call you back and are going to want retail, or they’re going to name their number, or you’re going to… No matter what, you’re going to have everybody calling you, and you won’t know who’s real or who’s not real. And when I say real, I mean, in the price range that you wish to purchase.
Jill DeWit:
Number two, don’t send dumb, pretty, glossy postcards with you and your dog or whatever it is, or any… it looks like a pizza, how about that? A postcard is going to look like a pizza ad, don’t do that. Don’t do cute stuff on yellow pads. We all see right through that. We know it’s not really a yellow pad.
Jill DeWit:
Don’t spend any money or do your own wet signatures, not necessary. It’s okay. They don’t need that. Don’t send anything cute. Don’t put a dollar in it. And the last one, this really made me mad when I got this, please don’t walk around and put a sticky note on somebody’s front door. So, somebody was walking around in our neighborhood, like a year or two ago, looking at houses, and they were writing sticky notes and putting on every front note door with their phone number. That kind of spooked me a little bit. You better believe I didn’t call them or take them seriously? It’s just like, “Hey, I want to buy your house. Here’s my number.” Well, yeah, join the club. Yeah, no kidding kind of thing. At the time we were renting, I want to buy it too, take a number. They didn’t do any of their homework. So they left a note for me, the tenant. I’m not going to do anything again.
Jill DeWit:
So here’s what you should be sending professional, personalized, well thought out, real dollar amount offers for a specific property, and Steve is going to tell you more about how you do that. But on your offer, I want you to have your real name, first and last name. I want you to have a way to look you up online and verify that you’re legit. I’d like a website. I’d like your LinkedIn. I’d like your Facebook page, I’d like it to match, and I’d like a way to contact you.
Jill DeWit:
This is way better too, than even all those things… There’s a lot of… This is going on a lot in Arizona I see, it’s like a thing, because there’s just so much property changing hands right now, in the house world. Every person and their brother is doing these commercials and they have an 800 number, and it’s like John Buys Houses or something. I’m not into that, and I don’t know how it makes other people feel, but it doesn’t… I just know that our yield and the way we do it is fantastic, and that’s the reason I’m still doing it. And by way, we’ve tested a lot of these things over the years, or people in our community have, and said, “Yep, didn’t work. You’re right.”
Steven Butala:
So, the question you should be asking yourself is, “Yeah, that’s great Jill, what… Why… Congratulations your yield’s awesome. I want my yield to be great too. What do I do?” And this is what you do.
Jill DeWit:
Copy us.
Steven Butala:
Number one, you have to create an offer. I don’t care if you’re sending out 800 or 80,000 offers. Every single one of those offers, absolutely, has to look like it was just addressed to that person. And all this stuff Jill said was… I completely agree with. But here’s where I… And here’s how you do that. I’ll just just say this.
Steven Butala:
Every owner, every single… In our data sets, we know who owns the property. We know it’s johnandjacksllc.com or it could be a Great American Cattle Company, or it could be Jill Dewitt or it could be Steve and Jill. So that presents a data challenge in how it’s presented on that actual offer, because what… If you have an 80,000 lines of data, you can press a button via the miracle of mail merge, if you’ve got these 80,000 scrubbed data set and a mail merge in Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Word, press the button., And it comes out perfectly in a 160,000 unit PDF. They all get printed off, stuffed in envelopes, and it looks like all those 80,000 people, you just wrote them a letter. It doesn’t look like a form letter. It doesn’t look like it’s an advertisement. It looks exactly how you had intended it. So that’s where I see… I just proofed my own mailer 20 minutes before we turn this camera on, and found like six errors, because it just wasn’t meeting my standards of spacing and those… All those things really matter.
Steven Butala:
Number one, so that persons needs to say, “This is a real letter from a real person. I just checked jilldewitt.com, they are real. It’s for a very specific price, $7,342 and 42 cents. If you say… Imagine you get a letter, it’s addressed to John or current occupant, “We want to buy your house. Or we want to buy a piece of land located in Elko County, Nevada. Here’s my number. Give me a call.” You’re going to throw that away. But if it says, “John Smith, we would love to buy your 30 acre property for $2,342 and 38 cents. We’ve done tens of thousands of properties in Nevada. And we understand that there’s a few back… there may be back taxes or whatever. We’re very used to dealing with all this. And we’re very used to taking all the stuff that can go on in a real estate transaction out of it. And by the way, there’s not any negotiation and there’s not any fees or any of that stuff. We don’t play those games. Give us a call. We can get this deal done pretty quickly. If you’re interested in selling it. Thanks.”
Jill DeWit:
What is special too that I think you’re perfect in, that was awesome, and one thing that we add in there is a call to action, which is, “Here’s the purchase agreement. All you got to do is sign it and send it back.” So the first page is everything that Steven just laid out, and the second page is, “Here it is, sign it, send it back, and we’ll open escrow.” Next. That’s kind of it.
Steven Butala:
You’re going to get a great response, if you do that. You’re going to get terrible response, if any, with postcards. If you send a letter that says, “Give me a call and let’s talk about… I really want to buy your property, give me a call.” You know what, you’re going to get a million phone calls and no one’s interested in selling their property, because everybody thinks their property is worth a million dollars. What my way does is it makes the mail work for you. So if I send out 10,000 offers, there’s going to be 50, 60 or 70 people in there that are… you just caught them on the right day. And they’re not real interested in price, they’re just interested in selling it for the price… Because they just want to be done with it, or they’re getting a divorce, or their wife doesn’t want it, or their husband does want it, but she doesn’t want it, or their kid’s going to college or whatever.
Steven Butala:
So it just doesn’t become a price thing, it becomes a life circumstance thing. And that’s what this offer is designed to do. They don’t want to… Who wants to call and talk about it for days? No, nobody. They just want their money.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly. It’s so powerful. Like you just said, I have whatever life event and your thing shows up. And I might’ve thrown three away in the last two years that that could happen, but today is the day.
Steven Butala:
And so James questions here about the lakes, and we get this… My whole entire Land Academy career, I can speak for both of us, and I can say exactly where James is in his career, because here’s really what’s going to happen to James with his lakes. He’s going to take my advice, he’s going to send everybody in that county an $800 an acre offer or whatever Jill’s example was. A certain predictable number, two or three people, are going to call him back maybe four or five, and they’re going to say, “Your timing’s perfect. We do need to sell this property. $800 an acre is not going to work, but 900 will or $72,000 or however, the numbers work out well.” And if he’s priced it right, and he would… as I’m suggesting, they’re going to come to an agreement, where it’s a hell of a lot cheaper than what it’s worth.
Steven Butala:
And then, he’ll never write a question like this again. I’m not picking on you, James. He’ll never add a question like this again. What he will do is, is say this, “Well, I just undercut the hell out of this entire county. I bought two properties and resold them for three times what I paid, very quickly. And now I don’t care, because I’m going to do the math. I sent out 5,000 offers, bought three properties. I would like to send out 10,000 offers and buy six properties. And on and on and on these kinds of conversations, don’t go on in the advanced group.
Steven Butala:
They don’t talk about… We never… Once you do a two or three successful mailers, you never worry about mailer yield or attributes or doing it correctly. You know what my biggest problem is with mailers? This is truth time, staying on a schedule that satisfies her and her staff, so that I can jam her pipeline absolutely and completely full, all the time. In fact, I just hired somebody to make sure this is their whole job in life. I wish somebody would have given me this job.
Jill DeWit:
Keep you on a schedule.
Steven Butala:
Their whole job in life, on Wednesday morning, is to say, “Tell me what County, I… And they’re very proficient, this person is extremely proficient in Excel. They’re better than I am actually. Just to stay on track, to make sure that we get enough mail out.
Jill DeWit:
It’s awesome. I love it, that makes me so happy. And I’m happy you could join us today. Five days a week, you can find us right here, on the Land Academy Show.
Steven Butala:
Tomorrow, the episode on the Land Academy Show is called, what to do when you can’t find a dataset for a mailable county. You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill DeWit:
This will be really good, I’m excited. I’m looking forward to that.
Steven Butala:
Surprise, surprise.
Jill DeWit:
There’s new people… We have some new… Ad experience people are like, “Okay, wait a minute. I got this great area. I’m a little hung up here. Steven, how I solve this?”
Steven Butala:
Some data sets are great-
Jill DeWit:
And I was like-
Steven Butala:
… some data sets are non-existent, and then there’s everything in between.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly. If you need access to any sort of ownership or property details, including owner phone numbers or FEMA flood overlays, checkout neighborscoop.com created by investors, that’s us, for investors like you. We are Steve and Jill-
Steven Butala:
We are Steve and Jill, information-
Jill DeWit:
And inspiration.
Steven Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
https://youtu.be/fN2–4M4X8U
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
Jack and Jill, here.
Jill K DeWit:
Hello.
Steven Jack Butala:
Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I’m Stephen Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun, on this Friday, on the 23rd of December, almost Christmas. Sorry. Just had to get that in there.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today is Jill Friday, as you can tell. She’s going to talk about the quote we received from Career Path Five. “Screw it and do it.”
Before we get into it, let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It’s free.
Jill K DeWit:
Script rolling. Script rolling. Script rolling. Script rolling.
Steven Jack Butala:
We have three days left, including today, to prepay for mailers for next year.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
We had a pretty deep discount and offers-
Jill K DeWit:
And concierge.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. And concierge, if you want us to do your mailers for you.
Jill K DeWit:
Yep.
Steven Jack Butala:
So check it out at offers2owners.com. And call those guys, and they’ll explain it to you.
Jill K DeWit:
Yep.
Patsy wrote from “Would you brag about this deal” section of Discord. Florida. 20 acres. Hunting track. Diverse property. Offering future home site and recreational use. Neighboring large wooded tracks, great privacy and provide ideal wildlife habitat and great hunting. To the north and the east, there’s a 55-acre property owned by Walton County. And to the west is a privately-owned 118-acre property with a creek running through it. With a small church cemetery to the southwest, providing quiet neighbors.
A cemetery usually does. Quiet neighbors.
All around quiet and privacy is assured. This property is within 12 miles of shopping, including a Walmart, restaurants, and medical facilities in downtown blank blank city. And just about an hour away from the beaches. Mailer offer price was $88,168.65. Accepted offer price…
Is this Patty or Patsy?
Steven Jack Butala:
Patsy.
Jill K DeWit:
Patsy.
Steven Jack Butala:
She got him down at 40k.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. Accepted offer is $40,000.
He wants to close before the end of 2022. I think I can sell it for 110.
That’s awesome. This is a “would you brag about this deal?”
Steven Jack Butala:
So this is in the, “Would you do this deal section of Discord?” And as you can imagine, there are about eight people that said, “PM me.” Let’s get this thing done.
Jill K DeWit:
They said, “Heck, yes.”
Steven Jack Butala:
What I was saying earlier this week is, she’s new. And she went out and did exactly what she was supposed to do. Got an amazing price for a piece of dirt, without having the money to do it. She didn’t care and she shouldn’t care.
Jill K DeWit:
No.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s kind of what Jill’s topic’s about today. She just did it. She just went and did it. And then, after that, seeked money.
Jill K DeWit:
Mm-hmm.
Steven Jack Butala:
And she found it.
Jill K DeWit:
This is Patsy with a hyphenated last name.
Steven Jack Butala:
Is it [inaudible 00:02:59]?
Jill K DeWit:
I think so.
I’m guessing it is. I’ll go look later and confirm that.
Cool. Good question. And congrats.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s Jill Friday. She’s going to talk about “Screw it and Do it.” It’s a quote from Career Path Five.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is the meat of the show.
Jill K DeWit:
This was on week 10 of 10 in Career Path. I think it was Office Hours. I’m sure it was Office Hours, because how Career Path Works is, we have a guided module every week where we have a set curriculum, what we’re talking about, and taking you from wherever you are to wherever you want to be, kind of thing. But outside of that, we have a session called Office Hours where you can just show up and gab with us and ask about the week before, things that are on your mind. Just anything that comes up.
And often the topic just goes in whatever direction. And this particular week, we were wrapping up stuff. It’s the end of the year, end of Career Path. Actually, it was really kind of cool the way it worked out. Because it’s the end of the year and the end of Career Path for this group. And Ed lovingly said, “Screw it and do it.” And I’m like, “Oh. We all love that.” And I’m like, “Ed, I’m writing that down.”
It ties into so much of who we are and how you have to have that mentality or you’re not going to get anywhere. You can’t overthink stuff. You can’t let money get in your way. You can’t let fill-in-the-blank stop you. You can’t not send mail out. I have so many examples. You have to keep pushing forward.
What do you want to add?
Steven Jack Butala:
I think this is a whole Nike, “Just do it.”
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
At the beginning of trying something new, we all wonder, “Am I going to be any good at this at all. Is this within my skillset?” And the truth is, I don’t believe that we’re born with these skills. I think that we hone in on them and improve ourselves throughout most of our lives, hopefully.
And so, I think that you might be great at math. Or I actually happen to be very good at math because I like it and I practice it. And that’s what I’m good at. I don’t even rank in the same area of sales ability as Jill does. And so, whatever it takes, you just got to go do it.
Jill K DeWit:
Mm-hmm.
Steven Jack Butala:
Whatever it takes, go do it. And shoot as high as you can from what you expect out of yourself and financially.
Jill K DeWit:
Uh-huh.
Steven Jack Butala:
And you know what? You’re going to make a bunch of mistakes. I talked about this in Career Path last week. It doesn’t mean you’re stupid. It just means you made a mistake. That’s it.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s a good point. Because this is the last show for this year-
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
… that we’re doing.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yep, exactly.
Jill K DeWit:
So, I want you to go into next year, you just said something really good and you’re right, shoot high. Man, here’s how I look at things. Go for a crazy number. And if you’re halfway there, you probably still killed it, if that makes sense. Nothing’s nuts. And you have to get out of your own head sometimes.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yes.
Jill K DeWit:
Because if you listen to your head, you’ll put on the brakes 25 different times and talk yourself out of stuff.
Steven Jack Butala:
Totally.
Jill K DeWit:
And you can’t do that. You have to trust and just go “Screw it and Do it.” I can’t tell you how many times that I’m like, “I’m not sure how this is going to go, but I’m just going to try for it.” And then, “Oh, my gosh, it just worked. Now I’m going to do it again.”
Once you get going and you’re like, “Well, that worked. Maybe this’ll work. Well shoot, now that worked. Now, I’m going to try this,” whether it’s what you’re buying, what you’re selling, how you’re running your business, your life, money, it’s all the same.
Steven Jack Butala:
I have a mild form of dyslexia, and I was very lucky to have a high school teacher, and we didn’t know what dyslexia was at the times, but my reading retention, to this day, in certain formats, is really bad. I read something and then I can’t remember what I read in certain formats. It’s usually, for whatever reason, it’s in a book or on hard copy. On the internet, I don’t have a problem with it. It doesn’t matter.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s interesting.
Steven Jack Butala:
I said this to my teacher, I said, the nicest guy in the world. He said, “Look, I have some version of whatever you’re talking about, too.” This is my teacher saying this, getting right down and meeting me from where I’m coming and says, “There are some people who can read something and learn it and they have photographic memory. I grew up with people like this. And that’s it. So, they don’t have to study. They look at stuff and they just absorb it and they get an A on everything. There are some people that have to read it twice. And there are some people that have to read it until they understand it. And that’s me.”
I consequently had to work. For whatever I lost in reading comprehension, I gained with math. So, I was very fortunate in that area. But you just have to work harder. Screw it and Do it. That’s it. So whatever gets dumped on your head while you’re traveling toward this financial goal that you have, so be it. Shake yourself off and keep moving forward.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s the best.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s it.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s it. You’ve got to pick yourself up. We talked about this too. Every failure is not a failure. That’s how you learn. You’re not going to do that again. It’s one step closer to success. It was a learning exercise. “I won’t do that again.”
Steven Jack Butala:
And we all have trigger points and aha moments, and stuff. Light bulbs go off of our head. For me, professionally, it was joining forces with Jill. I was very successful on my own right before I met her. But what she brought to this was a new fresh attitude. She didn’t bring any technical like, “Hey, I think you might be doing this wrong. We should go over here and do it this way.” She never did any of that. What she did was she took all this money that we were leaving on the table and wasting, and just got on the phone, bootstraps, got on her phone and started selling stuff. I remember it like it was yesterday. That really, really, really took what I was doing, I thought was pretty good. We were doing pretty well, and took it to, now the sky’s the limit.
So, maybe that’s your trigger point. Everybody’s got one of these, one or two or three of these break points where it’s like, “Wow.” Having a partner, and I’ve had business partners in my entire life, none like Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
Thanks.
Steven Jack Butala:
Maybe to get you to that next level, maybe you need instructors like us. Maybe you need to do Land Academy. Maybe that’s the aha moment.
Jill K DeWit:
I needed that vehicle.
Steven Jack Butala:
I know you did.
Jill K DeWit:
So, thank you. And I really appreciate your compliment. And I can say the same about you. I didn’t have a vehicle to get me there. I knew I had the drive and the motivation. And I knew I could get stuff done, and I could work with people, and I could get people on my team to want to get there with me. But I didn’t have that vehicle that would pay for this kind of thing.
What I was doing was just chipping away at it. I’m like, “I need to hockey stick this.” That’s where you came in. You provided the vehicle with a business model that I could join in and go, “Oh. I can make this great, now. Thank you. I need something right now. I’m going to make $50,000 a deal.” Not whatever my little bonus was, kind of thing.
Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s what you don’t need.
Jill K DeWit:
Mm-hmm.
Steven Jack Butala:
You don’t need more education, because it’s all here. You don’t need a bigger or better or a more enthusiastic community. That’s all here.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
You don’t need any money.
Jill K DeWit:
True. That’s all here.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s all here. You just need to get a mailing schedule. You need to get the mail out, and a mailing schedule where it’s rationally priced. And if you’re insecure or not confident about how you’re pricing your mailers, find somebody who is.
I have like 98% confidence in my price of mailers. So, there’s a lot of people in our group that were very successful.
Jill K DeWit:
Mm-hmm.
Steven Jack Butala:
Seek them out. Maybe that’s the partner that you need. There’s all kinds of offshoot groups. This last Career Path group, I saw them organizing it in Discord, today, their own little mastermind continuing education group.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh. Yeah, yeah. Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
We had a huge amount of compliments in the Discord…
Jill K DeWit:
For Career Path.
Steven Jack Butala:
This last Career Path.
Jill K DeWit:
Aww…
Steven Jack Butala:
Really heartfelt compliments. You should go check [inaudible 00:11:50].
Jill K DeWit:
I’m going to go read that from our Career Path Five group. That’s so sweet.
All right. I’m going to just end on this for me. You’re listening for a reason. And if you want to say Screw it and Do it and make some changes, come join Land Academy.
You think I’m kidding? I’m not kidding. Maybe that’s it for you. It was for me.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. Really, you got to really make a commitment before you do that.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. Well, that’s Screw it and Do it.
Steven Jack Butala:
A time commitment.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, that’s it. Like, “I’m going to do this. I’m going to do it. And I’m not going to fail.”
That’s part of it. Part your commitment is, “Screw it and Do it. I’m going to do this. I’m not going to stop. I will get myself up and keep on going.” Answering that first phone call, you’re like, “This guy might not be happy with me?” So what? Answer the phone. You’re going to figure it out. It’s all good.
Steven Jack Butala:
Exactly.
Jill K DeWit:
Happy you joined us, today. Five days a week you can find us here on the Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
Join us next week for another interesting episode. You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill K DeWit:
We could say, join us next year.
Steven Jack Butala:
Join us next year.
Jill K DeWit:
Ah.
We will have shows running next week. Don’t worry. We were picking out some of our favorite highlights. So, you do want to listen next week for some of those highlights.
Steven Jack Butala:
Have a great holiday. And-
Jill K DeWit:
Yay.
Steven Jack Butala:
… don’t drive anywhere.
Jill K DeWit:
Why?
Steven Jack Butala:
Just because-
Jill K DeWit:
The weather?
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s novice drunk people, that last week of the year.
Jill K DeWit:
I got to tell you, there’s a lot of weather coming up, too. Where we’re going is like, “Oh. Serious snow.”
Steven Jack Butala:
We’re going to the mountains in Colorado. And it’s going to be interesting to see how Southern California Jill deals with -4.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, whatever it is, I’m going to look the part. Yeah, it’s going to be awesome.
Yay.
Unison Jack and Jill:
We are Jack and Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
Information…
Jill K DeWit:
… and inspiration.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s about undervalued property.
Jill K DeWit:
Merry Christmas.
https://youtu.be/3graY8Ghjvk
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
Jack and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit:
Hi.
Steven Jack Butala:
Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s Jack Thursday and I’m going to talk about how money is a terrible manager.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, you know what? I hate working for money.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yep.
Jill K DeWit:
Money is a jerk.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you work for your money, it’s the worst boss you’re going to have.
Jill K DeWit:
Totally. He’s really unforgiving. Notice how I’ve made it a he. It’s not a she.
Steven Jack Butala:
Money is a he.
Jill K DeWit:
Money’s a he. And he is a jerk, he’s demanding, he’s unforgiving. He always wants more.
Steven Jack Butala:
And he has no emotion.
Jill K DeWit:
He’s never enough, no emotion.
Steven Jack Butala:
And there’s no…
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. He complains all the time.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s no explanation.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s no explaining why you were late.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh yeah, no.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s unforgiving.
Jill K DeWit:
Totally, that’s right. And he always says, “You didn’t give me enough. You’re not doing enough.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, you wanted that nice bracelet last week, so here we are.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. That’s money. Man, somebody needs to fire that guy.
Steven Jack Butala:
He’s going to fire you before you fire your money.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s true. We need to sabotage money and get him out of there. Cool.
Steven Jack Butala:
Before we get into it, let’s take a question posted by one of our members on our landinvestors.com online community. It’s free, and please don’t forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel. Comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. Martin wrote, “I am brand new to Land Academy. I have a full-time job and three little kids.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh boy.
Jill K DeWit:
“And I want to be successful. How much time do I really need to devote to this?”
Steven Jack Butala:
First of all…
Jill K DeWit:
Go ahead
Steven Jack Butala:
Everyone has been where you are.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay, good. I wasn’t sure where you’re going with this.
Steven Jack Butala:
So it’s not like, “Darn it, I’m too late to the party, or man, I made a bunch of mistakes. I shouldn’t have had that third kid.” Maybe that’s true, but that’s up to you.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s where I thought you were going with this.
Steven Jack Butala:
So you need to really put your head into the right mindset where everyone’s been in some version of this situation. Just about everyone. There’s some exceptions that our world likes to make a huge example of like people born with a silver spoon in their mouth, but they have their own set of problems that I would argue are way worse than tackling what you’re about to tackle.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s true. So what would you tell Martin?
Steven Jack Butala:
Get organized and hopefully the mother of your kids or whoever your partner is, is on board. Boy, it’s really going to make it much, much, much harder…
Jill K DeWit:
They have to be on board.
Steven Jack Butala:
…if you’re not a unified front with whoever you’re involved with the kids. And that’s an issue that if you’re not, then that’s overcomeable. You can find a person that is on board.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, you can get them on board. That’s my goal. You need to have, now we’re taking it in a different direction.
Steven Jack Butala:
[inaudible 00:02:58] I think we should, though because I think this is important.
Jill K DeWit:
It is true. I have talked to many wives and husband and wives and said, “What do you need to know?” And I think part of it is because we’re a couple, it makes it easier for other people to embrace us, other couples and women to go, “All right, Jill’s there.” Jill’s there is going to make sure this all doesn’t go sideways.
Steven Jack Butala:
What I’m getting at is we didn’t start as a couple.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
We started with other people and…
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
…they turned out not to be the partners that we wanted individually.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s a whole ‘nother show.
Steven Jack Butala:
So we found the partners that we wanted.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, let me on. I have one thing to say about that and I want to get back to the question, which is we have a member in… We just sat in career path five last week and I thought this was brilliant. One of our members, kind of in a similar situation with you, he’s got a two-year-old and another one, or one or two. I don’t know how many kids he’s got. But anyway, he very smartly bought a case of his wife’s favorite wine and he only brings a bottle out when there’s something to celebrate. So she knows when this bottle’s coming out, he did some great deal and we’re something we’re celebrating.
I’m like, “That’s brilliant.” Because that gets her excited. That’s his way of telling his wife, “We’re doing great baby. Here comes this fancy wine.” I’m like, “That’s awesome.” But back to the Martin’s question is how much time? You know what, Martin? As much as you can, as much as you can because it’s just going to get you there faster. And the more organized you are, the easier it’s going to be. If you’re organizing, you give yourself tasks and you divide it out, then it’s not going to feel like a crazy week or a lot going on. This week is picking an area and I allotted two hours on Monday night and I have this much time on Thursday. And then, on Sunday afternoon while the kids are at the park, I’ve got my laptop on my lap and I’m wrapping it up.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’ve all heard these stories of people writing novels in between four o’clock and 5:30 in the morning.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
Before everybody gets up, before the kids get up.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
And then, they write half of a chapter or even just a paragraph every day.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
And at the end of that, if they’re extremely talented, end up with Harry Potter. And so, this is no different. If you have to put an hour and a half in, go to bed as early as you can, go to bed with a toddler at the same time that the toddler’s going to bed and get up or before them or however you can manage it. That’s just what this takes.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
And Jill and I have been through this collectively and separately.
Jill K DeWit:
Remember the 4AM club?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yep, the 4AM club.
Jill K DeWit:
We had a group inside [inaudible 00:05:44]. They may still be floating around there. I bet they are. I’m sure there is a version of this right now. But they called themselves a 4AM club. They found that they were all online at the same time and it was like 4AM.
Steven Jack Butala:
In Discord.
Jill K DeWit:
Uh-huh. And chatting and working together on deals because that’s when they could get it done. Like you just said, they had to get up at four, they could put in from four to five, or 5:30, whatever it was. And then, they get ready, and then they wake the kids up and start their day. And that’s what they do, and it got them there.
Steven Jack Butala:
The short answer to the question is you have to do whatever it takes and without being so ultra organized, it’s going to hurt more.
Jill K DeWit:
True. That’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s just like working out. And it’s going to feel great when you’re done and it’s terrible while it’s happening.
Jill K DeWit:
I’ll leave it at that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s Jack Thursday. I’m going to talk about how money is a terrible manager. This is why you’re listening, you do not want your money to manage you. And the vast majority of people, me included, have gone through… A lot of people probably go through it their entire lives. They let money manage them. I know I did, and I’m pretty sure Jill did at the beginning of our lives. We did what everybody told us to do. We went to school at whatever school we could handle and stand, and went out and got a job, and then started moving forward or backward, depending on how it goes. But the more stuff you accumulate, you’ve got a bunch money coming in, you start buying a house and a car, and a car payment and whatever else…
Jill K DeWit:
And a boat and a cabin.
Steven Jack Butala:
Money to laugh at you in the face.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yep, you bought up a house with a mortgage that’s 50% of what money coming in every month. Now, you’re spending it on a house that may or may not make money in the end. You don’t know.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
But that’s what we were told. Our parents made a lot of money on their houses, so I guess we should, and not the case at all.
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
You have to get your arms around how much money is coming in, how much money is going out. And if you can’t stand, like me, the idea of your money managing you, you want to flip that situation around, you’re going to have to figure out how to scale the money that you have and create a revenue stream for yourself that is not tied to your time. Meaning in four or five hours, I can have six deals under contract, and then I can start to get everybody in motion. A transaction coordinator or whoever’s involved in my business at the time, real estate agents, multiple real estate agents to start using my money and not taking my time to make me more money. Because it will control you. And the natural state, if you plant a garden and you don’t do what it takes to manage the garden and for however you control the weeds and bugs and all of that, you’re going to end up with a disaster, with an unusable product.
Jill K DeWit:
Right. It’s just amazing how… There’s times you make decisions based… You know what? Let me run this by you. So I’m letting my money manage my life. You just explained the bad way, how you don’t want to do it. But what about… Hold on a second.
Steven Jack Butala:
I just explained it the bad way.
Jill K DeWit:
Explain the bad way, not exploited or whatever it is. Let me back up. There’s times where there’s a situation where you might have your money manage your life a little bit based on… Here’s what I’m trying to get at. How many people live in places that are way too much money than they can afford?
Steven Jack Butala:
A lot of people.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. And they have no real way to change that financially. So in that situation, maybe they make a decision to move somewhere where they can afford because it’s going to… How about this situation just said, half of my income is going to my townhouse because I live in Seattle. Well, you know what? I could leave Seattle because I’m remote anyway and I can work somewhere else and it’s a whole lot less expensive, so I’m letting money drive that decision, but I don’t think it’s a bad decision. What do you think about that?
Steven Jack Butala:
I think that moving is an amazing way to save an incredible amount of money. I think that you need to sit down with a yellow pad of paper or an Excel spreadsheet or whatever makes sense to you and look at your money, where it’s going and be willing to adjust to some of the changes if this is really, really important to you. Otherwise, very, very quickly, it’s going to control you maybe forever.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. It’s depressing.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s terrible. This is a terrible topic to talk about, but it’s the end of the year and I can’t count the number of times that I would, back in the day when it was controlling me where you go to the ATM machine and you’re like, “Maybe I can get 20 bucks out of this. I don’t know.” I had a whole almost…
Jill K DeWit:
Is it a young rookie thing?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
Because I did that too.
Steven Jack Butala:
Absolutely.
Jill K DeWit:
I remember going through the grocery store with a calculator.
Steven Jack Butala:
[inaudible 00:10:54].
Jill K DeWit:
I knew exactly how much I could spend and I had to stand around the grocery store, make decisions with my calculator in my hand on what we could afford and couldn’t afford.
Steven Jack Butala:
I remember literally taking home economics in high school and learning how to bake a cake and cookies and all kinds of awesome stuff and…
Jill K DeWit:
You don’t do that for me.
Steven Jack Butala:
…learn how to sew a button on and all of that. And then, there was a tiny little module about budgeting, and that’s it.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, isn’t that silly?
Steven Jack Butala:
My parents never… And I’m not complaining, I’m just saying that’s what this is. That’s the way we are. That’s the environment that we live in and I don’t think… Our kids don’t seem to have this problem and it’s probably… I don’t ever remember. No, I did with a couple of them, sat them down and said, “This is how budgets work.”
Jill K DeWit:
We know what we did too, we put them on that path. They had a time they worked. All the kids had jobs. In high school, they all had jobs. I think that’s really a good thing to starting out there. And they laugh at the kids that they go to college with that they graduate college, and then now they’re getting their very first job ever. I’m like, “What?” And they’re like, “I know. This person doesn’t even know how to get on a public bus.” I’m like, “That’s tragic.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Look, there’s…
Jill K DeWit:
They can’t count change. That’s tragic.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s only a few ways that this ends and I think I can count three in my head. Number one, you go to school and you get a job and you work your entire life. And if you’re lucky, you have a job with a pension or otherwise, you end up working your entire life because money’s controlling you, it’s managing you. Or you save, you’re incredibly savvy, which most people aren’t, including me. Save a little bit every paycheck, take some money…
Jill K DeWit:
You’re very savvy.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, it just took too long.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m not going to have $13 come out of my paycheck to go into an IRA fund, so I have $120,000 when I turn 65. I’m just not going to do that.
Jill K DeWit:
I understand.
Steven Jack Butala:
But it’s better than nothing.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
So the vast majority of the people that are in the workforce in this country, that’s how that’s going to end. The second way is you happen to be incredibly good at what you do and you get promoted a lot. This is probably the worst thing that can happen. In fact, I would rather work at McDonald’s my entire life than get promoted into that golden… It’s just a false sense of, I don’t know what that’s called.
Jill K DeWit:
Golden handcuffs.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, golden handcuffs. And so, now…
Jill K DeWit:
Been there.
Steven Jack Butala:
You’re working 40 to 80 hours a week in a management executive position, making a quarter of a million dollars a year, which by anybody’s standard is a ton of money, maybe. What does that end up being? Eight or $9,000 paycheck. And so, now you got a bigger house and you got a more angry wife and you got a new stove because that’s what you’re supposed to do. And on and on. That’s worse. Or you can find something to do that you really enjoy that’s actually scalable and work at it little by little by little like, what was the name of the…
Jill K DeWit:
Martin.
Steven Jack Butala:
Martin, today, and get yourself out of it. And so, you are incomplete control over it. And then, cost control and revenue control. It’s all about control because if you don’t control it like that garden scenario, it’s going to get overgrown with weeds and bugs and it will not yield any fruit or vegetables at the end.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you. Good analogy. Happy you could join us today. Five days a week, you can find us here at the Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
Tomorrow’s Jill Friday and she’s going to, I quote now, “Screw it and do it.” Talk about a quote from Career path five.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
This has sung to Jill for some reason.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, totally. I’m like, “And I’m writing this down.”
Steven Jack Butala:
You’re not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. That was really, really funny. That was…
Steven Jack Butala:
O2O, Offers2Owners has an amazing year-end discounted deal. You should really take a look at it if you are the type of person who wants to take advantage of the year-end potential tax benefit, and pre-plan your mailage for next year.
Jill K DeWit:
Yep.
Steven Jack Butala:
Check it out.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s 12 days of Christmas ending on Christmas, so get on it fast. Just telling you right now. As does Land Academy, so check that out too. You have a great thing going on right now, end of the year. Trying to help as many people as we can.
We are Jack and Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
We are Jack and Jill.
Information.
Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration.
Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
https://youtu.be/AQhG87HUlYE
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
Jack and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit:
Hi.
Steven Jack Butala:
Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today, Jill and I talk about assessing your professional life at the end of 2022.
Jill K DeWit:
It sounds a little bit… It’s high level. We’re going to make it. Steven and I come at things differently.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yes, we do.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s what I’m trying to say.
Steven Jack Butala:
I wonder how this topic’s going to go today.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, here’s going what’s going on with me right now. I just had a little bit of a panic because I’m like, “Crap, am I getting assessed here on the air?” I don’t know.
Steven Jack Butala:
Are you serious?
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t know.
Steven Jack Butala:
When do I ever assess you?
Jill K DeWit:
Well, I’m just wondering what questions you’re going to ask and how much you want to know because I did not prepare for this.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill, are you happy in your professional life?
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Okay. That’s it.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, God. Thanks a lot. I’m like, “Should I have written an executive summary before I sat down?”
Steven Jack Butala:
Are you more or less happy with your professional performance this year, 2022 or 2021?
Jill K DeWit:
This year.
Steven Jack Butala:
Absolutely.
Jill K DeWit:
Keeps getting better.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s not church. No one’s judging you.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh God, thanks. I wasn’t sure.
Steven Jack Butala:
You’re the only person who can say, “Yeah, I’m doing pretty well. I’m going to do a victory lap, or I got some work to do.”
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s it. Nobody else can do that.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s fair. Good, because, again, I have notes but I don’t have executive summary.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill’s joking. Before we get into it, let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community. It’s free.
Jill K DeWit:
Hey, can I please add a little note in here?
Steven Jack Butala:
Sure.
Jill K DeWit:
About what’s going on with Land Academy?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yep.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s awesome, and I want to hit this home right now because this week is big with this promotion because I’m not going to do it again. I don’t know if I said it the other day, but I’m closing up Land Academy at the end of the year. That’s what I don’t think I got out. I’m going to hit my cap right now, and we like to keep Land Academy at a real cool small number that we can handle so we can give you the attention and the support that you need and you deserve. That’s why there’s a cap. Having said that, I have room right now for people to join through the end of the year.
I know I’m going to hit it. I know I’m going to hit it on or before December 31, but I’m keeping it open. G to LandAcademy.com, check it out there. You’ll see a coupon code that says half off. Yep. It’s half off the whole education bundle. There’s four programs in that, by the way, that you’re getting half off. It’s awesome. Yes, you look at that and go, “This can’t be right. It’s a little too inexpensive.” You’re right. That’s very true. From what you get, it’s kind of weird, and that’s going to change too. That’s why I want you to know about it. Check it out. Thank you.
Okay, back to the question. Michael wrote, “Hi all. I wanted to introduce myself. I had to take a personal hiatus from Land Academy, but I am back. I’ve done a few mailers over the years, but never pulled the trigger. Looking to make some friends/partners. I have intent to send 4,000 to 5,000 mailers a month for a while and hope to be able to find some funding partners when the mail starts to come back. Question to those members that are funding deals, are you generally okay with non-disclosure states in hot markets? Price point is typically above the six figure list price, even at wholesale. I have a real estate agent friend in the area. Just realized my handle is not descriptive.”
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t know what that means.
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t know, but I’m like, “Yes, yes, and yes.” I’ll do all that. I’m comfortable. Whatever you find, I’ll do.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’ve been in acquisitions my entire life and my first acquisition experience was when… This is way back in the day when I was a commercial real estate broker, acting as an acquisition specialist for long-term care owners, so nursing home operators and owners that… Some of them are publicly traded on Wall Street. They all had an acquisition criteria. I called them and said, “Hey, what’s your acquisition criteria?” They said, “Well, we buy long-term care facilities.” I said, “Well, how many beds do you want? What’s the patient mix?” All the stuff that’s involved in that industry. They said, “Well, when you find one, let us know.”
That’s my answer here. When you find one, when you find a transaction that you believe in and that you think is a pretty good deal and you present it to the group in the would you do this deal section of Discord, then you get to pick and choose who’s going to fund it, and who you get along with the most and who’s capitalized the best and all of that. I understand and appreciate your question here, but the fact is, go out and find a great deal, bring it back, and then now you’re in the driver’s seat.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. Don’t worry about that.
Steven Jack Butala:
You can control the deal, and that’s so beautiful about this business model. Send a bunch of mail out. Pick two or three that you really love. Maybe ask us on a Thursday call if we think it’s a good idea and then say, “Hey, I’m ready to get funding.” You will be shocked and amazed at the number of people that reach out to you. It’s a shark tank situation. They’ll fight to do your deal.
Jill K DeWit:
Do you know what I would totally do too, if I were you? I would say, “Jack and Jill reviewed it on the Thursday call, with the date on it, got thumbs up kind of thing.” I would totally put that in the Discord area when you’re presenting these deals.
Steven Jack Butala:
Me too.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s interesting too, one of the things I keep talking about the power of this community is we have a lot of people that have just developed into regional professionals. You might find, depending where you’re working, different people are going to go, “Oh, I know that area like the back of my hand. I’ll do that deal. I know.” They’ll know more than you, which is really awesome.
Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s the message I’m trying to send. Don’t pre-think this too much, just go out and find a good deal.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s good.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s great deals in southern Florida that are in wetlands that are amazingly large and cheap and only usable for whatever you would use wetlands for. There’s somebody in our group that loves that kind of property. I don’t know who they are, but I know that there’s… Or they know somebody who is. It’s way bigger than everybody thinks. Today’s topic, assessing your personal life or your professional life at the end.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s what I thought. Oh, that’s exactly where I thought this was going to go.
Steven Jack Butala:
Assessing your professional life at the end of 2022. This is the meat of the show.
Jill K DeWit:
Your inside voice became your outside voice. You want to know that today? We can talk about both if you want.
Steven Jack Butala:
Sure.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
Sure.
Jill K DeWit:
Let me ask you some questions.
Steven Jack Butala:
Sure.
Jill K DeWit:
Are you satisfied with your professional life in 2022?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. Extremely.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. How about your personal life?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yes.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
Honestly, Jill, I can’t find anything wrong at any… There’s always places to improve in everything. It’s a constant improvement. The day that you roll over and say, “Yep, I’m done improving.” That’s not good.
Jill K DeWit:
Could you imagine? Mic drop. I’m out. No. Do you want any more education? No, I’m good.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. How about money? No, I’m done.
Jill K DeWit:
No, I’m good.
Steven Jack Butala:
How about being a better person or being a better person for the person you’re in a relationship with?
Jill K DeWit:
No, I don’t feel the need to do that too.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m good enough for Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
How about getting new underwear today? No, no. I think these are going to be fine. I think I’m going to ride out the rest of my life with exactly what’s in my closet, socks and all.
Steven Jack Butala:
No way. There’s a lot of people like that. I may or may not have been one of those people before I met you.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, I may or may not still buy things and just put them in your closet and cycle through them myself. That’s the good news. You realized that a long time ago and you said, “You know what? If you don’t like it, just go in and change out my closet,” and I do.
Steven Jack Butala:
Don’t think I don’t know you do.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
I should probably thank you more often, actually.
Jill K DeWit:
That would be nice. Yeah, you don’t even know. There’s shirts that just disappear. They never make it their way back out of the laundry. Cool.
Steven Jack Butala:
No, I’ve been hitting my professional financial goals for many, many, many years now, probably 10 years.
Jill K DeWit:
I think since you and I hooked up. Actually, for me, a little bit before that. Do you know, it was kind of funny? I was working in… We still use the word corporate America, I’ll use the term loosely, but I had a day job and it was so funny, because right when you said… The time we tell the story, I don’t know how many shows ago, we told the story about us really hitting it at one of the auctions years ago, and you turned to me and said, “You got to quit your job.” Right when you did that, I was just at the peak of my earning. I’m like, “Doggone it.” I had just gotten a raise and then they pulled me back in a couple days after and said that wasn’t enough, and they gave me more money.
Steven Jack Butala:
I never knew about this.
Jill K DeWit:
They bumped it up again because they realized, “You know what, Jill? Your retention is off the charts. You’re actually at this scale.” I’m like, “Yeah.” Then, right after that, you said, “You got to quit your job.” I’m like, “Doggone it.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, you didn’t have to listen to me.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh no, but it was better. This is better.
Steven Jack Butala:
You should only listen to me about half the time.
Jill K DeWit:
Trust me, this is better. What we were doing was much better, but I was feeling very proud that in that world I had reached… In that world, I had already reached my financial peak, if you will, doing better than I had ever done. Then, to step into our world as a full-time investor, it just keeps getting better.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, it does.
Jill K DeWit:
You know what keeps happening? It’s great because I look around Land Academy and you know who you are, that you’re doing the same thing as me. You’re fine. You’re doing less deals and making more money. Adding the zeros is getting even easier. Some of these unique properties and different zoning and things that we are opening up to and learning more about just making more money and I’m working less. We used to pooh-pooh. One of my funny things too is that you’ve been listening to us for a while. It’s been going on eight years now. We used to really pooh-pooh real estate agents and brokers hard. You know what? It was deserved, especially back then. We didn’t have anybody. They weren’t working for us. Now, it’s really become a really good healthy community of land focused brokers who I love and who do a really phenomenal job of making it so I do no work on the sell side. None at all. It’s awesome.
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t know what else to say about goal setting. You now what really stuck with me on the last call that we did on Thursday? We have members, the Lathis couple, Carl and Sam. We went around the room and said, “How often does everybody plan?” Jill and I said, “Well, we have a real…” I plan all the time, plan money and review it and see how much money we’re making or not making and make adjustments as needed pretty often, but together I bet Jill and I sit down maybe four times a year, maybe three. We try to do it every quarter. It’s always in the calendar, but whether or not we do it… What ends up happening is we don’t need to review anything. Everything’s great. She says, “Great, one last meeting for me today.”
Jill K DeWit:
Totally.
Steven Jack Butala:
Which is what really happens.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s totally true.
Steven Jack Butala:
We got to Carl and Sam who are successful with other companies that they have, but they’re now in Land Academy buying and selling land successfully, and they said, “But that’s all we do is plan.”
Jill K DeWit:
Every day. I thought that was really cool and interesting.
Steven Jack Butala:
That really struck me because I really think that’s part of… There’s some people. They’re so ultra successful in Land Academy and there are some people are as successful as they want to be, but Carl and Sam, they want to take this to the moon. That’s what this takes. It takes planning and teamwork and a constant adjustment until you get there.
Jill K DeWit:
Awesome.
Steven Jack Butala:
I look back, that’s what we used to do.
Jill K DeWit:
We did. That’s so true, especially until you don’t need to, but that’s the way to make it work, if you really sit down and micromanage. That came up on our call last week. I can’t remember who asked it, but asked about how often do you guys sit down with your equity planner? That’s what launched this whole thing. If you have that equity planner open and running on your desk, you know exactly what goals you need to hit. You take your year goals and you have monthly goals and you have weekly goals, and then you have daily goals. I’m sure that’s what Carl and Sam do. If you micromanage it like that, you can’t fail. You know it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s amazing. What’s a great thing is, too, if you see it going sideways, that’s what I think people do sometimes. They think they’re on the right track and then they look at the month and go, “Oh, I didn’t hit my numbers.” If you micromanage it, you won’t have any surprises like that.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is, as a business model, a very addressable situation. Every company, I don’t care who you are, has ups and downs, and so when we have downs with this business model, the answer is to send out more mail or to go back through your records on the property and the owners that you’ve talked to in the past and say, “Hey, I’m just calling back. I know that you guys wanted 50,000 and I was at 22,000. My offer’s still good at 22,000 if you’d like.” It takes that.
Jill K DeWit:
Sometimes, yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s that type of involvement and it’s very solvable versus, let’s say, a convenience store owner who’s got a convenience store, maybe two.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
They have a really bad month, and it’s like, “What do I do to get more people into my store?” Reduce prices? That’s not usually the only-
Jill K DeWit:
Put one of those blowy guys on the corner.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, maybe that’s the answer.
Jill K DeWit:
A sign.
Steven Jack Butala:
My point is, for many, many, many business models, you don’t have the control that you have with this business model to change it.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s true. Isn’t that great? Boy, that’s a good thing to end on. Happy you could join us today. Five days a week, you can find us here on the Land Academy show.
Steven Jack Butala:
Tomorrow’s Jack Thursday and I’m going to talk about how money is a terrible manager. You are not alone in your real estate ambition. If you let money manage you, it will eat you alive.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
You need to manage it.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. That’s good.
Steven Jack Butala:
You need to whip it into shape constantly or it will control you.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. That’s good. Hey, thanks for tuning in by the way. Just so you know, reminder that we would love to connect with you on Clubhouse. Go online, check out the Clubhouse app. It’s a live radio thing right in your phone. Yu can get Jack and I on the first and third Thursday of every month at 12 o’clock Pacific time in the Land Investing Club. Go on Clubhouse, find us, follow us, follow the Land Investing Club, and you’ll get notified when we go live. We could chat with you couple times a month outside of all this. It’s really, really cool, too.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’re Jack and Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
We’re Jack and Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
Information…
Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration…
Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
https://youtu.be/q0oYM2Qfwf4
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
Jack and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit:
Hi.
Steven Jack Butala:
Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today, Jill and I talk about, should we be buying infill lots in this down market?
Jill K DeWit:
That was an interesting conversation that we had the other day. That was on the Thursday member call. I had to think about that, where it was. There’s been a lot of talking in my world last couple weeks. Lot of things. It was so fun. If you’re listening now, and you were on that webinar that I did last week on Thursday night, yep, did not know it was going to go that long, but I really wanted to answer everybody’s questions. I just looked up and I’m like, “Whoa, what happened at the time?” But that was really fun. Anyway, I’m still a little worn out from it.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think it’s natural. Well, I’m used to it. We’re both used to it now because it’s natural at the end of the year, and the beginning of the year, to make life decisions about where you want your life to go. And buying and selling land is, if it’s on your radar, it’s an expiration time.
Jill K DeWit:
Got it. Well, I was saying, yeah, there’s a lot of talking, so that’s why I got … This came up on the member call. No, and one of our advanced members shared some really good in insight information about his experience working with builders.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
And big builders. I can’t run the name of them, but it doesn’t matter. But it’s cool.
Steven Jack Butala:
So they’re in the market and buying. That was my takeaway.
Jill K DeWit:
I have no idea.
Steven Jack Butala:
Before we get into it, let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the Land Investors online community. It’s free. But before we get into all of that, I hope by now, Jill and I have a full-blown commercial printing company called offers2owners.com. We set this up several years ago because we were frustrated with the level of service and understanding that we were getting from normal, right off the street, commercial printing companies who print catalogs and stuff. What we set up was, and is, a printing company that just sends mail, Offers 2 Owners.
Jill K DeWit:
Can I just add that they have a special going on and it’s four more days.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh yeah, it’s huge. Huge special.
Jill K DeWit:
So what he’s talking about, it’s 11% off mail, 16% off concierge data, which is awesome. So check it out on offers, and the number 2, owners.com.
Steven Jack Butala:
A lot of people prepay. A lot of our members prepay for their mailers for next year for tax reasons. So if you feel like you’re in that category, give those guys a call, they’ll explain it.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh yeah.
Kay wrote, “Hi. I’m new to land acquisitions. Please correct me if I’m wrong or misunderstood. If I work backward, home value in an area is $100,000. Land retail price will be around $25,000. And we try to send offers about 50% of the retail price. So $25,000 time divided by 50% is about $12,500. So should we send an offer at $12,500 per residential lot? That right? Please advise. Thank you in advance.”
Steven Jack Butala:
So again, Kay, your math is completely correct.
Jill K DeWit:
Yep.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s what I call the rule of quarters. You have a $100,000 house. A builder is usually willing to pay 20% of the value of what a new house would command in that market. 20%, let’s say 20-to-25%. So $100,000, they’re willing to pay 25,000, so you need to be half of that at 12, let’s say. And then, so you buy for 12 and sell it to the builder for 20 or $25,000. Thank you, yes. The math is correct on that. You can’t build a house for 75 grand.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s what I was going to wonder if you were going to dress that. I was waiting. I’m like, “What is this going to look like?”
Steven Jack Butala:
You can buy a tent for 20-
Jill K DeWit:
Could you imagine? So it works … When the number’s a little bit higher, it works. This low, I don’t think it’s going to work. Go ahead.
Steven Jack Butala:
So the conventional wisdom among the group is, and I completely concur, is that you really don’t want to play in an infill lot market in any good time, it’s a good time or bad time, where the top retail value is lower than $300,000. And that will probably go up because of the way inflation is, and that supply chain is still, there’s still issues with that somewhat so.
Jill K DeWit:
And finding people, workers and stuff.
Steven Jack Butala:
And take a look at what HUD will-
Jill K DeWit:
Staff.
Steven Jack Butala:
… insure, or what the feds will insure, from a new mortgage standpoint. And that’s where you want to be. I think it’s closer to 400,000 now.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s what I think. I wouldn’t do it for less than 500 even.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
Just so you have some wiggle room.
Steven Jack Butala:
3, 4, 5.
But your math is correct. Just do the complete, and we’ll talk here a minute in a minute about, should we be doing it at all?
Jill K DeWit:
Well Kay’s saying, “Well thanks a lot, Jack.” Well, no, no, no. This is good. I don’t have 12,500, now you’re telling me I need to buy these for 50 and sell it for 100. Yeah And you know what, Kay? I can hook you up.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill’s got the money.
Jill K DeWit:
I got the dough. So don’t worry about that at all. Your job, Kay, is go find those deals. I’ll be your bank until you don’t need me, which will probably be at about three deals.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. And all kidding aside, we fund a lot of people’s deals. But geez, it’s not just us, it’s people in our group.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s people in our group that fund deals.
Jill K DeWit:
They’re deal funding machines. That’s why they’re there.
Steven Jack Butala:
We have a discord channel for Land Academy, and a subtopic channel called “would you do this deal” or “would you fund this deal,” and any time every … I just looked at it because I put together these topics and-
Jill K DeWit:
They’re just snatched up, aren’t they?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yep. It’s like, “Hey, I’ve got this deal. I really like to do it. Here’s why. I just wrote a book about it.” And then three people say, “Hey, I just PMed you,” and then there’s silence.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Just everybody was going off getting rich, and no one needs to talk about it anymore. No.
Jill K DeWit:
Good.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s topic, should we be buying infill lots at all in this down market? This is why you’re listening.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s funny, that it came up in my talk last week. And everybody’s like, “Okay, so what’s this monthly membership cost? Boy, that’s worth it right there alone.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
Just to get the access to these people. I know people that pay big bucks to have access to people with deals. Like a lot of money.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, the question that we should get, which we don’t really get too often is, how can you guys afford to do this? As-
Jill K DeWit:
For only.
Steven Jack Butala:
Land Academy itself, as inexpensively as you do it.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
And survive, keep the lights on. And the answer is, because we do other people’s deals. Because we fund real estate transactions and we form-
Jill K DeWit:
And I’m doing my own.
Steven Jack Butala:
… form partnerships ourselves with some of the shining Land Academy members. To this day, we have lots of partners that we do deals with.
Jill K DeWit:
Yep.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s why it’s worth it.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
So today’s about-
Steven Jack Butala:
Infill lots.
Jill K DeWit:
… should we buy infill lots? I love this. This discussion that we fell into last week on our member call on Thursday really surprised me, so I’m glad that you included this today.
Steven Jack Butala:
So last Thursday, yeah, exactly. We have a Thursday call where all of our members, or many of our members submit their deals and we talk about it and laugh about it and everybody else gives their opinion and we’d say, “Hey, yeah, we should probably do this deal,” or, “You shouldn’t do this deal, and here’s why.” And we received, for the first time in probably three years, two houses to review. Jill and I have a company called House Academy also, it’s got its own members and all of that. And if you’re interested in taking a look at that, especially in this downtime now, you should just, it’s all out there the way Land Academy is on the internet for you to take a look at. And both of the houses that we received, we agreed that we should do the deals.
Jill K DeWit:
Buy them.
Steven Jack Butala:
That tells me that this is a time where you should sit down and think with yourself, and maybe your business partner, whether or not you want to buy infill lots real cheap and hold onto them until the market starts to uptick again.
When people are willing to sell houses at such a deep discount that you can actually make 100 grand.Both of these houses that we looked at, I believe these members are going to make a hundred thousand dollars net, and this is without ever going in the house. And not renovating it. I don’t know … If you’re new, you don’t know this. Jill and I are hardcore non-renovators. We don’t want to pick up a hammer, we don’t want to do anything to these assets. That’s what this is all about. We’re just good at buying them and reselling. And so yes, I think you should absolutely look at buying infill lots really, really inexpensively, knowing full well that you’re going to put it up for sale and it’s going to take a year to maybe two years to sell it, which is the original definition of land banking.
Jill K DeWit:
I love that.
Steven Jack Butala:
But use Kay’s math, and it’s really my math, but-
Jill K DeWit:
Well, I was going to add in-
Steven Jack Butala:
… the quarters.
Jill K DeWit:
… to what Carl shared with us. Do you want to add anything about that? Because that was impressive to me. Well, you helped me remember, because my brain is a little foggy right now. But he is a property manager for … He has a company that manages properties for very, very, very large developers. And I thought, and I sincerely asked the question, “Carl, are you worried? Is your company shut down?” He’s like, “Ho ho, quite the opposite.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. So he’s a property manager/handyman, like a heavy lifting handyman contractor, licensed contractor. And his customers are Wall Street-type companies like BlackRock that went in and bought whole subdivisions and they’re leasing them all out as if it were apart an apartment building. That’s how they look at these. Huge companies are looking at, instead of an apartment building where everybody lives in the building, they’re looking at an entire subdivision. New one, newly constructed subdivision, and they’re renting it out separately, obviously, to a bunch of tenants. And they’re treating it that way as an investment vehicle. And Jill asked him, “Is it slowing down?”
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
Are you… And he’s-
Jill K DeWit:
“Are they not building anymore, so you’re not expanding?” kind of thing. He’s like, “Oh, are you kidding?”
Steven Jack Butala:
Building has dramatically slowed down, and in some cases just halted, but everybody’s still buying-
Jill K DeWit:
Buying.
Steven Jack Butala:
… and selling and renting and all of that. That’s not going to stop.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
And wealthy people wait for these downturns.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
And not just people sitting around sipping cocktails, it’s huge, huge private equity companies. And private equity is largely built, made up of, wealthy individuals and wealthy corporations where they dump a bunch of money so they don’t have to manage it themselves.
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
They don’t have to look for investment places and they expect a return for that. And that’s what really private equity is. And so they live and die by acquisitions and finding, especially now, finding great deals because their cost capital’s a little bit higher. So now more than ever is a great time to buy infill lots, but you have to buy them way cheaper than you probably are used to buying them if you’ve been buying and selling land pretty hardcore in the last 24 months.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s pretty cool.
Steven Jack Butala:
We are.
Jill K DeWit:
Yep. I love it.
Happy you could join us today. Five days a week you could find us here on the Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
Tomorrow the episode on the Land Academy show is called Assessing Your Professional Life At the End of 2022. You are not alone in your real estate ambition. I always like, I love the end of the year in the beginning of the year. Do you like it versus June or July? Does it matter?
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, I have to think about that. I think I do. I do. I’m motivated. I’m usually pretty motivated in general, but I think the end of the year and the beginning of the year gets me really excited about stuff and possibilities and looking forward to what we’re going to do. And I’m looking forward to 2023 and just within Land Academy what we’re going to do. It’s going to be awesome.
Steven Jack Butala:
Me too.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Hey, like Jill said yesterday, our printing company Offers 2 Owners is taking pre-orders at a pretty deep discount for all of next year, for 2023, up to January 31st. So please take a look if you want to plan for your mailing-
Jill K DeWit:
Up to December 31st?
Steven Jack Butala:
If you want to plan for your mailing schedule in 2023, should give those guys a call or send them a note and ask them how it works.
Jill K DeWit:
Got it. Yeah. Well, the special ends on Friday, just so you know, ends on Christmas … I’m sorry, that’s not Friday. But anyway, the special ends on Christmas Day, whatever day that is.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think it’s Sunday.
Jill K DeWit:
I think it’s Saturday, Sunday? I don’t know. Yeah, I think it is Sunday. You’re right. This sends on Sunday, but you can still prepay for next year through the end of this year. That’s what you’ll want to.
Steven Jack Butala:
At a discount.
Jill K DeWit:
Yep.
Steven Jack Butala & Jill K DeWit:
We are Jack and Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
Information-
Jill K DeWit:
And Inspiration-
Steven Jack Butala:
… to buy undervalued property.
https://youtu.be/N4RNRLyOJh8
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
Jack and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit:
Hello.
Steven Jack Butala:
Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today Jill and I talk about keeping up with real estate data sources in 2023. I’m going to tell a story here in a minute about explaining our business model to younger people recently and being laughed at pretty directly about how archaic they seem to think that it is. And then I think we all can learn something from it.
Jill K DeWit:
Cool.
Steven Jack Butala:
Before we get into it, let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It’s free.
Jill K DeWit:
Ryan wrote, “Hi all. I’m new to Land Academy as of a few days ago. I am new to land in general, but not to SFRs. I’ve done one land deal within the past month which has led me into Land Academy. I’ve watched Land Academy 3.0, I’m currently rewatching the video on DataTree and pulling a list. One thing I’ve encountered that I would love some clarity on is when you pull your list, how are you ensuring they are not church owned, HOA owned, et cetera. In the videos, Steve searches through a couple of records, but he doesn’t have a method of bulk scraping out these type of properties In your opinions, is this something to care about or you just pull your list, scrub out the assessed improvements, and then mail it? I hope this question makes sense and thank you for the feedback and I’m stoked to work and learn with you all.” That’s cool.
Steven Jack Butala:
Thank you for this question. And the question completely makes sense and it’s a great one. So there’s a reason I put it in this episode. So here’s the deal. There are amazing improvements and ways to pull data, scrub it, and actually create a mailer and get it in the mail. If I talk about all of those in chapter four of Land Academy 3.0, a substantial number of people will get freak out and abandon the idea of sending a mailer out. So I have to teach the basics on a screen. And then this environment, which I love this question, is for us to address, “Hey, there might be a better way for you.” If you’re a super tech savvy person. The old way works great. Is it the fastest? Nope. Is the most accurate? I think so. But there are all kinds of ways to make it faster. That’s kind of what this episode is about.
So the fastest and easiest way to scrub out people who own property, or entities that own property, in a mailer data set is to write a macro and YouTube’s plastered with all kinds of those things and they are keywords. So I do address this in a pretty direct and simple manner in the program, just follow the program and you’re going to do fine. If you want to write a macro to eliminate church owned properties and stuff, which I don’t think you should eliminate churches at all.
Jill K DeWit:
No, I bought from churches.
Steven Jack Butala:
Right.
Jill K DeWit:
Churches are great.
Steven Jack Butala:
We all have. But there are place, like you don’t want to send a letter to the United States government. So the US owns a lot of property and they end up in all of our data sets and they just need to be scrubbed out. You can write a real simple macro to do that. And that’s what this episode’s about is talking about making this more efficient.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, you know what I was going to say too is I bought and sold properties that are in an HOA, so I don’t want those out.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
So you got to really take a step back and think about what you’re trying to take out.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, in general you don’t want to make a data set smaller, but you also don’t want to waste money on stamps On a mail on the mail. And I say stamps figuratively. Today’s topic, keeping up with the real estate data sources for 2023. This is the meat of the show. A couple days ago, or maybe it was yesterday, Jill and I did a talk on Jill’s little talk show on Clubhouse.
Jill K DeWit:
Last week. Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Last week? Yeah. Because of when this airs.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
And a guy came on and was talking about how he locates property. This is not a guy in our group. This is one of the things that I love about-
Jill K DeWit:
Clubhouse.
Steven Jack Butala:
… being a guest on Jill’s show on Clubhouse and just speaking in general or talking with the public in general and not so much seasoned Land Academy members, they have new and fresh and strange ideas which I think we all can learn from. And this guy was going on about artificial intelligence and AI and writing programs and code to worm through the internet and locate would-be sellers for property. So one of the examples that he alluded to was, who’s behind on their utility bills? And so you can dig deep into county websites and find out-
Jill K DeWit:
It’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
…. or let’s say utility websites, not so much county websites. And to that end, you can dig deep about back tax property and all of that. So when these new unique ideas come up, my mind’s always open about it but I’ll tell you I don’t have this gray hair for no reason. And back tax property buying properties with back taxes associated with it was how Jill and I started the company. And we’ve done very, very well and still once in a while we buy back tax properties, but in general it’s no replacement for sending everybody in the market an offer, a direct offer. And so there are new and amazing ways constantly evolving that you should completely pay attention to and some may sing to you. We have a lot of members in our group who are software engineers that have figured out a way for themselves to make this more efficient. All different types of ways, they’ve addressed the basic program, the basic pricing, and getting property offers out in the mail, have addressed that for themselves and made it more efficient and a more power sphere.
But the basic concepts of how and why we scrub out the United States government or why we don’t just send offers to back tax property and all of that are still hold. So it’s not so much our methodology that I think that should be seriously renovated. What really should be paid attention to is why. Why are you guys sending all these offers out to churches, including churches, or to everybody who owns property in a qualifying zip code? Why are you doing that and why are you taking out the US government but keeping in the churches? Why are you keeping in back tax property for example, and not just sending it to back tax property? A real popular one is, “I’m going to scrub out owners who just bought the property within the last three or five years,” which is a really bad idea because we buy property from those people all the time.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
So awareness is fantastic, but really question… Sometimes I think certain personalities and I’m one of these people want to make everything so efficient that it doesn’t work.
Jill K DeWit:
I was going to add that. Don’t think that we’re not always testing those things too. So we’ve tested the whole email blast and so don’t think that… Here’s what I want to say, we test these things because we always want to stay ahead of you and make sure you have the best tools, resources, you know what you’re doing. Right? So if we didn’t incorporate it, there’s a reason why. My example is the email thing. A while back, we even were, this is years ago, were saying too, “Hey, why are we even sending letters? Maybe we should just get these people’s email addresses, check, and then email them an offer. Save all that mail and a time and the money.” But the legalities of that is what kept us away. So don’t think we haven’t considered all these new and exciting shiny products just like there’s a reason why we’re not doing it. As much-
Steven Jack Butala:
Anyway, in 1995 when I started all this, I didn’t sit down with RealQuest or a data set. That’s not what happened. These choices and the decisions that we made and how we do it now were a constant progression on top of, “Hey wait, this is more efficient, let’s do it this way.” Back in the day, I would pull data sets from the actual county because data aggregators like RealQuest and DataTree were just not available. Before that, before computers, there’s a book behind us, behind Jill’s head, called the Stevenson Method where they’d go to the county and sit down and look at paper and write down on a yellow pad the properties that they wanted to send offers to and they did that in the ’70s.
So while I got involved in this a lot later with an actual computer on my desk there, there’s always a way to get offers into hands of owners to see if they want to sell their property. That’s what this is about. And when you start to make that data set smaller, and rethink that basic concept, you’re going to get yourself in trouble. If you have a great way getting offers into someone’s hand that’s ethical and legal and you’re including the entire data set that you’ve analyzed as people that need to get offers, because you want to buy that land, I’m all for it.
Jill K DeWit:
And I was going to say, a lot of people do cold calling and I’m like, I’m surprised that hasn’t got a bigger in more trouble yet, if that makes sense.
Steven Jack Butala:
Bigger spanking?
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, the email people have got a big spanking. That’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
And the texters.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, the texters don’t even start that. Because we thought that too. Were like, “Oh, well let’s go down there.” Then we realize if you text the wrong person and they raise their hand and they get an attorney involved, boy really That will shut you down so fast it’s not even funny how expensive that could be, the fines involved with that. Yeah, email, texting, and I’m really surprised that cold calling hasn’t.
But anyway, that’s the thing. At the end of the day, our way is the safe… Not only is it the safest and the best and the legal way, but I personally think there’s something about sitting there holding it in my hand and looking at it, for me. And I have to say a lot of our sellers are older. That’s part of it too. They get the mail, they darn and read everything in their mail, just being honest. And if they don’t like the offer, they’ll call you. And if they don’t like it right now, they’ll put it in their file. They have a file. So they don’t scan it and shred it like we do. They’re putting it in their file and it’s on their desk, they know right where it is.
Steven Jack Butala:
Look, it’s predictable, the way that we do it works and it’s predictable.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Is it appropriate to try something new in addition to this?
Jill K DeWit:
Sure.
Steven Jack Butala:
Sure. Heck yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
Always.
Steven Jack Butala:
Try it.
Jill K DeWit:
And let us know.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
You find something great and you’re like, “Hey guys, I think I’m onto something here. Can you guys help me and we can all make this great?” Please bring it to us.
Steven Jack Butala:
But while you’ve got mailer mailers going out and you’re sending, let’s say 5,000 a month and doing one or two deals a month in the background and you’re cash flowing and happy and absolutely try all kinds of new ways to make that easier on yourself.
Jill K DeWit:
Totally.
Steven Jack Butala:
Outsource everything that’s part of career path, is a huge part of career path. The class that Jill and I instruct for more advanced people or people who are this is their career, that that’s a lot of this is outsourcing. Heck outsource it to a tech person to make the mailer process easier if that’s what you’d think is appropriate for you.
Jill K DeWit:
Yep. Happy you could join us today, five days a week you can find us here on the Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
Tomorrow the episode of the Land Academy Show is called, “Should we buy infill lots in this down market?” You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill K DeWit:
Hey, I got to add real quick here. If you are new and you are listening and you are not a Land Academy member, it would behoove you to check out our website because I’m doing a rocking crazy, amazing, I haven’t done this in a long, long time, won’t be the slow again, sale. So I’m doing half off-
Steven Jack Butala:
Won’t be this low again really.
Jill K DeWit:
No, because I’m raising the prices. So I’ll tell you, it’s half off between now and the end of the year for our whole education bundle. Period. That’s it. It’s awesome. And in 2020, I’ve had a lot of people come to me and go, “Wait a minute, why is this so cheap?” I’m like, “You know what? You’re right.” Sometimes people get confused or like, “You have all this wrapped up?” I’m like, “Yep, I do. That’s who we are.” So it’s not going to go crazy up, but it will go up in 2023. So check it out now the coupon code, or the promo code, is half off. So go to landacademy.com and you will find out all the details there. We are Jack and Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
We are Jack and Jill. Information-
Jill K DeWit:
… and inspiration-
Steven Jack Butala:
… to buy undervalued property.
https://youtu.be/R-RkB_2_GXA
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
Jack and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit:
Hello.
Steven Jack Butala:
Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s Jill Friday and she’s going to talk about how to motivate title agents through the holidays.
Jill K DeWit:
And your partner.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s true. And your children, or whoever else is in your life. Holidays have always been a strange thing. It’s like people don’t really want to work. Everybody’s taking time off. Things theoretically slow down.
Jill K DeWit:
Your employees.
Steven Jack Butala:
You have a whole special group of people. Yeah, your employees. A whole special group of people that-
Jill K DeWit:
Want to slack.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, entrepreneurial-type people see the time to do research and want to get ready for January 1st to bust it out.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s interesting. No, I think people like us, entrepreneurs, we don’t even know it’s the holidays. That’s really what happens.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s right.
Jill K DeWit:
You’re in it. Someone’s like, “Sweetheart, today’s Thanksgiving.” “What? What are you talking about?”
Steven Jack Butala:
I’ve always been like that.
Jill K DeWit:
I know. That’s what I’m saying. You’re my example. And I know there’s plenty of other people in Land Academy that are the same way that those of us are like… So that’s part of the problem and why we need to talk about this because if you’re like me, it’s just another day. It’s just another week. It’s just another month. And what you do know is though, it’s the end of the year, so now I might [inaudible 00:01:24] strategic for taxes. Why? Because I own my company. I’m thinking about these things. Now, the people on the other side that are working for you, they don’t think about this stuff and you got to keep them on track.
Steven Jack Butala:
Before we get into it, let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It’s free. Back in the day, it was nearly… I don’t want to sound like an old man here, but I really kind of am. It was nearly impossible to find land without a mailing address, like 123 Main Street. To solve this problem, Jill and I put together a database and wrote a internet interface to help you input the assessor’s parcel number and the county and state where the property’s located and find the property very, very quickly. We spent months sometimes trying to find property to decide if we should buy it back in the day. It’s called parcelfact.com. Check it out.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. Greg wrote, “Today, I went off to the bank and wired in the payoff amount for a home mortgage, 30 year loan paid off in eight years.” Oh, that’s great. “I pulled the last few thousand dollars I needed from my Land business account. Thank you everyone for your support and information to enable me to reach this goal.” How great is that? Was that in the Discord success area?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, it was in there today.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, that’s so good. It’s like what an amazing feeling to go, “I don’t have to think about this.”
Steven Jack Butala:
I remember when my first mortgage was paid off.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s awesome.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s a few milestones that feel just that great. Of course I sold the house, made a ton of money, and then went and got a mortgage and bought another one and then felt like crap about myself.
Jill K DeWit:
Do you know what’d be funny? You know what’s interesting about this? I think it’s England that you would do this. This is when they paint their doors red.
Steven Jack Butala:
So that’s a worldwide thing.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, It’s a worldwide thing, okay yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you have a red front door, your mortgage is paid off or you have no debt.
Jill K DeWit:
[inaudible 00:03:26] pay it off. I love that. Which could be an indication for burglars that you have money to invest and that you have other valuables around since you don’t have a mortgage to pay. So maybe don’t paint your door red anymore.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’ve always been fascinated with this concept. What if you put a green dot on your car if it’s paid for or what if you have the back of your head, there’s a little shaved hole in there if you’re debt free?
Jill K DeWit:
Well, you do it with a wedding ring.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, that’s what I’m saying.
Jill K DeWit:
So what’s the difference?
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what I mean. So some things have this… You’re advertising this stuff like a bumper sticker and then some things, no.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s kind of funny.
Steven Jack Butala:
And then let’s take it a couple of steps further before Jill gets into it. What if we all get an IQ test and we have a-
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, there should be something.
Steven Jack Butala:
… a stripe on the back of our right shoulder or [inaudible 00:04:18].
Jill K DeWit:
Or on your hand. I like that. Maybe the number of fingers you have left is how well you did on the test. You can’t hire that guy. He’s down four fingers.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’ve been thinking about this concept since at a very young age. We all need to stand shoulder to shoulder and just maybe if you’re good at math and maybe another person’s not good at math, but amazing at sales or management, or I don’t know.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s kind of funny. All right.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s Jill Friday. She’s going to talk about how to motivate title agents through the holidays. This is the meat of the show.
Jill K DeWit:
This is a thing. This is real. You know what I’m talking about. So here’s the first thing. Back even before you acquired this agent, you should have asked and confirmed and double checked with their schedule a good closing date. Let me give you an example. It’s December 1 and you’re calling Susie at ABC Title, who you’ve done many deals with. And Susie normally gets your stuff done in 24 days. And those are real days, not business days. 24 days, because Susie’s on it. We do five and seven days, but we won’t go there. That’s another show.
But Susie says 24 days, but that’s Christmas. So you need to go, “Hold on a moment, Susie, let’s take a step back here. Let’s look at the calendar together. Are you here this whole month? What days off are you taking?” So back then, I’m telling you now, because it’s December… Well shoot, what is this? December 16th. I’m actually glad that we’re doing this today. So it’s December 16th, let’s just even say you’re calling… Well let me finish my first thing and I’ll jump into this one. So back when you started this though, it was December 1 and you had a good conversation with Susie about what was realistic for her and her company to get it done because you wanted it done in 2022. So that would’ve been step one, so you can pre-plan this for next year.
But let’s just say it really is today, December 16th and this deal landed in your lap. Like, “Oh my gosh, can I get it done?” And the question is maybe. But you got to start with step one, which is call everybody now you know, because Susie may or may not be available, but call every darn person that you know, and I’m going to argue that on December 16th, you still could find an agent right now that can get it done between now and the end of the year. But you want to get it in 2022. Why? Their workload is lighter, a lot lighter than it was a year ago. We all know that. We see that. Number two, hopefully she’s working that whole period. So if you got those two things going for you, you stand a chance.
So let’s assume you did all that, so we’re in good shape. So how do I keep her on track? Well, find out how she likes to communicate number one. I would say, “Are you an email person or you’re a phone call person? Are you a text person?” Whatever it is. Some type of companies, even now have a shared database where you can log in and communicate with them.
Steven Jack Butala:
Really?
Jill K DeWit:
Mm-hmm. It’s a service that I’ve seen. I don’t want to go down that rabbit hole too far right now, but there’s some situations that are popping up where that’s a possibility where that’s how you’re communicating. Kind of like how I coordinate with my transaction coordinator in Airtable where it’s just messages back and forth. So whatever it is, find out what’s best for them, not for you. And then you adopt their schedule. Because our goal right now is to keep them on track to get this deal done on time.
And then the next thing is I want you to stay on them more than you normally do. Normally for us it’s like two times a week we’re touching everybody in the deal. My [inaudible 00:08:22] is reaching out to the title company, reaching out to the seller ’cause we need to get this done. I don’t want anybody to changing their minds. Or maybe it’s the buyer. Actually for me, I’m not really talking to the buyer, but maybe I am. But anyway, with the escrow folks, I want you to up it. If it’s two times a week, I want it to be three times a week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday. And you are constantly reminding them, “Are we on track for the 28th? Are we on track for the 28th?” Those are the conversations you guys should be having.
And then lastly, let them know how you appreciate them. “You know what? I know you’re working hard on this. What’s going on in the office? What kind of treats can I send your way? What do you guys like?” Oh. And do it and follow through. You really have something, you want to get it done. Susie’s having to pull some strings for you. Don’t wait till it closes. Send it now to make sure it closes. Give her a nice reward, nice treat. Big deal, you’re going to spend 35 or $50 at See’s Candy and have a nice two pound box of nuts and shoes show up.
Steven Jack Butala:
Nuts and shoes?
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, don’t even go there. If you know See’s Candy, you know what I’m talking about. So I want that to arrive on time for Susie and her team and on the end of her desk. I want you to put that on the end of the desk and I want everybody who’s involved in this to make sure they get a piece of candy every day and your deal will close. I’m not kidding.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh my God, you’re right. That stuff works.
Jill K DeWit:
It does work. You tell them that, and you’re their best friend now. And that’s it. You want to ask me some questions?
Steven Jack Butala:
No, I’ve never had any success motivating a title agent in my life. So no, I have nothing to add.
Jill K DeWit:
You know what else? I’ll make one last point. If you want this to close on time, you do everything I just said, there’s one more tip. Do not call her mad about anything. You are in so much communication, you know if somebody’s not doing something and you’re doing it. The seller has not got back to me and I’m swamped. You know what Susie? Don’t even worry about it. I’ll call them. I’ll get that dumb document. Give me two hours kind of thing. And then you track them down or your team track them down. You help her. You guys are a team right now. The reason we need to close this by the end of the year is because it’s the end of the year and there’s tax reasons we’re doing it this way.
Maybe you don’t want to close by the end of the year. That’s a whole different thing and we’ll talk about that in January that are kind of funny. But sometimes you want things to drag their feet and that’s easy to do. You can just change the date. But anyway, I hope that helps you, ’cause this is a big deal right now.
Steven Jack Butala:
You can get it done. That’s Jill’s point. You just got to handle it correctly.
Jill K DeWit:
Yep. Take care of your people. You know what? That works for your staff too. “Hey guys, we got a big project.” You know what I even do for our staff if there’s a big project. I do this a lot. “I’m paying for lunch today.” That keeps everybody at their desks, by the way. It’s like, “Pick out what you want.” You know what I mean? “You want a whole sandwich and a soup and a salad. I don’t really care. Knock yourself out. And you’re taking half home for dinner? Good for you, because I got you. You’re staying in the office for me and helping me do this.” So take care of your team, take care of your people, and it goes a long way. Happy you could join us today. Five days a week you can find us here on the Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
Join us next week for another interesting episode because you are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m passionate about taking care of these people.
Steven Jack Butala:
Another year gone.
Jill K DeWit:
Almost.
Steven Jack Butala:
It was a good year. We had a great year.
Jill K DeWit:
Isn’t that crazy? We had a great year. I’m excited. I’m excited for stuff coming up for 2023.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, me too.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, we’re not done. We’re not signing off yet. We’re going to be here for some more shows, but we are going to change the format in 2023 and I’m looking forward to it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, me too.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s going to be awesome.
Jack and Jill:
We’re Jack and Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
Information
Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration
Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
https://youtu.be/vPz92nwZ51o
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
Jack and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit:
Hello.
Steven Jack Butala:
Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s Jack Thursday, and I’m going to talk about how there’s only six ways to get rich.
Jill K DeWit:
This is going to be good. I’m.-
Steven Jack Butala:
Which way.
Jill K DeWit:
Really curious.
Steven Jack Butala:
Which way do you choose? Before.-
Jill K DeWit:
Awesome.
Steven Jack Butala:
We get into it, let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it’s free. Don’t forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you liked.
Jill K DeWit:
Matt wrote, “Hi all. I’m working on pricing zip code that varies greatly in prices. Section of area that I pulled in the zip code is close to a downtown, and the other half of the zip code is in a more rural area. How do you price an area like this? If I do it just by the zip code, the addresses close to the downtown area are under priced. And the addresses further out are overpriced.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Matt, this is brilliant. If you are in Land Academy and you’re doing the dishes right now, and listening to this. Or you’re driving in a car and thinking about something else, now’s the time to stop doing that. Now’s the time to really listen to this one point I have to make very briefly. If you’re not in Land Academy…
Jill K DeWit:
Or in a safe place that you could pull over.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you’re not in Land Academy this is why there are many people in Land Academy who are successful, it’s for stuff like this. What he’s describing is, picture a zip code. There’s a big city in the zip code, there’s maybe a couple of small towns. Maybe one small town in the zip code and all kinds of real estate surrounding it. Very different price. One zip code, different priced land all over the place. This is the norm. This is not an exception. It’s always like this. There might be a not so big city. There’s always going to be strangely priced scenarios in one zip code. This is why you cannot use a pricing tool that’s automatic. You cannot say to Concierge Data, let’s say, which is our company where we do your mailers, “Thanks for doing all this and it looks great. We’re going to price it at 20% of retail and let me know when it goes out.” Huge, sometimes fatal error. There are multiple places in zip codes that have different pricing.
How do you do that? How do you deal with it? You get your mailer back, or you create the mail yourself, or you get it back from Concierge Data. And you test for reason over and over again and you sort for, just like I teach in.-
Jill K DeWit:
Land Academy.
Steven Jack Butala:
Land Academy, you sort for by APN and you look at test for reason, all of those prices to see. Not all of them, but if there’s.-
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you’ve got a 2,000 unit mailer size and it’s one zip code, then test for every APN scenario, test 20 of them. You’re going to decide ultimately that 20% is appropriate for this area in the zip code. 18% is appropriate for this area, 32%’s appropriate for this area. These are all really large parcels that are way out of town, maybe 8%’s appropriate for that. Are those numbers hard numbers? “Oh, Jack said 8% if it’s out of town.” No, that’s not what I mean. I mean, it has to make sense so that if the property comes back and it’s signed, you want to the do.-
Jill K DeWit:
Would you buy it?
Steven Jack Butala:
The deal. It’s not overpriced or under priced.
Jill K DeWit:
Awesome.
Steven Jack Butala:
Thank you for asking that question.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s a good question. Today’s topic?
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s topic’s Jack’s Thursday, there’s only six ways to get rich. This is why you’re listening.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. I’m just going to be, I’m a little bit of a guest here, too. I can’t wait to hear the list. I’m not looking.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is an article that I read that stuck with me a while ago from a capital group, a private equity group, that wrote this for some reason. And I agree with it. Number one, “Marry money,” and that doesn’t mean.-
Jill K DeWit:
Well, I was, Jill.-
Steven Jack Butala:
That doesn’t mean.
Jill K DeWit:
Jill is zero for one.
Steven Jack Butala:
You know what? We don’t need to put gender on this.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, I’m going to keep track here. I want to see which.-
Steven Jack Butala:
Zero for one.
Jill K DeWit:
Zero for one. By [inaudible 00:04:32] I’ll have zero there on that one.
Steven Jack Butala:
That doesn’t mean, don’t let your mind wander on this. This could be some great guy who marries an heiress.-
Jill K DeWit:
Well.
Steven Jack Butala:
Maybe he’s the third guy who marries Jackie Onassis.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, thank you for saying that. Thank you for not always assuming it’s a woman. Which is really funny because I just read an article a week ago about the Forbes top 10 wealthiest women. I don’t even think it was a Forbes article, I don’t remember what it was. But it was in the world and every woman had over $10 billion. The top, over half of them, they were widowed or divorced, and that’s how they got their wealth, [inaudible 00:05:14] that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Number two.-
Jill K DeWit:
It’s interesting.
Steven Jack Butala:
Inherit money.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, now I’m zero for two. None of that coming my way.-
Steven Jack Butala:
The top six ways to get rich.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m seriously not looking at the list. I hope there’s one of them that I got.
Steven Jack Butala:
Number three.-
Jill K DeWit:
I’m pretty sure there’s one.
Steven Jack Butala:
Get exceedingly lucky, which is a pretty way of saying win the lottery.
Jill K DeWit:
Zero for three.
Steven Jack Butala:
Or go to the casino and realize your dreams.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m zero for three. Keep going.-
Steven Jack Butala:
Number four, exploit a unique talent. That gets you thinking. Like…
Jill K DeWit:
Selling.
Steven Jack Butala:
Selling is a good one. Or like Houdini.
Jill K DeWit:
Ding ding.
Steven Jack Butala:
Amazing talent.
Jill K DeWit:
I wanted to see here.
Steven Jack Butala:
He got rich on it.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, okay. That’s a maybe for me. I don’t know that’s a question mark.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s indefinitely involved for all of us.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay, got it.
Steven Jack Butala:
You have to have some type of talent. Maybe your talent is recruiting amazing people to surround yourself with so you get wealthy.
Jill K DeWit:
I like that, the Houdini one.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’re getting closer to reality here.-
Jill K DeWit:
Okay, got it.
Steven Jack Butala:
For most of us. Number five, either own, or lead, a successful business.
Jill K DeWit:
Ding, ding, ding. I got one solid one. I was wondering where I was going to be on this list. All right.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s for everybody here. This is a very likely impossible scenario.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m 1.5 out of five because I only gave myself a half a point on number four.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think this is the last one, right?
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. What’s number six?
Steven Jack Butala:
Number six is, spend less than you make and invest it wisely over a long period of time.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, we kind of do that.
Steven Jack Butala:
I hate this idea.-
Jill K DeWit:
I didn’t start out that way, but.-
Steven Jack Butala:
I hate it.
Jill K DeWit:
Wait, I do part of it. I get a half point. Spend less than you make, that’s for sure, we do that.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is the whole premise behind the millionaire next door. There’s two people who, let’s say back in the day, it doesn’t apply if you’re 22 years old now, but back in the day, two people buy a house. My parents bought a house for $13,000, literally. Both of them went to college. They worked jobs that paid for that college education and everybody’s nodding their head like Jill is now. Whoever’s listening to this is, they’re nodding their heads saying, “Yep, they did that.” And nope, I’m not doing that. That’s why you’re.-
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
Listening to the show.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
At the end, especially if you live in Southern California where there’s an amazing housing value increases, you buy a cheap house, you would live there for 30, 40, 50 years, raise a couple of kids. Put them through school, work the same jobs, or different jobs, in an industry. When you’re all done with it, you maybe put some money in the stock market or whatever you decided to do. Bought an extra house and rented it out. It’s a very typical scenario. You end up going into retirement age with a few million dollars. And a big hole in your heart for what would’ve been, in my case.
Jill K DeWit:
A hole in your heart?
Steven Jack Butala:
Like, “What did we do here, Edith? What did we do? How did we end up looking like this? My whole life went by.”
Jill K DeWit:
Edith and Archie were rich?
Steven Jack Butala:
No, just, Edith.-
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, they weren’t rich. They didn’t know.
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t know, the woman’s name’s Edith.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh [inaudible 00:08:46].
Steven Jack Butala:
Ethel, I don’t know.
Jill K DeWit:
You say that name that’s right where I go. I just dated myself, again, this week.-
Steven Jack Butala:
This is not appropriate for most of our personality types. You know what? I’m not sure you can do that anymore. I don’t think.-
Jill K DeWit:
I understand this.
Steven Jack Butala:
Going to college.-
Jill K DeWit:
You know what.-
Steven Jack Butala:
Costs $100,000 now. And so you’ve got student loans on that. Buying a house, houses are overvalued as compared to income. It was the variance of between income and housing prices back then. You could pull that kind of stuff off, and you still can if you’re really smart about it. But being smart about making decisions, what we’re talking about, what we talk about on this show all the time, is not conducive to this number six. Number six is, you kind of let life happen to you. “I wasn’t supposed to go to college, I went.” “I was supposed to get a job over there and I got one.”
Jill K DeWit:
You know what’s sad about number six?-
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s sad.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, you missed out on a lot. I’m really not even taking a half point for six because Lord knows I didn’t suffer in life.
Steven Jack Butala:
Suffer enough.
Jill K DeWit:
No, I know. Well, there were times I did suffer in life, that’s true. For 17 years, which we talked about the other day. I’m going, “Thank goodness we got number five.”-
Steven Jack Butala:
Number five it is.-
Jill K DeWit:
You know what? That’s Land Academy, that’s our community. That’s the thing about what we do is it’s your business. Land Academy is us showing you everything that we do, and everything that we did, to start and run and grow our business. So you can start and run and grow your own business, and be a successful entrepreneur investor like we are. That’s it.
Steven Jack Butala:
The point here is do something because.-
Jill K DeWit:
I’ll just say [Inaudible 00:10:42].
Steven Jack Butala:
The chances are you’re not going to marry money, inherit money, and you probably don’t have any unique talents like me. You’re not going to get exceedingly lucky. I’m not going to sit around and do nothing and just go to a job for 25, 35 years and thank my lucky stars.-
Jill K DeWit:
Do you know what?
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m just not going to do that.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m going to argue that there could be a seventh. I’m going to leave it on this for me. I think there could be a seven. You know what seven is? Work your blank off until you get there. That’s not in there.
Steven Jack Butala:
I mean, but give me an example of that because I don’t see real hard work paying off.
Jill K DeWit:
Go getters?
Steven Jack Butala:
Unless you’re doing it for.-
Jill K DeWit:
You don’t think so?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yourself.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s what I mean. Well, then you’re doing it from your own business.
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t know, if you’re going to be an amazing go getter.-
Jill K DeWit:
That’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
At General Motors.-
Jill K DeWit:
I guess that goes with number five. Working really hard and pounding the pavement, and all that stuff ties into owning and leading your own successful business. That does make sense. Thank you. Happy to join us today, five days a week you can find us here on the Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
Tomorrow is Jill Friday. She’s going to talk about how to motivate title agents through the holidays. You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s that time of year. We all want to take a vacation and guess what? Deals need to get done. That’s what we’re going to talk about tomorrow. I have a lot of good tips and things for you to make sure they get done. Or maybe they don’t want to get done, we’ll talk about that, too. Maybe you want to drag your feet and have it happen in January. Might be doing that, too. Thanks for tuning in. As we mentioned before, we hope you find our content valuable and we do appreciate your support. If you haven’t already, please check out our YouTube channel and hit the subscribe button. Don’t forget if, depending on when you’re listening to this, I either am about to be live or I was live Thursday, December 15th, five o’clock Pacific time. Go to YouTube, go to Facebook and check it out. We are Jack and Jill.-
Steven Jack Butala:
We are Jack and Jill. Information.
Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration.
Steven Jack Butala:
To my undervalued property.
https://youtu.be/WyL6qsuFIMc
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
Jack and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit:
Howdy.
Steven Jack Butala:
Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today, Jill and I talk about quite simply how to complete your first land deal. For the last couple of days, Jill and I are talking about taking risk and what’s the riskiest thing you can do-
Jill K DeWit:
What’s possible.
Steven Jack Butala:
… is not taking risk at all. And 90% of the people who are millionaires own real estate. That’s all great, thanks. How do you do it? What are the mechanics of actually taking the first step to getting a land transaction or a real estate transaction done? So we’ll take you through it.
Jill K DeWit:
Cool.
Steven Jack Butala:
Before we get into it, let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It’s free.
Jill K DeWit:
And don’t forget tomorrow I will be live at 5:00 Pacific Time. Yep. 5:00 Pacific time, 8:00 Eastern time via YouTube and Facebook. So check out the Land Academy channels for the details. Ed wrote, “If I only send mail to two and a half acres to [inaudible 00:01:09] acre properties in my ZIP, the quantity is 609. For me to send out 12,000 mailers, conceptually I need to get around 10 to 15 ZIP codes. If I keep it targeted like that, am I thinking accurately? Why am I missing something? Thank you.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Ed, this is an amazing question, and you are on your way to being an incredibly successful at doing this, or really honestly, whatever you choose to do. Diversification is the pillar of success in anything when it comes to placing money and doing different types of equity creation for yourself. So yes, you are 100% correct, in what you’re doing. Wouldn’t it be better to send property to 10 or 15 ZIP codes than just one? It’s always better to diversify. And yeah, 12,000 mailers. Heck yes, you are setting yourself up to the chances of getting a one or two or three or five good great properties out of a 12,000 unit mailer and 10 or 15 ZIP codes, you’re setting yourself up to really, really succeed.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s like the dream, really. That’s the perfect way. The last thing you want to do is send out 200 mailers and you’re staring at, I hope something comes back this week. Could you imagine? Maybe I’ll get something, maybe I won’t. How long does that flipping take? And then maybe you get one trickling in here and another one there, and then you’re like, well, all right, I got five I collected now. Can I make any of these work? That’s not the position you want to be in. The way Ed is doing it is the best way, which is let it out there. Just blast it. And guess what? Ed got 10, 20, 30 responses, maybe more with 12,000, I’m going to argue, argue a lot more with 12,000.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, me too. Especially in different ZIP codes.
Jill K DeWit:
Right. You’re going to have a lot of responses to play with, and especially with that many ZIP codes. This area worked out great. Over here, not so much. This is what I learned. I overpriced over here, I under-priced over here, but I fixed some. And you’re like, you’re overwhelmed with these deals coming at you. Imagine that. Right? Now Ed could sit back and go, okay, woo, take a number, folks. I only have, this is the whole thing. I’m only one person, so I’m going to pick the top three and I’ll get to those next three next week, and then next three the next week. And by then, I got more mail going out. So that’s the position you want to be in.
Steven Jack Butala:
I can’t wait to see what happens from … One of the hardest things that goes on in Land Academy for me is to listen to a reader and listen to a question like this. It’s a very, very intelligent question. And then I know that a very substantial number of people go off, do this stuff, do very, very well for themselves financially, and then I just never know about it. It’s very hard as a … We’ve spent a lot of time. This is now our, well, we’ve spent a lot of time on Land Academy, Jill and I have on the site.
Jill K DeWit:
Going on eight years.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you’re successful, will you please let us-
Jill K DeWit:
Eight years now.
Steven Jack Butala:
What I’m saying is, yeah, if you’re successful, will you please let us know? Will you send us an email to support or send it directly to Jill and I? Jill at Land Academy or Jack at Land Academy. Is that your email address?
Jill K DeWit:
You need some love?
Steven Jack Butala:
No, I just think that, I love these success stories and I know that if Ed here follows through on this a couple of times, it’s going to be wildly successful.
Jill K DeWit:
He’s probably posting some success in Discord right now, depending on when this mailer arrived.
Steven Jack Butala:
No, I don’t need love.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m not-
Jill K DeWit:
Hold on. I got to just put the brakes on anyway. And I got to say, is that really the biggest issue that you face in Land Academy? Because I’m going to argue no.
Steven Jack Butala:
What’s the biggest issue you face?
Jill K DeWit:
Staffing. And I wish I could consult all day. All day. I wish I could consult 24 hours a day. It’s just not possible.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. So you mean consult with members.
Jill K DeWit:
Huh-uh. I wish I could coach and be there a 100%, 24. Even 24 hours a day, I’d only get 24 people. That’s not effective. I need to hit more people. That’s why we do the show and all the things that we do and the Thursday call. But anyway, I just want to know what’s your … I answered mine. Mine’s staffing. What is your real biggest thing in Land Academy?
Steven Jack Butala:
Staffing.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, all right.
Steven Jack Butala:
And I hate to be boring, but staffing’s a challenge now more than ever, but it always has been a challenge.
Jill K DeWit:
Got it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s topic, how to complete your first deal. This is the meat of the show.
Jill K DeWit:
First land deal. This is big.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s three components to completing a land transaction and if you’re like most people, including me, you really enjoy one or two of them and maybe not so much the third. It’s very unusual for somebody to enjoy all three components. So that’s why ultimately by default, Jill and I got together and so all three of them are covered.
Jill K DeWit:
No, that’s not the reason we got together initially, by the way.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yes. It was a little bit more-
Jill K DeWit:
Truth time.
Steven Jack Butala:
It was a little bit more biological than that.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. Just turns out I was good on the phones. I know how to sell things.
Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s the three steps. Number one, education. For some reason, people think that buying and selling real estate is just something that you learn.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, just wing it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, you just do it.
Jill K DeWit:
Can I wing it? Figure this out?
Steven Jack Butala:
I mean, you can, but you’re going to do it wrong several times like I did.
Jill K DeWit:
And take 10 years to catch up to us. There’s one way, that’s one.
Steven Jack Butala:
Step two is buy some property and step two is sell it. Step three is sell it. That’s broken up. It’s that simple. So where do you get educated? Everywhere. This is what, 2022, ’23. The internet is just chock full of places to learn to how to do this for free and how to do anything, by the way. I mean education is fast and cheap, if not free to learn how to do anything. So there’s no excuse not to really immerse yourself into be either buying, selling land, or learning how to own a convenience store or whatever it ends up being. So that leaves buying a piece of real estate, that first piece of real estate. That’s great, Jack. I don’t have any money. Yep, I didn’t either.
Jill K DeWit:
Join me on Thursday. I’m going to talk about it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Geez, what kind of plug?
Jill K DeWit:
I know, right?
Steven Jack Butala:
What kind of plug is that?
Jill K DeWit:
I had to. It’s a big deal. I haven’t done one of these in a while, and it’s going to be worth it. Trust me. Sorry. [inaudible 00:07:50].
Steven Jack Butala:
Lucky for you. Don’t you hate all that stuff out there that says no money down? You can do this with … No, doesn’t cost any. Well, it turns out the way that we do it, you really don’t need any money, but you got to still have to do stuff.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh yeah. There’s a lot of moving parts.
Steven Jack Butala:
So once you got yourself educated on how this whole thing works, you’re going to realize that your job, and this is, we’re in step two now, in buying a piece of real estate, your only job is to find a great deal. Forget about the money. Forget it. We have people in our group and there’s people all over the internet that would be elated to fund your deal if it’s a great deal and if they like you or you impressed them, let’s say professionally. Just like Shark Tank. And so you need to go through the education or our education or anywhere else or combination of education sources. And you need to learn how to generate a deal flow funnel for yourself.
We choose to do it by using direct mail. We send direct offers to owners in a targeted area that we have qualified for ourselves as being a likely candidate, a likely ZIP code, likely county, maybe even a likely state where we can buy land inexpensively or under its current value and resell it for more. That’s it. Learn how to send a mailer out or hire somebody like us to get mail out so that you’re getting your funnel of potential deals are coming back now on the phone via email or ever however else that you think is appropriate for you. When you find a great deal and you don’t have the money, or if you do have the money, great. When you find a great deal, seek the funding out.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, you have to have the money. Call me.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, call us.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
We fund a lot of deals.
Jill K DeWit:
Sure.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s why we created Land Academy, to do deals with people. And then how many years now it’s been?
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, for Land Academy?
Steven Jack Butala:
13 years. Well, no, it’s been eight years I guess.
Jill K DeWit:
Land Academy, eight years. But gosh, overall is, are you going on 30 years now? No. I don’t even know.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yes, it’s 25. It doesn’t matter. It’s a lot. My point in saying it’s a lot of years and it works. There’s a lot of other people out there. This is their first year doing this and teaching it. And that’s too bad because I’m not sure they’re doing it correctly. So you found a great piece of real estate. You found a person to not lend you the money, to partnership the deal with you.
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
So you’re in it together.
Jill K DeWit:
Good point.
Steven Jack Butala:
And now you’ve got a money partner and an operations partner, which is you, and you’ve got it purchased and the two of you own it. You contract out the best person you can possibly find to sell that piece of real estate, that local piece of real estate you can find, which is usually a land specialized real estate agent.
So now the numbers are like this. You found a piece of property to buy for $100,000. It is worth, let’s say $200,000. You get your money partner to fund 100% of it. You’re still in it for zero. And then you go and sell it for $180,000, below its retail value. Everybody at the entire transaction makes 80 grand. You take 40. The money guy takes 40, and you go do it again. That’s how you got your first real estate deal done with no money at all. And the money partner’s never going to leave you alone now. If you can turn his money or her money like that, they’re going to say, “Let’s do this for life.” And they’re probably going to say, I’ve done it over here with these other two guys and I would love for you to be number three. So we’re good at this. So now you’re part of a group of people. You’re 60 days away from this. I’m not blowing smoke and I’m not here. This is what zero down real estate is the right way.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, not borrowing, not making payments.
Steven Jack Butala:
Now you’re 60 to 90 days away from being in a group of people that are experienced with a ton of money who are buying and selling land really, really effectively. And you have one single job, to locate property that’s undervalued. Not raising capital, not dealing with tenants or become hiring a contractor to renovate a house or any of that stuff. You’re just sitting in front of your computer getting mail out, answering the phone. You’re very quiet.
Jill K DeWit:
You are on a roll, baby. I’m letting you go. There’s a few times I tried to interject and I realized, nope, don’t go there.
Steven Jack Butala:
Anyway, so what do you think?
Jill K DeWit:
What do I think? Do you think it would work?
Steven Jack Butala:
She’s snotty.
Jill K DeWit:
I know. I’m being joking. Of course. I have nothing to add other than happy you could join us today, five days a week. You can find us here on the Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s rounds Jack Thursday, and I’m going to talk about how there’s only six ways to get rich. You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, I look forward to that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah?
Jill K DeWit:
See, that even has my interest piqued there. You think I’m kidding? No, I think it’s a awesome.
Steven Jack Butala:
Since when have you been interested in anything I say at all, ever?
Jill K DeWit:
Since the day I met you. You know that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Geez.
Jill K DeWit:
Totally. Don’t forget tomorrow night. You can find me live on YouTube and Facebook at 5:00 Pacific, 8:00 Eastern Time. Check it out, YouTube. Check it out on Facebook. There’s some other things that you can, I’m sure might be popping in your email by now. But hope to see you there.
Steven Jack Butala:
We are Jack and Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
We are Jack and Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
Information.
Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration.
Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
https://youtu.be/vU6nBPffilg
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
Jack and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit:
Hello.
Steven Jack Butala:
Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today Jill and I talk about risk. Specifically the riskiest thing you can do is to take no risk at all. And it’s funny, Jill and I were just talking about the title. She’s like, well, wait a minute. I’m not really understanding what the hell this is because I don’t see any risk in what we’re doing at all.
Jill K DeWit:
Totally. I’m like-
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t either.
Jill K DeWit:
… this wasn’t registering for me. I’m like, I had to read this title three times and process it and then I’m like, I hear what you’re saying, but I don’t think that’s, I don’t, I’m not feeling it and we’ll talk.
Steven Jack Butala:
You have to take some element of risk to get any reward.
Jill K DeWit:
Mm-hmm.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s just a universal concept and we’ll talk about choosing things that appear to you to have no risk, like buying and selling land. I don’t see any risk in that, but some people do. So we’ll talk about it in a second. Before we get into it, let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It’s free.
Jill K DeWit:
Hey, and don’t forget, go to Land Academy’s Facebook page or somewhere on social media and sign up to join me live Thursday. I didn’t even tell you what time it was. Thursday at five o’clock… I have to think about this, five o’clock Pacific time on the 15th. It’s going to be awesome. All right, so the Stevens Brothers wrote, “When getting leads from DataTree, do you think it would be a good idea to only get records from leads…” Wait, wait. “Do you think it would be an idea to only get records of leads that screen off the last sale date and the last recording date in the most recent three years?” Am I reading that right?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, I’ll explain it.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’ll paraphrase.
Jill K DeWit:
In other words, only get leads at the last sale date or the last recording date was before I got it. Before November, 2019. Have a nice day. Okay, I got it.
Steven Jack Butala:
We pull ownership records out of DataTree as a group before we, as part of doing a blind offer campaign and so if you think about a zip code. In the universe of that zip code, there’s a bunch of land that sits in that zip code and we pull the records for people who own that land and do a bunch of stuff to them, scrub the data and get it in the mail. We use those records to generate offers to send to the mail. And so very often, and we teach this in an incredible amount of detail, how to do it step by step and all of our education on the Thursday call, and it’s really kind of what Land Academy’s about.
Jill K DeWit:
Mm-hmm.
Steven Jack Butala:
What these guys are asking is, hey, would it be a better idea to mess with or alter in some way the 25 year proven concept that Jack and Jill have-
Jill K DeWit:
Tested.
Steven Jack Butala:
… purchased and sold more than 16,000 deals with. I’m brand new at this and I think I have a better idea.
Jill K DeWit:
I know and exclude the people that have transferred property in the last three years.
Steven Jack Butala:
Which means there those are people who are used to buying and selling and comfortable with buying and selling land.
Jill K DeWit:
Right. So here’s my point to this. Well, that’s great, that’s great slash however, what about the sweet little old lady that just got the property in her name because her husband passed on and it was a probate thing. You just took her out of your list.
Steven Jack Butala:
So guys, we’re not picking on you. We’re just, we’re seriously not, this is a very good question and I’m glad you asked it. It gives us an opportunity to, in a playful way, answer the question. No, it’s not a good idea. What you’re doing is making your mailer smaller.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
And you’re specifically excluding people that, and this is not, I’m answering the question obviously the way I would answer it, but there are many other people in Land Academy Discord that are saying the same thing I’m saying here. You don’t want to make your mailer smaller. Specifically don’t want to exclude situations where people-
Jill K DeWit:
Transfer could have happened.
Steven Jack Butala:
… people are changing, the property’s changing hands recently so their mind is open to changing it again, changing hands again.
Jill K DeWit:
What about the person that just bought a property two years ago and lost his job? You just scrubbed him out of your list. There’s so many things that I can think of.
Steven Jack Butala:
We said this a lot of times-
Jill K DeWit:
To keep to… [inaudible 00:04:17]. Tell you why it’s valid to leave him in.
Steven Jack Butala:
People were looking for a situation, Jill’s right.
Jill K DeWit:
Mm-hmm.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s all kinds of social scenarios that happen that make that lead people to choosing to sell their land.
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
And so you don’t want to exclude those people.
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
At all. The cost of sending mail and data as against the profit that we make on these transactions is tiny. It’s a tiny, tiny, small percentage. So every time I scrub out data, I think to myself, well what if this is the person that’s going to call Jill back and say, “I absolutely want to sell my land. Thanks for sending this mail, your timing, sending this offer. Your timing’s perfect.”
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
“I’m ready to sell.” So no, I don’t, and I’m glad you asked this question, but make-
Jill K DeWit:
I’m going to go look at this one. I want to see how many other comments that people wrote that, like mine, to say, I bet there’s 10 situations in there based on what you just said. I wouldn’t have bought this property, I wouldn’t have bought that property. I have several right now that I could say if I had done that, I would’ve missed all these opportunities. That’s the main point.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s topic, the riskiest thing you can do is to take no risk at all. This is why you’re listening. So let’s take a 35,000 foot view at this sentence and put some examples to it. What if Steve Jobs never took a risk?
Jill K DeWit:
Talk about a risk working out of the garage.
Steven Jack Butala:
What if Steve Jobs-
Jill K DeWit:
[inaudible 00:05:47] money.
Steven Jack Butala:
… was just be, was a programmer like he was supposed to be. He and Wozniak just worked side by side in a cube till they were 65 and retired.
Jill K DeWit:
Or with IBM.
Steven Jack Butala:
What if Bill Gates said, “I’m going to stay in college and buy farmland. That’s all I’m going to do.” So these are obvious… And or Henry Ford for that matter. These are obvious examples and they’re extreme examples, but we make decisions like this as our land investors every single day, day in and day out. What if I buy this piece of land? What if I don’t. What if I join Land Academy? What if I don’t? What if I… I’m going to skip a bunch of steps. I’m not going to send out mail, I’m going to send out postcards. So there’s a lot of tiny little decisions that we make that you, we all either knowingly or subconsciously associate risk with. Yeah, this mailer’s going to cost 5,000 bucks. There’s some other stuff I could do with this $5,000.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
I see this as a huge risk and I need this $5,000, so I’m not going to do it. So I’m not selling anything one way or the other. And Jill alluded to this at the beginning of the episode. I do not associate any risk.
Jill K DeWit:
Well talk-
Steven Jack Butala:
With buying and selling land.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, before I get into that, will you please explain what you were telling me the before we took, started the show about people that, ’cause that struck a chord with me. The people that just stay in their jobs and I’m not picking on anybody, and I know this is not for everybody, but for those of you who, there’s a twinkle in your eye and there’s a little, I think there’s something more because I’m here to tell you, I didn’t know about this. I was with one company for 17 years. Yes, I… You are correct, I don’t look that old. But before you even ask I’m just going at an answer. You’re right, yeah-
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill started working when she was 12.
Jill K DeWit:
… yeah, how could that be? You don’t look that old. Nope. Let me tell you, I was with the same flipping company, American Airlines for 17 years and I thought that was it. I didn’t even… And I didn’t or I didn’t even think it was for me you know? And so I’m here giving some real world-
Steven Jack Butala:
You know, can I tell you something?
Jill K DeWit:
… experience on this. Go ahead.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m always fascinated. I’ve known you for a while now, for what 15 years we’ve been together. I’m fascinated when you talk about this period of your life because it doesn’t seem like-
Jill K DeWit:
It’s me.
Steven Jack Butala:
… because the person I know now would never do that for one day.
Jill K DeWit:
Because I drank the Kool-Aid. I drank the, I’m third generation American Airlines. My grandfather was a mechanic in Tulsa. My dad was a pilot and so here I am, off the MD11, haven’t talked about that in a while when he retired and then here I came like, “Oh, American Airlines, it’s a family business.” Duh.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh geez.
Jill K DeWit:
I know that was not right so I… And I wanted to travel, but then I drank the Kool-Aid so I was not, it’s not that I wasn’t… So here’s what happened to me. I was not risk averse. I just didn’t… I didn’t have anybody showing me the way. I didn’t know. And then what happened was, the more time I spent there, I just kind of settled in you know? And I believe what they said, you know about, and they have a thing called Max Pay. Can you imagine? Every level in that company has pay, there’s pay scales.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is America. There’s no such thing as Max Pay.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh no, no, no, no. There’s Max Pay. And you would work to be Max Pay at that level in the company and when you’re at Max Pay and you’re getting your first bid for all your vacations, why would you want to leave? That was kind of the thing. So fast forward to midlife crisis. So that was the catalyst here but lucky for me, I got out and it was so interesting. All my friends, it’s like my friends were there and behind bars. Let me know how it is and I’m like, I was one year and not even one year out of American Airlines and I’m like, “You guys got to do this. There’s life on the other side.” And boy have I… I’ve times a hundred.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
What I was doing there.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh geez.
Jill K DeWit:
Easy.
Steven Jack Butala:
No comparison.
Jill K DeWit:
And then so I took that leap, but it was me. There was nothing, nothing happened. I didn’t get laid off, I didn’t get fired, nothing. I just said, “I got to go. I know there’s more to me and I’m sick of this” and I need to do something. And it was my, that time of my life, I’m like, I need to make some changes. I’m not getting any younger. And then fortunately, within two years of that time, I found you and you and I joined forces and here we are today doing awesome. So my point of saying that story was, I want you to know, I understand. I understand that side of it and being afraid. The beautiful thing is, there’s lots of things that you could do in the evenings and the weekends until you really feel comfortable to really take the leap and I encourage you to do that, make sure it’s right for you, you know? But what you’re going to have to do is you’re going to have to give up something. You’re giving up your nights and weekends. That’s the big thing, but I promise you it’ll pay off.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, and it’s not necessarily buying and selling land.
Jill K DeWit:
True. That’s what I’m saying. I’m speaking to you whatever it is.
Steven Jack Butala:
You got to do something.
Jill K DeWit:
Whatever it is.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is not about buying and selling land today.
Jill K DeWit:
Mm-mm.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is about taking a look at what you really think is risky and what’s not risky. So obviously Jill, for a while in that job, saw no risk in it.
Jill K DeWit:
In the job or in-
Steven Jack Butala:
In her job in that 18 year job, saw no risk in it.
Jill K DeWit:
That could have been risky.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’ll tell you, this is-
Jill K DeWit:
It could have been a-
Steven Jack Butala:
… so my version of Jill’s story is this. I jumped around from acquisition position to acquisition position for a few, several years, always buying and selling land in some way, or real estate, I should say, in some way on the side, knowing full well that the riskiest thing that I was doing at the time was walking into that W2 job in the morning. For some reason, it’s not like my parents sat me down and never did that and I didn’t really have real working examples of people going off on their own and taking a huge risk and being successful.
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
I just knew for some reason that I’m not special and Jill’s not special about this. It’s just, that’s just how it happened but in the end, you have to actually look in the mirror and say, what’s the riskiest thing? For me, it was that W2 job. For Jill, it was moving out of that. It’s easy to say, I have all these bills to pay. There’s no way I can do this. I get that.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
But you have to, it starts with forget about the money, forget about whatever responsibilities you have. If you have that’s in your soul, I need to take some type of risk that’s not, doesn’t seem that risky or what makes sense to me, then you got to do it.
Jill K DeWit:
Mm-hmm.
Steven Jack Butala:
Is that making sense?
Jill K DeWit:
Mm-hmm. No, I-
Steven Jack Butala:
Maybe you see absolutely no risk in coaching hockey on the weekend for extra money. And maybe that becomes a…
Jill K DeWit:
A full-blown-
Steven Jack Butala:
This is a true story actually-
Jill K DeWit:
… business.
Steven Jack Butala:
… for our third child. Our third and final child played lacrosse and the guy that was the lacrosse coach started a equipment store.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
An online equipment because he was tired of watching his players pay so much money for even used equipment so this guy figured that out and supplied all kinds of lacrosse equipment and he didn’t see any risk in that. He’s like, “These guys are paying too much. I know over here where to get it a lot cheaper and I’ll just put these people together.” So there’s something that you see risk free but the title says-
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you take no risk at all, there will be no reward.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
Your job is to decide for you what the lowest risk scenario is when you do take a risk.
Jill K DeWit:
Perfect. Happy to join us today. Five days a week. You can find us here on the Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
So now the episode in the Land Academy Show is called How to Complete Your First Land Deal. You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill K DeWit:
This will be good.
Steven Jack Butala:
Enough of two days of you guys talking about what can happen theoretically. Can you just tell us how to buy a piece of property and resell it for 10 grand?
Jill K DeWit:
It’s the end of the year and a lot of people are thinking about 2023. I know we are and so we want to cover some big topics, get you really thinking what’s possible. So there’s just so much out there. It’s amazing. Thank you for tuning in. By the way, Jack and I are very aware that not everyone has a hundred grand or whatever it is lying around to buy and sell land so we, just so you know, we, along with many of our members, fund land deals every week, sometimes every day. So check it out. Go to landfunding.com and if you have any questions, feel free to send a note to my team via support@landacademy.com. We’re Jack and Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’re Jack and Jill. Information.
Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration.
Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
https://youtu.be/q0OIDvTDltE
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
Jack and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit:
Hello.
Steven Jack Butala:
Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today, Jill and I talk about how 90% of millionaires own real estate. What a sentence.
Jill K DeWit:
I know.
Steven Jack Butala:
The real question is great, 90% of millionaires own real estate, and I think we all are familiar with this type of concept one way or another. The question is, how did they start? I can answer that and we’re going to talk about it. The answer is one deal at a time.
Jill K DeWit:
I wonder how many of those people, this is the majority of what got them there. You know what I’m saying? Did they have another business and then they branched? Because some people have other businesses and then they realize what’s possible in real estate and then they get into real estate. And some people, fortunately enough, started just in real estate, like you, and took that to the moon.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’ve always wondered that too. I don’t know if it’s a result of creating wealth somewhere else. I bet-
Jill K DeWit:
There you go.
Steven Jack Butala:
… it’s probably 50/50. But in the end, what we do, real estate was just a vehicle. We started a company. It’s starting companies and creating something and then plowing money into other things.
Jill K DeWit:
Making it great.
Steven Jack Butala:
Exactly. Before we get into it, let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It’s free.
Jill K DeWit:
I would like to note, make a quick little announcement here, that if you are thinking about Land Academy, you’re going to want to check out this Thursday coming up. Thursday, December 15th, join me live on YouTube and Facebook. Go to our Facebook page and you can sign up there and get all the details. The title is going to be, what I’m going to talk about is How to Buy and Sell Land for Zero Down and Recession Proof Your Business. How cool is that? One of the things about us is this is not our first recession, not just based on age, but that’s part of it.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s based on age for me.
Jill K DeWit:
Part of it. But let me go back and just say this too. Not only is this not our first recession, this is going on your third recession being in this industry.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, that’s true.
Jill K DeWit:
That is what’s unique.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, that’s true.
Jill K DeWit:
This is going to be Jack’s third time doing this as an investor. And I know, because I came in with Jack towards the tail end of the last one, and I saw and I knew and I watched some of the people that were other land investors in our space not make it. I was able to be there with you and watch it rise back up again. And now we’re just in such a better place. So anyway, we’re going to talk about things like that on Thursday, so join in. It’s going to be awesome.
Back to the question. Jeff wrote, “Hey, I’m just putting some feelers out there to see if anyone would have any interest in some help on their Jack type duties.” There’s Jack duties and there’s JILL duties. “If you get anxiety at sitting at your computer and looking at your screen, I may be able to help. I can help with data pulling, scrubbing, data scraping, pricing, online research or similar tasks. If I can bring any value to your business, please do not hesitate to contact me. I’d love to see if we could put something together and help each other.”
Steven Jack Butala:
So this is in the section of the Land Academy Discord that we’ve set up for just this type of thing, so everybody can-
Jill K DeWit:
Partnership.
Steven Jack Butala:
… partnership, get together and help each other. This is specifically in the subcategory partnership wanted.
Jill K DeWit:
This is not help wanted. We don’t have a help wanted section.
Steven Jack Butala:
So Jill and I put together Concierge Data, which is a full-blown company to help you get the mail out, scrub the data, get the mail out.
Jill K DeWit:
It will do a lot of this.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’ll do all of it. But if you’re interested in having a full-time partner and splitting the money up and the equity that you create up, this might work. But my point in putting this in here is that we’re all helping each other.
Jill K DeWit:
Perfect.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s topic, 90% of millionaires own real estate. This is a funny sentence? I think Dale Carnegie said it in the beginning and since then everybody’s been doing research to back that statement up, and turns out it’s true. So where do you start? Do you start in real estate? Do you open a convenience store and buy the building that you’re in? And on and on and on.
So you have to get your head around the fact that this all happens one transaction at a time. So if you own a convenience store, let’s say, or you own a small manufacturing company or whatever you can dream up, if you own a bunch of stock in companies because you’ve been buying and selling stock for a while and have created some equity there, real estate is a very logical place to put money into to create and hold onto equity, especially in a recessionary time. So that’s what this is all about. We’re all on the same boat on this. It’s one deal at a time.
Jill K DeWit:
This does not include REITs and things like that, I’m assuming, right? This is individuals owning their own individual portfolio.
Steven Jack Butala:
The article that I read went on to say, “Of this 90%, about 30% of the people that are in this statistic and work certainly in the statistics go on to buy stock in REITs and play in that market space,” which we choose not to do.
Jill K DeWit:
Right. So, I’m sorry. I missed that. So that means they go on to do that, but that doesn’t make up this 90 … Let me back up. Here’s how I see it. I think that, A, I totally believe this, number one.
Steven Jack Butala:
Me too.
Jill K DeWit:
Number two, I even think, because this could be taken loosely. This could be taken that I happen to live in Tustin, California and I bought my house for $300,000 and now it’s worth a million dollars, and now I’m in this group.
Steven Jack Butala:
I absolutely agree.
Jill K DeWit:
So I accidentally fell into this group in that scenario, which is good. But I think what’s interesting is, like we were talking about earlier, everybody knows. If you don’t know that there’s money to be me in real estate, we’ve got to talk, which we are, number one. And I wonder, my argument is if I was going to start any company, like you’re talking about, I’m out here, I’m an entrepreneur and I’m going to start something. I’m going to sit down and figure out what makes the most money.
Do I want to be selling something for a dollar a pop? Maybe I make only a couple dollars a pop, like a pizza. Hey, won’t go there again. Or fill in the blank. Have your own YouTube business. Remember that woman that we met. We used to have an employee a long time ago that her job, which I thought was very smart, this is way before COVID, way before working from home, her way of having her own little online business and just having a nice sweet life was going to garage sales and buying a whole lot of books. That was a lot of our things, were books and magazines from garage sales, taking them home, taking beautiful pictures, putting them on eBay, selling them for more. And that was her gig. And that’s a lot of work, I’m going to argue, for probably-
Steven Jack Butala:
For not a lot of money.
Jill K DeWit:
… if you’re lucky, $10 of profit-
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, lucky.
Jill K DeWit:
… a sale. So, that’s great. And then if I was to this person, I’d be like, “Well, I’ve got that figured out. Now I need to make $10,000 a sale,” hence the real estate.
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t know what the point of that is.
Jill K DeWit:
My point was I was going-
Steven Jack Butala:
How do we get onto books in $10?
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, well, learning to round it … I think of smart people starting real estate. I imagine a lot of them are here or get here because they were smart enough to do and figure out something else, and then they were smart enough to transition it into something that yields much more profits.
Steven Jack Butala:
Creating money for yourself or equity or wealth for yourself happens one of two ways. You buy something and you sell it for more, or you buy something and you do a bunch of stuff to it, maybe in a manufacturing setting, you add components to it, so the sum of all the parts equals more than the actual parts. Or in the case of real estate, you buy a rundown house, you clean it all up and you sell it for more, and then the price of the house and the price of the improvements and all the stuff that you put into it is more. So in both situations, you’ve created equity. Our real estate way is to buy a piece of land that’s valued at $200,000 or less, you buy it for 100,000, you sell it for 180 or 200,000 and you’ve created $100,000 of equity for yourself relatively quickly, in my opinion, without a ton of work. So when you start to add those numbers up, it doesn’t take long to get to a million dollars.
Jill K DeWit:
A million bucks, no, geez, 10 deals.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you’re buying a book at a garage sale and marking it up $10, that’s going to take a while.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s going to take a long time.
Steven Jack Butala:
But Jill’s point-
Jill K DeWit:
She’s probably still doing that and very happy.
Steven Jack Butala:
… a substantial number of people that are in the statistic, 90% of millionaires, which is getting antiquated by the way. During Dale Carnegie’s time, a millionaire was a lot of money.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s just not the case anymore. I do think that you can create wealth by being an electrician, let’s say, buying a house for two or $300,000, 30 years of being an electrician, the house is worth a million dollars. Can you do that in downtown Detroit? No, probably not. And that’s not your fault, that’s the market condition. But you can do it in-
Jill K DeWit:
California.
Steven Jack Butala:
… Hermosa Beach, California. In fact, they plan on that.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
So my point is, maybe you just do one deal. Maybe you do your primary residence and it increases over time and now you’re a millionaire, or maybe you do some version of what Jill and I do, which is one deal at a time. Maybe you are hardwired to finance strip centers, strip malls, and you do it that way, or you buy in on a partnership where somebody buys and sells or buys and manages trailer parks and you’re a 10% finance person in the whole thing.
But my whole point is this. It’s so easy to say this sentence, 90% of millionaires, but then the vast majority of the people who are listening or watching this, and you’re not wrong, “Okay, great. Well, how does that happen? How does that start?” It starts with one deal, one single deal. My first deal was an 80 acre property in northern Arizona that I bought for about $8,000 and sold it for 16 pretty quickly on the internet, site unseen. And I created whatever that ends up being, in the bitter end after marketing and all that, probably $10,000. And that was it for me. That was it. I knew what I was going to do for the rest of my life. And fast forward, whatever, 20 years, 25 years, and here we are. So you’ve got to get your toe in the water.
Jill K DeWit:
Totally.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s my point. And I don’t know a better way to do that than with a small piece of land.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s true. That’s really good. Yeah, join on Thursday, and you’ll hear me talk about how you can do it with other people’s money and really feel great about it, like my money.
Steven Jack Butala:
I mean, what Jill’s talking about without stealing your thunder, is that there’s an entire community within Land Academy where people are just there to fund other people’s deals.
Jill K DeWit:
Correct.
Steven Jack Butala:
Including us.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
We fund other people, Land Academy members’ transactions all the time. So it’s not so much, geez, how do I start? How do I get that first piece of property? Once you go through the education process of finding undervalued property, let’s just say, not just land, not houses, but office buildings and all of it, there are all kinds of people lined up to be your partner to see the deal through. So if you establish the talent of locating amazing real estate deals, the money’s going to fall on your head.
Jill K DeWit:
You know how I describe it? I said, “Let me just explain this to you this way. What do you love? Cars. Great. Okay. What’s your favorite car? ’65 Mustang. Awesome. So maybe that’s worth a really good, pretty cleaned up right now, $45,000. Okay, good. What if you found a sweet little old lady that had one in her garage and didn’t even know what to do with it, and her husband passed on and she would sell you this car for 15 grand and you know it’s worth 45 right now in its current condition. What would you do? Well, I’d be scrambling to get the money to” … That’s what I’m saying.
So when you put something like that in front of somebody, it’s the same thing with real estate, same thing with a property. You come up and say, “We’ve got to buy this. Either I’m going to get the money from you, or I’m about to start selling my kids so I can afford to do this.” Yes. You know what I mean? The money’s there. So not to steal that, but more coming soon. Happy you could join us today. Five days a week, you can find us here on the Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
Tomorrow, the episode on the Land Academy Show is called The Riskiest Thing You Can Possibly Do is Not Take Any Risk At All. You are not alone in your real estate ambition. It’s kind of a-
Jill K DeWit:
That’s going to tie into tomorrow actually.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s theory week this week.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, is tomorrow the risky thing, kind of what we just described?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
Then I won’t say anything more about that.
Steven Jack Butala:
You can’t do nothing. You have to do something. That’s what it is tomorrow.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. Hey, by the way, if you think land investing and everything that we’re talking about might be a good fit for you, get our free ebook. By the way, that’ll get you on the email series too, so you’ll get notified when I go live on Thursday. So go to landacademy.com. At the top, look for the button that says sign up to get a free ebook and it’ll happen immediately. Check it out, read it, see if it’s for you. If you have any questions, you can always send a note to my team via support@landacademy.com. We are Jack Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jack and Jill. Information.
Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration.
Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
https://youtu.be/DaYmpP1U2lc
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Transcript:
Stephen Jack Butala:
Jack and Jill here.
Jill DeWit:
Hello.
Stephen Jack Butala:
Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I’m Stephen Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Stephen Jack Butala:
Today Jill and I, well, it’s Jill Friday, and she’s going to talk about how to make it as a female land investor. It’s an interesting topic choice, Jill.
Jill DeWit:
Why?
Stephen Jack Butala:
Because I really want to know this too. I want to know what the difference is between women, some of the challenges, the unique challenges. I think I speak for everybody. There are apparently unique challenges that women face to make it as an investor that I hope you just spell it out for us.
Jill DeWit:
I will.
Stephen Jack Butala:
Before we get into it, let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It’s free. Back in the day, it was nearly impossible to find land anywhere on the internet without a mailing address. I mean, locate the actual parcel because you’re thinking about buying it. We solved this by collecting and regurgitating that 150 million unit database based on APN. So now-
Jill DeWit:
Regurgitating.
Stephen Jack Butala:
All you have to do is type in the state, county and… Jill makes fun of this because she didn’t actually, wasn’t involved in manipulating 150 million units of data.
Jill DeWit:
I did too. Just kidding. I did two of them. That’s what I mean. No, I’m just kidding.
Stephen Jack Butala:
We solved it. Go to parcelfact.com. It’s simple to use and tailor made for what we do.
Jill DeWit:
Thank you. All right. Dan wrote, Dan S. wrote, “Here’s a success story that’s a little different. I am celebrating the success I have finally had in establishing scheduled office hours for myself.” Good. This is hard for people. I get it. “I know I’ve been told over and over that keeping a schedule is crucial. This has been a challenge for me. We’ve been doing well enough the way I have been going. But by setting up two days a week of seven hours a day and then three days of two hours scheduled undeserved land time, it’s a little less chaotic. Thank you to my wife who was much better at organization for helping keep me on task.” That’s awesome.
Stephen Jack Butala:
Dan is a, this is Dan Smart, and he’s a long time now Land Academy member, Career Path alumni, and crazy successful and just a down to earth, really nice guy. So this was his Academy Award speech I think.
Jill DeWit:
Oh, that’s sweet. That’s really good. I love it.
Stephen Jack Butala:
All kidding aside, you have to have close the door time, don’t mess with dad time or mom, I guess in the case of this episode.
Jill DeWit:
And then even more, we’ve talked about it on another show you have to plan out, really plan out your week. So we have versions of that and then I have this is deed signing day and this day and that day. When you’re going to do your callbacks, have a set time for that. It just makes your life easier.
Stephen Jack Butala:
Closing day, research day, all of that.
Jill DeWit:
Due diligence time.
Stephen Jack Butala:
It’s not necessarily days but blocks of time.
Jill DeWit:
Maybe every day for an hour, it’s due diligence. Fill in the blank.
Stephen Jack Butala:
Took me forever to do that for myself. I went all through college and it was an absolute scheduling disaster. There was no schedule. It was just putting out a fire one minute to the next.
Jill DeWit:
Got it.
Stephen Jack Butala:
Today’s Jill Friday. She’s going to talk about how to make it as a female land investor. This is the meat of the show. But before she does, what makes female land investors different than male land investors?
Jill DeWit:
How we make decisions.
Stephen Jack Butala:
Oh, that was fast. Okay.
Jill DeWit:
Oh, I’ll tell you. Yeah, that’s just a no-brainer. So every man knows that. Come on. When we come to you and say, “This does not feel right in my gut.” You know we’re right. Or it does. You know what I mean?
Stephen Jack Butala:
I do know at this age, but 20 years ago I would’ve said, “Yeah-
Jill DeWit:
Took me a while to convince some [inaudible 00:04:01]-
Stephen Jack Butala:
“Something’s wrong with her.”
Jill DeWit:
It’s true. I have to say, “Doesn’t feel right.” So I want to start by saying, first of all, I’m proud… Can you think of any single couple or even in our space that has done more transactions than we have?
Stephen Jack Butala:
No.
Jill DeWit:
Okay. So had to get that out of the way first. That’s not possible. So we know that. And I know it’s funny, I found the old spreadsheet the other day because it was linked on our website, but we had to take it down because people would be like, “What happened on this deal? And we’re over here.” We had so much information out there.
Stephen Jack Butala:
We had 15,000 transactions with APNs and what we bought it and what we sold it for.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly. You can download it. It’s probably floating around out there because I’m sure people did. So we’re like, okay. It’s just like quit asking me about February of 2003 and that one transaction and why we didn’t exactly triple our money or whatever it was. I’m like, “Oh my god, I’m not going to answer these questions anymore.” So anyway, so we got that out of the way. So you know what that makes me? I’m the top female in my space. You think I’m kidding?
Stephen Jack Butala:
You’re the alpha female, Jill.
Jill DeWit:
Thank you.
Stephen Jack Butala:
Is that what this show’s about?
Jill DeWit:
Well, it’s leading-
Stephen Jack Butala:
Beating your chest a little.
Jill DeWit:
Well, just little bit, took me back. I took a, well, I just took a step back to go, “Nobody can say that they have as many transactions under their belt as I do, period. I don’t really… ” That’s it. That’s a no-brainer.
Stephen Jack Butala:
It’s just taking a funny turn here.
Jill DeWit:
I feel qualified to speak about this. This is my point. So there’s a couple of components about why female land investors should absolutely jump into this land space and can kill it and do kill it. Like my Land Academy ladies group, talk about rock stars and in 2023, I have some plans for you guys. It’s going to be really awesome. So the first thing is even just for every individual, not just women, getting into real estate is a very… Starting in land is a very smart place to get started in real estate. We’ve talked about it all the time on the show. If you listened to us before, you know that. It’s things I’m not having to think about. It’s buying the land and selling the land. I don’t have to go there. I don’t have inspections, I don’t have this, I don’t have that. I don’t have tenants, people I have got to move out. I don’t have to worry what mold might be under that floor, fill in the blank.
Land is a very, very smart place to start, number one. Number two, there’s a really low monetary barrier of entry in this. A lot of people can’t get into real estate, especially clubhouse. I hear people all the time like, “Oh, I need $180,000 to buy my first house and I’m going to rent it out with me and my buddy.” That’s great.
Stephen Jack Butala:
And can I play devil’s advocate here or just sit here? Either-
Jill DeWit:
Let me make my three points and then I’ll happily answer your questions. So that’s number two. And then number three, so that’s for any individual. But number three, this is women specific. It’s a fact, it’s a biological fact that we make better business decisions and acquisition decisions. We have it in our DNA. There’s things that we, let me just give you an example. We don’t have biological testosterone driving ego decisions. We just don’t. We might be more cautious. We are by nature more cautious and then I’m going to argue we make better decisions. When a woman comes to me with a deal funding deal, I look at it very differently than I do if a man comes to me with a deal. Isn’t that interesting? Because I know that by the time it got to me, she’s just done more and she’s looked at it differently and I don’t worry about it as much. So ask me some questions.
Stephen Jack Butala:
I don’t know how much that’s really that much different than how anybody does real estate deals. I think this is a strange path to go down because if the show is called Man Academy-
Jill DeWit:
Because come on, it’s still so many men in real estate. I’m trying to push women forward and women in business and say this is a great place to start because it is.
Stephen Jack Butala:
Okay.
Jill DeWit:
You don’t agree with that?
Stephen Jack Butala:
I completely agree. I don’t understand. I’ve never understood, ever, as a very young person, never understood why more women are not more assertive and more… Why don’t women embrace… This is one of the things I actually really like about you. We’re going to have to turn the comments off on the YouTube episode.
Jill DeWit:
Why? It’s going to be a lot.
Stephen Jack Butala:
The entire world is trying to do away with any gender difference at all.
Jill DeWit:
Well, I agree with that. So then yeah, so why do we somehow, I think we create our own barricades for some reason. I don’t know. Well, how about this? I know it’s better than it was. They used to say that’s a man’s world. We can’t get into it. That’s a man’s… That’s all different now, which I love. But there’s still reasons why we are getting together as women and having our own events and doing women in business and things like that. There’s, obviously… Well, I’m trying to, you know what? I’m trying to make that go away. And I agree with you. The more we promote ourselves and get out there and just do what we’re doing then I think we won’t have a need for that. But there’s, obviously, still a need for that.
Stephen Jack Butala:
That’s really what I’m wondering. That’s actually the root of my question. Why is there continually gender-based separation?
Jill DeWit:
There shouldn’t be.
Stephen Jack Butala:
I agree.
Jill DeWit:
That’s the point.
Stephen Jack Butala:
Why is there?
Jill DeWit:
So the point of the… You know what? It’s for the people who are… Because somebody’s, it’s mental. I think that there are people that still think that.
Stephen Jack Butala:
As evidenced by Jill and I sitting in these two chairs for, I don’t know, eight years now doing this show, I truly believe, I know this for sure. I have empirical evidence that you and I are better together than we would be separately. And that I’ve had multiple male business partners before you at separate points in my life and all of those partnerships got dissolved for a bunch of reasons. And this one’s not getting dissolved, you and I. And so it’s very evident.
Jill DeWit:
So you just tied in-
Stephen Jack Butala:
It’s very evident and clear to me that we’re way better together and that when two people decide that they’re equal, I don’t care where they come from or who they are, and they work together and listen to each other and make acquisitions and sales decisions together and decide that one person’s better at sales and one person’s better at the technical part of it, regardless of how that plays itself out. When they realize that, then there’s no need to have separation.
Jill DeWit:
Well, it sounded like you just proved my point too.
Stephen Jack Butala:
I did. So that’s my point is why are there still, and I’m asking you very nicely, I don’t want to argue with you, but why is there a need for a Land Academy ladies?
Jill DeWit:
There shouldn’t be a need for it. I totally agree with you. There should not. It should just be Land Academy newbies. I don’t know what it is. Whatever we’re trying to do at that time. But I totally agree with you. I think that there’s just a mental, still a little mental something in there that we don’t feel we can do it. And I’m ready to tell you, you can. Just get up and do it and I’ll be right here with you. And I’ll fund your deals and I’ll help you.
Stephen Jack Butala:
This is Jack truth time on the Jill Show. Jill held a Land Academy ladies webinar for anybody who was in Land Academy, a lady, for about a year. It was every Wednesday or something. And so I would listen. I wasn’t on the camera, not all the time, maybe probably four times, maybe three times-
Jill DeWit:
I brought you in once in a while.
Stephen Jack Butala:
And how women talk to each other is very, very different than, talk to each other when it’s a closed, is very different than how they talk for, and I’m sure this is true of men. I mean is it true of men?
Jill DeWit:
Oh gosh, yes.
Stephen Jack Butala:
How men all talk to each other when they’re just by themselves is different. So the question is to what end is all that? To my end is, hey, I want to have an effective partnership and make more money and do more deals. I’m not in it, I’m not doing this because I like the process. I’m not doing it to get high off of some acquisition or there’s a lot of reasons why people do stuff. I’m in it to make money and get to an end. And I’m not sure what I learned out of the Land Academy ladies thing is that there’s a huge process that goes on with women about every minute of the deal-
Jill DeWit:
Some women.
Stephen Jack Butala:
And yeah, I’m not saying it’s bad. I’m just saying that, and I’m not saying it’s every woman or even 50% or whatever, but what I noticed on the Land Academy ladies discussion is that there’s a lot of talking through getting to some point.
Jill DeWit:
That’s interesting. Well, that again is just a mental thing we got to undo, I think. There’s no reason why every woman can’t and should do the same big deals just as fast and maybe even better than the next person, I’ll just say. See gender doesn’t matter. That’s the whole point here.
Stephen Jack Butala:
That’s what I think.
Jill DeWit:
So, and that’s my thing, how to make it as a female land investor. You know what? You take the female out of it and you just go for it And that’s it.
Stephen Jack Butala:
That would be terrible if I said that though. So for some reason, it’s okay that you can say that.
Jill DeWit:
Because I’m a woman. I mean, is that bad? You think I’m going to get hate mail now?
Stephen Jack Butala:
Yeah. Well, we are going to turn this, yeah, we’re going to turn the comments off.
Jill DeWit:
Well, I don’t want to get hate mail. I’m just trying to push… You know what? Look, I’m trying to push more women forward in whatever they want to do not just land investing. But if you want to deal in real estate, this is a great place to-
Stephen Jack Butala:
Again, devil’s advocate here. Why do women need to be pushed forward? What is it that, why don’t men need to be pushed forward?
Jill DeWit:
Some do.
Stephen Jack Butala:
That’s what I think. Now we’re getting somewhere.
Jill DeWit:
But you know what? I can, how about this? Some do.
Stephen Jack Butala:
I think some people need to be pushed forward and some people don’t.
Jill DeWit:
Well, how about this?
Stephen Jack Butala:
We happen to be equally not those people that need to get pushed forward.
Jill DeWit:
Correct.
Stephen Jack Butala:
We put ourselves in this ring leader position but it sometimes manifests itself through Land Academy ladies.
Jill DeWit:
Look, you touched on it a minute ago when you talked about how we talk to each other. Maybe that’s it. Maybe that’s a lot of it. It’s just how we communicate is different. We know that one. How many times have I, this is a daily conversation in our house, sometimes an hourly conversation in our house. That came out harsh. Can you reword that? You know how that is.
Stephen Jack Butala:
That’s not gender. That’s just roommates.
Jill DeWit:
Are you sure?
Stephen Jack Butala:
Yeah. It’s two people.
Jill DeWit:
Oh, come on. Guys talk I think by, I don’t know, maybe just me, but it seems like by nature men, you guys are a little rougher on each other than we are.
Stephen Jack Butala:
Men have conflict resolution in different, it manifests itself much differently. It’s very fast and violent and acute and over.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. No, we need to, come on, you know how women are, we like-
Stephen Jack Butala:
Jill, you’re going to get in so much trouble talking like this. “You know how women are?” Can you imagine if I said something like that?
Jill DeWit:
You can say, “You know how guys are.” Here’s an example. You know how you say, “Come on, guys are idiots.” And I go, “Yeah.” I don’t think there’s anything wrong with this. I’m not talking politics and I’m not talking religion. And I do-
Stephen Jack Butala:
Yeah, we’re not going to talk about that today. So that’s good.
Jill DeWit:
That’s another show. So come on. Anyway, this is not where I thought this show was going to go.
Stephen Jack Butala:
It’s exactly where I thought it was going to go.
Jill DeWit:
Because you made it go there.
Stephen Jack Butala:
And I’ll tell you because she’s going to release, Jill will release Land Academy ladies in 2023 at some point. And it was wildly successful the first time she did it.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. All the guys wanted to be in it.
Stephen Jack Butala:
Now we have a lot more members, just a lot more members in general. And we have a lot more female members than we used to also, which I think is great.
Jill DeWit:
And couples.
Stephen Jack Butala:
And so it will be crazy, crazy popular, I know. And couples, yeah. It’ll be very popular. But no one, not a single person, has come to me and said, “Hey, can you do a man academy?” Not a single man has come to me and said, “I want to separate myself from the rest of the group and I want to talk only with guys because I feel like men understand me more.” None of this has ever happened.
Jill DeWit:
Well, why is that? But no, but every man said, “Why can’t I be in Land Academy ladies?” I’m like, “Because you’re not a lady.” Why is, you want to be in our group-
Stephen Jack Butala:
I’m asking.
Jill DeWit:
You want to be in our group, but you don’t want to start your own group.
Stephen Jack Butala:
I have no answer for that. None. This is a fascinating separation, fascinating voluntary separation that goes on in Land Academy that I will never, and if you’re a psychiatrist and you’re in our group, seriously get on Discord and I would like to-
Jill DeWit:
Please explain it to us.
Stephen Jack Butala:
Open a topic. Please explain it to us.
Jill DeWit:
Here’s a new thread. The new thread in Discord is the mind getting, how does the condition, land investing, I don’t know, condition explained.
Stephen Jack Butala:
I’ll tell you this. And this is a fact. The minute that Jill and I joined forces and she started answering the acquisition phone, we started making piles of money buying and selling land over what I used to make by myself or when I was having a different team handle acquisitions. Men and women and everyone alike, for whatever reason in my world, respond much better to a female. And that disarmament that goes on with that about doing a real estate deal much, much better. And I’m not talking about female real estate agents versus male real estate agents or any of that. I’m talking about, I hear Jill now all the time, “Oh no, I’m the owner and I own the property,” or, “I own the company and we do want to buy your property for that and here’s why.”
Jill DeWit:
So that’s it. I’m not trying to divide us more in any way.
Stephen Jack Butala:
I think the world would be a lot better off if we just said, if we all just settled on maybe there’s some innate biological differences. And here’s the stuff that makes men better at fill in the blank in general, not everybody.
Jill DeWit:
Like hunting. You’re stronger.
Stephen Jack Butala:
Women are better, look how many female CEOs have there been in the last 20 years that just-
Jill DeWit:
Killed it.
Stephen Jack Butala:
Yeah. Smashed it. Meg Whitman completely turned around eBay. Look at Carly Fiorina. I mean, there’s all kinds of examples over and over and over again of female-led businesses that are great. So I know this is going way over in time, but I still would like an answer about why women feel a need to have their own group.
Jill DeWit:
Well, we’ll answer that another day. Happy you could join us today. Five days a week, you can find us here on the Land Academy Show because this’ll be an hour show and it’s already a 20-minute show. We’re not doing that.
Stephen Jack Butala:
Join us next week for another interesting episode. You are not alone in your real estate ambition. We are going to get so much mail over this. I can’t describe it.
Jill DeWit:
Why?
Stephen Jack Butala:
We just are. This is a very, very hot topic. And unfortunately, talking about it like this makes people angry instead of like, “Oh, I’m glad those guys are talking about it because it needs to be discussed a little bit.” That’s just what happens.
Jill DeWit:
Well, too late. I went there. Good, better, or otherwise, I went there.
Stephen Jack Butala:
You know what could have gone on?
Jill DeWit:
What?
Stephen Jack Butala:
Is that you could sit here and tell me about why men suck.
Jill DeWit:
I could. I could do that next Friday.
Stephen Jack Butala:
And if I say, “Well, that’s great, Jill, because this is why I think women suck.” And then I get murdered in the street and you get a trophy.
Jill DeWit:
No, you’re silly.
Stephen Jack Butala:
We are Jack and Jill. Information-
Jill DeWit:
And inspiration.
Stephen Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
https://youtu.be/JiDQUjd40HY
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Transcript:
Steven Butala:
Jack and Jill here.
Jill DeWit:
Hello.
Steven Butala:
Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit, broadcasting for the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Butala:
Today’s Jack Thursday. And I’m going to talk about why creating a subdivision is so alluring.
Jill DeWit:
Not for me, man.
Steven Butala:
You know how… Not for me either.
Jill DeWit:
But I know you out there that have this condition, we’ll call it.
Steven Butala:
Every time I hear somebody say that, that cliché, “Hey, buy land, they’re not making anymore.” I laugh to myself.
Jill DeWit:
Buy dirt.
Steven Butala:
Because we are constantly making more land by subdividing it.
Jill DeWit:
That’s true. Like, what are you talking about?
Steven Butala:
Before we get into it, let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It’s free. And please don’t forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill DeWit:
Mark wrote.
Steven Butala:
I mean it. The YouTube channel thing. Seriously.
Jill DeWit:
You done?
Steven Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
Okay. Mark wrote, “I did my first mailing with offers to owners. A 7,500 piece mailer. So far…” Wow. “I have 16 signed contracts. Now I need to get funding for it. Wish me luck.” Is there more to the question?
Steven Butala:
Nope.
Jill DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Butala:
Because that’s enough said.
Jill DeWit:
Aw, isn’t that great?
Steven Butala:
Because he probably did everything right. Went out and found a unique place to send mail, got help pricing his mailer from people.
Jill DeWit:
Did the [inaudible 00:01:34] test to double-check it all.
Steven Butala:
All of it.
Jill DeWit:
Make sure he is making a good decision. Send out… That was a nice amount. I get so frustrated when people say, “Well, I sent out 900 units.” I’m like, that’s not going to get you that much. 75 hundreds going to get you some juice.
Steven Butala:
Right.
Jill DeWit:
And then he’s got 16 now to go through and pick the best ones. Even if he picks one that yields $50,000 in there, that’s worth it.
Steven Butala:
That’s it. That’s the right thing, Jill.
Jill DeWit:
That covers it.
Steven Butala:
That’s how I look at it. Just do one great deal out of 7,500, you’re smashing it.
Jill DeWit:
Quit trying to… I could hear these people like, “Oh, mailer yield. I should have 50.” Stop it. Think. Take a step back and realize nowhere on the planet can you put that money out and make that money back that fast.
Steven Butala:
That’s right.
Jill DeWit:
Kind of thing. I don’t care what it is. And trust me, this one’s tested it. He’s got them all.
Steven Butala:
Tested and failed at everything.
Jill DeWit:
Everything.
Steven Butala:
Everything in my social and professional life.
Jill DeWit:
I come up with some new business idea and I’m going to tell you how Jack has probably already been down that road, or I stopped him just in time.
Steven Butala:
Yep. It’s all true. This business can… Not this business, but fill in the blank business can work for you if you enjoy paying.
Jill DeWit:
So you know what, let me just lead this… Say this comment because it ties into the show today, right? This one, if you do it all right and you do it exactly how we show you, you too will have a successful land business, making money, coasting. And then what does that do to you? Because you’re an entrepreneur, you’re looking for something else. So this one is constantly saying, “Well, land stuff’s so easy, why don’t we fill in the blank with X? Let’s try something.” And it’s totally different. So that’s what happens in our world and that ties into today’s show because some of you are looking for other things to do.
Steven Butala:
Some of you are looking at creating problems for yourself in the land industry. Land investment world. And this is one of them. Today’s Jack Thursday. And I’m going to talk about why creating a subdivision is so alluring. This is the meat of the show. Let’s start with the math, the real simple math. I buy a hundred acres for $100,000 and I’m patting myself on the back. I spent $100,000 an acre in a market. We did everything the Land Academy way, we did everything right. And we know if we go to resell it right now, generally can sell it for about $200,000 from using huge, round, basic numbers. So I bought a hundred acres for $100,000 and then I do it the Land Academy way. I list it with the property, go get a broker. The broker says, “Oh yeah, we can get $200,000 for this. Let’s do it.” And so you list it. And a few weeks, maybe a month, month and a half, two months goes by you, you get an offer.
You sell it for close to $200,000 or some numbers like that, and you take the $200,000 and put it back in to buy more land. Everything’s… We’re all happy. We’re a month into this thing. Two months into it, we generated a bunch of money and we are acquisition specialists. That’s what we are for land. What’s so alluring about subdividing property in the subdivisions is this. You buy that same piece of property for $100,000, a hundred acres, and you cut it into… This is theory now, 100 one acre properties and you sell them all for $10,000 each over time.
Jill DeWit:
What?
Steven Butala:
So $10,000 is… How much is 10,000 times 100? I think it’s a million.
Jill DeWit:
How sad is that?
Steven Butala:
Jill is literally doing long multiplication.
Jill DeWit:
0, 0, 1. That’s a million.
Steven Butala:
I have never in 20 years seen somebody break out a pad. I’m proud of you.
Jill DeWit:
It’s on my lap.
Steven Butala:
I’m going to kiss you right now.
Jill DeWit:
You don’t do that?
Steven Butala:
I’ve never seen our children do that in their entire…
Jill DeWit:
That’s true. Everybody goes to their phone and they put it in there. No, I have a notepad on my lap and a pen in my hand. I can do the math, add two zeros on the end and move the…
Steven Butala:
That’s respectable, Jill.
Jill DeWit:
Move the commas over.
Steven Butala:
I don’t even know if I could do that and not really question whether I’m doing it right. And all I do is map all day.
Jill DeWit:
That’s funny. You are an Excel PhD that I think taking you out of Excel…
Steven Butala:
So much so that I can’t do that in my head.
Jill DeWit:
Giving you a pad of paper and a pen doesn’t work.
Steven Butala:
So now you’ve got that same $100,000 asset that you just paid for and you are about to generate a million dollars instead of my measly little $200,000 example.
Jill DeWit:
Totally.
Steven Butala:
“Well Jack, why wouldn’t everybody do that? Your way’s wrong.” Okay, here’s what happens when you subdivide property. Long, long, long before you ever send that mailer out… I mean, let’s just stop right there. That’s very alluring. Would you rather make $100,000 or $900,000? A two-year-old can answer that.
Well, what’s really involved long before you ever send that mailer out, ever, you have to make sure that the municipality where you’re sending this mail to is conducive to subdivisions the way that we just described. Now, do you really buy 100 acres and get 100 one acre lots out of it? No. You’ve got… You have to place roads in there. There’s all kinds of other stuff that goes on. But what’s so alluring about it is how I just described it, $900,000 versus $100,000. Here’s the reality of it. Number one, the municipality, 9.5 times out of 10 is going to say, “Absolutely not. This is not how we do subdivisions. If you want to do a subdivision… We love subdivisions, by the way. We love increasing our tax base. Here’s the rules and the regulations of creating a subdivision.” And if you printed them out, they’re going to be several inches thick.
And the short of it is they want utilities available. They want you to file all kinds of things that are called some version of a public report. How far is the closest hospital? Can a fire truck get through there? When the fire truck gets there, is there water? So you need fire hydrants. So now you have water, utilities and power all through the subdivision and roads and all that. “Well, wait, wait, wait. I thought you said I could make $900,000.” No, you can’t. You’re going to make a lot less than that. And how long is this going to take? Years.
Jill DeWit:
That’s going to… That’s the key right there for me.
Steven Butala:
So my question is… And I can go into this in great detail, but this is not the venue to do that. My question is, I put $100,000 in and I got $200,000 out in a month or two months, let’s say. I took that $200,000 and I bought a couple more properties that are $100,000 each and sold them both for $200,000. I’m doubling my money every two months or so. Doubling it and doubling it and doubling down and doubling down and making millions. And so the second year, it’s 24 months, now you’ve got a couple million dollars to spend to buy land. Why? Because you’re an acquisition specialist. You’re not a subdivision specialist. Here’s when it works.
Jill DeWit:
By the way, are we talking your velocity of money?
Steven Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Butala:
Exactly. Because you have one skill that you learned at Land Academy, which is how to buy really inexpensive property. You didn’t learn about what utilities go where and how a fire hydrant works and all of that.
Jill DeWit:
We could, and those discussions are going on. There’s people in our group that doing.
Steven Butala:
That’s right.
Jill DeWit:
And if you want to make that your niche, it’s not nuts. We’re just kind of explaining what’s possible.
Steven Butala:
So there are places in the country, Texas is one of them, where you can take a piece of property and divide it up like that, blade some roads in without utilities and resell the property. So without incurring a tremendous amount of those costs. Not everywhere in Texas, but there are places. And over the years since the land grab of the 1800s, there are ranchers that have a full blown ranching operation over here. And they’re happily going about their lives raising cattle. Or in Texas’ case they’ve got oil. And so they decide to buy some property a couple miles down the road or a few counties over, or however it ends up being subdivided, like I’m talking about. Blade the roads in and very quietly and casually start to sell off those 100 properties for $2,000 down and $400 a month. And it takes maybe five years and they sell all the property and they’re taking on the payments.
Some people default, some people don’t. It’s something that maybe the rancher and his wife, they deal with it every Sunday for a couple hours. They look at the books, the checks come in. And so that’s a fantastic way to subdivide property on the side. That is not a good way, I don’t think, as a primary income source for people like us. There’s offshoot groups from Land Academy, I’ll just say it, that make this sound very alluring. And what it ends up being is you put $1000 into something, this big, huge investment pile, 100,000 or 50,000 or whatever the number is, and you don’t see it out there out of there for years. So you might be a subdivision person. $900,000…
Jill DeWit:
I love subdivision people. You know why? I sell them great property. I get in, I get out.
Steven Butala:
You might be the person who sells the property so they can go subdivide it.
Jill DeWit:
It’s kind of like what we do, our house academy. I’m not the one doing the renovations. I’ve been there, done that. I’m like, that’s not my forte. And I don’t want to be that way. And I don’t have the stomach for it or the patience for it. So I’m happy to go find these deals because that’s what we’re good at. And queue up for them and let them run with them.
Steven Butala:
I agree with that.
Jill DeWit:
That’s what I want to do.
Steven Butala:
Do you know what else you can do?
Jill DeWit:
Sorry.
Steven Butala:
With real estate?
Jill DeWit:
What’s that?
Steven Butala:
All kinds of stuff. You can buy a piece of property and put an office building on it. You can buy a piece of property and put an apartment building…
Jill DeWit:
Storage facility.
Steven Butala:
Storage facilities. Great example.
Jill DeWit:
Or just even make it a parking lot.
Steven Butala:
Is that what you want to do?
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Butala:
You have to answer to… No one can answer that except you.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Butala:
That’s not what we want to do.
Jill DeWit:
Right.
Steven Butala:
And we have tried a lot of these things and ultimately decided just reselling the land is a lot better.
Jill DeWit:
Well, remember the guy that we talked to? Was it… I can’t remember. I think it was before this last Career Path. I think it was his… I think he’s in Career Path, maybe. But he was like, “Man, I wish I hadn’t gone down this path. My family’s leaving on a flight to fill in the blank Europe. And I can’t go today because I have to come two days after them because this property needs my attention.” I don’t want to do that too. There’s something to be said about these simple, very profitable, easy, fun, happy transactions. That’s what I like.
Steven Butala:
We’re deal makers. We’re not construction specialists.
Jill DeWit:
I want to go play and have fun.
Steven Butala:
Or tenant managers.
Jill DeWit:
I agree. Happy to join us today. Five days a week. You can find us here on the Land Academy Show.
Steven Butala:
It’s almost Jill Friday. And she’s going to talk about how to make it as a female land investor. You are not alone in your real estate ambition. It’s an interesting topic choice, Jill.
Jill DeWit:
Why?
Steven Butala:
Well, the whole world’s trying to undo gender right now. And you’re like, “If you’re a woman, you can make it too.”
Jill DeWit:
Sorry. But it’s true.
Steven Butala:
No, I just love that you just buck these trends.
Jill DeWit:
Come on. Well, look at all the women in business things that are popping up. It’s important. We should support each other and help each other. And we can… You could… No offense, but we can do this on… We can do these things too.
Steven Butala:
I’m going to ask you. I know that’s not… That’s what I’m saying. I see everyone equally.
Jill DeWit:
I know you do, but not everybody does.
Steven Butala:
So I’m going to ask you questions for this tomorrow.
Jill DeWit:
Oh good. I like that. That would be good. Just a little reminder, thank you for tuning in. We really do appreciate your support and we hope you find this all valuable. So don’t forget, you can see us if you’re just listening to us by checking it out on our YouTube channel. And by the way, there’s so much new content that is added on there almost every single day. There’s snippets from not just this, but our weekly member calls, deals that we’re reviewing and doing, career path stuff, all kinds of great things. So check out our YouTube channel and check out for your member. Don’t forget, you need to be communicating on Discord. That’s the place to be.
Steven Butala:
We are Jack and Jill. Information…
Jill DeWit:
And inspiration.
Steven Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
https://youtu.be/LgfWNOjkWK4
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
Jack and Jill here.
Jill DeWit:
Hello.
Steven Jack Butala:
Welcome to the Land Academy Show, Entertaining Land Investment Talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today Jill and I talk about why land ownership is ideal against 2023 inflation.
Jill DeWit:
I sleep really well at night. I always have.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, me too.
Jill DeWit:
I always have, the way we buy and sell land. There’s nothing better. I don’t care what it is. Even over having a safe full of precious metals, seriously, which is good to have too, don’t get me wrong. But having land, it’s just like, wow. It’s different.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s no feeling like it, quite like owning a bunch of land.
Jill DeWit:
Yep. So even if I complain, “Oh, it’s not selling fast enough,” or you’re complaining it’s not selling fast enough, hold on a moment. Let’s take a step back and realize what’s going on here. You’re in a good spot.
Steven Jack Butala:
Before you get into it, let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It’s free. Last year a ton of Land Academy members came to Jill and I needing extra help to get their blind offer campaigns in the mail. So I took a look at how we were personally sending out mail with our key employees and ultimately made the same people available to Land Academy members to get their mail campaigns out. We now call it Concierge Data and we launched a new product recently called Concierge Data Plus. It allows you to send out or outsource your entire mailer to offers to owners. Give us a call or actually just go to offers, the number two owners.com. Poke around and check it out, see if it’s for you.
Jill DeWit:
Cool. Kevin wrote, “Hello. Newbie question. On the Zillow sold comps, why might the time between pending sale and sold be a long time, three months plus? And does that potentially make it a worse comp to use?” I have one reason, right now, Kevin. That’s manually entered by a real person who did the listing. That’s it. So it’s not automatically marked sold or pending. I’m surprised they even put pending in there. Some agents don’t even do that. They’ll just put listed, price change and then sold because they’re busy. They’re doing other deals, too. So I take that with a grain of salt because it is totally, like I said, a manual entry if used it all.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you list a piece of property with a real estate agent, they’re going to put it on the multiple listing service, the MLS, and they’re very regulated on how they input the data. If you’ve ever posted anything on the MLS or been involved in it, it’s a one day process. So there’s a lot involved. And they’re required by their broker and all kinds of stuff so that when it goes under contract, it goes to pending. When it’s sold, it gets removed from the MLS or it gets marked sold. That is absolutely not the case with Zillow. Zillow as a for sale by owner, we can put stuff in Zillow. There’s no regulations about taking it off the market when… Jill’s exactly right. There’s no rules.
So very often people just leave it on there and it’s not for sale at all. Or they’ll post something that’s fictitious. So you have to be careful about how you use Zillow and how you look at the comparison values. The exact same thing is true with Land Watch, exactly the same thing. So there’s MLS places, multiple listing service ways to post property, and then freeform, user content driven. Redfin is an IDX feed just like realtor.com. Those are all real estate agent driven with rules. I like to use all of them.
Jill DeWit:
You know what, I’m sorry, I have to just say I don’t mean to disagree with you, but I have to disagree with you on something. Yes, they have rules, but once again they’re people. Do they make mistakes? Hell yes. How many times have you seen, you go, “Wait a minute, there’s no way that property sold for that price.” And you know why? Because a person typed in an extra zero and they left it there.
Steven Jack Butala:
Or left a zero out.
Jill DeWit:
Or something like that too. Because why? They’re an agent. Sure, their broker has rules, but do they check them? Nope. Do they make mistakes? Yep. So it happens. So I’m just back to my thing. It’s real people. I look for the general consensus. All right, more than half of them, here’s the situation and more than half of them, whatever. That’s what I would recommend. So just know that. Thank you, Kevin. Good question.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s topic, why land ownership is ideal against fighting 2023 inflation. This is the meat of the show.
Jill DeWit:
I would like to start.
Steven Jack Butala:
Sure.
Jill DeWit:
And like I was saying, what a great place to be, especially right now, owning a bunch of land the way we do, where we know how you bought it. It was very inexpensive and you paid cash for it or somebody paid cash for it. Maybe your partner paid cash for it. Whatever it is, it’s paid for. There’s no financing, things like that. So if it takes three weeks or three months or you’re waiting for the summer, it’s not a bad place to be. And I’m going to argue that right now we’re watching the… It’s like the stock market. You win money When there’s all this volatility, that’s when people make money. If it’s just constant, it’s hard to make money in these environments.
But in our world, I’m getting a little excited because I’m watching better deals happen. We’re buying them in places that are even a little bit better than it was six months ago. And I’m selling them just fine because there’s other people like me out there who are looking for some more land, other investors. That’s my favorite transaction is when I buy from the seller and then I queue it up and sell it to another investor because they have a long-term plan or something like that. It’s great.
Steven Jack Butala:
So what’s inflation? Inflation is the increase in price or cost of goods and services. If you look at the pure definition of that, anywhere, that’s what it is. A loaf of bread three months ago costed less than it does now. Inflation got ahold of it and a loaf of bread costs more. Next year, it’s a pretty solid argument that a loaf of bread’s going to cost more in 2023 than it does right now, which is the end of 2022.
So why is land a good way to hedge that off? So if I bought a piece of property this year for $100,000 and all the price of everything is going up around me, everything, cars, precious metals, stock in the stock market, which are commodities that go up and down depending on what happens, those are all very affected. The components of those cars cost more. They’re subject to inflation. All the things that companies do in the stock market, they’re subject to inflation. Prices go up, they go down whatever they’re making or selling, they’re all subject to that. Your lonely little piece of land that you paid $100,000 for is subject to none of that. Nothing, with the possible exception of the tax bill might go up, which is relatively insignificant in most or all cases.
And so what does it cost to really own land? Nothing. The only thing it costs is the fact that you put a bunch of money into a piece of land and there maybe would’ve been something better to put it into. But we’re here. We’ve created this environment to make sure you don’t overspend on land.
Jill DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
In the greatest of times you’re still buying land at 20 to 30% of its actual retail value.
Jill DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
So now when you spend a $100,000 on a piece of property and do nothing except stare at it, in our case we never go see it at all. It’s just a number on a computer screen and it’s worth $120,000, $130,000 the next year, subject to all this inflationary nonsense that’s going around, it’s a great investment.
Jill DeWit:
Well if I paid a $100 for it’s probably worth $350.
Steven Jack Butala:
I just checked interest rates on mutual funds because Jill and I are constantly like everybody wondering where we should put our money and why and filling up non-risk buckets and risk buckets and all of that.
Jill DeWit:
That’s good.
Steven Jack Butala:
You can effectively get a mutual fund for 4% to 5% right now, 4% let’s say. If I buy a piece of property for $100,000, that’s worth $200 when I buy it, and then the value of the property either holds or goes higher on that $200,000 valuation that I just spent a $100,000 for, what’s it going to be worth next year? $220, $230. And I have $100,000 into it and it costs me nothing to operate it. If you’re bored, please go on to Google and ask what the best, just type in questions like this. Best thing to buy during inflationary times, land.
Jill DeWit:
That’s a good one. I haven’t done that. I will Google that. That’s cool. But we watch. Nobody argues this. Everybody agrees. Who always makes the most money? Oh, the guys that own real estate.
Steven Jack Butala:
And land specifically.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, true. I’m not dealing with tenants that don’t pay and need to get evicted. Imagine all that too, by the way. We haven’t even touched on that. That’s one of the beautiful things about land .
Steven Jack Butala:
Houses are subject a little bit more to inflationary issues. But houses are great too, especially if they’re rented out and especially if you paid cash or if you have a fixed mortgage.
Jill DeWit:
That’s a lot of it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Those are really good inflationary hedges, also.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah, thanks. Happy you could join us today. Five days a week. You can find us here on the Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s [inaudible 00:10:11] Jack Thursday and I’m going to talk about why creating a subdivision is so alluring. You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill DeWit:
It’s funny, so many people come in the LAN Academy and they’re like, “I need to do something. I need to do something more than just buy it and sell it.” I’m like-
Steven Jack Butala:
I know. Why is that?
Jill DeWit:
It’s the silliest thing. I don’t get it. I don’t get it.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think you should expound upon that. Because I’ve always wondered this too. I think that’s what it is.
Jill DeWit:
Well, I think because a lot of people come to us from other real estate. They’re professionals in other real estate niches and they realize that this is a way to buy property or any kind of a real estate thing, whether it’s an apartment building or a piece of land in a better way. And they’re so used to doing so much more work, they don’t quite get it. So they’re looking for something else to do. So if that’s you, I personally don’t have that problem. I personally like to buy a beautiful piece of property with nothing on it, sell it and let the money go into the bank and then do that again. And then all the while, hm, I might be away for Christmas or I might be in my RV for two months. That’s how I like to roll. I don’t need to do more to it to try to squeeze out a little more money or give myself something to do. It’s kind of funny. There is some money you can make in it and he’ll talk about.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think the source of confusion is in the traditional real estate, there’s two components. There’s that balance sheet component and the income state component. I’ll use a house as an example. You buy a house for cash and you rent it out. Let’s say you buy a house for a hundred grand, you rent it out for a thousand dollars a month. You write a $100,000 check and then you have a theoretically a $1,000 check coming in every month in the simplest of terms. While they’re paying, while the tenant’s in there paying you whatever, $12,000 a year, the value, the balance sheet of the whole operation is going up for 3, 4, 5, 10% a year, whatever the market dictates. So there’s that dual component. So you’ve got income coming in and you have equity being built all at the same time for doing relatively little theoretically. It’s never little. It’s always a lot. Yeah.
With land, it’s a single component scenario. It’s just a balance sheet. But you turn that into an income statement. I’ve been arguing this for years and years and years and you’re right. People have a difficult time digesting this.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
Your balance sheet becomes your income statement. They become one because you’re just constantly buying and selling land. Your balance sheet is a combination of cash and land that just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly. Thank you. Hey, thanks for tuning in. We’d love to connect with you by the way, on Clubhouse. It’s awesome. It’s your way to go on right now and talk to us live when we’re there. So join us every first and third Thursday at 12 o’clock Pacific time in the Land Investing Club. We are Jack and Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
We are Jack and Jill, information-
Jill DeWit:
And inspiration-
Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
https://youtu.be/1ZBDO4al4qc
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
Jack and Jill here.
Jill DeWit:
Hello.
Steven Jack Butala:
Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today Jill and I talk about how to use the Land Academy online community in real time.
Jill DeWit:
This is so good. This is one of those things that we always tell our community. You ask, we listen. And day one almost of launching Land Academy way back in 2015. Wow, it’s been that long.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
We have how many years of this?
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, it’s going to be eight.
Jill DeWit:
Eight. Eight years of making millionaires. How’s that? I’m just going to say it. Eight years of making millionaires. That’s easy. But 20 to 30 years.
Steven Jack Butala:
30 years.
Jill DeWit:
… of us doing it on our own.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yep.
Jill DeWit:
Talk about valuable experience. I haven’t said this in a while, but man, I wish I had us when I was starting out. So anyway, but one of the first things that came out of our folks was, “How can we communicate with you?” I’m like, yeah, you’re right. We do need to do that. And so we started an online community. It had a different name than it is now. It was fun. That was Success Plant back then. It was really cool. And then it morphed into Land Investors, and now we still have that, but now it’s gone into this Discord environment, which is blowing me away.
Steven Jack Butala:
Me too. I mean, I’ll tell you, we offer value added products in Land Academy all the time. Jill’s got all kinds of prop products lined up for 2023. And a online community, especially in this Discord format, was a really good idea. In fact, that’s what we’re going to talk about today. So before we get into it, let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It’s free. Before we get into that though, I hope you’d know by now, and this is another example I guess of a product that we created that everybody loves. Yep. Jill and I created a commercial blown commercial printing company created solely to help you get an expensive direct mail offers in the hands of sellers quickly. It’s called Offers to Owners. We set this company up several years ago to share it with members and non-members. It’s nothing more than how we used to do our own mailers. We just made it pretty and offered it to-
Jill DeWit:
And still do.
Steven Jack Butala:
… our leadership community. Fast forward to today, we do between 700, and 900,000 offers per month on behalf of members and non-members. Everything from pulling and scrubbing and collecting comps to just actually, literally doing the mailer for you. Check it out. Offers2owners.com.
Jill DeWit:
Titus wrote, “Good morning, Discord family. Hope your Thanksgiving was fun and relaxing. Quick question. Is anyone else having issues with sorting data from Redfin’s housing market data website by ZIP code? I don’t see ZIP codes in the region type or region fields. Any thoughts? Anybody else having this issue?”
Steven Jack Butala:
So I put this in here. This is a fantastic use of our online community, specifically Discord. So he’s in there pulling data and pulling comps as we ask everyone to do in the Land Academy education. And there’s something’s going wrong with Redfin. So Redfin, their data center specifically is amazing. I cannot believe how much realtime data they provide for people like us to make good decisions about where to send mail and whether or not, and just if you know the program. You know how we use Redfin’s data center. Here’s the thing. It’s awesome. It’s web enabled, and it breaks often. And so I often, very often go into Redfin when I’m doing my own mailers. It’s not working right. I have to wait a couple hours maybe. Do it the next day. I included this in this format. I can’t include all the responses, but there were several people in there said, “Yeah, I’m having the same problem today with it. I talked to customer service. They’re aware of the situation, and it’s going to be back up fill in the blank.”
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is a great use of-
Jill DeWit:
This happens.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s s great use of Discord.
Jill DeWit:
You’re not nuts. It’s not perfect, and that’s okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s my point.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. I love it because it makes me think, yay, we’re not alone. Think about their tech team, what goes on with them. I’ve said this before. Every time I go on American Express, I get a 404 err. I’m like, yes, somebody else has problems sometimes. That’s okay. Just be patient.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, I mean the real point here is that now the Titus is not alone. He’s like, oh yeah, everybody else is saying they’re having problems with it today too.
Jill DeWit:
Now you know, and you got a quick answer.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s topic, how do you use the Land Academy online community in real time? This is why you’re listening.
Jill DeWit:
Just like Titus.
Steven Jack Butala:
We just used it. Boy, what else goes on in Discord? I’ll tell you what, there’s subsections. Here’s some of the subsections in their success stories. I love those. People celebrate their wins. There’s a rant section where you can just really blow off some steam about anything really. I love the rant section.
Jill DeWit:
I can’t believe the county told me X and they were wrong. That happens.
Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s a note that the seller sent back about how they feel about my offer.
Jill DeWit:
You know what I loved? I loved the other day that a couple shared with us on these offers that go out, they call the first wave that you call the hate. They call that the qualifying day. We know we did it right ’cause we’re getting the hate and so that qualifies how we’ve sent out our offers. I’m like, brilliant. That was brilliant.
Steven Jack Butala:
No, that’s jillifying it.
Jill DeWit:
Well, that that’s true. Thank you. So depends on how you look at it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Not everything can be soft and cute.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. The last thing you want is everybody calling you back and they love you and everybody wants to sign it and they can’t wait to sell. You’re like, oh-oh. I clearly overpriced all these.
Steven Jack Butala:
Exactly.
Jill DeWit:
Something’s wrong. That’s good.
Steven Jack Butala:
Another few sections in there are deal funding and what’d you do this deal?
Jill DeWit:
Yeah, that’s huge.
Steven Jack Butala:
The way you do this deal is a place where people can go and put their deal, their transactions that they’ve received back from the mail. And one, ask people if they think it’s a good deal the way it’s priced. And two, request funding. And anytime anybody ever requests funding-
Jill DeWit:
If it’s a good deal.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s a ton of, ton of people are saying, “Happy to do this deal.”
Jill DeWit:
Will get snatched up fast.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s worth the price of admission.
Jill DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s one subsection in Discord. I’m telling you, just very straightforward. Land Academy Discord is a place where you put your deals in and get funded.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah, I know people that-
Steven Jack Butala:
Immediately.
Jill DeWit:
I had people tell me when they came to Land Academy, “I can’t believe this one cheap.” I’m like, “Thanks.” They’re like, “I know a guy who pays 500 bucks a month just for the opportunity to look at some deals.” I’m like, “What? We do that every day, all day long. That’s crazy.”
Steven Jack Butala:
There are a few other categories in there. It’s a whole section in there for career path alumni. So Discord is a product that I’m proud of and it’s really, really worked out. And we have a content suggestions section in there where a lot of these topics that we talk about come from.
Jill DeWit:
What’s nice too, our staff uses it to post workarounds every now and then. If you’re pulling your own data and you’re not using Concierge, now and then you have some like this Redfin hiccup or a scraping tool hiccup. And my team will post workarounds for you in there to help everybody. And I love that. That’s a great use of that space.
Steven Jack Butala:
So finally, my final point here is you want to check it out and you’re not a member, just go to landinvestors.com. I embedded view only of real time Discord and how we’re all talking to each other in there for some of the sections, not all of them. It’s really-
Jill DeWit:
It’s cool.
Steven Jack Butala:
And just you can play with it and look at it and go back in time and all of that pretty. It’s-
Jill DeWit:
It’s cool.
Steven Jack Butala:
It is cool.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s informative as hell is what it is.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. To see whatever’s really doing and really talking about.
Steven Jack Butala:
What it does too is it validates all of this. People are in there talking about the deals that they’re doing and some of the hiccups that they’re finding, and it’s an amazing way for me to get feedback so that when I sit down and do Land Academy 4.0 next year, I’m going to incorporate some of the things that people are repetitively asking so that it’s super clear in the education.
Jill DeWit:
The bottom line is nowhere can you get the experience that we have, the number of transactions we have and the community support. That’s the biggest thing. I know a lot of people are like, “I can figure all this out, but I need the support, I need help. I need realtime help.” Like you just said.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’re not here to sell anything. That’s not what this podcast is for.
Jill DeWit:
But it’s just if you’re thinking about it.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’re here to provide tools for everybody.
Jill DeWit:
If you’re thinking about this and you need to know that, I need to know where I’m going to get my questions answered because I know it’s going to come up then yeah, we got you. We got you covered. So thank you. Happy to join us today. Five days a week. You can find us here on the Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
Tomorrow the episode on the Land Academy Show is called Why Land Ownership is Ideal To Fight Against Inflation in 2023. You are not alone in your real estate ambition. Boy, I have a lot to say about this because land is … If you read any economist’s opinion or any billionaire’s opinion, what do they say right now? Buy land.
Jill DeWit:
I was going to say there’s one downside to Discord. You ready for it? You can get lost in there. You can go out … You could just be like come up for air two hours later. So that’s my only warning. Budget your time.
Steven Jack Butala:
Discord is-
Jill DeWit:
There’s so much in there.
Steven Jack Butala:
For us to use a closed Discord community, was that overnight success. We set it up all up. We connected it to our site and all the other stuff that we do. And then I woke up the next day and there are like 28 entries in there, and people were immediately asking questions and other people … We didn’t even set up formal moderators or people to answer questions on our staff at all. We have that now, but everybody was like, “Yeah. What do you think about Arkansas? What do you think about this?” It’s just a natural extension of what we do every day.
Jill DeWit:
It’s just easier to use too. We had a closed environment. We still do on our landinvestors.com website, but it’s not an app like this where you can just really rip through it. It’s awesome. Hey, thanks for tuning in. By the way, Jack and I are very aware them that not everyone has 100 grand lying around to buy a land, like we talked about here where you can get funding. So we fund many Land Academy members and non-members deals every week. So if you’re a Land Academy member, probably pop it in Discord, or you could send it directly to me whether or not you’re a member via landfunding.com. Not only myself, but our membership community as a whole has somewhere between 15 and 100 million bucks set aside to help fund other people’s deals. If you want to find out more, just send a note to my team via support@landacademy.com. We are Jack and Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
We are Jack and Jill. Information …
Jill DeWit:
And inspiration
Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
https://youtu.be/mcAF30iVDIQ
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Transcript:
Stephen Jack Butala:
Jack and Jill here.
Jill DeWitt:
Hello.
Stephen Jack Butala:
Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I’m Stephen Jack Butala.
Jill DeWitt:
And I’m Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Stephen Jack Butala:
Today Jill and I talk about your perfect land mailer planning for 2023.
Jill DeWitt:
For investors.
Stephen Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWitt:
Yep. So this is awesome. We’re just wrapping up career path number five and I’ll tell you right now, career path number six is not yet planned. And starting in 2023 there’s some changes we are personally making, like career path on steroids will be coming. Maybe things that start with an M might be coming like mastermind stuff.
Stephen Jack Butala:
Oh sure.
Jill DeWitt:
Everybody under everybody understands and knows what that is, even though it’s kind of part of career path. But they understand these mastermind groups and things. But just going into 2023, you really need to take a step back and think about a lot of things. About your acquisition criteria and how you’re going to hit it based on your land mailer planning that you’re going to do right now at the end of 2022.
Stephen Jack Butala:
We had a really successful career path this time. They’ve all been very good.
Jill DeWitt:
Obviously.
Stephen Jack Butala:
But they continue to get better with time because what people are asking of us from an instructional standpoint continues to grow and it continues to change based on the time. So I look very forward to 2023 and the content that we’re going to produce and the events that we’re going to host, kicking it up a few notches.
Jill DeWitt:
There we go.
Stephen Jack Butala:
Before we get into it, let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the land investors.com online community. It’s free.
Jill DeWitt:
Kevin wrote, “hello. I have two trash on property related questions.” This is cute. “One parcel I bought has some small trash and litter as the seller had not been there in three years. Do I sell it as is or should I hire someone to clean it up? I already got it cheaper due to the trash.”
Stephen Jack Butala:
Good.
Jill DeWitt:
Two. “Another property I bought, there’s an old vacant trailer house on the foundation that my broker missed when he walked it.” I wonder how big the property is.
Stephen Jack Butala:
I wonder how good the broker is.
Jill DeWitt:
That too. “He’s offered to cut the commission so the money’s fine. However, am I free to throw it out or does it still belong to the previous owner?”
Stephen Jack Butala:
So this question was posted on Discord as it should be, and it was a very interesting and popular question to respond to. A lot of people in Land Academy had an opinion about it and they were all relatively the same, some with stories. I would argue, unless there’s something toxic going on, this is all increasing the value of your property ironically. It’s the ugly houses model. The vast majority of people want to walk into a house or walk onto a piece of land and have their favorite song playing and everything’s pretty, and I understand that. But there’s a whole slew of people out there, me included, that look at this as a huge opportunity, especially if it’s priced right. “Oh, there’s all this trash on the property and that’s why it’s so cheap. I’m going to buy it.” Especially when there’s a Mobile Home foundation on there. So now whoever had a mobile home there worked out sanitation, sewer, water, utilities and all of it.
So there’s a situation, somebody, actually it was Dan, one of our members, Dan from the Pacific Northwest, who told a story about having dilapidated mobile homes on properties and getting the land sales part of the deal. It went into an auction, an unintended auction because everybody wanted it so bad.
Jill DeWitt:
People, they see that. It’s funny, I drove by one the other day where a guy had clearly found an old Airstream kind of thing. It was almost even like a knockoff airstream and it was in his driveway and it was gutted and he was going to make it beautiful. So I see and watch people doing this with mobiles, making them beautiful again. And you can do that.
Stephen Jack Butala:
If you’re in our group or if you’ve been in career path, we tailor our mailers from an improvement standpoint to capture some of these structures and some of the stuff that’s on leftover on land that’s just been forgotten. How many times have people sent us deals where there’s classic cars on there?
Jill DeWitt:
Oh, that too.
Stephen Jack Butala:
So it’s a good positive thing.
Jill DeWitt:
Yeah, I’m remembering the property that we bought specifically because there were some old cars on it. You were like, “we don’t care about the land.”
Stephen Jack Butala:
That’s exactly like-
Jill DeWitt:
No, this one, it was just like, “we got to get that for me because I can see cars on there, I want that.” Like, “Okay, we’ll get it.”
Stephen Jack Butala:
Today’s topic, perfect land mailer planning for 2023 investors.
Jill DeWitt:
Yeah.
Stephen Jack Butala:
This is the meat of the show.
Jill DeWitt:
That’s a whole another business model. Yeah, I seek out rural vacant land because of what could be left over on the property. What’s those storage drawers? Like what’s inside there? We don’t know.
Stephen Jack Butala:
There’s a whole subclassification in the classic car world. If you’re a classic car person, you already know this. The sub classification is called Barn find. And so that includes any kind of prop, any kind of car in any shape that’s in a barn or upside down in a river or any of that. There’s people all over Canada uncovering cars and in places that you wouldn’t expect that are pulling them out of there and making them great.
Jill DeWitt:
And if you are married to a classic car person, I feel your pain.
Stephen Jack Butala:
Wow. You’re just saying that for the show. Who’s a bigger car nut than me. Someday we’re going to tell the truth about the cars that Jill owns.
Jill DeWitt:
[inaudible 00:05:56]
Stephen Jack Butala:
It’s shocking.
Jill DeWitt:
You go for the classics though, and I appreciate that. I like post Bluetooth.
Stephen Jack Butala:
I like AM radio and stick shift. You’re right.
Jill DeWitt:
He likes post.
Stephen Jack Butala:
You’re absolutely right. And the radio doesn’t work. It doesn’t need to work.
Jill DeWitt:
Yeah, yeah. No, yeah. I like post air conditioning and Bluetooth.
Stephen Jack Butala:
That’s absolutely right.
Planning your mailer for 2023. So it’s December, it’s the first or second week in December by the time this airs. And you should be in high 2023 planning for taxes, to manipulate and minimize your tax liability certainly within the limits of the law and ethics, what goes without saying. And you should be planning for your mailer in 2023, and I don’t mean actually doing the mailer, I don’t necessarily mean where you’re going to send mail. In fact, I don’t mean that because throughout the next year where you plan to send mail may change, market conditions may change for sake of argument. It might be really attractive to send mail in rural parts of Texas next year, but it’s not right now for a bunch of who knows why. So I don’t want you to sit down and try to find places to send mail at all.
But what I do want you to do is really sit down and say in January, I’m going to send X amount of mail in February y amount. Or maybe it’s the same amount in all 12 months. Maybe you’re a teacher and you’re off during the summer and so you want to do a lot more mail during the summer versus less. Maybe you’re for whatever reason, convinced that when there’s snow on the ground in the Midwest, let’s say that’s not the best time to be doing deals. It’s better to be doing it in the summer or whatever you are planning means to you, have a plan and budget for it and stick to it.
Jill DeWitt:
Should I even think about, maybe I don’t want to pick the area like you said and all those other parameters, but should I be thinking about dollar amounts. In 2023, I’m not going to do a deal that does not yield any less than X. Should I do that kind of planning?
Stephen Jack Butala:
Yeah, so we just got done with career path by the time this airs or close to it. And one of the first things we always do in career path is ask everybody, how much money do you want to make a year for the rest of your life? And for whatever reason this year, it was a million dollars, I’ll be happy to make a million bucks a year and when I can accumulate $10 million cash. That generally became the consensus for some reason in this career path, which I think is number six, career path six.
Jill DeWitt:
This is five.
Stephen Jack Butala:
Oh five okay, so-
Jill DeWitt:
This is five right, yeah.
Stephen Jack Butala:
So you have to work that backwards then. If let’s say a million dollars a year is about a $100,000 a month. Of course, it’s 1.2 million, but stuff happens. So let’s just call it a million. And how many mailers do I need to send out to generate that kind of deal volume that will generate that money, and Jill’s, right. So maybe you only want to do deals that make 70 or $80,000 net per transaction. Maybe you’re a deal junkie and you want to do four or five or six deals a month that only net 10,000 or $20,000. You have to decide what’s best for you, really plan it out. And I mean write it down. I’ve said this a hundred times on the show, if you don’t have Microsoft 365, I really would highly recommend that you get it even if you’re a one-person operation.
It just really keeps you organized. There’s an integrated outlook, the calendar function, and you can tie all your file structure and all of it for doing land transactions and tie it into Airtable as your CRM. If you don’t know about these things, you’re just learning about it, you’re just hearing about it, please keyword search this and all of our podcasts and you’ll learn all about it. So the keyword word in this title is planning. Over and over and over again, it’s been proven that if you have a plan and you write it down and you think about it as often as you can, let’s say once a day or once a week, at least it’s going to work.
Jill DeWitt:
I’m listening to you and I’m thinking how I would do it if I was a one-man show and as a woman with a one-man show, there could be something there. I don’t know, what’s 2023. Anyway, so-
Stephen Jack Butala:
Jill’s in planning mode.
Jill DeWitt:
Oh totally.
Stephen Jack Butala:
So she says stuff that we don’t-
Jill DeWitt:
I drop little nuggets.
Stephen Jack Butala:
… We don’t really know what she means, but she has a huge plan for Land Academy in 2023. It’s a very good thing.
Jill DeWitt:
Oh yeah. So-
Stephen Jack Butala:
I don’t even know what she’s talking about. So don’t feel bad.
Jill DeWitt:
So one of my thoughts is, okay, so if I’m planning 2023, I know me, I want to do less work. That’s just how I roll. How little can I do and how fast can I get out of this and what can my team do so I don’t have to do it kind of thing. So I would look at this quarterly. I would sit down with a blank piece of paper basically and say I’ll have 23 with your numbers. First thing I would do is think about how much I want to make, how hard I want to work. And then I’m thinking about, I would put that into quarters is my natural instinct. Do you think that’s good or should be by month?
Stephen Jack Butala:
I mean as long as you have a plan. And I think that’s a great example. If that makes sense to you, then great. That doesn’t make sense to me, I think in months and you sometimes even in weeks. But I
Jill DeWitt:
I know, you’re so-
Stephen Jack Butala:
But I’m not-
Jill DeWitt:
You’re so detailed.
Stephen Jack Butala:
My way’s not the right, it’s right for me.
Jill DeWitt:
I know, that’s what I’m saying. It’s good. So you are really detailed. Hence your spreadsheets that you share with all of us. So I like big picture, I might even do it with a crayon if that’s what I have at my disposal at that moment. I could do it a crayon and construction paper as I’m sitting there with my kids. So this might be you and then you just back into it. And then my other thing is, I know you talked about Microsoft and that kind of thing to stay on track, but do you have any last little tips about sticking to it for us?
Stephen Jack Butala:
There’s a lot of talk about that in the Land Academy Discord right now among. Everyone’s starting to talk about New Year’s resolutions and there’s a lot of talk about discipline.
Jill DeWitt:
That’s it.
Stephen Jack Butala:
And so I have to tell you, discipline was very hard for me early in my life. And I look back on that and it’s because I was doing stuff I didn’t want to do. It’s very difficult to be disciplined and-
Jill DeWitt:
That’s true.
Stephen Jack Butala:
… Interested when you’re doing a bunch of crap, you don’t want to do true. And so I’m assuming you’re in Land Academy or you’re interested in land because you’re listening to this, you’re interested in this. So put a plan together, forget about money, really forget about the money. Just put a plan together and work in the rest of your life into that.
Jill DeWitt:
That’s the key right there.
Stephen Jack Butala:
Don’t let money-
Jill DeWitt:
People stop right there. They’ll think, “Oh, I can’t even start this. I can’t possibly into this.” That’s the last thing you should be thinking about. If you find a good deal, the money will come. It’ll all figure itself out. So don’t think about that.
Stephen Jack Butala:
Exactly.
Jill DeWitt:
Happy to be doing this today. Five days a week, you can find us here on the Land Academy Show
Stephen Jack Butala:
Tomorrow, the episode on the Land Academy show is called how to Use the Land Academy online community in real time. You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill DeWitt:
I love to-
Stephen Jack Butala:
It should be how to use a teleprompter.
Jill DeWitt:
Well, there is that. I was going to say I love this end of your planning stuff.
Stephen Jack Butala:
I do too. I love this kind-
Jill DeWitt:
This is one of my favorite times a year.
Stephen Jack Butala:
Me too. Why is that?
Jill DeWitt:
Because you know what, it’s like a fresh start. It really is. I know people that are listening to us right now that are thinking, “all right, 2023, I’m joining Land Academy.” That might be their thing. “Or 2023, I’m going to double my revenue.” “Or 2023, I’m going to quit my job.” Fill in the blank. I love it. But it still starts with, where’s the money? You got to think about, I know I said don’t worry about money, but you have to think about how much money you want to make. That’s what you got to do and how you’re going to do it. And be strategic. And I love it.
By the way, if you do think that this might be a good fit for you, don’t forget, get a new ebook. Jack just updated it a couple weeks ago. So go to land academy.com and at the top you’ll see a little thing to get the free ebook. Check it out. It spells out darn near everything you need to know to see if this is a good fit for you. And if you have any questions, send them to my team via support@landacademy.com.
Stephen Jack Butala:
We are Jack and Jill.
Jill DeWitt:
We are Jack and Jill.
Stephen Jack Butala:
Information-
Jill DeWitt:
And inspiration-
Stephen Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
https://youtu.be/zUdDfdWOmas
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
Jack and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit:
Hello.
Steven Jack Butala:
Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
And I’m Jill Dewit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s Jill Friday and she’s going to talk about embracing the hate and then sending out more mail.
Jill K DeWit:
This comes up because I think every, well, every day there’s somebody getting a mailer. I’m sure of it. I’m sure in our community there’s somebody getting their first mailer out, probably darn near every day or every week at least. And then these questions pop up and I think now there’s a lot, there’s enough of juice in our environments. We have the free environment in land investors. We have the closed environment for members in Discord where you can kind of see how people handle it and work through some stuff. But it’s still worth mentioning and bringing up because it is part of this process. It is going to happen. And we’ll talk more about it here on the show.
Steven Jack Butala:
Before we get into the topic, let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It’s free. Back in the day, it was nearly impossible to find land without a USPS mailing address, like 123 Main Street. So over time I developed a solution. Fast forward to today, it’s called parcelfact.com. You type in the state, the county and the assessor’s parcel number and up pulls a parcel with the basic stuff that you need to make a phase one due diligence decision about whether or not you want to buy the property. It’s a pretty cool tool. It was again, something that Jill and I used for years and then ultimately cleaned it all up and made it available to the public.
Jill K DeWit:
I have to be honest and say too, I don’t between, I can make a decision with a property. With parcelfact, looking at it on Google Earth to check slope and things like that. Which parcel fact will take me right to. And then the last thing I use is like Zillow or Realtor. Something to get a handle on days on market, numbers and what’s for sale, what’s been sold last six months, last 12 months, whatever that is. That’s it. Those three. So I pay for parcelfact, but Google Earth Pro is free and Zillow’s free. So I make decisions and that’s on those properties 90% of the time with just that. Shannon wrote, “anyone sending holiday cards to sellers you’ve bought from this year? What’d you say in the card? I’m having a hard time coming up with the right words.”
Well how sweet is that, Shannon? I actually haven’t done that. Or I would even say maybe, I would take it a step further that. So if you’re reaching out to sellers and sending holiday cards, I would be hoping they have more property to give me. That would be the reason I would be doing that. Now what I would be more likely to do is send thank you cards to people who have bought from me because those are my buyers and those are probably other investors and they might be looking for more property and I would love to keep them. I like to keep my name on the forefront on whatever I’m trying to say with them. What are your thoughts?
Steven Jack Butala:
No, I completely agree. I think all that kind of stuff goes a really long way. I think you’re going to be doing it by yourself, because not very many people do it anymore and I think it’s a great idea.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, that’s really good.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s Jill Friday, she’s going to talk about embracing the hate and then sending out more mail. This is the meat of the show.
Jill K DeWit:
So I’m going to cover this and then I’m going to have you ask me questions. So what am I talking about? We get our data, we get it in the mail. We have these real offers that go out to owners of property. They aren’t expecting this, they weren’t looking for this. They don’t know it’s coming. They didn’t click on anything. And here comes a real offer in the mail to buy the property. And some of them are going to be unhappy. You, I’m sure you’ve got some for your house. That happens a lot. Or fill in the blank, pizza. I love those coupons though.
But there’s people that get it and they either throw it away. There’s people that are either like, “this is a bunch of junk, I don’t want to sell my house,” or, “I don’t want to sell my property, I’m building on it right now, or I have plans to,” fill in the blank. They throw it away. There’s some that are really happy to see your mail. They’re like, “oh thank God I didn’t know what I was going to do with this. I didn’t even know dad had this or my husband had this or fill in the blank. I’m so happy.” And then there’s some that are like, then they’re mad. And that’s what Jack coined the term HAIGHT. And why? It’s spelled H A I G H T. That’s Jack’s special spelling that he came up with a couple years, well, 20 or so years ago. To lovingly refer to the hate.
Steven Jack Butala:
Lovingly refers to the hate.
Jill K DeWit:
I know.
Steven Jack Butala:
I love that sentence.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. And it’s just part of it. I personally get excited because that means, “oh, what could be coming?” If you get no hate and everybody calls you back and they love all your offers, you’re like, “uh oh, that means I probably offer too much money.” But healthy amount of hate is normal for this. And yeah. Should that stop you from keeping the wheels on and keeping the mail going? No.
Steven Jack Butala:
Got to embrace it.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. And if you don’t like it, if you really get into this and you really can’t handle it, you find that you’re not good at turning these people around. You can’t get numbers out of them, don’t worry about it. Shoot those phone calls over to PatLive or something like that. It’s too easy to have somebody else answer the call and uncover for you. Do they really want to sell? Do they like your offer? And enough information that you can move forward from there. That’s it.
Steven Jack Butala:
In most Westerns, like movies or action movies, there’s one moment where a couple or few people are huddled under a rock taking all kinds of enemy fire and they are probably about to die. And one character says, “I can’t believe we got ourselves into this. This is, we’re about to die and it’s been great knowing you.” And the other character says, “are you done yet? Because we need to, I’m not dying today. So we got to get out of this.”
When you get the hate, don’t be the first guy. Be the second guy. All the hate’s coming in, in a few more minutes there’s going to be an amazing real estate deal out of all this. And that’s what I say about it. Embrace the hate. Just send out more mail and you just got to laugh about it. That’s what I meant really by this topic. Jill, for whatever reason, is a natural at this and has been since day one. And I think that I personally have laughed a lot harder since watching how she deals with it and turns it around in our favor. And very often we end up buying a piece of real estate because you embrace the hate. It doesn’t get to you.
Jill K DeWit:
Nope, never has. I, you know what? I’ve never taken it personally. Maybe that’s part of it. So maybe that could be a question. Why do I take it like that? Because I don’t care. I don’t know these people. I don’t really care. If they want to sell, great. If they don’t want to sell, fine. No skin off my nose.
I’m just going to answer that phone because you know why? Because I got enough mail out there, I got more coming at me. Every time that phone rings, there’s an opportunity. It could be a seller, it could be a buyer, I don’t know. It could be my title company saying, “yay, I got the commitment back a week early. When do you want to close?” It could be that kind of a call. So I always answer the phone eagerly wondering who’s reaching out to me. And that’s my whole thing too, by the way. I can handle this. What I can’t handle is cold calling. This is so funny. As good as I am on the phones, for two weeks when I was somewhere between somewhere around 19 years old, I had a job. I didn’t, actually shouldn’t say that, two days. I didn’t even last two weeks.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’ve had a lot of two day jobs.
Jill K DeWit:
The two weeks was another job.
Steven Jack Butala:
[inaudible 00:08:29]
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t even think I lasted one day. I’m pretty sure it was like one day. It might have been two, but I’m dead serious. This is a hundred percent true. I had to go into an office and sit down, put on a headset and cold call.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s awful.
Jill K DeWit:
Doctor’s offices.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh geez.
Jill K DeWit:
To sell rubber gloves. So first I’m like, “okay, I can handle this.” And so the first trick is getting through to the office manager. The receptionist is pretty, all good receptionists are pretty much trained to get you off the phone and not even entertain it. So you got to kind of sneak your way in there to get to talk to the office manager or who’s in charge of buying the rubber gloves. It’s not, it’s the funniest thing.
Steven Jack Butala:
Good story, I don’t think I’ve ever heard this.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. So I really think it was two days. So it’s day one, I’m giving it a shot and every phone call I get a little bit closer. I’m like, “all right,” I learn to use this verbiage. I learn not to come out of the gate with that, I get a little get better at these phone calls. And then I think it was somewhere on during day two, I realized I just can’t do this. This is just not who I am. You have to almost be sneaky too to say, “I need to speak with whatever.” So I did not last, obviously. I did not go back and I honestly didn’t even collect a paycheck. I didn’t feel like I deserved any pay for that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Isn’t that great?
Jill K DeWit:
Because I just couldn’t, couldn’t hack that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Boy. That’s the greatest decision ever. I think that jobs that can parlay into careers, which is just, it’s tragic.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, I think about the number of people that are still doing it in our world. There’s a lot of people I talk to that are going calling and they, not only do they have this list of people that they call, it’s mostly in the house flipping environment that they’re doing a lot of outbound calls and talking to a lot of people. And trying to, I feel like they’re almost trying to talk them into selling their house. And I’m like, “why would you ever do that?” And how hard is that? And how many phone calls do you have to make to get a deal? I’m just not going to work that hard. So send out, so much… The money that they spend and waste and the weeks of sitting there-
Steven Jack Butala:
Decades.
Jill K DeWit:
-would be so much better spent sending out a ton of mail and seeing who comes back when they have your offer like we do.
Steven Jack Butala:
So you put a frame of reference around it like that. There’s a few options for you to create a pipeline or a funnel of potential transactions. Cold calling is one way. Sending out a mailer is another way. Sending out an offer campaign is another way. And when you look at all of them, this is the way to do it. Right? Sending out an actual offer campaign, with it intelligently priced, with a way to answer the phones and some intelligence about the market is way different than calling somebody to see if they wanted any gloves. Buy some rubber gloves.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
So when you really look at that, the how to create that funnel, taking the hate, embracing the hate is easy. It’s a silly little offshoot, hilarious thing that you just do. And then you buy some dirt.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, you shake it off, you kind of giggle. Well, I get I hit them on a bad day. Whatever it is.
Steven Jack Butala:
So I guess the second part of this is then send out more mail, embrace the hate, then send some more mail out. So I think that hope that doesn’t negatively, there’s got to be people that say, I can’t deal with this hate, so I’m not going to send any more mail out. And that’s kind of where it all could end. That’s what I don’t want to happen.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s why , if you can’t do it, or you maybe you know it going into it, great. Put someone else in place from day one. There’s nothing wrong with that.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s right.
Jill K DeWit:
At all. Don’t make it your mom.
Steven Jack Butala:
Or your daughter.
Jill K DeWit:
Definitely not your wife.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yes.
Jill K DeWit:
If they can’t handle it. Could you imagine somebody’s like, “I’m going to have my wife answer the phone. She has no idea what’s coming.”
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s awful.
Jill K DeWit:
No, that’s do that. Going to say, don’t do that.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s terrible.
Jill K DeWit:
I know. So yeah, there’s companies that can help you with that and they’re ready for it. And we can help you with that in LAN Academy and we’ll show you. Happy you could join us today, five days a week. You can find us here on the LAN Academy show.
Steven Jack Butala:
Join us next week for another interesting episode. You Are Not alone in your Real Estate Ambition. You know what we forgot to say is, Happy Thanksgiving.
Jill K DeWit:
That was last week.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is Friday. Oh right, yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, we miss a week.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh sure. Okay.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, we got a little ahead of ourselves.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, we did.
Jill K DeWit:
They know it. That’s okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what happens when you get ahead of yourself recording.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, it’s now eight days after Thanksgiving and Jack just thinks about it. That’s nice. Yep. That’s same with my birthday. Same with Christmas. Don’t even give me started on our anniversary.
Steven Jack Butala:
You know what the truth is. I remember all those things and you know it.
Jill K DeWit:
I know.
Steven Jack Butala:
We are Jack and Jill. Information
Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration.
Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
https://youtu.be/EdbAyIHInn8
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
Steven and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit:
Hi.
Steven Jack Butala:
Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
And I’m Jill Dewitt, broadcasting for the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s Jack Thursday and I’m going to talk about the psychology behind being a real estate agent versus a land or real estate investor.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m a little nervous.
Steven Jack Butala:
No, it’s not a rant.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh good. Phew, good. Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
I mean the gist of it is this, I came up with this concept because if you go on YouTube and you type in something like how to be a real estate lawyer, or how much do your real estate agents make, and the number of people that have viewed it in the last week is in the millions in some cases, or tens of thousands and there’s all different reasons for that. But if you go onto most YouTube places, even the really popular ones, about how to be a real estate investor, it’s a lot fewer people. So there’s some psychology behind this and I think I know why.
Jill K DeWit:
That explains our numbers behind our shows.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. Jill and I get about six or seven views per episode.
Jill K DeWit:
We should title these. We should just copy and use the titles that work and then just do whatever show we want. This is the whole point. I’m going to read this because you’re going to read the question. So first let’s take a question post for one our members on the land investors online community. It’s free and please do not forget to subscribe to the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows that you like.
Steven Jack Butala:
Before I read this, Jill and I have, every other Thursday she hosts Clubhouse Talk. It’s a new app driven version of an old school talk show, radio show. And so people can call in or dial up and dial in and we move them up to our, she moves them up and they ask questions and we talk with them. And if we do everything right, it’s to the benefit of everyone who’s listening.
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
I actually, I really enjoy it. It’s a chance for us not to be on in front of a camera. It’s audio only. And we really can, because the audience is not that large, really, I think do some good to the people that are there. They want to be there and just be truthful. So Aaron has an opinion about-
Jill K DeWit:
Go ahead.
Steven Jack Butala:
… Our last Clubhouse Talk and here it is.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
He says, I listened to the last Clubhouse and sorry if this comes off harsh, but whoever is thinking that turning land investing into private equity fund, you’ll thank me one day, it’s an awful idea. I’ve worked and consulted with various funds in my time from algorithmic stock and futures trading to hard money lending funds and Reg 506 B and C all day long. Why is this such a bad idea? Well, remember how Zillow came up with and tried to beat everyone at the real estate investing game? They too thought that they were smart. I love this though. They took the attitude that they could buy houses for higher prices than anyone else and since they had the best data in a handful of other profit centers, that it would all balance out in the end and they would own the real estate, all the real estate in America.
There’s expletives in here that I can’t say or read out loud. You too can follow their glorious crash and burn on the investing side of things. Go start a fund. Be pressured to do deals because people keep throwing cash at you and you have to show something in the next quarter other than all the cash that’s sitting in your Wells Fargo bank money market account. So you buy a property for too much, but it’s okay because you get a management fee. This is what I’m getting at.
Jill K DeWit:
I hear you. Keep going.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s fees, fees, fees, fees, fees. That’s where you make money, not actually by anything intelligent. So it’s okay, you get a management fee. Well this snowballs further. You can say no. You can say no to deals because honestly, your investors will be just fine to buy it at 80% of retail. It’s still a good return. And these are just passive investing pension types. So you market destruction the hell out of the land investing world. You get your management fee on billions and barely make a profit on any deals and it’s okay. You’re covered. That’s the market.
Jill K DeWit:
You cornered the market, yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Then you have to admit that returns are mediocre at best. Your early investors see a new shiny object in the crypto are comic books from the nineties or whatever and your management fee starts to shrink for the first time in six years and you start talking to your wife about doing something away from the corporate world. Do yourself a favor and realize that land investing is already as profitable as it’s going to get. I could not agree more. You don’t need partners. There’s capital out there for 50% of retail offer. Come on guys. The economy really, you’re offering 50%? You don’t even know. It goes on. So I’m going to leave it at this. He goes on for a while and ultimately says, you’re welcome, which I love.
Here’s the thing, this all started because, and this is my response in discord. Jill and I had a very healthy, I think, healthy talk about-
Jill K DeWit:
You shared that?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. Oh yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh.
Steven Jack Butala:
On Clubhouse this is what prompted this whole rant. Our discussion was not about, hey, let’s just start a fund.
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s not what it was at all. I would never ever start a fund for all the reasons he’s saying, but we could. Jill and I could start a fund tomorrow and we would be forced to make bad decisions, land acquisition decisions the next day and we don’t right now. We make great acquisition decisions because we don’t report to anyone and there’s no fees involved. And if we do great, we make a bunch of money. If we don’t, we lose a bunch of money. The way the world was intended to be. That’s not what happens in that private equity world. The confusion started with him, and I say this with a smile on my face. What I said was the structure of buying and selling land and then sometimes getting it funded the way that we do internally in our group, is the same structure that’s been bastardized and wrecked in private equity. It’s still the same structure and in our case, it works. And I think in the funding case it’s just, it’s what Aaron described. I can go into it, but that’s not really the topic.
Jill K DeWit:
Understood.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s Jack Thursday. I’m going to talk about the psychology behind being a real estate agent versus a land or a real estate investor. This is why you’re listening.
There’s some psychology behind taking on your own personal risk and reaping the reward from that or taking personal responsibility for the failure or whatever happens in between. For whatever reason, Jill, you from day one, since the day I’ve met you, have been hardwired to accept failure and celebrate success.
Jill K DeWit:
Thanks.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s very, very, very unusual. So I bring this up earlier in the show, because there’s so many people are dying to be real estate agents, but they’re not dying to be real estate investors. Or people are dying to be lawyers. They’re just dying to represent somebody and get paid to represent them. But they’re not running around trying to be a real estate investor or be an entrepreneur that needs a lawyer, needs some legal advice. So let’s think about that for a second. Why would somebody just want to represent somebody else for fees and why would another personality like Jill and honestly like me, want to take the risk and reward? I’m asking.
Jill K DeWit:
I think it’s nature. You think I’m kidding?
Steven Jack Butala:
I think people, and it’s not just real estate agents, for whatever reason, are very comfortable taking money from other people and theoretically doing stuff to get that money versus buying something and selling it for more. Or buying the components in a manufacturing situation, buying 19 components for $10, putting it all together, packaging it up and selling it for $25.
Jill K DeWit:
I think it’s fear.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think it’s nothing good.
Jill K DeWit:
I think a lot of it’s fear. I’m afraid to put my, I’m afraid to… Let me tell you a story.
Steven Jack Butala:
Here we go. It’s a holiday weekend. Go for it.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s after the holiday weekend.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, right.
Jill K DeWit:
By the time this airs, you’re like, come on, get back to it. No, I had this very, very… I have this very sweet friend. Her name is Cammy. She still to this day says “Jill, I’m happy to live vicariously through you.” She never wanted to be the one to get out of the car and toilet papering somebody’s house, but she’d be happy sitting in the car when I say hit the gas, let’s get out of here kind of thing. So I think that there’s a healthy amount of people that like being on the sidelines. They hope to be part of it and they enjoy the process a little bit, but like, oh no, they don’t have the threshold for some reason to just dive in and go for it. And then there’s others. This is truth time. This is sometimes where I get myself in trouble.
I’m like, sure, okay, I’ll get on. I’ll try it. Stand back everybody, because I’m not sure what’s going to happen when I start this thing. But I’m like, all right, let’s just do it. I’ll figure it out kind of thing. Now as I have aged, I like to think, nevermind my hands are all bandaged up from all kinds of things here, but I like to think that I’ve developed a little bit of a safety pause and fear like, you think I need a helmet? It might be a good idea. I think I will put a helmet on today. But there’s times that I’m like, oh, a helmet might have been good but I didn’t need a helmet. It all worked out fine. I’m just going to go for it. So I think that that’s, for me, I think that’s where I say my nature, and it’s not like because, trust me, it’s not like I learned this over time because I’ve done things wrong and screwed things up.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill and I just had a very long, very expensive meeting with a New York lawyer about some business ideas that we have about the future. And his specialization was, he was a great specialist for what he specialized in and how we were trying to apply what he specializes in, didn’t get through to him and that didn’t matter to him. The clicking part of it didn’t matter. What mattered to him is that he was in the middle of a billable hour with a beautiful background of New York City and I believe that that’s mostly what, it’s a process that he enjoys not… I was a commercial real estate broker at the very beginning of my career and from the very first phone call that I took with our apartment building owner because I was trying to sell him an apartment building by a different owner.
All I said to myself was, I want to be on the other end of that phone. I’m halfway embarrassed that I’m actually putting this deal together and taking a fee for it. It’s embarrassing. Fees are embarrassing. Billable hours are embarrassing. What matters in life is actually owning something and then creating something with it, creating equity with it, or teaching somebody else how to do it. Something that actually matters, not just representing somebody else and getting in the way. They’re getting in the way of the deal. If we took every word to heart that that lawyer told us today, we’d be broke in a couple years.
Jill K DeWit:
I hear you. I’m still in my head thinking about that conversation and thinking I got a lot out of it. Number one, there’s some nuggets in there and I still think there could be a way to do what we want to do and if anything, I don’t know. I know what to watch out for. I know some things to watch out for.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, I mean I agree. And look, I’m going to talk out of the other side of my mouth now. We hire real estate agents all the time and expect them to sell land for us. And you know what I don’t do ever, and neither does Jill, for some reason we’re on the same page on this completely, is skimp on the price. We are happy to pay them a full 10% on any land deal that they sell. I’m never going to skimp out on paying or trying to get a cheaper fee, but I expect them to do the job and get it done, which half the time happens, it seems like. Maybe it’s probably better than that. I only hear about the bad ones, not the good ones.
Jill K DeWit:
Isn’t that funny? And I never go, no, make it this percent, you could have my property. I never do that. I’m like, can you get that price in those many days and go? All right, done.
Steven Jack Butala:
I still can’t imagine enthusiastically saying, all right, great, I got the list and now I’m going to go sell this. I’m going to go take out, I’ll take a look at the property and take some great pictures, get a drone operator out there and maybe I’ll even clear the property a little bit if I need to get somebody and we’ll sell this thing in a couple weeks. I don’t in my head ever have that vision of commercial real estate agent actually being into their job and trying to succeed the way that you are. You hit the ground running in the morning. You get on the phone and you’re buying and selling land, or dreaming up the whatever the next thing is for us to do and honestly, so am I, more so in Land Academy and Jill more so in the actual land business. So I just don’t see representing somebody with enthusiasm.
Jill K DeWit:
You know what, well lucky for us that we have those people. I’m good with that too. I can end it on this that they don’t have the threshold that I have. Maybe when they started out, I think some people started out they didn’t have the capital to do it or didn’t know the means to do it and then they get settled in and maybe for whatever reason, so now they’re settled in and they love it or they really still don’t have the confidence to break off and do it. Whatever it is, I’m happy and grateful for those of you awesome land agents that do deals for us in the Land Academy community because we need you. That’s all I have to say.
Steven Jack Butala:
Me too.
Jill K DeWit:
Happy you could join us today. Five days a week you can find us here on the Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
Tomorrow, well tomorrow’s Jill Friday and she’s going to talk about embracing the hate and sending out more mail. You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill K DeWit:
I feel like I just talked about that recently.
Steven Jack Butala:
You think?
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, it’s come up a little bit, but that’s fine. I’ll talk about it a little bit more. I’ll let you ask me questions.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, so remember when I walked in your office about three hours ago and I said, “Hey, do you need to check the topics for today? Do you want to sign off?” And you said, “Oh no, I trust you.”
Jill K DeWit:
I know. No, I’m going to talk about it. I’ll come up with some. That’s what I said, I’ll let you ask me some questions or something. We’ll change it up, okay? Maybe we can role play. I don’t know. Figure it out. Hey, thanks for tuning in and again, we hope you find our content valuable and we really do appreciate your support. So if you haven’t already, check out our YouTube channel. There’s a lot of stuff there by the way. I was looking at it just yesterday. There’s a lot about career path, a lot about our weekly member call, all kinds of really good information that if you’re thinking about doing this, you’re going to want to check out. And if you are in Land Academy by the way, make sure you’re with us on Discord.
Steven Jack Butala:
We are Jack and Jill, information-
Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration.
Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
https://youtu.be/-KKuK6A4rsg
Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Jack and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill K DeWit broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today Jill and I talk about do you make land decisions based on data or based on feelings? I think that we're both going to be surprised at each other's answer.
Jill K DeWit: Okay.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Last year a ton of Land Academy members came to Jill and I needing extra help to get their blind offer campaigns in the mail. So I took a look at how we were personally sending out mail with our key employees and ultimately made those exact same people available to Land Academy members to get their mail out. We call it now concierge data and concierge data plus. A year later, hundreds of members every single month are outsourcing their entire mail effort and mail process out with this product. It's been a huge success and Jill and I have really gotten a lot of positive feedback, it's helping people get mail out and it's working out well. Check out offers2owners.com. They'll hook you up.
Jill K DeWit: MJ wrote, "Hi, Land Academy brain trust." That's cute. "Can I hear some opinion please? I'm second guessing my next mailer location selection strategy. Previously, I have chosen areas with strong active to sold ratios, but then found myself struggling with buyers, i.e. Too small of a buyer's pool. If I go to where there is lots of sold activity, the active to sold ratios tend to worsen and I run into saturated markets with tons of listings. How do you approach this balance? Is there a guiding philosophy in this dynamic market I should consider? Thanks."
Steven Jack Butala: This is a brilliant question. I know you're new MJ and you're going to do really well here. There's a balance and that's why very often people will say, "In the red, green, yellow tests, why do I have to apply what's red and what's green and what's yellow? Why doesn't it do it for me automatically?" To which I say, for example, a really positive days on market, which is a low, low days on market in one zip code might be just as good as a much different number of days on market that's low across the country. So you have to take all these environments and look at them from an adjacent standpoint and choose the best ones. You're absolutely right in a market like this right now, days on market might be really, really low, but new list is sold, because inventory is accumulating, inventory levels are going up. They're not getting sold the way that they have in the past. That number might be different, but the basic concept here has never changed. Look at 4 or 5 or 8 or 10 or 12 as many zip codes, adjacent zip codes that you can and choose the best ones against each other and you will find the right place to send mail. Or in real life, what I do is just send it all.
Jill K DeWit: Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala: That's a brilliant question.
Jill K DeWit: Yep.
Steven Jack Butala: It's really, really obvious sometimes with super new people who's going to do incredibly well really quickly, and that's a real good indication that you understand this and you're making it in your own really quickly.
Jill K DeWit: Well, you thinking it through. Some people just blindly... If you're not sure and you blindly follow our steps, you're going to be fine. That's good. But if you are thinking it through, still following our steps and then finding ways to make it better, that's the best.
Steven Jack Butala: Well said. Today's topic, do you make land decisions based on data or feelings? This is the meat of the show. What do you do, Jill?
Jill K DeWit: Data, you think I'm kidding?
Steven Jack Butala: No, I don't.
Jill K DeWit: You know what's so funny about this?
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I are going to discuss how blockchain, or blockchains I guess, will change real estate forever. So like it or not, this is one of those technology things that I think is here to stay. Hasn't really even gotten started. I'm not sure who created the concept of blockchain, but I think it's absolutely brilliant. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Before we get into that, I'm hoping by now you know that Jill and I have created a very specific commercial printing company to help you get offers to owners out in the mail expediently and inexpensively. We did this several years ago for ourselves, and it was worked so well, we decided to share it with everybody. Fast forward to today, we do almost a million offers on behalf of members and non-members every single month. Oh, the name of the company is Offers, the number 2, owners.com.
Jill K DeWit: Aaron L. wrote, "The usual advice here is to mail every owner of the properties in a target zip code or county. After all, who knows why someone might want to or need to sell. I've acquired 48 properties in five different states since I joined Land Academy in 2021. Not hundreds or thousands like some of you. Working on that. I'm pretty sure I have never bought a property from someone that lives in the same county as the property."
Steven Jack Butala: That's a staggering statistic.
Jill K DeWit: "Is this unusual? I also find that people that live in the same county call a lot more often and tend to be more angry than those that live far from their property."
Steven Jack Butala: I love this question or comment. And it goes along the lines, right now Jill and I are in the middle of instructing a Career Path session. I think it's Career Path number five. We just got done talking about specialized mailers and when they're appropriate and when they're not. So yeah, he's absolutely right. The conventional wisdom is to mail everybody and see what comes back, but I've never really looked at adjacent property owners because every time we, in the Thursday calls are so often identifying or reviewing properties for people in our group where the adjacent owners are relatives or the same person. So I'm glad that you can quantify that, that that's your experience. That hasn't been mine, but I still find it fascinating. Don't you?
Jill K DeWit: That's actually been more my experience like Aaron's here. I have more, like I haven't seen it in 20 years. That comes up a lot.
Steven Jack Butala: But you think you can quantify where they live? If you can say, "80% of the property, I"-
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: What I'm saying is how can you do it-
Jill K DeWit: Think about where the notary has to go. So I know that too from what we're doing. Think about where the title company ... The title company's in the place of the, at least in the state usually, as the property, not the seller, or not you, the buyer. It's for the property. So when I think about that and I think about most of my sellers are not driving in. Some are.
Steven Jack Butala: I mean, I read this question and specialty mailer just pops up like a light bulb over my head. I would like to do a split test specialty mailer for one county and send it to non-residents and residents and see.
Jill K DeWit: That'd be cool. See what traffic, how it comes back.
Steven Jack Butala: Exactly. Great comment, Aaron. Thank you. Appreciate it. Today's topic, how blockchains will change real estate forever. This is why you're listening. Geez. Unless you live under a rock as a professional person, you've heard the word blockchain,
Transcript:Steven Jack Butala:Jack and Jill here.Jill K DeWit:Hi.Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.Jill K DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.Steven Jack Butala:Today Jill and I talk about how there's way more investment money available than good deals.Jill K DeWit:It's funny, at least in our world, and I don't know if it's us, if it's the people we hang out with, or what, because I'm hearing other people need to do these big funding money raises. Does this make sense?Steven Jack Butala:Keep going with this, because this is the root of... Just keep, I love where this thought train is going.Jill K DeWit:Okay. All I hear is people like, "What do you mean you have money? Everybody else is going to do these big corporate capital funding raise movements." And it's sparking all these new websites and new ways to do that and put accredited and non-accredited investors together to pool to get together a couple million dollars. We were on a call today. Well, we want to save it for the show? I'll just finish this little thing. We were on a call today with an attorney and he about fell apart when he said, "Well, do you guys have any trouble coming up with the money?" We're like, "Oh gosh no, the money's the easy part." And he looked at us kind of funny. So I'm like, "Is it really that hard?"Steven Jack Butala:Later in the week I'm going to talk about this in great detail on Jack Thursday, and what Jill's saying is correct. But just keep this in mind, and this is what we founded. I founded Land Academy and my whole entire land investing career was built on fee-less transactions. And I don't mean stock market fee-less where you save $0.13. I mean like, "Let's remove all the fees out of these deals." And when people raise capital, there's huge, huge profit to be made from just raising capital. It may never get placed and that's the issue.Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the land investors.com online community. It's free.Jill K DeWit:Joseph asked... I saw this in Discord, this is cool. I have my first potential $1 million acquisition. I'm working on getting under contract. Up until now, I haven't needed a due diligence phase and wording to cover me on my acquisitions because I haven't been that big. That being said, does anyone have an all-encompassing purchase agreement/contract they would be willing to share that covers the due diligence phase, earnest money release statement, inspection periods, special situations, special stipulations, et cetera, et cetera? Or any direction on where to pay for one that someone has used personally is appreciated.Steven Jack Butala:So there's a bunch of things going on in this question. First of all, congratulations for buying for a million. I hope you're selling for three. That's amazing. Are there any standard templated agreements for this kind of thing? No. In fact, in commercial real estate, which is where I cut my teeth on a million years ago, there are no template agreements. What we did was when a buyer of commercial real estate or potential buyer wanted to buy something, we went back and looked at purchase agreements from deals that we've done in the past as a office. This was before computers. And we pull the paper out of the file and kind of...Jill K DeWit:Copy the wording?Steven Jack Butala:Yeah, borrow from it, and what's appropriate, what's not, and use it that way. That would be the best. You do the right thing by putting this in discord and I hope somebody pipes in and provides some type of agreement. Otherwise, I would really recommend you get a good, well recommended real estate lawyer to put together an agreement. There's no way that a title agent's going to do it. Even a real good commercial title, there's lots of commercial specific title agents out there, so they might have a real good solid recommendation for you on getting a lawyer....
Transcript:Steven Jack Butala:Jack and Jill here.Jill K DeWit:Hi.Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.Jill K DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.Steven Jack Butala:Today is Jill Friday and she's going to talk about land mailer panic.Jill K DeWit:I have a funny story I'm going to share.Steven Jack Butala:Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the land investors.com online community, it's free.Back in the day, it was nearly impossible to find land without a mailing address, like 123 Main Street. To solve this, we consolidated and manipulated 150 million-unit database and put it all in one place so all you need to do is type in the state, the county, and the assessor's parcel number, and get all the information or just about all the information you need to make a pretty well-educated decision about whether or not you want to buy a property. It's called parcelfact.com. Check it out. We use it every day. We use it on the Thursday call. It's how we actually make acquisition decisions every single day.Jill K DeWit:I love it. It's always running on my computer, open and in the background.So Kevin wrote, "Hello, everyone. I've been part of Land Academy..." Oh, you put this in here- on.Steven Jack Butala:Just to get it started off.Jill K DeWit:Oh, oh, I'm like, "This looks familiar." Okay, let me preface this. Let's just do the show. I'm going to... Because this question is why I'm doing this show today.Steven Jack Butala:So I think you should read the question and then just do the show.Jill K DeWit:All right, so here's the question that Kevin posted the other day:"Hi, everyone. So I've been part of Land Academy for four months now and I just sent out my 50,000th..." So 50,000 mailers went out. "I've gotten seven deals so far, working on a few more. I just sold one property and I have three listed. Anyway, at this point I'm trying to think about how to improve at picking counties and improve pricing. Where do I go from here? Does anyone have any thoughts? Thanks."So let's go into the thing and then I'm going to talk about how this all played out.Steven Jack Butala:Today is Jill Friday, she's going to talk about land mailer panic. This is the meat of the show.Jill K DeWit:So I read this and I felt like Kevin was panicking a little bit about his mailer yield. And if you're in Land Academy, you saw the communication that Kevin and I had back and forth in Discord on this.So I wrote him back and I said, "Hey, Kevin." I said, "I'm really glad you're concerned about this and you're thinking about mailer yield." And I said, "I have to ask you though, are you really working these deals? You sent out 50,000 mailers and it's been in four months, which is great. There's still so much that's coming back at you."There's two points. I said, "Kevin, first of all, I still have people coming back to me from mailers that are over 10 years old. So in four months you don't really have a good handle on how effective these mailers are."And number two, my point is, are you really working these callers? Because you got to work them. If you just wait..." So I asked him, I said, "Is what you're counting yield, is it only the signed purchase agreement sent back?" Because there's so much juice and all these phone calls that if you don't answer the phone or have somebody answering the phone and working these sellers and getting a number out of them, you're leaving deals on the table.So Kevin wrote me back and it's like... Well it was very sweet. He's like, "Hi, Jill." It was really nice. He's like, "I'm happy to hear from you." He's like, well first of all, "I've actually got more deals now-"Steven Jack Butala:That's nine.Jill K DeWit:"... than since I posted that."And second of all, he said, "I do not talking on the phone. It's not my thing. I know that I'm not effectively working these calls that come back and getting num...
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Jack and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jack Thursday and I'm going to talk about trial running your taxes before December.
Jill K DeWit: Do you know how nice it is to have you?
Steven Jack Butala: That's very nice to hear.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah, especially when it comes to stuff like this. If you didn't get taxes, we would be in big trouble.
Steven Jack Butala: Taxes are our most expensive cost is cost of goods sold, the price of the land. Our second is possibly...
Jill K DeWit: Staff.
Steven Jack Butala: ... Labor or staff, but that's not because of our land businesses.
Jill K DeWit: You expect that.
Steven Jack Butala: It's because of Land Academy.
Jill K DeWit: It's true.
Steven Jack Butala: Our second largest income statement amount, dollar amount, in our land business is taxes, so it's got to be managed and manipulated. Manipulated meaning just reviewed and... Well, I mean manipulated, within the limits of the law and ethics.
Jill K DeWit: Managed.
Steven Jack Butala: Managed. The same way that you manage your acquisitions and how much they cost.
Jill K DeWit: Right.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted up by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and please don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel. Comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Joseph wrote, "I have a developer looking to sell a commercial parcel, 3.7 acres, that's anchored by a Super target, Petco and Wells Fargo. Anyone have any experience with this? With an anchor, does this heavily reduce its selling ability? It's been listed for two years, but with no price, so that makes it even harder to gauge a value." What the heck?
Steven Jack Butala: Well, there's a few things.
Jill K DeWit: So, we sent out an offer, so let me back up here. Let me see if I'm right here. It sounds like you sent out an offer. The guy says, "Yeah I want to sell it. Here it is. Do you want to buy it?" So, that's the point where you have to say, do you want to buy it? And then the whole no price thing. I'm like, well you made an offer, so that's the price. It's either yes or it's no.
Steven Jack Butala: There's a few things going on here. This is Jill's nightmare deal. Jill would just say no. She would.
Jill K DeWit: And it's been on the MLS or on lists, whatever.
Steven Jack Butala: This is 180 degrees different on the other side of-
Jill K DeWit: LoopNet.
Steven Jack Butala: Of regular Land Academy deal.
Jill K DeWit: Not doing it.
Steven Jack Butala: I had to chuckle when I read this, we have to talk about it now and clear it all up. An anchor tenant, an anchor in a boat as it goes down in the water and it holds everything down, an anchor tenant quite opposite, in the opposite is the best thing that a landlord could ever have. And so you've got Sally's beauty box in a strip mall, Sally's beauty box and you've got maybe a little grocery store next to a Walmart and your Walmart's that anchor tenant. And everybody's going to that Walmart in and out all day passing the beauty box and passing all these little stores that might be, that's the greatest thing a landlord could ever ask for. That landlord will keep all those other retail spaces open because of the draw from that anchor tenant. So when someone says, I have an anchor tenant in this building or this facility.
Jill K DeWit: It's great.
Steven Jack Butala: They're banging their chest and they're clinking their glasses. I got an anchor tenant. So anchor tenants are great. What ends up happening is a lot of strip mall or regional malls or there's always left over land. That's what this deal is. And it's not that it's land that's unusable,
Transcript:Steven Jack Butala:Jack and Jill here.Jill K DeWit:Hello.Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.Jill K DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.Steven Jack Butala:Today, Jill and I talk about how title and escrow companies actually want your business again.Jill K DeWit:I think they've always wanted our business, but it sure felt like they didn't for a while when they were overwhelmed and maybe not as responsive as they could be, or certainly not as fast as they could be. So things are changing and I'm going to share a lot about that today.Steven Jack Butala:Before we get into the topic, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.Jill K DeWit:By the way, did you know we have a lot of people needing help getting their blind offer campaigns into the mail? Some, it's just a simple mail merge. Some, it's downloading, scrubbing, and pulling comps to accurately price those offers and get them in the mail. So we created a company, I didn't realize this was in here, so I'm just kind of ad libbing it myself. We created our own company and it's Concierge Data. You want to talk a little bit more about that?Steven Jack Butala:Concierge Data serves as your outsource to getting offer campaigns in the mail.Jill K DeWit:Right.Steven Jack Butala:Whether you've done hundreds and hundreds of mailers and you're just tired of it and need to outsource it or you're brand new, it's the same exact people. And it's our people that have been doing our mailers, Jill and I, for years. We're just making them available to you.Jill K DeWit:Exactly.Steven Jack Butala:It's an extension of offers to owners, so check it out. Support at offers, the number two, owners.com.Jill K DeWit:Eric wrote, "My first mailer finally hit today. Woo hoo. Four responses. Okay, three were very angry curse outs from property owners who felt like I personally tried to offend them, demanded to be taken off my list while refusing to give me any more details about their name or addresses, making removing them really from my list kind of difficult, LOL." I get that. "And in a direct contrast, one very nice older gentleman who bought his property in 1979 and has done nothing with it since happy to sell it to me at the price I offered. What a wild day."Steven Jack Butala:This is exactly what happens in real life.Jill K DeWit:Yeah.Steven Jack Butala:Exactly. So if this is something that appeals to you, then Land Academy is for you. Four people respond, three people are livid, one person wants to sell. Now I'm making 30, $40,000 and the person that I'm actually buying the property from is happy.Jill K DeWit:Yeah.Steven Jack Butala:You're solving a problem and you are happy and the person that you sell it to is happy.Jill K DeWit:Yeah.Steven Jack Butala:There are a shocking number of people that aren't prepared for this, and that for some reason don't understand that. And honestly, geez, how many phone calls have we received? Millions of letters sent out. It's still shocking to me and a lot of people probably, I don't know, maybe you too, how mad people get about and really upset about sending offers to, "I'd like to buy your property and this is what I think it's worth."Jill K DeWit:Right. It is kind of comical. I wonder if they do this with everything else because think about the real estate agents that troll for listings and they put things even on your door. Do they chase them to the curb? Think I'm kidding?Steven Jack Butala:I mean, I appreciate this direct approach. "I'd like to buy your property and I'd like to pay you $32,000 for it."Jill K DeWit:Yeah.Steven Jack Butala:My response would be, "No thanks."Jill K DeWit:Remember pre-COVID?Steven Jack Butala:I wish you the best.Jill K DeWit:Pre-COVID Driving For Dollars for a lot of people meant knocking on doors. No, I'm not kidding.Steven Jack Butala:Yeah.
Transcript:Steven Jack Butala:Jack and Jill here.Jill K DeWit:Hi.Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.Jill K DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.Steven Jack Butala:Today Jill and I talk about, well, I'm going to compare the private equity business model to the Land Academy business model. And as I said yesterday, I didn't realize it, but I really kind of modeled Land Academy back in the day, back in mid fifteens off of that classic private equity model. And I'll get into it in detail here in a minute.Jill K DeWit:And I'm going to listen intently, while you compare.Steven Jack Butala:Before each one of these episodes, Jill and I discussed just very briefly who's going to do what and she's like, I'm doing nothing.Jill K DeWit:Well, let me back up. We sit down and come up with titles and then by the time that we brainstorm all the titles, some of mine make the cut and some of mine don't make the cut.Steven Jack Butala:They get filtered differently.Jill K DeWit:Yeah. This one came up with a different title. And you know what? That's okay because this is his show. I'm just a guest.Steven Jack Butala:Before we get into it, let's take a question.Jill K DeWit:I'm an eight year guest.Steven Jack Butala:That's pretty accurate.Jill K DeWit:Yeah.Steven Jack Butala:I'm going to take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. But before we do that, I hope by now Jill and I have a full blown commercial printing company to manage from start to finish. Getting your offers in the mail. Whether you're a member or not, it's called offers2owners.com. The number two. Offers, the number two, owners.com. We set this company up several years ago, quite honestly, out of frustration because we couldn't get our mailers in the mail effectively and without errors. So we just decided we would do it ourselves. Fast forward to today, we do probably 800,000 or 900,000 offers every single month. Check out support at offers, the number two, owners.com and they'll get you all hooked up. Tons and tons and tons of members and non-members do it every month.Jill K DeWit:Jack H. wrote, "I'm just getting started and I think I'm going to have a lot of newbie questions. Hopefully we'll have my first mailer sent out in the next month. So right now I'm trolling for markets. The biggest issue I'm having is zip codes I'm looking at don't show up in the Redfin data and when I input them it just comes up no matches, but others come up fine. Does anyone know how to solve this issue? Thanks."Steven Jack Butala:So this is a real smart, it's a very, very good question and it tells me that you're following the program and you're going through the steps and you do have some questions along the way that's perfectly honest and you're asking them in Discord. Excellent, excellent, excellent.Jill K DeWit:Check, check, check. You get a gold star Jack H.Steven Jack Butala:Redfin's business model. Redfin has an amazing data center and they don't charge anything for it. It's truly amazing. Their business model involves getting listings and then attempting to through providing all this data and getting listings through their real estate agents, selling real estate through a traditional model, brokers and agents and the whole thing. And that really works in really urban areas. And so they have contracts with a number of the MLSs out there. I think there's 1,300 MLSs or some number like that. Maybe it's even more. There's not just one big multiple listing service. There's a lot of different tiny little regional ones. Turns out they don't care too much about the rural ones because they don't want listings there and it's just not a profit center for them. Well we do. We care about rural markets because we buy and sell more land.Jill K DeWit:That's who we are.Steven Jack Butala:So a lot of the markets that are covered, not all of them.
Transcript:Steven Jack Butala:Jack and Jill here.Jill K DeWit:Hello.Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.Jill K DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.Steven Jack Butala:Today Jill and I are talking about hiring your first land business employee.Jill K DeWit:I'm excited about this topic. We went into great detail on this the other day in Career Path as we brought ahead some of our staff to help these professional investors. It was really interesting the way the conversation went and what people need help with, and even just wrapping your head around this whole thing. So, we're going to talk about that today.Steven Jack Butala:People in career path thought we had a real positive response. Everybody had thought it was really useful. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.Jill K DeWit:Oh, I thought you were going to say something else. You're going a little ahead. No, that's it? Oh, I'm making notes about the show. So Dan wrote, "I was walking some properties a few counties over yesterday, and I went to visit a property that I have had listed with a broker for five months. I was going to take some better photos than she had, preparing just to sell it myself. There was not even a sign on the property. I couldn't believe it. How motivated is she to sell my property? Not motivated enough to even put a sign up? I'm asking to terminate the listing agreement early. Seriously, it's nicer than a lot of the surrounding properties and it has a nice shed and a well. No wonder there's no interest. So the broker got right back to me like immediately. She said the sign keeps getting stolen and they cost a hundred dollars each to put out, so they stopped placing them in that area about a year ago."Steven Jack Butala:That's a good firewood.Jill K DeWit:That's hilarious. "She said, no problem on her end terminating the listing agreement, that she'll send over the form ASAP. Made it sound like she doesn't like that area very much. Why wouldn't she just say that initially? But whatever. A few months ago, other brokers and she herself claimed she was the expert in this area. So this confirms it. I am actually the expert in this area. I have sold five 40-acre parcels in this little area in the past year, which is more than any of the local people. I was just trying to save myself some time and energy, but in this case, there's nobody local to help. I'll just keep on doing it my way."Steven Jack Butala:There's a real clear message in this. This is very hard for new people to understand. People like Dan, who's a very successful member and a Land Academy alumni, I mean Career Path alumni have understood this. Dan specifically has understood this since the beginning. You are the expert. These are rural markets.Jill K DeWit:That's true.Steven Jack Butala:The people that live there, they're not experts about their real estate. They're experts about the job they have. Maybe they're expert farmers, but they're not experts about land in the area. Just like if you live in an urban area like we do, if you ask your neighbors what their house is worth, they're probably not going to know. But we do.Jill K DeWit:That's very true.Steven Jack Butala:Week by week we know what the value of our stuff is. So, you're the expert.Jill K DeWit:It's very, very true. This is a tough one. I've been in this situation and I get it. Sometimes it's hard to find the right people. And you're right, I would've done the same thing. That when you say, "Let's end the agreement," they go, "Sure, fine." They don't care. That tells you they don't care. It's sad. The good news is, here's what I think's happening too right now, and I don't know when this was written, but-Steven Jack Butala:Really recently,Jill K DeWit:The good agents are going to rise at the top and they're going to be left,
Transcript:Steven Jack Butala:Jack and Jill here.Jill K DeWit:Hello.Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.Jill K DeWit:I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.Steven Jack Butala:Today, Well, it's still Friday, and she's going to talk about why non-techies make great land investors.Jill K DeWit:Thank you. As I alluded to yesterday, because of the nature of the business that you developed years and years and years ago, the whole underlying theme of using data and mail and all kinds of technical things, we naturally track really smart, brainy PhD engineering types of people. But there's a subset within Land Academy. I like to think that I'm partially responsible for, of those of us who don't necessarily think that way and we smash it. And I want to talk about that today.Steven Jack Butala:Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Back in the day, it was almost impossible to find a piece of land without a mailing address, like 123 Main Street. Why? Because the post office didn't assign, and has still hasn't assigned, the vast majority of pieces of real estate in this country. They don't need to. Nobody gets mail there. So instead, we decided to make this database of 150 million properties or so in the country, finite instead of infinite. And we put together a website called neighborscoop.com. So all you need is the state, the county, and the assessor's parcel number to find just about any property in the entire country. And we've added a bunch of things to it to make it make a lot of sense for Land Academy type people as far as analyzing property to see if you want to buy it really quickly.Jill K DeWit:All right, back to our question, Corey wrote, "As a newbie, one topic that I'd like to see covered is what phase two due diligence looks like." We're going to do that next week in career path. "The weekly member calls are amazing for what? For seeing what phase one due diligence is all about. But I've not come across anything that breaks down some of the things we should be looking for in phase two. I believe I have a pretty good idea, but I'd love to have a podcast to reference." It's funny, I did a deep dive on this on a Facebook live event. I've done phase one and phase two due diligence thing. So if you dig in our community, you'll find it. Okay, so let me back up. What's phase one due diligence? That's the thing that you spend five to 15 minutes on. Five, if you're me, 15 minutes if you're new, checking a property when it comes in to see if you want to buy it and see if it passes your test to move it forward in the process as an acquisition. That's where you cover all the six A's. And like I said, if it passes those, now you push it forward. What are the six A's? You want me to go into that much detail here?Steven Jack Butala:Sure. The six A's are really simple. It's access. Affordability, is it cheap enough to buy? Attributes, is it cool? Other fun stuff around it, like Las Vegas, or is it in the middle of a subdivision, which is cool, too? Or is it in the middle of nowhere? Not so cool.Jill K DeWit:Acreage.Steven Jack Butala:Acreage, bigger's better, almost always.Jill K DeWit:Alive.Steven Jack Butala:Alive, is the person that owns the property alive or do you have to undo a bunch of legal stuff?Jill K DeWit:And adjacent.Steven Jack Butala:And adjacent, what is immediately next to the property? Which leads you to phase two, due diligence.Jill K DeWit:So if it passes all that stuff, now you're going to move it forward to phase two. So this could be a whole different podcast. So I'll touch on it lightly and maybe let's make it a whole different podcast next week.Steven Jack Butala:Yeah.Jill K DeWit:And we can deep dive a little bit more. Phase two is, it passes all those things, but I'm not quite sure if the person...
Transcript:Steven Jack Butala:Video three, two. Jack and Jill here.Jill K DeWit:Hello.Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.Jill K DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.Steven Jack Butala:Today is Jack Thursday, and I'm going to talk about the laws of abundance. It's something that comes up in Discord among our Land Academy group all the time, in one way or the other. And it comes up like this. Someone will ask a question or say something, and the response will be, "Oh, that's the laws of abundance. You have to have that to understand this." And the person who asks the question will respond, "What's the laws of abundance? That's why we're here. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com. Online community is free, and please don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel. Comment on the shows you like.Jill K DeWit:Dan wrote, "Speaking of seller financing, I am closing on an interesting deal on the sell side next week. The buyer wanted to finance the deal, but I won't do seller finance. They find someone else who will finance. My broker wrote it up as if I'm the one doing the seller financing, but with a contingency that the third guy will purchase a contract from me at closing. It will all happen through the single escrow transaction. I like this. The buyer pays the down payment, gets set up with the monthly payments in escrow with the title company. I get cash at the end, just like I want. The guy purchasing the contract has the terms already laid out, pays remain or do to me minus the buyer's down payment. And then he collects the monthly payments through escrow from the title company. I thought it was brilliant. Maybe others have seen this type of arrangement more, but I have not. I haven't seen this one.Steven Jack Butala:So what's wrong with this?Jill K DeWit:Nothing.Steven Jack Butala:Nothing.Jill K DeWit:I think it's great.Steven Jack Butala:Nothing is wrong with this. In fact... And this is Dan, Career Path, former Career Path alumni, Dan. So then the string goes on. This blew up in Discord, Land Academy Discord, that a lot of people are already doing this, and that what Dan's going to do now is align himself with the person who buys these notes. Immediately buys these notes and start selling on terms. What it morphed into, which is really important... So if you halfway listen to the show, this now's the time to just whole listen to it. And then you can get back to the halfway listening when I start talking about my stuff.One of the things that's really changing and going to change and always changes during a downturn is creative financing. In fact, that's what caused in part, in whole part, the former downturn with creative mortgages for single family residences. So we have complete control when we buy or own a piece of land, how we're going to sell it. Sell it on terms, we can sell it for cash. And now, this is just one more way of really getting cashed out. The person is essentially buying the piece of property from you on a credit card. And the credit card... The person who's providing the credit is just another person, instead of American Express. So I love this, and I think it's going to become a thing. In fact, when we're done here, Jill and I are going to talk about doing it.Today's Jack Thursday, and I'm going to talk about land, the Land Academy, and how it applies to the laws of abundance. This is why you're listening.Jill K DeWit:I think the biggest thing here with the laws of abundance and Land Academy is we wouldn't be here if we didn't feel this way. That's what Land Academy is, by the way.Steven Jack Butala:It is, and I had no idea what this was. This is one of those things where somebody walked up to me in our first live event many years ago, seven years ago, and said, "For anyone to succeed at this,
Transcript:Steven Jack Butala:Rolling video. Three, two. Steve and Jill here.Jill K DeWit:Hello.Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Stephen Jack Butala.Jill K DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.Steven Jack Butala:Today Jill and I are going to talk about the power of skip tracing neighbors around land that you own. Yesterday I talked a little bit about or I had a prelude to this episode about why some young people, and rightfully so, I think this isn't like some type of archaic approach to buying real estate by sending actual paper in the mail. In a lot of ways they're not wrong, but it's still the most effective way that I know to contact sellers.Jill K DeWit:And legal way.Steven Jack Butala:Legally blindly contact sellers and see if they want to sell their property. And incredibly effective.Jill K DeWit:And respectful too.Steven Jack Butala:Yeah.Jill K DeWit:I don't want people calling me. Come on now.Steven Jack Butala:Right.Jill K DeWit:We just got through election time. How many phone calls did you hit ignore on?Steven Jack Butala:I mean, 98% of the... Probably if you're like on me, vast majority of stuff that crosses your path from an advertising standpoint or content standpoint on your phone, television, or whatever you choose to let in from a content standpoint is still unwanted.Jill K DeWit:Right.Steven Jack Butala:But if you get a text from somebody that says, "Hey, you know that property that you have down in XYZ County? I just bought the property next to it and I'm selling it for a lot cheaper than you bought yours. So if you're interested, before I put it on the market, just let me know if you want to do cash deal." That's something I'm actually really interested in. I buy and sell a bunch of clash, like cars, and if I got texts like, "Hey, you bought that '68 fill in the blank, and I've got another one that's really similar to it a lot cheaper," you better believe I'm going to respond to that text. So this can be really effective and, in my opinion, completely appropriate and legal. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.Jill K DeWit:By the way, last year a ton of people came to us. You know what? I want to talk about concierge for a second. You talked about O2O yesterday. I'm going to talk about concierge right now. So this is a little plug for a little company that we have Offers 2 Owners and a new service called Concierge Data and Concierge Data Plus. You're going to have to help me with the plus, with the correct definition of plus. But basically, here's the gist.Many of you have come to us because, not only was mail merge making your head hurt, but then downloading and scrubbing the data to get it to that point and then get it in the mail and then do some back end scrubbing on pricing comps and things like that, that was really making your head hurt. And we also had a lot of heavy hitters that came to us and said, "I just don't have time. I know exactly what I'm doing and how to do it, but it takes me some time." So we create a company within our mail company and it's Concierge Data. So if you want to find out more about that, send a note to support at landacademy.com or support at offers2owners.com and they will get right back to you and hook you up with that.Steven Jack Butala:Yeah, I was Concierge Data's first customer and it really worked because I was tired of doing mailers. If I'm tired of doing mailers, believe it. And it works out great. We still use it every month.Jill K DeWit:Yeah. So my point is, whether you're brand new to this or experienced at it, whatever, we could take that off your plate. All right. Back to the question here. Steve wrote, "Anyone in here using Traction as a business process system? And if so, what kind of numbers are tracked on your scorecard?" Here's a reply. Matt wrote,
Steven Jack Butala:Steve and Jill here.Jill K DeWit:Jack and Jill here.Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.Jill K DeWit:And I'm Jill Dewit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun.Steven Jack Butala:Today Jill and I talk about how outsourcing seems to be easy, but hiring staff seems to be difficult in these current times.Jill K DeWit:We've had ongoing discussions... Well, right now in this part of career path where we're talking about creating systems and thinking about where you're going to take your company and you often need help. If you're doing this right, having a little bit of help is going to free you up to really focus on the tasks that you as an owner should be doing. So these are the discussions. So we've been talking about hiring and outsourcing, and also we're having as a whole separate side note, and we'll talk more about this, having our own issues, if you will, with hiring staff. And so we'll share what we're doing to solve that.Steven Jack Butala:Everybody wants to get wealthy and everybody doesn't want to work that much.Jill K DeWit:Correct.Steven Jack Butala:And that's why you're here. And it's very possible we have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of case studies, including ourselves, about having that happen and getting people to do what you want them to do when you want them to do it is a challenge. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Before we get into that though, I hope you know by now, we have a complete full blown commercial printing company created solely to help you get inexpensive direct mail offers in the hands of sellers fast. It's called offers2owners.com. Jill and I set this company up several years ago out of our own frustration because we couldn't get our mail out with the regular commercial printing companies. Fast forward to today, we send out eight or 900,000 mailers a month on behalf of members and non-members. Go to offers2owners.com.Jill K DeWit:Josiah wrote, "I was just texting a friend asking about purchasing landlock property for a flip. I thought I'd post some of the text message here. I can remember at least four deals I've done that were landlocked. In every case, I sold the property to a neighbor or sold the property extremely cheap to someone who didn't care about the lack of access. The numbers on each deal were like this: Deal one, buy for $46,000, property worth $300,000 plus with access, sold it to a neighbor for $108,000. Deal number two, buy for $6,000, property worth $60-80,000 with access. Sold it to a neighbor for $22,000. Deal number three, buy for $3000, property worth about $50,000 with access. Sold it to someone who didn't care about the access for $6,000."These are great. "And then number four, deal number four, buy for $1000. The property's river access only two acres of waterfront property on a beautiful river. If the property had access, it could have been worth $100,000 easy. Sold it to someone didn't care about the access again for $10,000. So I think I've done two or three," this is probably back and forth. Now we're back to another participant here. "I think I've done two or three other landlock deals, but I can't find them." Okay, there we go. "The other two or three we're similar numbers to the four examples above." That's good.Steven Jack Butala:So here's the point. And this string in Discord, it caught on like wildfire. Kind of went viral in our own little Discord environment. Landlocked property, or accessless property I like to call it, is not valueless. There's always some value. It just depends on how you manage it and how you handle it. So there's always ways, not always, there's a vast majority of circumstances. There's ways to get access to property. It's just all how much you want to deal with it. What's your business model? If your business model is buying crazy rock bottom p...
https://youtu.be/x0zXehmG6K0Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Steven Jack Butala:Stephen and Jill here.Jill K DeWit:Jack and Jill here.Steven Jack Butala:Yeah. Welcome to the Land Academy Show. Entertaining land investment talk. I don't know my name.Jill K DeWit:That's right. Stephen Jack Butala. And I'm Jill Dewit. And we are broadcasting still from the lovely Valley of the Suns. Nice to be home.Steven Jack Butala:Today's Jill Friday. She's going to talk about how to turn angry landowners into sellers.Jill K DeWit:Yep.Steven Jack Butala:Before we get into it though, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.Jill K DeWit:Let's skip all that. Greg wrote, "If a buyer wants to close after January 1st for tax reasons..." Jill note. Boy do I understand that.Steven Jack Butala:This is very common. If you're new at this, this is what happens to you for the rest of your life.Jill K DeWit:This will come up.Yeah, a side note, people are going to want to close. They're either going to want to close by the end of the year or after the first of the year. Watch what happens here this next quarter, next two months.So Greg says, "Buyer wants to close after January 1st for tax reasons. Is there a way to move through the majority of the closing docs prior to closing to eliminate the risk of the buyer getting a better offer or changing their mind along the way? Basically, I don't have any issues closing after January 1st, but I'm afraid the buyer could change their mind. So I'm trying to figure out if I can legally prevent them from being able to do that."Steven Jack Butala:That's why God created contracts. So you can write a contract about anything that you want and make them sign it and says, "Yeah, we happily will sell this to you after, before, or buy or seller or whatever." Maybe you ask the person for more money in turn.Jill K DeWit:I say, pick the closing date now. What's the first Monday or the first Tuesday in January?Steven Jack Butala:I understand your point. And it's a very valid concern. Like, hey, this is a great deal. Well on the buyer, the sell side and time kills deals. That's just the truth. And so more time is always worse with real estate deals, but we orchestrate our entire lives this time of year around taxes and what with all kinds of decisions based on that.Jill K DeWit:Well...Steven Jack Butala:Just have a binding side contract that says you are going to buy this or sell it. Period.Jill K DeWit:Yeah. I would get it all through title, get it going. You know what I would do? There'd be weekly check-ins though too.Steven Jack Butala:Yeah.Jill K DeWit:From with between probably my team.Steven Jack Butala:And get some hard money. Get some hard money. Then-Jill K DeWit:That's when I thought. Put some money in it. Because it's him buying it. The seller wants to do it after January 1st. I kind of want to move some money over. So then it's really a binding contract because money has changed hands.Steven Jack Butala:Yeah.Jill K DeWit:So I'd feel good about that. "We're going to release $500 now though towards this. Just a small amount."Steven Jack Butala:Yeah. Make it a little more real.Jill K DeWit:Yeah, exactly.Steven Jack Butala:Today's Jill Friday. She's going to talk about how to turn angry landowners into sellers. This is the meat of the show.Jill K DeWit:It happens all the time. All the time. This is the majority of the calls you're going to get. We just had a career path session the other day and one person was talking about this mailer that everybody, all they want to do is yell at me. I'm like, "Well, what'd you get out of it?" "Nothing. They're all mad at me." Well, that's what I get too. Every day. They're calling my team or me when they get the mailers hit and they're mad about it. I mean, not everybody, I'll be honest, but when the first wave hits you lovingly call it the hate. It's like, "What? How dare they send me an offer?" That's their first anger moment by the way.
Steven Jack Butala:Jack and Jill here.Jill K DeWit:Hello.Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Stephen Jack Butala.Jill K DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit, Broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.Steven Jack Butala:Today's Jack Thursday, and I'm going to talk about what is your financial end. As I said yesterday, you really need to have one. There's a few reasons and I'll get into it here in just a second. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the land investors.com online community. It's free and please don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel. Comment on the shows you like. It helps us develop better content.Jill K DeWit:Sid Roped, I just watched the YouTube Land Academy episode 1540. Wow. Where Jack and Jill discussed buying land with a mobile home on it. This is good. Thank you for that reference, Sid. Is there a way to pull data tree parcels that are zoned for mobile homes?Steven Jack Butala:Yes.Jill K DeWit:There are a lot of those in my rural area and I'm too old for driving for dollars. Thank goodness. Don't do that Sid.Steven Jack Butala:You're too smart too.Jill K DeWit:Some used to teach. Yeah, you are too smart for driving for dollars. Totally agree. Not to mention, what are you going to drive for dollars for? Because in my world you reach out to every single mobile homeowner. So what's to drive?Steven Jack Butala:If you go into data tree and you look at land use, and it's not all counties, but most counties will have mobile home.Jill K DeWit:Designation.Steven Jack Butala:If that assessor, in the account in the county that you're interested in, cares about use delineation and not all of them do. The more rural the county, the less they care for a lot of reasons because the property, the values are more similar. In an urban area, the property values are very different. It's a wide range of value. If you get mobile home and you click on it and you can test very quickly whether or not that uses it, because you can see the numbers change the total count. The vast majority of the counties that I've ever worked in, care about use and they say it, so you can find it that way. The other way is to look at zoning. Some counties have a very specific zoning. It's a lot more rare than the way I just described earlier. So check for use. Yes. And then rip away, mess around with the data. And Jill and I send out mobile home mailers regularly. Buy mobile homes. The worst condition they are, the better. And we buy them real cheap and sell them for more.Jill K DeWit:Not in parks.Steven Jack Butala:Yeah. There's two types of mobile home real estate deals. Mobile homes in mobile home parks, those have no... We're land people, unless you buy the whole park, and that's a whole different deal. You're just going to end up buying the actual mobile home, which isn't real property, it's personal property. It's like buying a car. We're not car academy. It's Land Academy. Second type, which is what we care about.Is a mobile home that's on its own apn. It's on its own piece of real estate. And that can be extremely profitable. There are people in our group, that's all they do. Today's Jack Thursday, what's your financial end? There's a couple reasons that you need to have a financial end. One, if you write down what you want in life and talk about it to yourself or to your loved one, as much as they can handle it, you're going to get it. You're infinitely more likely to achieve your goals if you write them down or think about them all the time. And the more specific you are about it, the greater likelihood that it's going to happen. And within a timeframe. I'm going to plug $10 million here. Go ahead Jill.Jill K DeWit:We led off, in career path with, this is one of our questions.Steven Jack Butala:This is why we're doing this episode, actually.Jill K DeWit:This is really, really important to talk about and think about and dream it up.
Steven Jack Butala: Jack and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello. Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk.
Steven Jack Butala: I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's topic, how much land acquisition due diligence is too much.
Jill K DeWit: This comes up. I wanted you to know this is not a newbie question. This has come up this week in...
Steven Jack Butala: Career path.
Jill K DeWit: Career path.
Steven Jack Butala: We spent an hour on this.
Jill K DeWit: I'm trying to think because this week we also had our advanced call, too. I don't think it comes up too much there, but I think it does. I think we touched on it in both environments this week and that's why we wanted to talk about it.
Steven Jack Butala: There's a deeper issue, a rooted psyche type issue under what's going on here, which I'll talk about when Jill's done here. Before we get into it though, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free.
Jill K DeWit: By the way, did you know we have now solved your data pulling and scrubbing and getting sold and active comps? Fill in the blank so you can accurately price your mailer and get it in the mail. It's called concierge pricing. Is that the right name?
Steven Jack Butala: Concierge data.
Jill K DeWit: Concierge data.
Steven Jack Butala: Concierge data plus.
Jill K DeWit: There we go.
Steven Jack Butala: What's the plus? The plus is from start to finish, we get it in the mail for you.
Jill K DeWit: Yep, exactly. Where do you find out more? Go to offers2owners.com and you'll find everything there and there's a phone number there. Give them a call. Or you can also send note to support at offers2owners.com.
Steven Jack Butala: I will tell you, every month how many orders we process for concierge doubles. It doubles. Recently, we asked the staff who is the customer? Who is concierge's customer?
Jill K DeWit: Are they brand new people? Who is doing it?
Steven Jack Butala: They said the vast majority are people that just want outsource their mailing operation.
Jill K DeWit: They're pros.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: They're busy pros.
Steven Jack Butala: They're long time Land Academy members that aren't interested in doing a mailer anymore.
Jill K DeWit: Exactly. It's not just someone that can't figure it out. They know what to do, they just don't want to do it. You're not nuts. Start there. All right, here's the question. Is it Juan Gecoo wrote, "Hi there. I'm calculating price per acre in a zip code and the prices are ranging wildly from half a million dollars to $5000. How can I get the most efficient, accurate measure price per acre for a 1500 unit count mailer?"
Steven Jack Butala: Incredibly good question and concise. When you go out to solve for the retail price per acre in any given zip code, because you're going to send mail there, you can't just throw a dart at a board, you need to know where to start when you price a mailer. The way to do that is to get active listings in a zip code and sold listings in a zip code. You take them all together in a spreadsheet, you get averages or means, however you'd like to use it, and you determine that zip code, 12345, properties that have sold there for the last 12 months or active, the price per acres, $2,200. I'm going to offer something lower than that because I'm going to sell it for 2200 or even lower. Well, great. What happens when one of my comparison values is a million bucks, one of my comparison values is 5000? This happens a lot. This is an extreme example. A more realistic example is one sold for $25,000, one sold for 15, one sold for 32. And so my average might be too high, might be too low. This is what you have to do in an extreme situation. You really need to dig deeper. You need to then get all the data in one place and look into block by block pricing or ...
Steven Jack Butala: Jack and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello. Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk.
Steven Jack Butala: I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's topic, how much land acquisition due diligence is too much.
Jill K DeWit: This comes up. I wanted you to know this is not a newbie question. This has come up this week in...
Steven Jack Butala: Career path.
Jill K DeWit: Career path.
Steven Jack Butala: We spent an hour on this.
Jill K DeWit: I'm trying to think because this week we also had our advanced call, too. I don't think it comes up too much there, but I think it does. I think we touched on it in both environments this week and that's why we wanted to talk about it.
Steven Jack Butala: There's a deeper issue, a rooted psyche type issue under what's going on here, which I'll talk about when Jill's done here. Before we get into it though, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free.
Jill K DeWit: By the way, did you know we have now solved your data pulling and scrubbing and getting sold and active comps? Fill in the blank so you can accurately price your mailer and get it in the mail. It's called concierge pricing. Is that the right name?
Steven Jack Butala: Concierge data.
Jill K DeWit: Concierge data.
Steven Jack Butala: Concierge data plus.
Jill K DeWit: There we go.
Steven Jack Butala: What's the plus? The plus is from start to finish, we get it in the mail for you.
Jill K DeWit: Yep, exactly. Where do you find out more? Go to offers2owners.com and you'll find everything there and there's a phone number there. Give them a call. Or you can also send note to support at offers2owners.com.
Steven Jack Butala: I will tell you, every month how many orders we process for concierge doubles. It doubles. Recently, we asked the staff who is the customer? Who is concierge's customer?
Jill K DeWit: Are they brand new people? Who is doing it?
Steven Jack Butala: They said the vast majority are people that just want outsource their mailing operation.
Jill K DeWit: They're pros.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: They're busy pros.
Steven Jack Butala: They're long time Land Academy members that aren't interested in doing a mailer anymore.
Jill K DeWit: Exactly. It's not just someone that can't figure it out. They know what to do, they just don't want to do it. You're not nuts. Start there. All right, here's the question. Is it Juan Gecoo wrote, "Hi there. I'm calculating price per acre in a zip code and the prices are ranging wildly from half a million dollars to $5000. How can I get the most efficient, accurate measure price per acre for a 1500 unit count mailer?"
Steven Jack Butala: Incredibly good question and concise. When you go out to solve for the retail price per acre in any given zip code, because you're going to send mail there, you can't just throw a dart at a board, you need to know where to start when you price a mailer. The way to do that is to get active listings in a zip code and sold listings in a zip code. You take them all together in a spreadsheet, you get averages or means, however you'd like to use it, and you determine that zip code, 12345, properties that have sold there for the last 12 months or active, the price per acres, $2,200. I'm going to offer something lower than that because I'm going to sell it for 2200 or even lower. Well, great. What happens when one of my comparison values is a million bucks, one of my comparison values is 5000? This happens a lot. This is an extreme example. A more realistic example is one sold for $25,000, one sold for 15, one sold for 32. And so my average might be too high, might be too low. This is what you have to do in an extreme situation. You really need to dig deeper. You need to then get all the data in one place and look into block by block pricing or ...
Steven Jack Butala: ... This drive. There we go. Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment tech. I'm Stephen Jack Patella.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today I talk about the American Land Division system, explained.
Jill K DeWit: I notice you took out the, before Jill and I, today. I,
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, I'm going to talk about this because Jill's not going to talk about it. Jill doesn't care about this topic and you might not, also. This topic is one of those things where you just need to know, you need to be aware of this system. You don't need to repeat it, you don't need to learn it, and you don't need to care. You just need to know the basic stuff. So we'll get through it quickly together for you. Before we get into it, let's take [inaudible 00:00:44].
Jill K DeWit: I'll be over here.
Steven Jack Butala: ... Posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. But before we get into that, I'm hoping that you know by now we have a full blown commercial printing company that Jill and I created solely to help you get inexpensive direct mail offers in the hands of sellers fast. It's called Offers 2 Owners. Offers the number two owners.com. Jill and I set this company up several years ago and now we actually share it. The exact same people that we put in place to do our mailers, we share it with members and non-members alike. Recently I looked at it, we mail between 700 and 800,000 offers a month and we do everything at any level of service that you want. We can just get it in the mail for you or we can do the entire mailer for you. Call (800) 725-8816, which also, so is is (800)JACKJILL, I think.
Jill K DeWit: That's a different number.
Steven Jack Butala: Oh, nevermind. Or email support at offers2owners.com for more information.
Jill K DeWit: All right. Is this the same Will. Will's asked a lot of good questions. Okay, so Will is back from yesterday because Will has a plethora of good questions in here, which I think is awesome and Will wrote. "Okay. Neighbor letter question. I've heard that mailing to everyone within a one mile radius is the recommendation. Got it. For those that are directly connected IE to the property, should it be a different letter? Maybe more details, maybe more personal. Seems like it could help. For example, I have a parcel that is a neighbor with a nicely built home and then a mobile home across the street. I considered writing, even hand addressing a letter to the neighbor with the more expensive home to see if they would like to add an acre to their property and control what happens around them. How have you all handled your neighbor letters?" To be honest, can I answer this, please?
Steven Jack Butala: Yes, please.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. I have honestly, Will, I have done that and I would do that. I totally agree with that. My reason was, I had a property that there was total physical access, thought there was legal access. It turned out it wasn't real legal access. It was really a weird situation. Even though there was a street named, it was odd and there was even a cemetery back there that people were using this. All the signs would tell you it's physical and legal to be going to the cemetery back in there, but it technically wasn't. So the good news is, it was there, it existed. I just needed a piece of paper from somebody to agree on it. So I isolated the neighbors and I literally, personally, it didn't take me long at all. Literally made a cute little map and I highlighted for each of the neighbors and I needed to ask for physical access. I said, "Here's my lot, here's your lot. Mine's yellow, yours is green, whatever it is, and I'm reaching out to you for two reasons. One, would you please, I just need you to sign off on granting access." That was one. And then two was, "Hey,
Steven Jack Butala: ... This drive. There we go. Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment tech. I'm Stephen Jack Patella.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today I talk about the American Land Division system, explained.
Jill K DeWit: I notice you took out the, before Jill and I, today. I,
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, I'm going to talk about this because Jill's not going to talk about it. Jill doesn't care about this topic and you might not, also. This topic is one of those things where you just need to know, you need to be aware of this system. You don't need to repeat it, you don't need to learn it, and you don't need to care. You just need to know the basic stuff. So we'll get through it quickly together for you. Before we get into it, let's take [inaudible 00:00:44].
Jill K DeWit: I'll be over here.
Steven Jack Butala: ... Posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. But before we get into that, I'm hoping that you know by now we have a full blown commercial printing company that Jill and I created solely to help you get inexpensive direct mail offers in the hands of sellers fast. It's called Offers 2 Owners. Offers the number two owners.com. Jill and I set this company up several years ago and now we actually share it. The exact same people that we put in place to do our mailers, we share it with members and non-members alike. Recently I looked at it, we mail between 700 and 800,000 offers a month and we do everything at any level of service that you want. We can just get it in the mail for you or we can do the entire mailer for you. Call (800) 725-8816, which also, so is is (800)JACKJILL, I think.
Jill K DeWit: That's a different number.
Steven Jack Butala: Oh, nevermind. Or email support at offers2owners.com for more information.
Jill K DeWit: All right. Is this the same Will. Will's asked a lot of good questions. Okay, so Will is back from yesterday because Will has a plethora of good questions in here, which I think is awesome and Will wrote. "Okay. Neighbor letter question. I've heard that mailing to everyone within a one mile radius is the recommendation. Got it. For those that are directly connected IE to the property, should it be a different letter? Maybe more details, maybe more personal. Seems like it could help. For example, I have a parcel that is a neighbor with a nicely built home and then a mobile home across the street. I considered writing, even hand addressing a letter to the neighbor with the more expensive home to see if they would like to add an acre to their property and control what happens around them. How have you all handled your neighbor letters?" To be honest, can I answer this, please?
Steven Jack Butala: Yes, please.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. I have honestly, Will, I have done that and I would do that. I totally agree with that. My reason was, I had a property that there was total physical access, thought there was legal access. It turned out it wasn't real legal access. It was really a weird situation. Even though there was a street named, it was odd and there was even a cemetery back there that people were using this. All the signs would tell you it's physical and legal to be going to the cemetery back in there, but it technically wasn't. So the good news is, it was there, it existed. I just needed a piece of paper from somebody to agree on it. So I isolated the neighbors and I literally, personally, it didn't take me long at all. Literally made a cute little map and I highlighted for each of the neighbors and I needed to ask for physical access. I said, "Here's my lot, here's your lot. Mine's yellow, yours is green, whatever it is, and I'm reaching out to you for two reasons. One, would you please, I just need you to sign off on granting access." That was one. And then two was, "Hey,
Steven Jack Butala: Jack and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, Entertaining Land Investment Talk. I'm Stephen Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt, broadcasting in the valley of the sun. Can you see our boring brown background?
Steven Jack Butala: We're back.
Jill K DeWit: We are home. You know what? Your dad's right. Your dad... This is a funny thing we were talking about. Your dad, when-
Steven Jack Butala: My dad's right about something?
Jill K DeWit: ... Yeah. Your dad's right about something. Your dad says to us, basically, he's talking about where we live and the landscape, but it looks like our home too. He's like, "You must really love the color brown." You know what? I do.
Steven Jack Butala: I do, too.
Jill K DeWit: Apparently I do. Well, I have brown hair. I have brown eyes and so you like brown hair, brown eyes because you're with me.
Steven Jack Butala: To which I always say to my dad, "It's better than the color white." Meaning white snow.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. Totally agree.
Steven Jack Butala: I will take great weather brown over silly cold weather snow white.
Jill K DeWit: Because you know what comes with great weather brown? Blue skies, yellow sun.
Steven Jack Butala: And happy people.
Jill K DeWit: Happy people. No shovels.
Steven Jack Butala: Today Jill and I talk about, well it's land investing from the road. Week six.
Jill K DeWit: Week seven. Technically, week eight.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: I'm going to catch y'all up here.
Steven Jack Butala: This is actually week seven. Sorry.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. Well, week eight. Again, I'll catch up because we skipped week seven.
Steven Jack Butala: Oh, right.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: The name of the show is called Land Investing from the Road, Week Seven, Hotel Bar Land Conversations. It is shocking.
Jill K DeWit: I'll catch y'all up.
Steven Jack Butala: When you sit down at a hotel bar and start talking about people's experience in their own land deals.
Jill K DeWit: Exactly. Before we get into it, we're going to take a question posted by one of our members on our online communities. There are two. The public one is landinvestors.com. The private one is with our members and it's on Discord. Will wrote, "Before coming to Land Academy, I made the mistake of taking a different course." Aww.
Steven Jack Butala: It's not a mistake.
Jill K DeWit: Oh no, I don't think so. I think you get something out of everything.
Steven Jack Butala: Me too.
Jill K DeWit: And if anything had brought him here. It kind of warmed him up and taught him some stuff and-
Steven Jack Butala: More education's always better.
Jill K DeWit: ... Sure.
Steven Jack Butala: On everything.
Jill K DeWit: So he goes on to say, "In that course it prioritized starting in just a couple of counties and often close enough to get to for putting signs out or whatnot." Is there more to the question?
Steven Jack Butala: Let's see.
Jill K DeWit: Hold please.
Steven Jack Butala: I'm relearning to use a teleprompter for this highfalutin equipment that we have in our home studio. We're not used to that.
Jill K DeWit: Great.
Steven Jack Butala: From our two month long RV-
Jill K DeWit: Stint.
Steven Jack Butala: ... Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: "I've stayed within a single state and done some deals. However, when I think about trolling for zip codes and the red, yellow, green testing them AKA our way, it seems like I could be doing this anywhere in the country. Should I be hesitant about being in a bunch of different states?" Oh my gosh, that's the best.
Steven Jack Butala: This person posted this in Discord. Can you imagine what people said?
Jill K DeWit: Oh, my God. Yeah. This is going to be... I can't. I'm sure there was a barrage of comments.
Steven Jack Butala: I don't know why someone would teach limits.
Jill K DeWit: Good point.
Steven Jack Butala:
https://youtu.be/k8aQ-ybWysgThanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts. .cls-1{fill:#483318;}.cls-2{fill:#77a22f;}.cls-3{fill:#9c3;}.cls-4{fill:#496f22;}
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The BuWit Family of Companies include:https://BuWit.comhttps://offers2owners.comhttps://landinvestors.comhttps://landacademy.comhttps://landpin.comhttps://parcelfact.comhttps://countywise.comhttps://deedperfect.comhttps://ownersdata.comhttps://houseacademy.comI would like to think it’s entertaining and informative and in the end profitable.And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hey.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, coming to you from sizzling Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about, well, it's Jack Thursday.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: It's the five things you must know before you start real estate investing of any kind. I'm going to tailor mine a little bit to land, but it's really just being a general real estate investor.
Jill DeWit: Oh.
Steven Butala: I think there's a little bit of a misconception about what this takes.
Jill DeWit: Oh. I can't wait because I wrote down my own list. I had trouble coming up with five. I think I came up with four. I could have turned four into five. I thought, "Nah, I'm going to leave them condensed."
Steven Butala: I came up with 40, but we'll just do the top five.
Jill DeWit: Aha. But mine's also just general real estate investing. Mine is not necessarily land-focused. It's kind of anything. Honestly, mine can be any niche. Mine can be anything. Mine could be the top five things you must know to start X.
Steven Butala: A marriage.
Jill DeWit: Even that.
Steven Butala: Go.
Jill DeWit: No, I'm not going to share my list now.
Steven Butala: Quick. Come on. Read it off.
Jill DeWit: No. I'm not going to share my list now.
Steven Butala: Top five things you need to be in a successful marriage. Go.
Jill DeWit: It's the same list. I'm going to share it in a minute.
Steven Butala: It's the same list?
Jill DeWit: Oh, it's good.
Steven Butala: You want to get into it?
Jill DeWit: You're going to hear this. We're going to do this in a minute when we get to the topic. We're going to have you envision my list.
Steven Butala: Right. Here's a new title. There's a new title, five things you need to know before you cross out, start fill in the blank.
Jill DeWit: Start X. Oh, yeah.
Steven Butala: Because that's how mine is too.
Jill DeWit: Oh, mine could be a marriage. I'm going to use it. You know, I wrote it down as real estate investing, but we're going to sub marriage in a minute here and it's going to be funny.
Steven Butala: Excellent.
Jill DeWit: It's like Mad Libs.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and if you're already with us in Land Academy, join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: Hold, please. Before I read the question, I'd like to give one little thing too. Don't forget, Land Academy deal funding is bigger and better and faster, and boy, do we have money. We now have limitless money available and decades of experience, you can tell, look at us, to help you get deals done. Right?
Steven Butala: Yeah. See this gray hair?
Jill DeWit: Lots. So go to landinvestors.com and click on the Deal Funding tab today. Thank you. All right.
Steven Butala: Nice.
Jill DeWit: Where was I? Danielle wrote, "I have an owner who wants to sell and has three people on the deed. All three will signed." That is helpful. "She also asked to have three checks, one-third to each." Fine. "She also asked that I send them each a purchase agreement." Okay, Danielle. Now you're pushing it with me a little bit, but okay.
Steven Butala: Well, they're pushing it with her.
Jill DeWit: That's true.
Steven Butala: It's not you, Danielle.
Jill DeWit: The other two are giving Danielle a hard time. I get it. "Should I list the property for the total amount? Should I list the property for the total amount on each purchase agreement or break it up into thirds for each person's portion? Or should I send all three a new purchase agreement, three places to sign?" I like that one. It's not that big of a deal. You don't even really need ... I mean, depending ... If you're going through escrow, I would send the same purchase agreement out.
Steven Butala: Well, they're not. She's not,
Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hey.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, coming to you from sizzling Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about, well, it's Jack Thursday.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: It's the five things you must know before you start real estate investing of any kind. I'm going to tailor mine a little bit to land, but it's really just being a general real estate investor.
Jill DeWit: Oh.
Steven Butala: I think there's a little bit of a misconception about what this takes.
Jill DeWit: Oh. I can't wait because I wrote down my own list. I had trouble coming up with five. I think I came up with four. I could have turned four into five. I thought, "Nah, I'm going to leave them condensed."
Steven Butala: I came up with 40, but we'll just do the top five.
Jill DeWit: Aha. But mine's also just general real estate investing. Mine is not necessarily land-focused. It's kind of anything. Honestly, mine can be any niche. Mine can be anything. Mine could be the top five things you must know to start X.
Steven Butala: A marriage.
Jill DeWit: Even that.
Steven Butala: Go.
Jill DeWit: No, I'm not going to share my list now.
Steven Butala: Quick. Come on. Read it off.
Jill DeWit: No. I'm not going to share my list now.
Steven Butala: Top five things you need to be in a successful marriage. Go.
Jill DeWit: It's the same list. I'm going to share it in a minute.
Steven Butala: It's the same list?
Jill DeWit: Oh, it's good.
Steven Butala: You want to get into it?
Jill DeWit: You're going to hear this. We're going to do this in a minute when we get to the topic. We're going to have you envision my list.
Steven Butala: Right. Here's a new title. There's a new title, five things you need to know before you cross out, start fill in the blank.
Jill DeWit: Start X. Oh, yeah.
Steven Butala: Because that's how mine is too.
Jill DeWit: Oh, mine could be a marriage. I'm going to use it. You know, I wrote it down as real estate investing, but we're going to sub marriage in a minute here and it's going to be funny.
Steven Butala: Excellent.
Jill DeWit: It's like Mad Libs.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and if you're already with us in Land Academy, join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: Hold, please. Before I read the question, I'd like to give one little thing too. Don't forget, Land Academy deal funding is bigger and better and faster, and boy, do we have money. We now have limitless money available and decades of experience, you can tell, look at us, to help you get deals done. Right?
Steven Butala: Yeah. See this gray hair?
Jill DeWit: Lots. So go to landinvestors.com and click on the Deal Funding tab today. Thank you. All right.
Steven Butala: Nice.
Jill DeWit: Where was I? Danielle wrote, "I have an owner who wants to sell and has three people on the deed. All three will signed." That is helpful. "She also asked to have three checks, one-third to each." Fine. "She also asked that I send them each a purchase agreement." Okay, Danielle. Now you're pushing it with me a little bit, but okay.
Steven Butala: Well, they're pushing it with her.
Jill DeWit: That's true.
Steven Butala: It's not you, Danielle.
Jill DeWit: The other two are giving Danielle a hard time. I get it. "Should I list the property for the total amount? Should I list the property for the total amount on each purchase agreement or break it up into thirds for each person's portion? Or should I send all three a new purchase agreement, three places to sign?" I like that one. It's not that big of a deal. You don't even really need ... I mean, depending ... If you're going through escrow, I would send the same purchase agreement out.
Steven Butala: Well, they're not. She's not,
Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hey.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, coming to you from sizzling Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about, well, it's Jack Thursday.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: It's the five things you must know before you start real estate investing of any kind. I'm going to tailor mine a little bit to land, but it's really just being a general real estate investor.
Jill DeWit: Oh.
Steven Butala: I think there's a little bit of a misconception about what this takes.
Jill DeWit: Oh. I can't wait because I wrote down my own list. I had trouble coming up with five. I think I came up with four. I could have turned four into five. I thought, "Nah, I'm going to leave them condensed."
Steven Butala: I came up with 40, but we'll just do the top five.
Jill DeWit: Aha. But mine's also just general real estate investing. Mine is not necessarily land-focused. It's kind of anything. Honestly, mine can be any niche. Mine can be anything. Mine could be the top five things you must know to start X.
Steven Butala: A marriage.
Jill DeWit: Even that.
Steven Butala: Go.
Jill DeWit: No, I'm not going to share my list now.
Steven Butala: Quick. Come on. Read it off.
Jill DeWit: No. I'm not going to share my list now.
Steven Butala: Top five things you need to be in a successful marriage. Go.
Jill DeWit: It's the same list. I'm going to share it in a minute.
Steven Butala: It's the same list?
Jill DeWit: Oh, it's good.
Steven Butala: You want to get into it?
Jill DeWit: You're going to hear this. We're going to do this in a minute when we get to the topic. We're going to have you envision my list.
Steven Butala: Right. Here's a new title. There's a new title, five things you need to know before you cross out, start fill in the blank.
Jill DeWit: Start X. Oh, yeah.
Steven Butala: Because that's how mine is too.
Jill DeWit: Oh, mine could be a marriage. I'm going to use it. You know, I wrote it down as real estate investing, but we're going to sub marriage in a minute here and it's going to be funny.
Steven Butala: Excellent.
Jill DeWit: It's like Mad Libs.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and if you're already with us in Land Academy, join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: Hold, please. Before I read the question, I'd like to give one little thing too. Don't forget, Land Academy deal funding is bigger and better and faster, and boy, do we have money. We now have limitless money available and decades of experience, you can tell, look at us, to help you get deals done. Right?
Steven Butala: Yeah. See this gray hair?
Jill DeWit: Lots. So go to landinvestors.com and click on the Deal Funding tab today. Thank you. All right.
Steven Butala: Nice.
Jill DeWit: Where was I? Danielle wrote, "I have an owner who wants to sell and has three people on the deed. All three will signed." That is helpful. "She also asked to have three checks, one-third to each." Fine. "She also asked that I send them each a purchase agreement." Okay, Danielle. Now you're pushing it with me a little bit, but okay.
Steven Butala: Well, they're pushing it with her.
Jill DeWit: That's true.
Steven Butala: It's not you, Danielle.
Jill DeWit: The other two are giving Danielle a hard time. I get it. "Should I list the property for the total amount? Should I list the property for the total amount on each purchase agreement or break it up into thirds for each person's portion? Or should I send all three a new purchase agreement, three places to sign?" I like that one. It's not that big of a deal. You don't even really need ... I mean, depending ... If you're going through escrow, I would send the same purchase agreement out.
Steven Butala: Well, they're not. She's not,
Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from sweet Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about the five land investing tools that we can't live without.
Jill DeWit: Yes, this is going to be good. I have my list. Don't look.
Steven Butala: Okay.
Jill DeWit: Don't [inaudible 00:00:20].
Steven Butala: Okay, good. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free. And if you're a member, please join or participate in our strings on Discord. I promise you, you will not be disappointed.
Jill DeWit: You're going to get immediate answers. I was telling someone about that the other day. I'm like, if you're struggling with anything.
Steven Butala: Anything.
Jill DeWit: And you're not taking advantage of the support that's there, you just got to throw a question and people will answer it.
Steven Butala: Here's an example.
Jill DeWit: That's kind of like, I can't help you with that. If you don't do it, don't ask.
Steven Butala: I'm having trouble getting my first mailer out. I can't just pull the trigger. Can somebody please kick me in the butt? And everybody will sweep in, me included. I answer tons of questions in real time.
Jill DeWit: That's good. Okay. Thomas wrote, I have sold many things online in the past and understand that there's no shortage of flaky people that call on items listed for sale.
Steven Butala: We talked about this yesterday.
Jill DeWit: I did not expect this with real estate though. I'm trying to sell my first two properties and I'm getting a steady flow of interested buyers, but all of them disappear after telling me how interested they are to buy. I'm now advertising on Craigslist and Zillow right now. The properties have good attributes, almost five acres each, and a price at half of what two and a half acre properties are. Is the issue my lack of reach in marketing or because they are desert properties where several others are being bought and sold?
Steven Butala: This is [inaudible 00:01:45]. This is a classic. This is classic men mistake. I'm a man and I have made this mistake and sometimes make it to this day. You believe that the thing that you're selling is what matters. You believe that the mouse trap that you've built doesn't require any sales, and what really is happening here is, you're doing the first 60% of everything correct. And you're not doing the backend 40%. I would bet you a dollar that you are not having this conversations with these people and then saying, "Hey, what's your email address? I'll email you all the information right now, and included there is a link for you to put $500 down on the property so we can start the closing process, and somebody would buy it. That's all you need to do. It's not the posting is bad or the real estate's bad. It's the sales. It's the call to action closing part.
Jill DeWit: We had someone on our staff who now is doing a different job, trying to help with this job for a while. And that's all they were doing. They thought they were just there to answer questions like customer service.
Steven Butala: No.
Steven Butala: I'm like, no, you've got to...
Jill DeWit: You're there to sell it.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. You've got to do a little bit more than just answer the question and go, is that it? Okay, well, have a nice day. Click. Hello? What the heck? That's not what this is about. That's right. That's where it is. Okay, good. All right. Take care. No.
Steven Butala: It's interesting, most real estate agents are like this too. They just don't... They just wait. Okay, thanks. No, you've got to send... You need to...
Jill DeWit: Work. You've got to work a little bit.
Steven Butala: Jill can write the book on getting people to do what she wants them to do without...
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Transcript:Steven Jack Butala:Steve and Jill here.Jill K DeWit:Hi.Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.Jill K DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.Steven Jack Butala:Today, Jill and I are going to talk about the three types of land transactions that we do. This is something new that Jill and I just came up with in this current career path that we're instructing. It seems to be getting really, really good response and I think you should consider doing three types also.Jill K DeWit:I was going to pause and talk about for a second... It's kind of funny, this sounds like... Do you have IT issues too? Does your website go down at random times and you just need help and can't find a good person? Well, you are not alone. We're meeting with an IT person today, and we were just talking about... I'm like, "I wonder if anybody else has these same issues we do?" The whole problem about IT is not IT. It's the contracts and the way people go about it, how much money everybody wants up front, and how the projects never seem to end.Steven Jack Butala:Thanks for just blowing this whole thing, Jill.Jill K DeWit:I'm so sorry. I just thought that was interesting to hear and understand and share.Steven Jack Butala:Right before we turned the camera on for this show, we were talking about what's going to happen today, and I have to meet with a new tech person, who's extremely intelligent and a super good guy. But just that industry has gotten to a point where it's just no fun at all.Jill K DeWit:It's weird.Steven Jack Butala:Contracts are real thick, like contracts always get thicker, not thinner.Jill K DeWit:Yeah.Steven Jack Butala:It costs $25,000.00 to do a website now, bare minimum. It used to cost like $700.00. It's just all liquid pain.Jill K DeWit:Isn't it funny?Steven Jack Butala:It's so painful to get a website done.Jill K DeWit:Do you know you're right? I remember years ago going to this company that was going to build us a site, and they quoted $25,000.00 back then and I about fell out of my chair. We obviously didn't do it. We did it ourselves.Steven Jack Butala:Right.Jill K DeWit:Clearly we did it ourselves back then. If you remember Landacademy.org, that was us. Hey, but we did it and we got here and now we're like... "If it was only $25,000.00 I'd be fine with that."Steven Jack Butala:Yeah.Jill K DeWit:Not so much.Steven Jack Butala:It's more fun to do a podcast times 10 than it is to deal with any IT issues.Jill K DeWit:Very true. I'm glad we're here.Steven Jack Butala:Before get into it, thanks for letting us rant. Let's take a question, posted by one our members, on the Landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and don't forget to subscribe to The Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the show as you like.Jill K DeWit:Lance wrote, "How do you price mailers for land in really hot markets?"Steven Jack Butala:This is totally on topic for what we're about to talk about today. You price them higher. We're going to talk about the three types of deals that Jill and I do. It didn't come to me, these types of deals, in an organized way. We just sort of organically started doing different types of deals to respond to the market. And so, Lance, I'll answer your question here in a second. Today's topic, there are three types of land transactions that we currently do. This is why you're listening. For some reason we started calling them buckets. Transaction number one is buy for X and double your money, then sell it.Steven Jack Butala:This could be in desert squares. We call it a bread-and-butter type land transaction. For us, the prices kept creeping up, so we would start... I mean, a typical deal for me before Jill and I joined forces was buy for $1,500.00 to $2,000.00 and sell for four, five or eight, on the internet five times a day. And so, since then, since Jill got involved, and we've made dramatic improvements since then ...
/! elementor - v3.7.8 - 02-10-2022 / .elementor-heading-title{padding:0;margin:0;line-height:1}.elementor-widget-heading .elementor-heading-title[class*=elementor-size-]>a{color:inherit;font-size:inherit;line-height:inherit}.elementor-widget-heading .elementor-heading-title.elementor-size-small{font-size:15px}.elementor-widget-heading .elementor-heading-title.elementor-size-medium{font-size:19px}.elementor-widget-heading .elementor-heading-title.elementor-size-large{font-size:29px}.elementor-widget-heading .elementor-heading-title.elementor-size-xl{font-size:39px}.elementor-widget-heading .elementor-heading-title.elementor-size-xxl{font-size:59px} Description In this weeks episode.....
Transcripts:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here. Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from sunny, Southern Scottsdale. Where it's got a cowboy vibe around here. Let's just tell it like it is.
Steven Butala: Whenever Jill goes into any new environment, even if it's very temporary, she has to dress the part. So, she's got... Like if we go skiing, even though she doesn't ski [inaudible 00:00:31], she will get all the outfits...
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: If it's a six day ski trip, she's got six outfits, six new outfits.
Jill DeWit: If we were in Japan, I'd be wearing a kimono right now.
Steven Butala: We're no stranger to Scottsdale. We lived here together and separately for years, years and years. We never had cowboy boots.
Jill DeWit: First separately, and then together.
Steven Butala: We never had cowboy boots, never had hats or anything, and now she's got all that.
Jill DeWit: Totally.
Steven Butala: What's all that about?
Jill DeWit: Got them in Utah, which is really funny. Park City started the whole thing. It's just cool. I love it. I enjoy this environment.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talked... And she doesn't find the cheap ones.
Jill DeWit: Come on. It's not like I have 10 of them.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about the top five mistakes new land investors make. This is going to be an interesting show. We all went in separate corners and listed the top five separately. So, I have no idea really-
Jill DeWit: It's going to be fun.
Steven Butala: Yeah. I wonder how much they overlap. I bet not at all.
Jill DeWit: I bet they do. I bet there's total overlap.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and if you're a Land Academy member, please join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: Luke wrote, Hey guys, hope everyone is doing well. Just curious, how many of you send just the purchase agreement in the mailer from offers to owners, to the title company / attorney versus closing with another version of the purchase agreement. Perhaps even as far as the state or the realtor version of a purchase agreement. I only bring this up because many attorneys have sort of chuckled at my purchase agreements I've used when I was wholesaling houses, as if to say they were short-sighted and too basic for such an agreement. It sounds like they chuckled at it, but they took them, which is kind of funny. Just wondering if the one used in the mailer is more of a barometer of testing the willingness of the seller. Then from what you utilize a more detailed and professional purchase agreement. Thanks.
Steven Butala: I'm going to answer this, all right?
Jill DeWit: Sure.
Steven Butala: When I started this, I sent a scaled down version of the purchase agreement that we use now, which is literally half of a page to my lawyer. And he looked at me and said, "this is the greatest thing I have ever seen ever." Total binding legal document with parameters for both parties and a timeframe. I think whoever said this, they're not laughing, Luke, because it's not comprehensive. They're laughing in a manner that's like, congratulations,
/! elementor - v3.7.8 - 02-10-2022 / .elementor-heading-title{padding:0;margin:0;line-height:1}.elementor-widget-heading .elementor-heading-title[class*=elementor-size-]>a{color:inherit;font-size:inherit;line-height:inherit}.elementor-widget-heading .elementor-heading-title.elementor-size-small{font-size:15px}.elementor-widget-heading .elementor-heading-title.elementor-size-medium{font-size:19px}.elementor-widget-heading .elementor-heading-title.elementor-size-large{font-size:29px}.elementor-widget-heading .elementor-heading-title.elementor-size-xl{font-size:39px}.elementor-widget-heading .elementor-heading-title.elementor-size-xxl{font-size:59px} Description In this weeks episode.....
Transcripts:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here. Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from sunny, Southern Scottsdale. Where it's got a cowboy vibe around here. Let's just tell it like it is.
Steven Butala: Whenever Jill goes into any new environment, even if it's very temporary, she has to dress the part. So, she's got... Like if we go skiing, even though she doesn't ski [inaudible 00:00:31], she will get all the outfits...
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: If it's a six day ski trip, she's got six outfits, six new outfits.
Jill DeWit: If we were in Japan, I'd be wearing a kimono right now.
Steven Butala: We're no stranger to Scottsdale. We lived here together and separately for years, years and years. We never had cowboy boots.
Jill DeWit: First separately, and then together.
Steven Butala: We never had cowboy boots, never had hats or anything, and now she's got all that.
Jill DeWit: Totally.
Steven Butala: What's all that about?
Jill DeWit: Got them in Utah, which is really funny. Park City started the whole thing. It's just cool. I love it. I enjoy this environment.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talked... And she doesn't find the cheap ones.
Jill DeWit: Come on. It's not like I have 10 of them.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about the top five mistakes new land investors make. This is going to be an interesting show. We all went in separate corners and listed the top five separately. So, I have no idea really-
Jill DeWit: It's going to be fun.
Steven Butala: Yeah. I wonder how much they overlap. I bet not at all.
Jill DeWit: I bet they do. I bet there's total overlap.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and if you're a Land Academy member, please join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: Luke wrote, Hey guys, hope everyone is doing well. Just curious, how many of you send just the purchase agreement in the mailer from offers to owners, to the title company / attorney versus closing with another version of the purchase agreement. Perhaps even as far as the state or the realtor version of a purchase agreement. I only bring this up because many attorneys have sort of chuckled at my purchase agreements I've used when I was wholesaling houses, as if to say they were short-sighted and too basic for such an agreement. It sounds like they chuckled at it, but they took them, which is kind of funny. Just wondering if the one used in the mailer is more of a barometer of testing the willingness of the seller. Then from what you utilize a more detailed and professional purchase agreement. Thanks.
Steven Butala: I'm going to answer this, all right?
Jill DeWit: Sure.
Steven Butala: When I started this, I sent a scaled down version of the purchase agreement that we use now, which is literally half of a page to my lawyer. And he looked at me and said, "this is the greatest thing I have ever seen ever." Total binding legal document with parameters for both parties and a timeframe. I think whoever said this, they're not laughing, Luke, because it's not comprehensive. They're laughing in a manner that's like, congratulations,
Transcript:Steven Jack Butala:Steve and Jill here.Jill K DeWit:Jack and Jill here.Steven Jack Butala:Jack and Jill. Sorry. How could you not know your own name?Jill K DeWit:That's okay. I'm here to help you. Don't worry. That's why you have me.Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.Jill K DeWit:I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from Tarrant County. Tarrant County, Texas, for those of you who know where that is.Steven Jack Butala:Today, Jill and I talk ... Well, it's still Friday, and she's going to talk about what makes the perfect land deal. Is it buy for 40, sell for 80? Buy for 50, sell for 200? Is it buy for 5,000, sell for 20? Is faster better with less money, or slower better? I want to know.Jill K DeWit:This is like asking me what's the perfect man.Steven Jack Butala:I know.Jill K DeWit:Or the perfect date.Steven Jack Butala:We could turn it into that.Jill K DeWit:Or the perfect dinner, or the perfect jewelry.Steven Jack Butala:Or the perfect episode of The Bachelor.Jill K DeWit:Oh, there we go. The perfect ending. There we go.Steven Jack Butala:Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free and I'll have to ... I got to tell you, Jill and I released a few years ago a company called ParcelFact, F-A-C-T.com. It allows you to find real estate within seconds, any property really in the country, with the very few exceptions, by just using the state, the county, and the APN. There's no mailing address because that's the kind of property that we buy.Jill K DeWit:It's what I use for all my due diligence.Steven Jack Butala:ParcelFact.com. Check it out.Jill K DeWit:Oh Jemay. Jemay wrote, "I have a question regarding the deal funding process. When an investor funds a deal, what protections do they have so they don't lose their money? I'm assuming they're on title. Thanks." Yeah, that's what I do.So if I go 50/50 with somebody, we're both on the title, if I'm ... But usually it's me. I'm putting up all the money funding the deal for other people, and so my name's on the title, and that is my protection. It's all in my name.I do look at them too, by the way. I make sure, as best I can, when you submit it to me and say, "Hey Jill, we got to buy this. It's $30,000. I think I can sell it for 60, maybe 90." I'm going to look at it and I'm going to make sure it passes my test too, because I'm going to make sure neither one of us make a mistake. I'm another pair of eyes for you.Then when we do the deal, we have ... It's a simple little two-page agreement that you can find on landfunding.com or on other parts. I know you're in Land Academy, that you can get access to that little contract to check it out and you do the work.I'm your bank, I wire the money in. I'm here to tweak and help you with little questions along the way. But then you're running it, you're the manager of the deal. And then when it closes, we each get paid out of Escrow, whatever we agree upon going into it.Steven Jack Butala:I like to describe it like this, when you buy a house, you go get a mortgage. You find a bank that'll lend money to you. You put 20% down on a $100,000 house. You put $20,000 in. The bank lends you 80,000. And then you make payments until it's over. That's lending. If something goes wrong, the bank's got a lien on the house, and they foreclose on it and they take the real estate back.With deal funding or land funding, we give you all the money. We're the investor. The property ... We take all the steps out of that. We own the property, so does the bank really in the lending case, they just call it a lien. And then if something goes wrong, we own the property and we go decide what we're going to do with it at that point.So, it's really a no-lose situation because we as investors don't ask you for any money down. You find the deal, we fund it. If it doesn't work out,
Transcript:Steven Jack Butala:Steve and Jill here.Jill K DeWit:Jack and Jill here.Steven Jack Butala:Jack and Jill. Sorry. How could you not know your own name?Jill K DeWit:That's okay. I'm here to help you. Don't worry. That's why you have me.Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.Jill K DeWit:I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from Tarrant County. Tarrant County, Texas, for those of you who know where that is.Steven Jack Butala:Today, Jill and I talk ... Well, it's still Friday, and she's going to talk about what makes the perfect land deal. Is it buy for 40, sell for 80? Buy for 50, sell for 200? Is it buy for 5,000, sell for 20? Is faster better with less money, or slower better? I want to know.Jill K DeWit:This is like asking me what's the perfect man.Steven Jack Butala:I know.Jill K DeWit:Or the perfect date.Steven Jack Butala:We could turn it into that.Jill K DeWit:Or the perfect dinner, or the perfect jewelry.Steven Jack Butala:Or the perfect episode of The Bachelor.Jill K DeWit:Oh, there we go. The perfect ending. There we go.Steven Jack Butala:Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free and I'll have to ... I got to tell you, Jill and I released a few years ago a company called ParcelFact, F-A-C-T.com. It allows you to find real estate within seconds, any property really in the country, with the very few exceptions, by just using the state, the county, and the APN. There's no mailing address because that's the kind of property that we buy.Jill K DeWit:It's what I use for all my due diligence.Steven Jack Butala:ParcelFact.com. Check it out.Jill K DeWit:Oh Jemay. Jemay wrote, "I have a question regarding the deal funding process. When an investor funds a deal, what protections do they have so they don't lose their money? I'm assuming they're on title. Thanks." Yeah, that's what I do.So if I go 50/50 with somebody, we're both on the title, if I'm ... But usually it's me. I'm putting up all the money funding the deal for other people, and so my name's on the title, and that is my protection. It's all in my name.I do look at them too, by the way. I make sure, as best I can, when you submit it to me and say, "Hey Jill, we got to buy this. It's $30,000. I think I can sell it for 60, maybe 90." I'm going to look at it and I'm going to make sure it passes my test too, because I'm going to make sure neither one of us make a mistake. I'm another pair of eyes for you.Then when we do the deal, we have ... It's a simple little two-page agreement that you can find on landfunding.com or on other parts. I know you're in Land Academy, that you can get access to that little contract to check it out and you do the work.I'm your bank, I wire the money in. I'm here to tweak and help you with little questions along the way. But then you're running it, you're the manager of the deal. And then when it closes, we each get paid out of Escrow, whatever we agree upon going into it.Steven Jack Butala:I like to describe it like this, when you buy a house, you go get a mortgage. You find a bank that'll lend money to you. You put 20% down on a $100,000 house. You put $20,000 in. The bank lends you 80,000. And then you make payments until it's over. That's lending. If something goes wrong, the bank's got a lien on the house, and they foreclose on it and they take the real estate back.With deal funding or land funding, we give you all the money. We're the investor. The property ... We take all the steps out of that. We own the property, so does the bank really in the lending case, they just call it a lien. And then if something goes wrong, we own the property and we go decide what we're going to do with it at that point.So, it's really a no-lose situation because we as investors don't ask you for any money down. You find the deal, we fund it. If it doesn't work out,
Transcript:Steven Jack Butala:Rolling video. Three, two...Jack and Jill here.Jill K DeWit:Hi.Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Stephen Jack Butala.Jill K DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from awesome, awesome Texas. I love it here.Steven Jack Butala:Today's Jack Thursday, and I'm going to talk about the phrase, "To what end?" Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members, landinvestors.com, online community. It's free. Please don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel, and comment on the shows you like.Jill K DeWit:I'm not laughing at you, I'm laughing with you.Steven Jack Butala:Yeah, we all know that's not true. Okay. And to what end?Jill K DeWit:Okay. Yeah, I was laughing at you. So, truth time. Okay. Anyway, Eric wrote, "While trolling my areas in Zillow, I came across a for sale by owner asking $34,500 for 2.57 acres, with some nice road frontage, in a very rural county in South Carolina. It's been sitting for 64 plus days, so I know that it's overpriced. Sold comps in that zip code have gone for 13 to $14,000 an acre, so I offered him 40% of what he's asking. So, 13,800 bucks. If he doesn't curse me out, does this look like a good deal to you? Ever have any luck with for sale by owners that have been listed for a while?" I don't like these.Steven Jack Butala:So, I can wrap this up quickly.Jill K DeWit:Please do.Steven Jack Butala:I really hope that he doesn't accept your offer.Jill K DeWit:Right.Steven Jack Butala:Because I don't want you to think that this is possible all the time. I don't want you to pull the handle on a slot machine and win the first time and then spend the rest of your life trying, chasing something that probably shouldn't have never happened.What I want you to do is form great habits that you can habitually and consistently regenerate, that are recurring for you and get independently wealthy quickly. No one's going to get independently wealthy by offering property that's already been posted for sale, whether it's for sale by owner or with real estate agents.Jill K DeWit:I agree.Steven Jack Butala:Unless you can magically send out 5,000 offers through real estate agents simultaneously, the way that we do with the mail. And even then, I don't think that that's going to work because it's just a whole different situation.Jill K DeWit:Somebody got there first. There's two things with the Asian thing. Somebody got there first, number one. Number two, it's just a bad feeling for me. If it's been out there for that many days and that many people looked it over, I would assume that somebody might have already picked up the phone and said, "I like your property. What's the lowest you take?" And he passed on it.Steven Jack Butala:And so, what are you going to do if you get it for 13,000? Re-list it for the same number? And it still didn't sell.Jill K DeWit:And now it's going to look really weird.Steven Jack Butala:Yeah.Jill K DeWit:So, think about this too. So, it's listed for sale. We all see listed, posted, de-listed, pulled down, and then when you repost it on Zillow, now it's going to see it didn't sell. And now your price, what are you going to do? Put it at 58,000? They're going to go, "I think there's a problem here."And by the way, what if it's all... What if it gets updated on there showing that you bought it for 13,000?Steven Jack Butala:I think it will.Jill K DeWit:It shows, listed at 64. It didn't sell. Sold $13,800. Re-list for 55. Okay, I'm not going to jump on that. I like the way we do it. No one sees anything until it's-Steven Jack Butala:We used to say this a lot, and we haven't said it a lot in a very long time. Get there first.Jill K DeWit:Yep.Steven Jack Butala:You need to get to a real estate transaction first. This person already... They're already in a seller's mindset. They already have done some thinking about the number that's for sale. They decided they want to sell it.
Transcript:Steven Jack Butala:Rolling video. Three, two...Jack and Jill here.Jill K DeWit:Hi.Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Stephen Jack Butala.Jill K DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from awesome, awesome Texas. I love it here.Steven Jack Butala:Today's Jack Thursday, and I'm going to talk about the phrase, "To what end?" Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members, landinvestors.com, online community. It's free. Please don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel, and comment on the shows you like.Jill K DeWit:I'm not laughing at you, I'm laughing with you.Steven Jack Butala:Yeah, we all know that's not true. Okay. And to what end?Jill K DeWit:Okay. Yeah, I was laughing at you. So, truth time. Okay. Anyway, Eric wrote, "While trolling my areas in Zillow, I came across a for sale by owner asking $34,500 for 2.57 acres, with some nice road frontage, in a very rural county in South Carolina. It's been sitting for 64 plus days, so I know that it's overpriced. Sold comps in that zip code have gone for 13 to $14,000 an acre, so I offered him 40% of what he's asking. So, 13,800 bucks. If he doesn't curse me out, does this look like a good deal to you? Ever have any luck with for sale by owners that have been listed for a while?" I don't like these.Steven Jack Butala:So, I can wrap this up quickly.Jill K DeWit:Please do.Steven Jack Butala:I really hope that he doesn't accept your offer.Jill K DeWit:Right.Steven Jack Butala:Because I don't want you to think that this is possible all the time. I don't want you to pull the handle on a slot machine and win the first time and then spend the rest of your life trying, chasing something that probably shouldn't have never happened.What I want you to do is form great habits that you can habitually and consistently regenerate, that are recurring for you and get independently wealthy quickly. No one's going to get independently wealthy by offering property that's already been posted for sale, whether it's for sale by owner or with real estate agents.Jill K DeWit:I agree.Steven Jack Butala:Unless you can magically send out 5,000 offers through real estate agents simultaneously, the way that we do with the mail. And even then, I don't think that that's going to work because it's just a whole different situation.Jill K DeWit:Somebody got there first. There's two things with the Asian thing. Somebody got there first, number one. Number two, it's just a bad feeling for me. If it's been out there for that many days and that many people looked it over, I would assume that somebody might have already picked up the phone and said, "I like your property. What's the lowest you take?" And he passed on it.Steven Jack Butala:And so, what are you going to do if you get it for 13,000? Re-list it for the same number? And it still didn't sell.Jill K DeWit:And now it's going to look really weird.Steven Jack Butala:Yeah.Jill K DeWit:So, think about this too. So, it's listed for sale. We all see listed, posted, de-listed, pulled down, and then when you repost it on Zillow, now it's going to see it didn't sell. And now your price, what are you going to do? Put it at 58,000? They're going to go, "I think there's a problem here."And by the way, what if it's all... What if it gets updated on there showing that you bought it for 13,000?Steven Jack Butala:I think it will.Jill K DeWit:It shows, listed at 64. It didn't sell. Sold $13,800. Re-list for 55. Okay, I'm not going to jump on that. I like the way we do it. No one sees anything until it's-Steven Jack Butala:We used to say this a lot, and we haven't said it a lot in a very long time. Get there first.Jill K DeWit:Yep.Steven Jack Butala:You need to get to a real estate transaction first. This person already... They're already in a seller's mindset. They already have done some thinking about the number that's for sale. They decided they want to sell it.
Transcript:Steven Jack Butala:Jack and Jill here.Jill K DeWit:Hello.Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.Jill K DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from awesome Texas. Having a good time.Steven Jack Butala:Today Jill and I talk about the pros and cons of sending blind offers during the holidays.Jill K DeWit:This came up. Someone said, "Do you guys do that? Should I just shut down? Should I wait for January?" Hold on a moment.Steven Jack Butala:Came up in Career Path.Jill K DeWit:Mm-hmm. And we're going to fill you in. It's a really good question. It really is because I can understand exactly where that comes from. This one even didn't agree with me for a while on this topic. But we are now on the same page. And we're going to talk about here.Steven Jack Butala:Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.Last year, a ton of Land Academy members came to Jill and I needing extra help getting their blind offer campaigns into the mail. So I took a look at how we were personally sending out mail, looked at our key employees, and ultimately made the same people that do our mailers available to Land Academy members to get their mailers out. We call it Concierge Data and now Concierge Data Plus, which is an end-to-end solution for you to outsource your mail, whether you're brand new or whether you are-Jill K DeWit:Professional, busy.Steven Jack Butala:... 10 years into it and want to just outsource it all. Go out to offers2owners.com and check it all out. It's all there.Jill K DeWit:Perfect.Will wrote, "So I haven't been at this for a full year yet. How will the end of the year season impact buyers and sellers? Do things slow down quite a bit? On top of that, anyone willing to share their current thoughts and outlook on the market? I've seen less full cash offers and more interest in seller financing. I'd love to hear different rationale for property types as well. Info, recreational, et cetera." This question I could spend an hour on.Steven Jack Butala:Well, this is the topic. This is also the topic.Jill K DeWit:Okay. Let's just go to the show and combine it all.Steven Jack Butala:Today's topic, Pros and Cons of Selling Blind Offers During the Holidays. This is the meat of the show.Jill K DeWit:Okay. Will you leave that up? Because I'm going to talk about the holidays and then we're going to touch on the other things that Will wrote.Steven Jack Butala:Sure.Jill K DeWit:Here's the thing about the holidays. If anything, especially right now in today's environment, everybody's getting a little worried. They're worried about cash. They're worried about interest rates. They think, "Okay, the housing market is slowing. I need to dig in. I need to beef up my bank account and not make any crazy decisions." Right? That's what I hear and see a little bit of what's going on. What does that mean for us? I'm buying everything I can. I said it on Monday on our show. The truth of how many deals I'm selling over buying is at least two or three to one buying versus selling right now. It's not because there's a slowdown on the selling, it's just that I am going for it on the buy side because there's so many great deals to be had right now.Now you roll that in with the end of the year. There's so many things that are going to the end of the year. So the answer for me, and I think for us, is do not stop mail at the end of the year. And here's why. People need cash. Think about this. Christmas is coming. "I want to do this. I want to do that. I want to travel. People are traveling again. I want to go see my family. I haven't seen them in a while. I want to decorate. I need money for all this stuff." What a wonderful thing would be to get an envelope in the mail from someone like us saying, "Hey, I want to buy this property..." By the way, you've long forgotten about it.
Transcript:Steven Jack Butala:Jack and Jill here.Jill K DeWit:Hello.Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.Jill K DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from awesome Texas. Having a good time.Steven Jack Butala:Today Jill and I talk about the pros and cons of sending blind offers during the holidays.Jill K DeWit:This came up. Someone said, "Do you guys do that? Should I just shut down? Should I wait for January?" Hold on a moment.Steven Jack Butala:Came up in Career Path.Jill K DeWit:Mm-hmm. And we're going to fill you in. It's a really good question. It really is because I can understand exactly where that comes from. This one even didn't agree with me for a while on this topic. But we are now on the same page. And we're going to talk about here.Steven Jack Butala:Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.Last year, a ton of Land Academy members came to Jill and I needing extra help getting their blind offer campaigns into the mail. So I took a look at how we were personally sending out mail, looked at our key employees, and ultimately made the same people that do our mailers available to Land Academy members to get their mailers out. We call it Concierge Data and now Concierge Data Plus, which is an end-to-end solution for you to outsource your mail, whether you're brand new or whether you are-Jill K DeWit:Professional, busy.Steven Jack Butala:... 10 years into it and want to just outsource it all. Go out to offers2owners.com and check it all out. It's all there.Jill K DeWit:Perfect.Will wrote, "So I haven't been at this for a full year yet. How will the end of the year season impact buyers and sellers? Do things slow down quite a bit? On top of that, anyone willing to share their current thoughts and outlook on the market? I've seen less full cash offers and more interest in seller financing. I'd love to hear different rationale for property types as well. Info, recreational, et cetera." This question I could spend an hour on.Steven Jack Butala:Well, this is the topic. This is also the topic.Jill K DeWit:Okay. Let's just go to the show and combine it all.Steven Jack Butala:Today's topic, Pros and Cons of Selling Blind Offers During the Holidays. This is the meat of the show.Jill K DeWit:Okay. Will you leave that up? Because I'm going to talk about the holidays and then we're going to touch on the other things that Will wrote.Steven Jack Butala:Sure.Jill K DeWit:Here's the thing about the holidays. If anything, especially right now in today's environment, everybody's getting a little worried. They're worried about cash. They're worried about interest rates. They think, "Okay, the housing market is slowing. I need to dig in. I need to beef up my bank account and not make any crazy decisions." Right? That's what I hear and see a little bit of what's going on. What does that mean for us? I'm buying everything I can. I said it on Monday on our show. The truth of how many deals I'm selling over buying is at least two or three to one buying versus selling right now. It's not because there's a slowdown on the selling, it's just that I am going for it on the buy side because there's so many great deals to be had right now.Now you roll that in with the end of the year. There's so many things that are going to the end of the year. So the answer for me, and I think for us, is do not stop mail at the end of the year. And here's why. People need cash. Think about this. Christmas is coming. "I want to do this. I want to do that. I want to travel. People are traveling again. I want to go see my family. I haven't seen them in a while. I want to decorate. I need money for all this stuff." What a wonderful thing would be to get an envelope in the mail from someone like us saying, "Hey, I want to buy this property..." By the way, you've long forgotten about it.
Transcript:Steven Jack Butala:Jack and Jill here.Jill K DeWit:Hello.Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.Jill K DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from awesome Dallas, Texas.Steven Jack Butala:Today, Jill and I talk about what the real-time commitment is to run your land business. Doesn't matter where you are, you might be on the road in an RV or you might be in your 20 years-plus office.Jill K DeWit:Yeah, that's the thing. Most people come to us having full, awesome, brilliant careers, really smart. We have a lot of very smart brainy people, scientists and pilots, and analysts and accountants in Land Academy. And you've got pharmacists. You know who you are. You've got time commitments, you've got little kids and so it's a really valid question. Like, Boy, I want to do this, but I can't give 40 hours. I can't even for sure say I can give 20. So what is the real-time commitment I need to start and run my own land business? And that's what we're going to talk about today.Steven Jack Butala:Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on a landinvestors.com online community, it's free. Before we get to that, did you know that we have a commercial printing company solely created to help you get inexpensive direct mail offers in the hands of sellers quickly? It's called Offers 2 Owners. Offers the number 2owners.com. Jill and I set this company up several years ago and now we've share... We're obviously, now sharing it with members and non-members. Today, fast forward to today, we mail about seven to 800,000 offers a month, and we can do everything for you from start to finish, pulling the data, scrubbing it, collecting comps, and getting it even in first class mail if you'd like to, call 800-725-8816 or email support@offers2owners.com for more information. Nice script writing.Jill K DeWit:Thank you very much.Steven Jack Butala:I appreciate that. You clean that up pretty well.Jill K DeWit:I did. Josiah wrote this is the first email from the seller. Talk about an easy transaction. So here we go. In quotes, "Mr. Ronco, my name is John Smith. I own 40 acres of land in County USA. You recently sent me an offer to purchase it for the sum of $58,244 and 27 cents. The APN is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. I'm currently considering listing my property with a local realtor for the sum of $125,000. I have done a comparable market analysis, CMA and similar properties around mine have sold for around $3,000 an acre. My property is as good or better. I have no liens, no past-due taxes. I have no encumbrances ever or currently. There's no debris." This is nice. I can't believe the seller wrote all this. "There's no debris, mobile homes, structure, automobiles, or trash on my property. The property is primarily oak woodlands with about six acres cleared.I left occasional trees on the cleared land for aesthetics. The property is beautiful. That being said, I will sell you my property for $60,000 under the following conditions." So I want to back up for just a second there. So the offer was-Steven Jack Butala:58.Jill K DeWit:58, so he says make it 60 even. And he thinks you can get 125. Okay. So, okay, "That being said, I will sell you my property for $60,000 under the following conditions. I pay no closing costs, recording fees, or any associated costs of the transfer session of my property to you or your company. In addition, we must close transfer, complete the sale within two weeks of signing the sales contract."Steven Jack Butala:Love that.Jill K DeWit:I checked out the property and the comps and that's the end of the thing. So I'm like done, done and done. That's who we are. So Josiah went on to write, I checked out the property and I checked out the comps. The guy isn't lying. It's worth $125,000 all day and we might even be able to push the price higher because it's so beautiful, perfect for hunting and growing pine.
Transcript:Steven Jack Butala:Jack and Jill here.Jill K DeWit:Hello.Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.Jill K DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from awesome Dallas, Texas.Steven Jack Butala:Today, Jill and I talk about what the real-time commitment is to run your land business. Doesn't matter where you are, you might be on the road in an RV or you might be in your 20 years-plus office.Jill K DeWit:Yeah, that's the thing. Most people come to us having full, awesome, brilliant careers, really smart. We have a lot of very smart brainy people, scientists and pilots, and analysts and accountants in Land Academy. And you've got pharmacists. You know who you are. You've got time commitments, you've got little kids and so it's a really valid question. Like, Boy, I want to do this, but I can't give 40 hours. I can't even for sure say I can give 20. So what is the real-time commitment I need to start and run my own land business? And that's what we're going to talk about today.Steven Jack Butala:Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on a landinvestors.com online community, it's free. Before we get to that, did you know that we have a commercial printing company solely created to help you get inexpensive direct mail offers in the hands of sellers quickly? It's called Offers 2 Owners. Offers the number 2owners.com. Jill and I set this company up several years ago and now we've share... We're obviously, now sharing it with members and non-members. Today, fast forward to today, we mail about seven to 800,000 offers a month, and we can do everything for you from start to finish, pulling the data, scrubbing it, collecting comps, and getting it even in first class mail if you'd like to, call 800-725-8816 or email support@offers2owners.com for more information. Nice script writing.Jill K DeWit:Thank you very much.Steven Jack Butala:I appreciate that. You clean that up pretty well.Jill K DeWit:I did. Josiah wrote this is the first email from the seller. Talk about an easy transaction. So here we go. In quotes, "Mr. Ronco, my name is John Smith. I own 40 acres of land in County USA. You recently sent me an offer to purchase it for the sum of $58,244 and 27 cents. The APN is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. I'm currently considering listing my property with a local realtor for the sum of $125,000. I have done a comparable market analysis, CMA and similar properties around mine have sold for around $3,000 an acre. My property is as good or better. I have no liens, no past-due taxes. I have no encumbrances ever or currently. There's no debris." This is nice. I can't believe the seller wrote all this. "There's no debris, mobile homes, structure, automobiles, or trash on my property. The property is primarily oak woodlands with about six acres cleared.I left occasional trees on the cleared land for aesthetics. The property is beautiful. That being said, I will sell you my property for $60,000 under the following conditions." So I want to back up for just a second there. So the offer was-Steven Jack Butala:58.Jill K DeWit:58, so he says make it 60 even. And he thinks you can get 125. Okay. So, okay, "That being said, I will sell you my property for $60,000 under the following conditions. I pay no closing costs, recording fees, or any associated costs of the transfer session of my property to you or your company. In addition, we must close transfer, complete the sale within two weeks of signing the sales contract."Steven Jack Butala:Love that.Jill K DeWit:I checked out the property and the comps and that's the end of the thing. So I'm like done, done and done. That's who we are. So Josiah went on to write, I checked out the property and I checked out the comps. The guy isn't lying. It's worth $125,000 all day and we might even be able to push the price higher because it's so beautiful, perfect for hunting and growing pine.
Transcript:Steven Jack Butala:Steve and Jill, here. Jill K DeWit:Hi. Steven Jack Butala:Oh, sorry. Jack and Jill here. Jill K DeWit:Thank you. Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit:Thank you very much. Get to know your name. And I'm Jill DeWit, and we are broadcasting from the awesome Lone Star State. We're in Texas now. If you've been following us, you're bored. Steven Jack Butala:Today Jill and I talk about land investing from the road. Jill K DeWit:Yeah. Steven Jack Butala:This is week number six that we've been doing this on Monday. Jill K DeWit:Yep. Steven Jack Butala:This episode is called The Mechanics of Doing Business Remotely. For example, I wonder if my internet connection's going to work today. Jill K DeWit:Yeah, I wonder if I'm going to even care about working today. Steven Jack Butala:Yep. Jill K DeWit:Because there's stuff that's just more fun. Steven Jack Butala:Full blown, different mindset requires- Jill K DeWit:Yep. Steven Jack Butala:Different scheduling. Jill K DeWit:Okay. Wait, wait. Where were we last week when we were recorded? Were we in Arkansas? Steven Jack Butala:Yeah. Jill K DeWit:Okay. Steven Jack Butala:Yeah. Jill K DeWit:When we're recorded, where were we in Arkansas? Steven Jack Butala:I think so. Jill K DeWit:I don't know. Steven Jack Butala:That's another thing about [inaudible 00:01:05]. You just never know which state you're in, which time zone you're in. Jill K DeWit:Yeah. Steven Jack Butala:And... Jill K DeWit:I have to go back and look. I believe we were in Arkansas. We could have been in Nashville. I am not sure the last time I recorded, but either way. Last weekend we went from Arkansas, through Oklahoma, here to Texas where we have been for the last four days and having a ball. And I need to knock on something. Everywhere we go the weather's been great. There's no wood around here. Steven Jack Butala:Well, it wasn't great when it started, but remember that transformer blew up in the middle of the night in front of us? Jill K DeWit:Yeah, but we were safe. Steven Jack Butala:In Madison, Wisconsin. Sure. Jill K DeWit:We were safe. Steven Jack Butala:Just wasn't the best of weather. Jill K DeWit:Well, okay. For most part it's been good. We haven't had any snow. How's that? Steven Jack Butala:Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Jill K DeWit:Greg wrote, Okay, "I have a very newbie question. I had a couple of parcels that weren't selling, so I put them back on the MLS and heck, I just got an offer on one of them. So now I have an offer from a realtor slash client, which I will gladly accept. But what is the process for this? Normally I would send signed PAs to my attorney to facilitate, but is this the agent's job now? Someone please lay out the roles and responsibilities for this type of transaction, so I don't have to call the agent and ask them." Steven Jack Butala:I can do it if you want. Jill K DeWit:Go for it. You want to go first? Steven Jack Butala:You got a couple of properties who, depending on how you bought them, either bought them by doing deeds yourself, which is a very old school way. Or you bought them through a real estate agent. I'm guessing you didn't because this process, Greg, is not familiar to you. So you probably bought them without title insurance. You just got them. You did what Jill talks about in chapter, I think six or seven in Land Academy 3.0. You went through that and you own the properties and now you got an offer on the MLS from a realtor or a realtor driven offer where the realtor's representing a client. I would absolutely contact the realtor and say, "Yes, send me the documents that you need me to sign." And let the realtor do their job. Nine times out of 10, they're not going to do their job right. So what I would actually do is find somebody in your life or on discord that c...
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Transcript:Steven Jack Butala:Steve and Jill, here. Jill K DeWit:Hi. Steven Jack Butala:Oh, sorry. Jack and Jill here. Jill K DeWit:Thank you. Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit:Thank you very much. Get to know your name. And I'm Jill DeWit, and we are broadcasting from the awesome Lone Star State. We're in Texas now. If you've been following us, you're bored. Steven Jack Butala:Today Jill and I talk about land investing from the road. Jill K DeWit:Yeah. Steven Jack Butala:This is week number six that we've been doing this on Monday. Jill K DeWit:Yep. Steven Jack Butala:This episode is called The Mechanics of Doing Business Remotely. For example, I wonder if my internet connection's going to work today. Jill K DeWit:Yeah, I wonder if I'm going to even care about working today. Steven Jack Butala:Yep. Jill K DeWit:Because there's stuff that's just more fun. Steven Jack Butala:Full blown, different mindset requires- Jill K DeWit:Yep. Steven Jack Butala:Different scheduling. Jill K DeWit:Okay. Wait, wait. Where were we last week when we were recorded? Were we in Arkansas? Steven Jack Butala:Yeah. Jill K DeWit:Okay. Steven Jack Butala:Yeah. Jill K DeWit:When we're recorded, where were we in Arkansas? Steven Jack Butala:I think so. Jill K DeWit:I don't know. Steven Jack Butala:That's another thing about [inaudible 00:01:05]. You just never know which state you're in, which time zone you're in. Jill K DeWit:Yeah. Steven Jack Butala:And... Jill K DeWit:I have to go back and look. I believe we were in Arkansas. We could have been in Nashville. I am not sure the last time I recorded, but either way. Last weekend we went from Arkansas, through Oklahoma, here to Texas where we have been for the last four days and having a ball. And I need to knock on something. Everywhere we go the weather's been great. There's no wood around here. Steven Jack Butala:Well, it wasn't great when it started, but remember that transformer blew up in the middle of the night in front of us? Jill K DeWit:Yeah, but we were safe. Steven Jack Butala:In Madison, Wisconsin. Sure. Jill K DeWit:We were safe. Steven Jack Butala:Just wasn't the best of weather. Jill K DeWit:Well, okay. For most part it's been good. We haven't had any snow. How's that? Steven Jack Butala:Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Jill K DeWit:Greg wrote, Okay, "I have a very newbie question. I had a couple of parcels that weren't selling, so I put them back on the MLS and heck, I just got an offer on one of them. So now I have an offer from a realtor slash client, which I will gladly accept. But what is the process for this? Normally I would send signed PAs to my attorney to facilitate, but is this the agent's job now? Someone please lay out the roles and responsibilities for this type of transaction, so I don't have to call the agent and ask them." Steven Jack Butala:I can do it if you want. Jill K DeWit:Go for it. You want to go first? Steven Jack Butala:You got a couple of properties who, depending on how you bought them, either bought them by doing deeds yourself, which is a very old school way. Or you bought them through a real estate agent. I'm guessing you didn't because this process, Greg, is not familiar to you. So you probably bought them without title insurance. You just got them. You did what Jill talks about in chapter, I think six or seven in Land Academy 3.0. You went through that and you own the properties and now you got an offer on the MLS from a realtor or a realtor driven offer where the realtor's representing a client. I would absolutely contact the realtor and say, "Yes, send me the documents that you need me to sign." And let the realtor do their job. Nine times out of 10, they're not going to do their job right.
Jill Friday - Pros and Cons of Talking to Sellers for Hours (LA 1877) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from Suite Eureka Springs, Arkansas.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, it's Jill Friday and she's going to talk about the pros and cons of talking to sellers for hours.
Jill DeWit: I don't do this.
Steven Jack Butala: Can't say enough positive stuff about Arkansas. I can't say enough positive stuff. Anyway, go ahead.
Jill DeWit: No, I'm talking about the topic. I don't do this and I don't condone this, but there's a version of this I'm going to talk to you about. Then you'll find more in minute.
Steven Jack Butala: Perfect. But before Jill gets into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free. And we have a site that helps you do phase 1 due diligence. In fact, it almost does all of it for you in less than 30 seconds. It's called parcelfact.com. Back in the day, you needed a mailing address, like 123 Main Street, to look up property. Well, that's just not the case anymore. We put together a database of 150 million or so properties that you can look up anywhere in the country and get the information that you need to make a really quick phase 1 due diligence decision whether or not you're going to buy when on the phone with the seller. Check it out, parcelfact.com.
Jill DeWit: I know you said the number of the properties, but the coverage is like 98% nationwide. Is it 98, 99? I can't remember what-
Steven Jack Butala: It's a lot higher now. Yeah.
Jill DeWit: I think it's 99% nationwide is the a coverage. So you don't have to remember the 150 million. Just remember that part.
Steven Jack Butala: It's almost all of them.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. You're like, "well, what if mine's not in that 150 million?" Let me just give you the percentage. And then you're say, "I run a pretty high chance it's going to be in there." There you go. All right. So Evan wrote, "Now that the economic market seems to be experiencing a change in fundamentals causing increasing real estate inventories due to fewer buyers, are any of you considering creative deal structure instead of cash when buying and selling?
Steven Jack Butala: Implicitly, no. Now is the time, in my opinion, more than ever to be paying cash for undervalued real estate because we're going to find more of it when inventories like this go up, more property becomes available. And it's not just inventories that are going up, as this thing continues that we're in. We're not yet calling it a recession, but I think that's what it is or we'll be, people need cash and if they have land laying around, they're not using this land. It's one of the first things they decide to sell. And so you want to pay cash for that. You don't want to structure some complicated thing with some seller who just wants 10 grand to say, "Well, I'll pay a $1,000 now and then..." You don't want, that's a-
Jill DeWit: They'll get a better deal.
Steven Jack Butala: And I'm not picking on you, Evan, at all. This is wall streeting, there's a lot of appropriate times in finance to implement these concepts of high finance and Wall Street stuff. This is not one of them. This is one of the reasons I chose, and I hope Jill did too, chose this career because it's so simple. I want to buy an undervalued asset and then I have complete control over it. Who knows what the market's going to do? Maybe it's going to go down further. Maybe it's going to go up further. But if I'm buying, it's so cheap like we do on every deal, I want it and I want to own it.
Jill DeWit: Yep. Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jill Friday. She's going to talk about the pros and cons of talking with sellers for hours. This is the meat of the show.
Jill DeWit: So I don't do this,
Jill Friday - Pros and Cons of Talking to Sellers for Hours (LA 1877) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from Suite Eureka Springs, Arkansas.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, it's Jill Friday and she's going to talk about the pros and cons of talking to sellers for hours.
Jill DeWit: I don't do this.
Steven Jack Butala: Can't say enough positive stuff about Arkansas. I can't say enough positive stuff. Anyway, go ahead.
Jill DeWit: No, I'm talking about the topic. I don't do this and I don't condone this, but there's a version of this I'm going to talk to you about. Then you'll find more in minute.
Steven Jack Butala: Perfect. But before Jill gets into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free. And we have a site that helps you do phase 1 due diligence. In fact, it almost does all of it for you in less than 30 seconds. It's called parcelfact.com. Back in the day, you needed a mailing address, like 123 Main Street, to look up property. Well, that's just not the case anymore. We put together a database of 150 million or so properties that you can look up anywhere in the country and get the information that you need to make a really quick phase 1 due diligence decision whether or not you're going to buy when on the phone with the seller. Check it out, parcelfact.com.
Jill DeWit: I know you said the number of the properties, but the coverage is like 98% nationwide. Is it 98, 99? I can't remember what-
Steven Jack Butala: It's a lot higher now. Yeah.
Jill DeWit: I think it's 99% nationwide is the a coverage. So you don't have to remember the 150 million. Just remember that part.
Steven Jack Butala: It's almost all of them.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. You're like, "well, what if mine's not in that 150 million?" Let me just give you the percentage. And then you're say, "I run a pretty high chance it's going to be in there." There you go. All right. So Evan wrote, "Now that the economic market seems to be experiencing a change in fundamentals causing increasing real estate inventories due to fewer buyers, are any of you considering creative deal structure instead of cash when buying and selling?
Steven Jack Butala: Implicitly, no. Now is the time, in my opinion, more than ever to be paying cash for undervalued real estate because we're going to find more of it when inventories like this go up, more property becomes available. And it's not just inventories that are going up, as this thing continues that we're in. We're not yet calling it a recession, but I think that's what it is or we'll be, people need cash and if they have land laying around, they're not using this land. It's one of the first things they decide to sell. And so you want to pay cash for that. You don't want to structure some complicated thing with some seller who just wants 10 grand to say, "Well, I'll pay a $1,000 now and then..." You don't want, that's a-
Jill DeWit: They'll get a better deal.
Steven Jack Butala: And I'm not picking on you, Evan, at all. This is wall streeting, there's a lot of appropriate times in finance to implement these concepts of high finance and Wall Street stuff. This is not one of them. This is one of the reasons I chose, and I hope Jill did too, chose this career because it's so simple. I want to buy an undervalued asset and then I have complete control over it. Who knows what the market's going to do? Maybe it's going to go down further. Maybe it's going to go up further. But if I'm buying, it's so cheap like we do on every deal, I want it and I want to own it.
Jill DeWit: Yep. Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jill Friday. She's going to talk about the pros and cons of talking with sellers for hours. This is the meat of the show.
Jill DeWit: So I don't do this,
Jack Thursday - Why Recovering House Flippers Choose Land Flipping (LA 1876) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Howdy.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from Carol County, Arkansas. How's that?
Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jack Thursday. And I'm going to talk about why recovering house flippers seem to be choosing land to flip in these current real estate conditions.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala: Makes sense to me.
Jill DeWit: I can't wait to just sit back and be a passenger here.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and please don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the show as you like. Let me say this, that YouTube channel that we have built is a massive library. It's not just these 1900 or so podcast episodes. Those are all in there. It's also commercials and snippets of information from Career Path and the Thursday calls. I call it the Land Academy Library. It's tons and tons of content for free to help you in your land career and ultimately help you to decide whether or not Land Academy is for you. And it's not for everybody. It's certainly not for everybody. But after perusing through there for a couple hours, you're going to find out whether or not you think that you want to pursue this or stick to what you're doing now.
Jill DeWit: Thank you. I was just thinking about that. So this is show number 1876, right? Wonder how old I'm going to be when we're on show 3000 or show 5,000.
Steven Jack Butala: Well, I can calculate it for you.
Jill DeWit: You know when you're a kid in school and you're like, "Okay, what year am I going to graduate? I'm going to be 18, I graduate this year." So now I'm doing it the other way. We're on show 1,876. How old? Don't share my age.
Steven Jack Butala: I'm not going to show your age. Okay.
Jill DeWit: How about your age?
Steven Jack Butala: I'd like to live through the rest of the day.
Jill DeWit: All right.
Steven Jack Butala: I'm not going to share it. Let's share my age.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Jack Butala: Okay?
Jill DeWit: All right. How old will you be on show 5,000 if we keep up this current rate. But wait, we do ...
Steven Jack Butala: We do 260 shows a year.
Jill DeWit: Wait five times ...
Steven Jack Butala: 52 weeks.
Jill DeWit: 26 weeks ...
Steven Jack Butala: Times five. There's 260 shows ish a year. Let's say 250 because there's holidays and reruns. 250 a year. In six years I will be 60 and that'll be 1500 shows. We have 1,876 already. So we've been doing this for more than five years, six years.
Jill DeWit: A long time. That'll be good. All right. This is cool. Back to the question, Heidi and Dan wrote, "Hello group. We are still very new within the Land Academy and our new venture, not even one year in, but we've done some deals and some homework as well." Yes, good job. "After listening to Jack's recent discussion of finding the appropriate CPA, I have a strong concern that our CPA will not be able to direct us correctly within this business structure. Can anyone recommend a CPA that has a strong understanding of Pennsylvania tax structure? We're hoping to get things in alignment before tax season is upon us, and hoping to find someone that does not have a waiting period. Any help will be greatly appreciated." That's a great place by the way. Putting that, I don't know if that was in Discord or the landinvestors.com page, but either way, hopefully it was both. You'll find somebody. That's a great place to sort and find. And what better way to find someone that you could work with than word of mouth because someone's like, "Hey, this guy and I have a connection. You're doing what I'm doing. He can roll you in." Fingers crossed.
Jack Thursday - Why Recovering House Flippers Choose Land Flipping (LA 1876) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Howdy.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from Carol County, Arkansas. How's that?
Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jack Thursday. And I'm going to talk about why recovering house flippers seem to be choosing land to flip in these current real estate conditions.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala: Makes sense to me.
Jill DeWit: I can't wait to just sit back and be a passenger here.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and please don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the show as you like. Let me say this, that YouTube channel that we have built is a massive library. It's not just these 1900 or so podcast episodes. Those are all in there. It's also commercials and snippets of information from Career Path and the Thursday calls. I call it the Land Academy Library. It's tons and tons of content for free to help you in your land career and ultimately help you to decide whether or not Land Academy is for you. And it's not for everybody. It's certainly not for everybody. But after perusing through there for a couple hours, you're going to find out whether or not you think that you want to pursue this or stick to what you're doing now.
Jill DeWit: Thank you. I was just thinking about that. So this is show number 1876, right? Wonder how old I'm going to be when we're on show 3000 or show 5,000.
Steven Jack Butala: Well, I can calculate it for you.
Jill DeWit: You know when you're a kid in school and you're like, "Okay, what year am I going to graduate? I'm going to be 18, I graduate this year." So now I'm doing it the other way. We're on show 1,876. How old? Don't share my age.
Steven Jack Butala: I'm not going to show your age. Okay.
Jill DeWit: How about your age?
Steven Jack Butala: I'd like to live through the rest of the day.
Jill DeWit: All right.
Steven Jack Butala: I'm not going to share it. Let's share my age.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Jack Butala: Okay?
Jill DeWit: All right. How old will you be on show 5,000 if we keep up this current rate. But wait, we do ...
Steven Jack Butala: We do 260 shows a year.
Jill DeWit: Wait five times ...
Steven Jack Butala: 52 weeks.
Jill DeWit: 26 weeks ...
Steven Jack Butala: Times five. There's 260 shows ish a year. Let's say 250 because there's holidays and reruns. 250 a year. In six years I will be 60 and that'll be 1500 shows. We have 1,876 already. So we've been doing this for more than five years, six years.
Jill DeWit: A long time. That'll be good. All right. This is cool. Back to the question, Heidi and Dan wrote, "Hello group. We are still very new within the Land Academy and our new venture, not even one year in, but we've done some deals and some homework as well." Yes, good job. "After listening to Jack's recent discussion of finding the appropriate CPA, I have a strong concern that our CPA will not be able to direct us correctly within this business structure. Can anyone recommend a CPA that has a strong understanding of Pennsylvania tax structure? We're hoping to get things in alignment before tax season is upon us, and hoping to find someone that does not have a waiting period. Any help will be greatly appreciated." That's a great place by the way. Putting that, I don't know if that was in Discord or the landinvestors.com page, but either way, hopefully it was both. You'll find somebody. That's a great place to sort and find. And what better way to find someone that you could work with than word of mouth because someone's like, "Hey, this guy and I have a connection. You're doing what I'm doing. He can roll you in." Fingers crossed.
How to Make a Million Dollars a Year is the Career Path Number 5 Number One Request (LA 1875) Transcript:
Steve: Steve and Jill here.
Jill: Hi.
Steve: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the natural springs area of Arkansas. Yes, Eureka Springs right now and we are loving it.
Steve: Can't say enough positive stuff about this area, with the state and the country.
Jill: You know what's funny, we had a day this last week where it was like, started off, it got sunny but it started off kind of dark and weird and it rained a little bit and it was, you know the show the Ozarks, how we all know it has that funky tint. They make the, there's like a filter on the cameras or something and make it kind of a dark, interesting blue? Would you call it blue background kind of thing? I swear it felt like that.
Steve: It was that color.
Jill: I was running around taking pictures, I'm like, "That's real." Now I get the Ozarks show and I always thought, why do they make it look so dark? But by the way, right now we're sitting in a beautiful, sunny day. Blue sky, it's gorgeous so it's not always like that, but I get it. It was really cool.
Steve: Today Jill and I are going to talk about how making a million dollars a year is the number one discussion point and request for this new career path class.
Jill: There's kind of two things that came up because I want to share, to tell you, there's one other thing that everybody asks for. So it's important to know. I want leave a little teaser here. So when we went around the room the other day, everybody brought up two things and one is the money and I'll tell you the other one in a minute.
Steve: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the land investors.com online community. It's free. And last year a ton of people came to us, came to Jill and I requesting for help getting their first mailer out or just getting consistency in doing mailers or mailer type stuff. Well enough people came to us. Jill and I decided to turn over our own mailer department to our employees to allow them to do that. So we call it concierge data and now it's called concierge data plus, you can completely and entirely outsource doing a mailer to this department and it's a subdepartment of offers2owners.com. Or if you're having trouble getting the first one out, check it out. It's very, very efficient. And now we process a ton of orders, more and more every single month.
Jill: All right, Chief wrote, "As a seller, how do you ask a buyer, how do you ask a buyer close, as a seller how do you ask a buyer to close through your selected title company? Or is it just customary for the seller to choose? It's a little late for me to be inquiring about this, but I've been letting, or should I say making the buyer's agent find one. Now that I say it out loud pretty sure I'm doing it completely wrong. I need to be sending them somewhere specific, right? My thought was it doesn't really matter to me and it's all about the same price so let them have it in case they have people they like to close through. It was one less thing I had to set up. Now I see why all the buyer's agents attitude seemed to change a little bit after their clients have signed. I'm making them do my job accidentally but sure enough, they'd sign and I'd been letting them take it from there. I'd been asking them where they want to close and wait for an email. How messy. This must be what Jack means by being able to, by doing it all wrong and still being able to pull it off. Embarrassing but enlightening." All right, so let me back up here.
Steve: Embarrassing but enlightening.
Jill: So here's what I do, Chief, and this, I'm going to make it easy. This will be make it easy for you actually, because I bet you putting it on them could slow you down too. I want you to stay in control for the whole transaction.
Steve: Yeah,
How to Make a Million Dollars a Year is the Career Path Number 5 Number One Request (LA 1875) Transcript:
Steve: Steve and Jill here.
Jill: Hi.
Steve: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the natural springs area of Arkansas. Yes, Eureka Springs right now and we are loving it.
Steve: Can't say enough positive stuff about this area, with the state and the country.
Jill: You know what's funny, we had a day this last week where it was like, started off, it got sunny but it started off kind of dark and weird and it rained a little bit and it was, you know the show the Ozarks, how we all know it has that funky tint. They make the, there's like a filter on the cameras or something and make it kind of a dark, interesting blue? Would you call it blue background kind of thing? I swear it felt like that.
Steve: It was that color.
Jill: I was running around taking pictures, I'm like, "That's real." Now I get the Ozarks show and I always thought, why do they make it look so dark? But by the way, right now we're sitting in a beautiful, sunny day. Blue sky, it's gorgeous so it's not always like that, but I get it. It was really cool.
Steve: Today Jill and I are going to talk about how making a million dollars a year is the number one discussion point and request for this new career path class.
Jill: There's kind of two things that came up because I want to share, to tell you, there's one other thing that everybody asks for. So it's important to know. I want leave a little teaser here. So when we went around the room the other day, everybody brought up two things and one is the money and I'll tell you the other one in a minute.
Steve: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the land investors.com online community. It's free. And last year a ton of people came to us, came to Jill and I requesting for help getting their first mailer out or just getting consistency in doing mailers or mailer type stuff. Well enough people came to us. Jill and I decided to turn over our own mailer department to our employees to allow them to do that. So we call it concierge data and now it's called concierge data plus, you can completely and entirely outsource doing a mailer to this department and it's a subdepartment of offers2owners.com. Or if you're having trouble getting the first one out, check it out. It's very, very efficient. And now we process a ton of orders, more and more every single month.
Jill: All right, Chief wrote, "As a seller, how do you ask a buyer, how do you ask a buyer close, as a seller how do you ask a buyer to close through your selected title company? Or is it just customary for the seller to choose? It's a little late for me to be inquiring about this, but I've been letting, or should I say making the buyer's agent find one. Now that I say it out loud pretty sure I'm doing it completely wrong. I need to be sending them somewhere specific, right? My thought was it doesn't really matter to me and it's all about the same price so let them have it in case they have people they like to close through. It was one less thing I had to set up. Now I see why all the buyer's agents attitude seemed to change a little bit after their clients have signed. I'm making them do my job accidentally but sure enough, they'd sign and I'd been letting them take it from there. I'd been asking them where they want to close and wait for an email. How messy. This must be what Jack means by being able to, by doing it all wrong and still being able to pull it off. Embarrassing but enlightening." All right, so let me back up here.
Steve: Embarrassing but enlightening.
Jill: So here's what I do, Chief, and this, I'm going to make it easy. This will be make it easy for you actually, because I bet you putting it on them could slow you down too. I want you to stay in control for the whole transaction.
Steve: Yeah,
The Value of Selling Land with Home Made Signs and Neighbor Letters (LA 1874) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Ozark Mountains.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: We are technically in the Ozarks here in Eureka Springs.
Steven Jack Butala: Today Jill and I talk about the value of selling land with homemade signs, the kind you put in your yard, and neighbor letters. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the online community, landinvestors.com, it's free. And I hope we have a full blown commercial printing company that Jill and I own exclusively called Offers2Owners, the number two, owners.com. All we do is send out blind offers for people who are buying real estate. Whether you remember or not, go to offers2owners.com and check it all out. We process between six or 700,000 units a month, maybe 1.2 million a month. It works.
Jill DeWit: By the way, it also has other products there. If you need help with getting the data, downloading the data, scrubbing the data, all of that, there's full service options there too that we can really help you out with.
Steven Jack Butala: Exactly.
Jill DeWit: So back to the question Thomas wrote. So I know Jack and Jill say not to use your home address, because those change, I've been to the [inaudible 00:01:24] for 28 years and I don't have any plans to move. Is there any reason I can't use it? I got one.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. You choose life.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Do you really want to have all these offers going out there and have everyone know where you live, look up what your house is worth, that thing? I don't think that's the right-
Steven Jack Butala: So yesterday I said there's a theme to this week's questions and the theme is-
Jill DeWit: Do these questions.
Steven Jack Butala: Please go through the Land Academy 3.0. Jill and I did not slap this program together and say, "Yeah, I don't know, should you use your home address or should you go get a mailbox type address? I'm going to choose a letter." That's not what...
Jill DeWit: We're thinking of you.
Steven Jack Butala: Years, I spent years using my home address and it's all bad. And then I realized I should get or use a box that I've had for it during the same time instead and it made my life a lot more sane. So while we don't explain all the reasons why we ask you to do stuff in these education programs, just please trust us because we know what we're doing.
Jill DeWit: And I get it. You know what's funny, Thomas? Because we all know Warren Buffett still lives in the same house he lived in back in the fill in the blank day.
Steven Jack Butala: Does he though?
Jill DeWit: Good question. My understanding is he does. Well this is true.
Steven Jack Butala: Can you imagine if he went home there every day?
Jill DeWit: Rumor has it, here's what I'd like, rumor has it his assistant every morning or every night at whatever, makes sure he has his $2.89. You know the story, right?
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. I just think this is all marketing.
Jill DeWit: For the McDonald's drive through that he gets?
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Oh, you don't buy it.
Steven Jack Butala: First of all, a guy that age eating meal at McDonald's is bad. It's a bad idea.
Jill DeWit: Well there is that. That's true. So yeah, does he though?
Steven Jack Butala: And a multi billionaire like that should have a few bucks in his pocket.
Jill DeWit: And a few houses.
Steven Jack Butala: So no, I'm sorry I don't buy it for one second. I think the publicity and the media.
Jill DeWit: That's funny.
Steven Jack Butala: Just the media. What if the other guy? Then more-
Jill DeWit: You're a little pessimistic today. You're a little pissy today.
Steven Jack Butala: I just don't... I'm not pissy.
The Value of Selling Land with Home Made Signs and Neighbor Letters (LA 1874) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Ozark Mountains.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: We are technically in the Ozarks here in Eureka Springs.
Steven Jack Butala: Today Jill and I talk about the value of selling land with homemade signs, the kind you put in your yard, and neighbor letters. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the online community, landinvestors.com, it's free. And I hope we have a full blown commercial printing company that Jill and I own exclusively called Offers2Owners, the number two, owners.com. All we do is send out blind offers for people who are buying real estate. Whether you remember or not, go to offers2owners.com and check it all out. We process between six or 700,000 units a month, maybe 1.2 million a month. It works.
Jill DeWit: By the way, it also has other products there. If you need help with getting the data, downloading the data, scrubbing the data, all of that, there's full service options there too that we can really help you out with.
Steven Jack Butala: Exactly.
Jill DeWit: So back to the question Thomas wrote. So I know Jack and Jill say not to use your home address, because those change, I've been to the [inaudible 00:01:24] for 28 years and I don't have any plans to move. Is there any reason I can't use it? I got one.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. You choose life.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Do you really want to have all these offers going out there and have everyone know where you live, look up what your house is worth, that thing? I don't think that's the right-
Steven Jack Butala: So yesterday I said there's a theme to this week's questions and the theme is-
Jill DeWit: Do these questions.
Steven Jack Butala: Please go through the Land Academy 3.0. Jill and I did not slap this program together and say, "Yeah, I don't know, should you use your home address or should you go get a mailbox type address? I'm going to choose a letter." That's not what...
Jill DeWit: We're thinking of you.
Steven Jack Butala: Years, I spent years using my home address and it's all bad. And then I realized I should get or use a box that I've had for it during the same time instead and it made my life a lot more sane. So while we don't explain all the reasons why we ask you to do stuff in these education programs, just please trust us because we know what we're doing.
Jill DeWit: And I get it. You know what's funny, Thomas? Because we all know Warren Buffett still lives in the same house he lived in back in the fill in the blank day.
Steven Jack Butala: Does he though?
Jill DeWit: Good question. My understanding is he does. Well this is true.
Steven Jack Butala: Can you imagine if he went home there every day?
Jill DeWit: Rumor has it, here's what I'd like, rumor has it his assistant every morning or every night at whatever, makes sure he has his $2.89. You know the story, right?
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. I just think this is all marketing.
Jill DeWit: For the McDonald's drive through that he gets?
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Oh, you don't buy it.
Steven Jack Butala: First of all, a guy that age eating meal at McDonald's is bad. It's a bad idea.
Jill DeWit: Well there is that. That's true. So yeah, does he though?
Steven Jack Butala: And a multi billionaire like that should have a few bucks in his pocket.
Jill DeWit: And a few houses.
Steven Jack Butala: So no, I'm sorry I don't buy it for one second. I think the publicity and the media.
Jill DeWit: That's funny.
Steven Jack Butala: Just the media. What if the other guy? Then more-
Jill DeWit: You're a little pessimistic today. You're a little pissy today.
Steven Jack Butala: I just don't... I'm not pissy.
Land Investing from the Road Week Five Update: Locals Love to Tell Their Land Stories (LA 1873) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steven and Jill here.
Jill DeWit : Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show Entertaining Land Investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit : And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from Eureka Springs, Arkansas. I was trying to think of something special and unique about them, and I think the best thing that's special and unique about them is the springs and the people and we're going to get catch up. But I'll get some more stuff here to share.
Steven Jack Butala: We are absolutely having a blast. Eureka Springs, if you've never been, please put it on your list. It's lurk around every bend and be amazed kind of place.
Jill DeWit : Yep.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about Land Investing from the Road. This is week five and this is our update. She and I are going to talk about how local people love to talk about their land stories.
Jill DeWit : Oh, it's great.
Steven Jack Butala: Everybody's got a land story.
Jill DeWit : It's so funny. We're going to share a lot more on that. It'll be good.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and I hope you know by now, Jill and I instruct every quarter, a closed class called Career Path. We're in Career Path number five right now. If you're interested in buying and selling land as a career or you're already doing it and you want to improve, check us out at landacademy/careerpath.
Jill DeWit : Number five is in process and number six will be coming in January, probably like the third week of January, 2023 is my goal. Okay, so back to the question here. Brett wrote, "In Land Academy, the Land Academy program 3.0, they cover that your first transactions can be done through your personal name rather than an LLC, et cetera. The guideline for that was 10 transactions. With that being said, is there a pro or a con to doing this business through my name at first rather than an LLC? Or should I pursue creating an LLC first before conducting any sort of land investing?" I'm not sure why he is asking it when he just kind of answered it at the beginning. Okay. "But if anyone has experience with both or the input, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks."
Steven Jack Butala: Okay, so here's the thing, and here's the reason I included this question. Either way is fine.
Jill DeWit : Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: I tended to, especially the further now that we get into instructing Land Academy, Jill and I, try to make things more simple and give general and sometimes hard and fast rules just to make it simple. For the vast majority of people, doing 10 or so deals in your own name, not going through all the stuff that goes on with getting in an LLC. That works. If you already have an LLC, like many, many, many people do with a different company or something like that, you can use that one. But my real point in adding this is that, and there's a huge theme this week in these questions. Jill and I just didn't slap this together, this program. This Land Academy thing.
Jill DeWit : Oh, The Land Academy thing?
Steven Jack Butala: When she says-
Jill DeWit : That's hilarious. That's so funny. Yeah. Take Land Academy with a grain of salt. Again, we only have 16,000 plus transactions. We're not sure.
Steven Jack Butala: Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of members, former members, current members, all that.
Jill DeWit : Very successful.
Steven Jack Butala: We didn't just say, "You know, 10 transactions sounds good," then go get an LLC.
Jill DeWit : Yeah. Why not? I don't know. I could have said two, I said 10. I could've said a hundred. I don't know.
Steven Jack Butala: Look, I really mean you want to get your feet wet and there's other reasons that probably we should be more vocal about why we say things like 10,
Land Investing from the Road Week Five Update: Locals Love to Tell Their Land Stories (LA 1873) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steven and Jill here.
Jill DeWit : Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show Entertaining Land Investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit : And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from Eureka Springs, Arkansas. I was trying to think of something special and unique about them, and I think the best thing that's special and unique about them is the springs and the people and we're going to get catch up. But I'll get some more stuff here to share.
Steven Jack Butala: We are absolutely having a blast. Eureka Springs, if you've never been, please put it on your list. It's lurk around every bend and be amazed kind of place.
Jill DeWit : Yep.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about Land Investing from the Road. This is week five and this is our update. She and I are going to talk about how local people love to talk about their land stories.
Jill DeWit : Oh, it's great.
Steven Jack Butala: Everybody's got a land story.
Jill DeWit : It's so funny. We're going to share a lot more on that. It'll be good.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and I hope you know by now, Jill and I instruct every quarter, a closed class called Career Path. We're in Career Path number five right now. If you're interested in buying and selling land as a career or you're already doing it and you want to improve, check us out at landacademy/careerpath.
Jill DeWit : Number five is in process and number six will be coming in January, probably like the third week of January, 2023 is my goal. Okay, so back to the question here. Brett wrote, "In Land Academy, the Land Academy program 3.0, they cover that your first transactions can be done through your personal name rather than an LLC, et cetera. The guideline for that was 10 transactions. With that being said, is there a pro or a con to doing this business through my name at first rather than an LLC? Or should I pursue creating an LLC first before conducting any sort of land investing?" I'm not sure why he is asking it when he just kind of answered it at the beginning. Okay. "But if anyone has experience with both or the input, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks."
Steven Jack Butala: Okay, so here's the thing, and here's the reason I included this question. Either way is fine.
Jill DeWit : Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: I tended to, especially the further now that we get into instructing Land Academy, Jill and I, try to make things more simple and give general and sometimes hard and fast rules just to make it simple. For the vast majority of people, doing 10 or so deals in your own name, not going through all the stuff that goes on with getting in an LLC. That works. If you already have an LLC, like many, many, many people do with a different company or something like that, you can use that one. But my real point in adding this is that, and there's a huge theme this week in these questions. Jill and I just didn't slap this together, this program. This Land Academy thing.
Jill DeWit : Oh, The Land Academy thing?
Steven Jack Butala: When she says-
Jill DeWit : That's hilarious. That's so funny. Yeah. Take Land Academy with a grain of salt. Again, we only have 16,000 plus transactions. We're not sure.
Steven Jack Butala: Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of members, former members, current members, all that.
Jill DeWit : Very successful.
Steven Jack Butala: We didn't just say, "You know, 10 transactions sounds good," then go get an LLC.
Jill DeWit : Yeah. Why not? I don't know. I could have said two, I said 10. I could've said a hundred. I don't know.
Steven Jack Butala: Look, I really mean you want to get your feet wet and there's other reasons that probably we should be more vocal about why we say things like 10,
Jill Friday - Taking Due Diligence with a Grain of Salt (LA 1872) Transcript:
Steve: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Steve: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewit coming to you from the home of the 1925. Can you believe it's almost a hundred years. Grand Old Opry.
Steve: Nashville.
Jill DeWit: Yep. Nashville, Tennessee.
Steve: Neither one of us feel like we're going to leave here anytime soon.
Jill DeWit: Nope.
Steve: Spent about one day in Ohio. That was good enough.
Jill DeWit: That was good enough. We saw it.
Steve: Tennessee's a blast. I wish we would've stopped in Kentucky.
Jill DeWit: Yes. We'll go back. We have lots of things we're going to go back and see.
Steve: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And I hope you know by now hope-
Jill DeWit: Hope.
Steve: ... Hope. Like yesterday. That we have solved phase one due diligence with a product called parcelfact.com. You quite simply put in the state, the county, and the assessor parcel number. The property in question pops up anywhere in the country and all the stuff that we think is important to complete phase one due diligence, the six As that we talk about in the program, is at your fingertips within seconds. Check it out. Parcel fact, F-A-C-T .com.
Jill DeWit: Evan wrote, how does one... Oh, I'm testing this. How does one feel about mailing the counties that was hit by the hurricane in Florida?
Steve: I put this in your show for a reason.
Jill DeWit: I don't feel good about that. If I already sent the mail out already... I would explain. I didn't mean to do that. Who knew? I mean, this one out a week ago or a month ago, whatever it was. It was planned out before the hurricane. But now specifically targeting that community, I'm not a fan. Sure, there's people that would be loving the cash. I can see positive things to it, but the negative that could be taken from it, it is too great.
Steve: Yeah. I think it's an outrage. I think you're directly kicking people when they're down and taking advantage of them.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steve: Like Jill said, every time there's a forest fire in the Southwest, we get this question. We got a ton of these questions during Katrina. So no, I don't think this is okay at all.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steve: At all. The only way it's okay is if you sent the mailer out. Actually we were in this situation where we sent the mailer out-
Jill DeWit: And then a fire came.
Steve: ... Something happened, a fire came and then people are calling us back saying, What kind of person are you that, you know?
Jill DeWit: Check the date, Look at the date on the letter.
Steve: Over and over again.
Jill DeWit: Who knew.
Steve: We're so sorry. We buy property in the area. You can only explain that so many times.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steve: Please don't do this. Not joking around. It's not okay. Today's Jill Friday. She's going to talk about taking due diligence with a grain salt. This is the meat of the show.
Jill DeWit: So as I sit here in this bug infested bubble.
Steve: There's nothing bubble about it.
Jill DeWit: There's like a spider here. I don't know what that was over there. This here. I've got two mosquito things on, but we're having a ball.
Steve: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: We really love it here. Oh, my goodness. I want to talk about this today for just a few minutes because I wanted to make sure everyone's really clear on what's really needed. How much time you should be spending on due diligence. Because I think sometimes people do due diligence overkill. And I get it, but there's some things that are reliable, some things are not. And that's where the grain of salt comes in. So let me back up here. What are we talking about? A deal comes back, I send out the mail. Purchase agreement comes back. Now I'm looking at the deal online. I'm like, Oh,
Jill Friday - Taking Due Diligence with a Grain of Salt (LA 1872) Transcript:
Steve: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Steve: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewit coming to you from the home of the 1925. Can you believe it's almost a hundred years. Grand Old Opry.
Steve: Nashville.
Jill DeWit: Yep. Nashville, Tennessee.
Steve: Neither one of us feel like we're going to leave here anytime soon.
Jill DeWit: Nope.
Steve: Spent about one day in Ohio. That was good enough.
Jill DeWit: That was good enough. We saw it.
Steve: Tennessee's a blast. I wish we would've stopped in Kentucky.
Jill DeWit: Yes. We'll go back. We have lots of things we're going to go back and see.
Steve: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And I hope you know by now hope-
Jill DeWit: Hope.
Steve: ... Hope. Like yesterday. That we have solved phase one due diligence with a product called parcelfact.com. You quite simply put in the state, the county, and the assessor parcel number. The property in question pops up anywhere in the country and all the stuff that we think is important to complete phase one due diligence, the six As that we talk about in the program, is at your fingertips within seconds. Check it out. Parcel fact, F-A-C-T .com.
Jill DeWit: Evan wrote, how does one... Oh, I'm testing this. How does one feel about mailing the counties that was hit by the hurricane in Florida?
Steve: I put this in your show for a reason.
Jill DeWit: I don't feel good about that. If I already sent the mail out already... I would explain. I didn't mean to do that. Who knew? I mean, this one out a week ago or a month ago, whatever it was. It was planned out before the hurricane. But now specifically targeting that community, I'm not a fan. Sure, there's people that would be loving the cash. I can see positive things to it, but the negative that could be taken from it, it is too great.
Steve: Yeah. I think it's an outrage. I think you're directly kicking people when they're down and taking advantage of them.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steve: Like Jill said, every time there's a forest fire in the Southwest, we get this question. We got a ton of these questions during Katrina. So no, I don't think this is okay at all.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steve: At all. The only way it's okay is if you sent the mailer out. Actually we were in this situation where we sent the mailer out-
Jill DeWit: And then a fire came.
Steve: ... Something happened, a fire came and then people are calling us back saying, What kind of person are you that, you know?
Jill DeWit: Check the date, Look at the date on the letter.
Steve: Over and over again.
Jill DeWit: Who knew.
Steve: We're so sorry. We buy property in the area. You can only explain that so many times.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steve: Please don't do this. Not joking around. It's not okay. Today's Jill Friday. She's going to talk about taking due diligence with a grain salt. This is the meat of the show.
Jill DeWit: So as I sit here in this bug infested bubble.
Steve: There's nothing bubble about it.
Jill DeWit: There's like a spider here. I don't know what that was over there. This here. I've got two mosquito things on, but we're having a ball.
Steve: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: We really love it here. Oh, my goodness. I want to talk about this today for just a few minutes because I wanted to make sure everyone's really clear on what's really needed. How much time you should be spending on due diligence. Because I think sometimes people do due diligence overkill. And I get it, but there's some things that are reliable, some things are not. And that's where the grain of salt comes in. So let me back up here. What are we talking about? A deal comes back, I send out the mail. Purchase agreement comes back. Now I'm looking at the deal online. I'm like, Oh,
Jack Thursday - Hope is Not a Business Model (LA 1871) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Audio. Three, two. Steven and Jill here.
Jill DeWitt: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWitt: And I'm Jill DeWitt. Broadcasting from... Wait until you hear this one. The Batman Building location.
Steven Jack Butala: Really?
Jill DeWitt: Yep. Wait until you hear about this.
Steven Jack Butala: Bat cave?
Jill DeWitt: Oh, no. The most recognizable building in the city skyline is the AT&T Building, more commonly known as the Batman Building, because of the large pillars on either side of the structure that make it look like Batman.
Steven Jack Butala: Oh, we got to go see that.
Jill DeWitt: Located in downtown Nashville between 3rd and 4th Avenues, AT&T Building stands 33 stories tall and is the tallest building in the state of Tennessee.
Steven Jack Butala: That's fantastic.
Jill DeWitt: I know. That is a fun fact, specifically for Jack.
Steven Jack Butala: We're in Nashville, by the way.
Jill DeWitt: Yes, and he loves-
Steven Jack Butala: She fails to say that.
Jill DeWitt: ... Batman. So, there we go.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's talk... Today's Jack Thursday, and I'm going to talk about hope is not a business model. Before we get into it, let's take a question, posted by one of our members at landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Please don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel, comment on the shows you like.
Jill DeWitt: Can I comment on the hope thing, by the way, real quick?
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Why do you think it's... Every time I say it you laugh.
Jill DeWitt: Well, because I didn't get to get my comment out before you went the next sentence, so I want to... The hope thing. People think luck is a strategy, too. Like, "Oh, how'd that all happen?" "I don't know. Just got all lucky." No you didn't. You made it happen. And I think hope... We'll talk about it more. We'll get to this. All right, I hope I pronounce this correctly. JaTisha wrote, Hello. So I got signed purchase agreement back in the mail and the seller left his phone number and no email. Multiple ties calling the number. It says the number you're calling is not accepting your call. So I found the guy on a search engine here and he's 90. That's probably true. He may not have an email. That's probably true. I've tried five, six other phone numbers of family members, but they're all disconnected. Aw.
Steven Jack Butala: Lot of people had a lot to say in Discord about this, which is how I gauge whether or not we should choose questions to put them on the show. Boy, if I had a nickel.
Jill DeWitt: What was the general consensus?
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, this is if I had a nickel.
Jill DeWitt: Oh, why? Well, we have his address. Why don't we write him back? Because I've done that. If it's a really good deal, now he is interested. Right? And he signed it and sent it back. I would do my due diligence, see if I still want it, and then write him back and say I'm not be able to reach you at this phone number. Where can I reach you? Or you want to call me here? I'm available every evening between six and eight or whatever it is, the local time, and give him a different number or the direct number right to you and let him call you back.
Steven Jack Butala: So, I understand that, Jill. That's Jill's personality type and that sometimes works.
Jill DeWitt: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: The real solution to this is to send out more mail, because this... I have had... I'm not going to try that hard.
Jill DeWitt: Well, no, no. I'm not going to try that hard, too, but I'm still going to... I could have my team, when I say me, my team-
Steven Jack Butala: Write a letter, I get it.
Jill DeWitt: ... Good for you. But doesn't hurt to write one letter back to the guy while you keep on moving on.
Steven Jack Butala: What sucks is that these deals,
Jack Thursday - Hope is Not a Business Model (LA 1871) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Audio. Three, two. Steven and Jill here.
Jill DeWitt: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWitt: And I'm Jill DeWitt. Broadcasting from... Wait until you hear this one. The Batman Building location.
Steven Jack Butala: Really?
Jill DeWitt: Yep. Wait until you hear about this.
Steven Jack Butala: Bat cave?
Jill DeWitt: Oh, no. The most recognizable building in the city skyline is the AT&T Building, more commonly known as the Batman Building, because of the large pillars on either side of the structure that make it look like Batman.
Steven Jack Butala: Oh, we got to go see that.
Jill DeWitt: Located in downtown Nashville between 3rd and 4th Avenues, AT&T Building stands 33 stories tall and is the tallest building in the state of Tennessee.
Steven Jack Butala: That's fantastic.
Jill DeWitt: I know. That is a fun fact, specifically for Jack.
Steven Jack Butala: We're in Nashville, by the way.
Jill DeWitt: Yes, and he loves-
Steven Jack Butala: She fails to say that.
Jill DeWitt: ... Batman. So, there we go.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's talk... Today's Jack Thursday, and I'm going to talk about hope is not a business model. Before we get into it, let's take a question, posted by one of our members at landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Please don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel, comment on the shows you like.
Jill DeWitt: Can I comment on the hope thing, by the way, real quick?
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Why do you think it's... Every time I say it you laugh.
Jill DeWitt: Well, because I didn't get to get my comment out before you went the next sentence, so I want to... The hope thing. People think luck is a strategy, too. Like, "Oh, how'd that all happen?" "I don't know. Just got all lucky." No you didn't. You made it happen. And I think hope... We'll talk about it more. We'll get to this. All right, I hope I pronounce this correctly. JaTisha wrote, Hello. So I got signed purchase agreement back in the mail and the seller left his phone number and no email. Multiple ties calling the number. It says the number you're calling is not accepting your call. So I found the guy on a search engine here and he's 90. That's probably true. He may not have an email. That's probably true. I've tried five, six other phone numbers of family members, but they're all disconnected. Aw.
Steven Jack Butala: Lot of people had a lot to say in Discord about this, which is how I gauge whether or not we should choose questions to put them on the show. Boy, if I had a nickel.
Jill DeWitt: What was the general consensus?
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, this is if I had a nickel.
Jill DeWitt: Oh, why? Well, we have his address. Why don't we write him back? Because I've done that. If it's a really good deal, now he is interested. Right? And he signed it and sent it back. I would do my due diligence, see if I still want it, and then write him back and say I'm not be able to reach you at this phone number. Where can I reach you? Or you want to call me here? I'm available every evening between six and eight or whatever it is, the local time, and give him a different number or the direct number right to you and let him call you back.
Steven Jack Butala: So, I understand that, Jill. That's Jill's personality type and that sometimes works.
Jill DeWitt: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: The real solution to this is to send out more mail, because this... I have had... I'm not going to try that hard.
Jill DeWitt: Well, no, no. I'm not going to try that hard, too, but I'm still going to... I could have my team, when I say me, my team-
Steven Jack Butala: Write a letter, I get it.
Jill DeWitt: ... Good for you. But doesn't hurt to write one letter back to the guy while you keep on moving on.
Steven Jack Butala: What sucks is that these deals,
Making Land Transactions Too Difficult (LA 1870) Transcript:
Jill DeWit: We didn't do our poses by the way.
Steven Butala: I know. Want to do it now?
Jill DeWit: Sure.
Steven Butala: Rolling video. Three, two. Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit. Broadcasting from the place for hot chicken.
Steven Butala: Really?
Jill DeWit: Do you smell that?
Steven Butala: Nashville's a hot chicken place?
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm. And you know what makes it extra hot? It's the extra layer, the thick coating of cayenne pepper. This is one of the things that Nashville's known for as hot chicken. So you better believe, this weekend.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: I am getting some hot chicken. I need to know what this all about.
Steven Butala: I think that should start tonight.
Jill DeWit: All right.
Steven Butala: What do you think?
Jill DeWit: That would be great.
Steven Butala: Jill had a little cold, but she doesn't have it now because-
Jill DeWit: You know, hot chicken would probably get rid of it.
Steven Butala: I think you had a Michigan cold.
Jill DeWit: Maybe a Michigan or Ohio.
Steven Butala: We can't, well it's probably the same thing.
Jill DeWit: There we go.
Steven Butala: I was constantly having cold and flu my entire childhood.
Jill DeWit: Really?
Steven Butala: I move to Arizona. Stopped. Completely stopped. Completely.
Jill DeWit: Interesting. Thank you. Before we get into it, let's take a question-
Steven Butala: Take a question posted by one of the members, on our landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Last year, a ton of Land Academy members came to us needing extra help, that last final extra push, to get their mailer in the mail. So many people came to us with it. We created a product called Concierge Data. Check it out at offers2owners.com. We will do your mailer for you, right up to pricing it at the very end. Hundreds of people use this product by the way.
Jill DeWit: Love it. All right. Peter C. wrote, and then I have a response to this too. So good morning everyone. So one second, I'm trying to hold back a sneeze. Okay, so we have a good deal with a signed purchase agreement that we just supplied to get deal funding this morning. So a timing question. Do you guys wait to set things up with the title company until after you've confirmed that you have funding for your deal or, do you go ahead and set things up with the title company immediately? So Kevin, our moderator, wrote in here, "If you rush to the title company, you'll need to get another purchase agreement signed when you get your funding partner lined up. I like to get the verbal agreement with the seller, and then get the funding partner on board. Then I have a PA, the purchase agreement, with the funding partner as buyer signed by the seller. Most funding partners would prefer I hold title in their name. Then I send it to the title company with all the contact information. I can do that in two to three days." You honestly, personally, I like it when they already have it in title. I think that makes me happy. And if you, on your purchase agreement, have a version of an assignee or something like that, then you don't have to worry about it. Then I can come in as the assignee as the funder.
Steven Butala: I completely agree with you. I don't necessarily agree with Kevin's way, although Kevin is very, very successful. He's a moderator. We know Kevin really well, and he's always in Discord all over the place. What Kevin's way doesn't accomplish is immediacy. So you want to tell the seller, "Yep, I'm opening escrow. Here's the escrow number, where you are going to move forward with this transaction, and please wait to you hear from Sally Smith, the escrow agent. She should be calling you today." You can, and it's much easier to do this if you have an escrow agent you've done a bunch of de...
Making Land Transactions Too Difficult (LA 1870) Transcript:
Jill DeWit: We didn't do our poses by the way.
Steven Butala: I know. Want to do it now?
Jill DeWit: Sure.
Steven Butala: Rolling video. Three, two. Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit. Broadcasting from the place for hot chicken.
Steven Butala: Really?
Jill DeWit: Do you smell that?
Steven Butala: Nashville's a hot chicken place?
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm. And you know what makes it extra hot? It's the extra layer, the thick coating of cayenne pepper. This is one of the things that Nashville's known for as hot chicken. So you better believe, this weekend.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: I am getting some hot chicken. I need to know what this all about.
Steven Butala: I think that should start tonight.
Jill DeWit: All right.
Steven Butala: What do you think?
Jill DeWit: That would be great.
Steven Butala: Jill had a little cold, but she doesn't have it now because-
Jill DeWit: You know, hot chicken would probably get rid of it.
Steven Butala: I think you had a Michigan cold.
Jill DeWit: Maybe a Michigan or Ohio.
Steven Butala: We can't, well it's probably the same thing.
Jill DeWit: There we go.
Steven Butala: I was constantly having cold and flu my entire childhood.
Jill DeWit: Really?
Steven Butala: I move to Arizona. Stopped. Completely stopped. Completely.
Jill DeWit: Interesting. Thank you. Before we get into it, let's take a question-
Steven Butala: Take a question posted by one of the members, on our landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Last year, a ton of Land Academy members came to us needing extra help, that last final extra push, to get their mailer in the mail. So many people came to us with it. We created a product called Concierge Data. Check it out at offers2owners.com. We will do your mailer for you, right up to pricing it at the very end. Hundreds of people use this product by the way.
Jill DeWit: Love it. All right. Peter C. wrote, and then I have a response to this too. So good morning everyone. So one second, I'm trying to hold back a sneeze. Okay, so we have a good deal with a signed purchase agreement that we just supplied to get deal funding this morning. So a timing question. Do you guys wait to set things up with the title company until after you've confirmed that you have funding for your deal or, do you go ahead and set things up with the title company immediately? So Kevin, our moderator, wrote in here, "If you rush to the title company, you'll need to get another purchase agreement signed when you get your funding partner lined up. I like to get the verbal agreement with the seller, and then get the funding partner on board. Then I have a PA, the purchase agreement, with the funding partner as buyer signed by the seller. Most funding partners would prefer I hold title in their name. Then I send it to the title company with all the contact information. I can do that in two to three days." You honestly, personally, I like it when they already have it in title. I think that makes me happy. And if you, on your purchase agreement, have a version of an assignee or something like that, then you don't have to worry about it. Then I can come in as the assignee as the funder.
Steven Butala: I completely agree with you. I don't necessarily agree with Kevin's way, although Kevin is very, very successful. He's a moderator. We know Kevin really well, and he's always in Discord all over the place. What Kevin's way doesn't accomplish is immediacy. So you want to tell the seller, "Yep, I'm opening escrow. Here's the escrow number, where you are going to move forward with this transaction, and please wait to you hear from Sally Smith, the escrow agent. She should be calling you today." You can, and it's much easier to do this if you have an escrow agent you've done a bunch of de...
How Much Energy Have You Put Into Your W2 Jobs? (LA 1869) Transcript:
Steven: Steve and Jill here.
Jill: Hello.
Steven: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill: And I'm Jill DeWit. Broadcasting from not only where Oprah and Reese Witherspoon grew up but the birthplace of Bluegrass music.
Steven: I'm sorry, Oprah's from Chicago.
Jill: But she grew up here.
Steven: Oh yeah?
Jill: I'm just telling you what I just read. Oprah, Reese Witherspoon, I think I'm kidding and yeah, all grew up in Nashville, Reese Witherspoon and Taylor Swift so even though-
Steven: Today-
Jill: So that's a fun fact that Jack didn't even know.
Steven: Yeah, I wonder why I didn't know that.
Jill: That's okay. That's why you have me.
Steven: Today, Jill and I talk about how much energy have you put into your W2 jobs, so far in your life?
Jill: This is scary.
Steven: This is scary. It's a scary amount.
Jill: No, I'm glad we're going to talk about this. So would you give the preface again from yesterday that you've mentioned.
Steven: Jill and I were talking, sitting at a Wendy's restaurant somewhere in southern Ohio, one or two days ago. And there were some very, very energetic, intelligent young people working in Wendy's to try to fix on their own the soda machine. And I started thinking, what if these kids put this kind of energy into owning their own business or getting a college degree, or God forbid, buying and selling land?
Jill: Yeah. So interesting.
Steven: It was hard to watch. Jill and I were like, "God, these kids are brilliant."
Jill: They were really getting into it.
Steven: And then we started looked at each other and said, "Well, how long did you have a job like that? And how long did you work for somebody else?" And think about how much money you generated and how much energy you put into that to do well in that environment. And we both kind of had a tear in our eye.
Jill: Yeah.
Steven: Because it was a lot.
Jill: And we'll talk more about that because I'm sure a lot of you listening are in that situation.
Steven: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free and I hope you know by now, Jill and I own a very specific use commercial printing company to get your offers to owners in the mail. It's called offers2owners.com. If you don't know about it, check it out. Go to the website and you will immediately see why it's so popular and why people use it.
Jill: Yep. All right. Chase wrote, "I have noticed that two..." Or excuse me, "I've noticed that offers2owners has shown a significant decrease in the amount of mail sent in recent months. Any idea why?" This is interesting. And one of our members responded in here and I've got the response. Steven wrote, "I can't speak for everyone, but in my case, I loaded up on mail a while back and I'm just getting through it. I plan on loading up again as we get towards the end of the year, if I need to write off certain amount to get me under a tax bracket if I needed an expense." That's kind of interesting. But anyway, so it does ebb and flow even with us, our orders don't come in. We do bigger orders like quarterly, don't we? Not necessarily monthly.
Steven: Oh two oh runs spec, oh two oh falls under my-
Jill: Side of the sheet.
Steven: Oh, yeah. My direction not Jill's, so I'll explain it to her while I explain it to you.
Jill: Oh, thanks. I'm just going to be sit back, let me know. Let me know when I can talk.
Steven: Enjoy the weather out here at the lake.
Jill: Yeah, I will.
Steven: We run specials intentionally at certain times of the year. And people that are successful at this and regularly sending mail know that it's not even. They know that everybody starts out saying, "Well, I'm going to send out 10,000 units of mail a month." And then what happens is you get too many deals or you have an incredibly successful mailer and mayb...
How Much Energy Have You Put Into Your W2 Jobs? (LA 1869) Transcript:
Steven: Steve and Jill here.
Jill: Hello.
Steven: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill: And I'm Jill DeWit. Broadcasting from not only where Oprah and Reese Witherspoon grew up but the birthplace of Bluegrass music.
Steven: I'm sorry, Oprah's from Chicago.
Jill: But she grew up here.
Steven: Oh yeah?
Jill: I'm just telling you what I just read. Oprah, Reese Witherspoon, I think I'm kidding and yeah, all grew up in Nashville, Reese Witherspoon and Taylor Swift so even though-
Steven: Today-
Jill: So that's a fun fact that Jack didn't even know.
Steven: Yeah, I wonder why I didn't know that.
Jill: That's okay. That's why you have me.
Steven: Today, Jill and I talk about how much energy have you put into your W2 jobs, so far in your life?
Jill: This is scary.
Steven: This is scary. It's a scary amount.
Jill: No, I'm glad we're going to talk about this. So would you give the preface again from yesterday that you've mentioned.
Steven: Jill and I were talking, sitting at a Wendy's restaurant somewhere in southern Ohio, one or two days ago. And there were some very, very energetic, intelligent young people working in Wendy's to try to fix on their own the soda machine. And I started thinking, what if these kids put this kind of energy into owning their own business or getting a college degree, or God forbid, buying and selling land?
Jill: Yeah. So interesting.
Steven: It was hard to watch. Jill and I were like, "God, these kids are brilliant."
Jill: They were really getting into it.
Steven: And then we started looked at each other and said, "Well, how long did you have a job like that? And how long did you work for somebody else?" And think about how much money you generated and how much energy you put into that to do well in that environment. And we both kind of had a tear in our eye.
Jill: Yeah.
Steven: Because it was a lot.
Jill: And we'll talk more about that because I'm sure a lot of you listening are in that situation.
Steven: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free and I hope you know by now, Jill and I own a very specific use commercial printing company to get your offers to owners in the mail. It's called offers2owners.com. If you don't know about it, check it out. Go to the website and you will immediately see why it's so popular and why people use it.
Jill: Yep. All right. Chase wrote, "I have noticed that two..." Or excuse me, "I've noticed that offers2owners has shown a significant decrease in the amount of mail sent in recent months. Any idea why?" This is interesting. And one of our members responded in here and I've got the response. Steven wrote, "I can't speak for everyone, but in my case, I loaded up on mail a while back and I'm just getting through it. I plan on loading up again as we get towards the end of the year, if I need to write off certain amount to get me under a tax bracket if I needed an expense." That's kind of interesting. But anyway, so it does ebb and flow even with us, our orders don't come in. We do bigger orders like quarterly, don't we? Not necessarily monthly.
Steven: Oh two oh runs spec, oh two oh falls under my-
Jill: Side of the sheet.
Steven: Oh, yeah. My direction not Jill's, so I'll explain it to her while I explain it to you.
Jill: Oh, thanks. I'm just going to be sit back, let me know. Let me know when I can talk.
Steven: Enjoy the weather out here at the lake.
Jill: Yeah, I will.
Steven: We run specials intentionally at certain times of the year. And people that are successful at this and regularly sending mail know that it's not even. They know that everybody starts out saying, "Well, I'm going to send out 10,000 units of mail a month." And then what happens is you get too many deals or you have an incredibly successful mailer and mayb...
Land Investing from the Road: Update four RV 101 (LA 1868) Transcript:
Steven: Steven, Jill here.
Jill: Hello.
Steven: Welcome to the Land Academy Show. Entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill: And I'm Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from the country music capital of the planet.
Steven: Couple days after Loretta Lynn passed too.
Jill: I know.
Steven: We'll check that out tonight.
Jill: Yeah, we're in Nashville. In case you weren't sure.
Steven: Today, Jill and I talk about, we've started this land investing from the road Monday, and so this is land investing from the road update number four and we're going to talk about RV 101 and how it applies to your land business.
Jill: I want to know, can I look at your little calendar? Technically how many weeks has it been? So let's see, we left on the second, hold on poopy. So it's one full week, two full weeks, three full weeks, four full weeks. Tomorrow will be five full weeks that we've been gone. That's kind of cool.
Steven: And neither one of us want to go back at all.
Jill: I know. This is the problem.
Steven: Not at all. Not one bit. In fact, we'll talk about it in the show.
Jill: Okay, cool.
Steven: Before we get into it though, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the land investors.com online community. It's free and I hope you know by now, today is Monday. Jill and I instruct a handful of existing Land Academy members and sometimes non-members in-
Jill: Our new members
Steven: Advanced class. Yeah.
Jill: Yeah. We-
Steven: Called career path. We're recording this on Thursday. It airs on Monday.
Jill: Career path starts in two days.
Steven: That Wednesday. Yeah, there may or may not be a couple spots left. We'll see what happens.
Jill: Exactly.
Steven: If there are, what should they do?
Jill: Okay, let me back this. So Career Path is our top level training/mentoring ten week program instructed live by us. And it happens every Wednesday. And this next session starts in two days. It starts on October 12th. As we are airing, I don't know if I have room, but if you're dying to get in, please send a note to support@landacademy.com and then say, Career Path, like exclamation point kind of thing. And my team, Brooklyn or I will give you a call back literally on Monday and we'll talk to you and see if we can squeeze you in. Let's just say that. Thanks. Now back to the question. Go ahead.
Steven: So, really quickly before we start. We're outside because it's a pure perfect day in Nashville here in an amazing RV park. You can tell they're RV parks. If they cost $35, it's probably going to be okay. If they cost $90, it's going to be fantastic. And we're in one of the $90 ones.
Jill: Yes.
Steven: Behind us is a lake. We're right on the lake. All these spots are.
Jill: Yes.
Steven: And we're, after this, going to take our bikes down.
Jill: Isn't that funny? Some people can't handle it. Like wait a minute, wait minute wait. You're spending a hundred bucks to sleep in your own bed and your own stuff and your own food and your own internet and your own this and your own that. Yeah. I'm paying a hundred bucks a night for a pad, a picnic table and a campfire ring. It's exactly-
Steven: So, gets you thinking. Because if you buy the right piece of land, you could slap all this stuff down.
Jill: Maybe you could. There's the thought. And last time I checked we know how to buy land.
Steven: So most of you, vast majority are listening, not watching. But if you want to check us out on YouTube so you can laugh at us directly-
Jill: You should.
Steven: You should try that.
Jill: You should see this. It's a beautiful day. Hello, Steve wrote, now that the economic market seems to be experiencing a change in fundamentals causing increases in real estate inventories due to fewer buyers... I haven't noticed that but I'm going to finish this in a minute. Are any of you considering creative deal structure instead of cash when buying and ...
Land Investing from the Road: Update four RV 101 (LA 1868) Transcript:
Steven: Steven, Jill here.
Jill: Hello.
Steven: Welcome to the Land Academy Show. Entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill: And I'm Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from the country music capital of the planet.
Steven: Couple days after Loretta Lynn passed too.
Jill: I know.
Steven: We'll check that out tonight.
Jill: Yeah, we're in Nashville. In case you weren't sure.
Steven: Today, Jill and I talk about, we've started this land investing from the road Monday, and so this is land investing from the road update number four and we're going to talk about RV 101 and how it applies to your land business.
Jill: I want to know, can I look at your little calendar? Technically how many weeks has it been? So let's see, we left on the second, hold on poopy. So it's one full week, two full weeks, three full weeks, four full weeks. Tomorrow will be five full weeks that we've been gone. That's kind of cool.
Steven: And neither one of us want to go back at all.
Jill: I know. This is the problem.
Steven: Not at all. Not one bit. In fact, we'll talk about it in the show.
Jill: Okay, cool.
Steven: Before we get into it though, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the land investors.com online community. It's free and I hope you know by now, today is Monday. Jill and I instruct a handful of existing Land Academy members and sometimes non-members in-
Jill: Our new members
Steven: Advanced class. Yeah.
Jill: Yeah. We-
Steven: Called career path. We're recording this on Thursday. It airs on Monday.
Jill: Career path starts in two days.
Steven: That Wednesday. Yeah, there may or may not be a couple spots left. We'll see what happens.
Jill: Exactly.
Steven: If there are, what should they do?
Jill: Okay, let me back this. So Career Path is our top level training/mentoring ten week program instructed live by us. And it happens every Wednesday. And this next session starts in two days. It starts on October 12th. As we are airing, I don't know if I have room, but if you're dying to get in, please send a note to support@landacademy.com and then say, Career Path, like exclamation point kind of thing. And my team, Brooklyn or I will give you a call back literally on Monday and we'll talk to you and see if we can squeeze you in. Let's just say that. Thanks. Now back to the question. Go ahead.
Steven: So, really quickly before we start. We're outside because it's a pure perfect day in Nashville here in an amazing RV park. You can tell they're RV parks. If they cost $35, it's probably going to be okay. If they cost $90, it's going to be fantastic. And we're in one of the $90 ones.
Jill: Yes.
Steven: Behind us is a lake. We're right on the lake. All these spots are.
Jill: Yes.
Steven: And we're, after this, going to take our bikes down.
Jill: Isn't that funny? Some people can't handle it. Like wait a minute, wait minute wait. You're spending a hundred bucks to sleep in your own bed and your own stuff and your own food and your own internet and your own this and your own that. Yeah. I'm paying a hundred bucks a night for a pad, a picnic table and a campfire ring. It's exactly-
Steven: So, gets you thinking. Because if you buy the right piece of land, you could slap all this stuff down.
Jill: Maybe you could. There's the thought. And last time I checked we know how to buy land.
Steven: So most of you, vast majority are listening, not watching. But if you want to check us out on YouTube so you can laugh at us directly-
Jill: You should.
Steven: You should try that.
Jill: You should see this. It's a beautiful day. Hello, Steve wrote, now that the economic market seems to be experiencing a change in fundamentals causing increases in real estate inventories due to fewer buyers... I haven't noticed that but I'm going to finish this in a minute. Are any of you considering creative deal structure instead of cash when buying and ...
Jill Friday - I Love Everything about Your Land But the Price (LA 1867) Transcript:
Steve: Video - three, two. Steve and Jill here.
Jill: Hi.
Steve: Welcome to the Land Academy Show. Entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill: I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the still amazingly nice weather, sweet Detroit, Michigan. Why did I just call it Sweet Detroit, Michigan? If you have not been downtown lately, Detroit, let me tell you, it's changed and it's awesome.
Steve: Really is.
Jill: Fancy restaurants and walking down the street, having a good time and shopping and yeah.
Steve: Today's Jill Friday. She's going to talk about - I'm quoting her now. "I love everything about the land deal, except the price." Happens all the time. If you buy and sell a lot of property, you know this happens.
Jill: Yep.
Steve: If you're still in the beginning stages of your career here, get ready for it.
Jill: Yep.
Steve: Deal's awesome, too expensive.
Jill: Yep. And as a side note for yesterday, the Happiness Lab is still existing, so that was kind of funny. Clearly Jack does not listen to that.
Steve: No. Nor have I been invited to be on the show.
Jill: No, no, that's okay.
Steve: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our land investors, one of our members of the landinvestors.com online community. It's free and I hope you know that we have a site now and we've had it for several years called parcelfact.com. It allows you to look up an assessor's parcel number and find the property and all the things that we think as land investors, you need to know about to make a real quick first, phase one due diligence decision.
Jill: Uhuh.
Steve: Check it out. Parcelfact.com.
Jill: Exactly. Okay. "Can someone with Land Academy experience, give me some advice on PATLive? I'm new to Land Academy and have the ability to answer my own calls from 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM central standard time. I've been in sales for 40 plus years, so answering the phone is the easy part for me. However, if I'm on the phone, it will go to a vendor voicemail, which I want to avoid. I'm starting with a five to 6,000 unit mailer month and I'm going to wrap up to 10,000 plus units a month as the business income grows. My budget's tight, so I'm trying to get a price range on what your average spend is for a 10,000 unit mailer. Thanks in advance for your help."
Steve: I think you're setting yourself up for serious success here. If you're going to answer the phone between seven and seven, it's 12 hours a day. I think that's a great start. I really would highly recommend, Jill, this is more your area than mine, to have yourself with an account with PATLive or whatever, so that if you do miss calls, which nobody wants; but it happens, especially in the beginning part of a mailer, then-
Jill: They could roll over to PATLive. Or for whatever reason, you're not available every single day from seven to seven, you could just flip a switch and have them go to PATLive.
Steve: No, I think you thought this out perfectly well. I love your five to 6,000 mailers a month and ramping up to 10,000. You're going to be successful.
Jill: And taking the initial calls, you're just going to learn so much about this and sellers and develop your own script and tweak what you want PATLive to do for you and your business. I think it's awesome.
Steve: Yeah.
Jill: Don't change a thing. I know it might be a bit in the beginning, but just do it. And there's always waves when the mail hits; you know it. There's a couple crazy days, that's fine. And then it starts to trickle off. You're like, "ah, you know what? I can handle this." You'll be - you could do it because you're a professional - Sid, you could handle it.
Steve: Yeah. Yes. Answer the phone. Seven hours a day is huge.
Jill: Ten -
Steve: What do you think -
Jill: 12. Yeah.
Steve: What do you think [inaudible 00:03:41], he's asking at the end here, for 10,000 units.
Jill: Oh,
Jill Friday - I Love Everything about Your Land But the Price (LA 1867) Transcript:
Steve: Video - three, two. Steve and Jill here.
Jill: Hi.
Steve: Welcome to the Land Academy Show. Entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill: I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the still amazingly nice weather, sweet Detroit, Michigan. Why did I just call it Sweet Detroit, Michigan? If you have not been downtown lately, Detroit, let me tell you, it's changed and it's awesome.
Steve: Really is.
Jill: Fancy restaurants and walking down the street, having a good time and shopping and yeah.
Steve: Today's Jill Friday. She's going to talk about - I'm quoting her now. "I love everything about the land deal, except the price." Happens all the time. If you buy and sell a lot of property, you know this happens.
Jill: Yep.
Steve: If you're still in the beginning stages of your career here, get ready for it.
Jill: Yep.
Steve: Deal's awesome, too expensive.
Jill: Yep. And as a side note for yesterday, the Happiness Lab is still existing, so that was kind of funny. Clearly Jack does not listen to that.
Steve: No. Nor have I been invited to be on the show.
Jill: No, no, that's okay.
Steve: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our land investors, one of our members of the landinvestors.com online community. It's free and I hope you know that we have a site now and we've had it for several years called parcelfact.com. It allows you to look up an assessor's parcel number and find the property and all the things that we think as land investors, you need to know about to make a real quick first, phase one due diligence decision.
Jill: Uhuh.
Steve: Check it out. Parcelfact.com.
Jill: Exactly. Okay. "Can someone with Land Academy experience, give me some advice on PATLive? I'm new to Land Academy and have the ability to answer my own calls from 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM central standard time. I've been in sales for 40 plus years, so answering the phone is the easy part for me. However, if I'm on the phone, it will go to a vendor voicemail, which I want to avoid. I'm starting with a five to 6,000 unit mailer month and I'm going to wrap up to 10,000 plus units a month as the business income grows. My budget's tight, so I'm trying to get a price range on what your average spend is for a 10,000 unit mailer. Thanks in advance for your help."
Steve: I think you're setting yourself up for serious success here. If you're going to answer the phone between seven and seven, it's 12 hours a day. I think that's a great start. I really would highly recommend, Jill, this is more your area than mine, to have yourself with an account with PATLive or whatever, so that if you do miss calls, which nobody wants; but it happens, especially in the beginning part of a mailer, then-
Jill: They could roll over to PATLive. Or for whatever reason, you're not available every single day from seven to seven, you could just flip a switch and have them go to PATLive.
Steve: No, I think you thought this out perfectly well. I love your five to 6,000 mailers a month and ramping up to 10,000. You're going to be successful.
Jill: And taking the initial calls, you're just going to learn so much about this and sellers and develop your own script and tweak what you want PATLive to do for you and your business. I think it's awesome.
Steve: Yeah.
Jill: Don't change a thing. I know it might be a bit in the beginning, but just do it. And there's always waves when the mail hits; you know it. There's a couple crazy days, that's fine. And then it starts to trickle off. You're like, "ah, you know what? I can handle this." You'll be - you could do it because you're a professional - Sid, you could handle it.
Steve: Yeah. Yes. Answer the phone. Seven hours a day is huge.
Jill: Ten -
Steve: What do you think -
Jill: 12. Yeah.
Steve: What do you think [inaudible 00:03:41], he's asking at the end here, for 10,000 units.
Jill: Oh,
Jack Thursday - Why I'm Never Satisfied in Business (LA 1866) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here. Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit. Coming to you from Steven's hometown.
Steven Jack Butala: Detroit, Michigan.
Jill DeWit: Yup.
Steven Jack Butala: Jill and I are on a huge road trip, two month, maybe three month road trip. For about three or four weeks into it, we're in Detroit, coming off of our niece's wedding. Today's topic, well, it's Jack Thursday and I'm going to talk about why I'm never satisfied in business and why I think it's actually pretty healthy.
Jill DeWit: Interesting.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and don't forget to subscribe on a Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Why? It actually really works. It helps us develop content that you might want to hear.
Jill DeWit: I love it. That's funny. Okay. It's not funny, I love it. Anyway, Mike wrote, "My land agent has offered to pay for my mailers in order to give him the leads of properties I pass on. Anyone had that presented to them before?" I actually think that's cool.
Steven Jack Butala: This is the worst idea I've ever heard.
Jill DeWit: Why? Well yeah, now you're in bed with the guy and he's going to weigh in on all the stuff and whose phone number goes on and....
Steven Jack Butala: Keep going.
Jill DeWit: ...continue, and then so on and so on and so on. Hey, that's my deal. I did all the work, yeah, but I paid for the mail and we didn't get the yield out of it for.
Steven Jack Butala: I paid for the mail and you bought this property without me. I paid for this mail. You bought this property without me. You made $38,000 and didn't get me involved in this deal. I could have sold that for $68,000. I'm never going to be a partner again. Screw you. That's how that ends.
Jill DeWit: Okay! All right. Thank you very much.
Steven Jack Butala: And that's me trying to really put a lid on it.
Jill DeWit: Aw.
Steven Jack Butala: All these side deals that you do in these handshake deals almost never work. If you're going to get in bed with somebody, get in bed with him like Jill and I, and be their partner.
Jill DeWit: Thanks. Or do a deal together. My favorite thing, yeah, this, I get it. So it gets the leads. I mean, I got to say kudos to the guy for thinking of this, because he knows that those properties are gonna pass on.
Steven Jack Butala: Why doesn't he just do his own mailer?
Jill DeWit: Well, you know what's funny about that? That comes up over and over and over again with a lot of the buyers that I deal with, because they're going to buy the property and then do something with it. I'm like, you know you realize you're paying me as a middle man for you to now go sell this on terms or whatever you're going to do. You could have done this. They're like, "Yeah, but I don't want to."
Steven Jack Butala: Okay.
Jill DeWit: No, they don't want it and that's okay.
Steven Jack Butala: They just want it spoonfed.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, I'm happy with that. And trust me too, by the way, it's been a while, but I would had several real estate agents in the past that we were doing [inaudible 00:02:59] were really big, doing some house academy stuff and they knew that I bought land, right? And so when they would get any kind of a land deal, they'd just call me and say, "Hey, this guy wants to sell it and I don't want to sell it for him, but I know you buy it. Here you go." I'm like, "Hold on a moment, why aren't you buying this?" Like, "No, I'm just not a land person too." They just would pass things off because it's not their thing. They don't get it, and that's fine. I appreciate them picking what they do and owning it.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's topic: this is Jack Thursday and I'm going to talk about wh...
Jack Thursday - Why I'm Never Satisfied in Business (LA 1866) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here. Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit. Coming to you from Steven's hometown.
Steven Jack Butala: Detroit, Michigan.
Jill DeWit: Yup.
Steven Jack Butala: Jill and I are on a huge road trip, two month, maybe three month road trip. For about three or four weeks into it, we're in Detroit, coming off of our niece's wedding. Today's topic, well, it's Jack Thursday and I'm going to talk about why I'm never satisfied in business and why I think it's actually pretty healthy.
Jill DeWit: Interesting.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and don't forget to subscribe on a Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Why? It actually really works. It helps us develop content that you might want to hear.
Jill DeWit: I love it. That's funny. Okay. It's not funny, I love it. Anyway, Mike wrote, "My land agent has offered to pay for my mailers in order to give him the leads of properties I pass on. Anyone had that presented to them before?" I actually think that's cool.
Steven Jack Butala: This is the worst idea I've ever heard.
Jill DeWit: Why? Well yeah, now you're in bed with the guy and he's going to weigh in on all the stuff and whose phone number goes on and....
Steven Jack Butala: Keep going.
Jill DeWit: ...continue, and then so on and so on and so on. Hey, that's my deal. I did all the work, yeah, but I paid for the mail and we didn't get the yield out of it for.
Steven Jack Butala: I paid for the mail and you bought this property without me. I paid for this mail. You bought this property without me. You made $38,000 and didn't get me involved in this deal. I could have sold that for $68,000. I'm never going to be a partner again. Screw you. That's how that ends.
Jill DeWit: Okay! All right. Thank you very much.
Steven Jack Butala: And that's me trying to really put a lid on it.
Jill DeWit: Aw.
Steven Jack Butala: All these side deals that you do in these handshake deals almost never work. If you're going to get in bed with somebody, get in bed with him like Jill and I, and be their partner.
Jill DeWit: Thanks. Or do a deal together. My favorite thing, yeah, this, I get it. So it gets the leads. I mean, I got to say kudos to the guy for thinking of this, because he knows that those properties are gonna pass on.
Steven Jack Butala: Why doesn't he just do his own mailer?
Jill DeWit: Well, you know what's funny about that? That comes up over and over and over again with a lot of the buyers that I deal with, because they're going to buy the property and then do something with it. I'm like, you know you realize you're paying me as a middle man for you to now go sell this on terms or whatever you're going to do. You could have done this. They're like, "Yeah, but I don't want to."
Steven Jack Butala: Okay.
Jill DeWit: No, they don't want it and that's okay.
Steven Jack Butala: They just want it spoonfed.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, I'm happy with that. And trust me too, by the way, it's been a while, but I would had several real estate agents in the past that we were doing [inaudible 00:02:59] were really big, doing some house academy stuff and they knew that I bought land, right? And so when they would get any kind of a land deal, they'd just call me and say, "Hey, this guy wants to sell it and I don't want to sell it for him, but I know you buy it. Here you go." I'm like, "Hold on a moment, why aren't you buying this?" Like, "No, I'm just not a land person too." They just would pass things off because it's not their thing. They don't get it, and that's fine. I appreciate them picking what they do and owning it.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's topic: this is Jack Thursday and I'm going to talk about wh...
How to Buy Land the Right and Wrong Way (LA 1865) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, coming to you from the coolest city right now, I think, where we are sitting in just north of Detroit. I'm having a ball.
Steven Jack Butala: Me too.
Jill DeWit: This has been so much fun.
Steven Jack Butala: Absolute opposite of what I thought was going to happen.
Jill DeWit: Let me tell you what I accidentally did, and then we'll start this show. I didn't realize until the other day that I've accidentally put you back in 1980... fill in the blank. So 1985 or four or something.
Steven Jack Butala: Probably '83, but yes.
Jill DeWit: '83. Okay. Here's what I've done. We are sitting in Steven's hometown having multiple fun evenings of dinner and shenanigans with all is high school buddies driving around in a version of his original high school Jeep. The only thing that's different is the color. Yours was red, this is silver. This is cracking me up.
Steven Jack Butala: We're having a blast.
Jill DeWit: And then I wonder, why is he behaving like a 17 year old? Gee. So you have to think about that one.
Steven Jack Butala: You know what the difference is, you. It's because you're here. We're having a blast.
Jill DeWit: Oh, I'm keeping the wheels on the bus.
Steven Jack Butala: Yes.
Jill DeWit: Here we go. Well, thanks for that.
Steven Jack Butala: Today Jill and I talk about the right way to buy land and the wrong way. The root of this episode came from several conversations that Jill's been having with people who are being interviewed for-
Jill DeWit: Interviewing us.
Steven Jack Butala: ... for Career Path.
Jill DeWit: Well, yeah, and even people that are thinking about coming to Land Academy and learning what they're doing. It's interesting. And then all it does is make me say, "Oh, you're going to love this, and I'll tell you more in a minute."
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our investors on a land...
Jill DeWit: How you doing there?
Steven Jack Butala: How many times have I said this?
Jill DeWit: I know.
Steven Jack Butala: I can't say it right. One of our members on the Land Investors online community, it's free. Last year a ton of Land Academy members came to Jill and I needing extra help to get their offer campaigns in the mail, so we decided to launch a product called Concierge Data using the exact same employees that we've been using to do our mailers. It's called Concierge Data. They'll help you get your campaign in the mail. Whether you've done a hundred campaigns or zero, we're all set up for it. Take a look at offers2owners.com and give them a shout.
Jill DeWit: Cool. All right. Aaron wrote, "I've got a $17,000 cash offer, no contingencies, nine day close, along with proof that this guy has $35,000 in his bank account last week for a five acre property on an Indian reservation, which also happens to be near some pretty nice non-reservation lakes. The same five acres not on the reservation would be worth $40,000. This one's a $17,000 offer. "I get an email that the buyer's asking me to sign a cancellation agreement because he found out through one of the neighbors that one of the other neighbors is a drug dealer. Are they actually a drug dealer? Who knows? Maybe. The first neighbor just might not want someone to buy the property, which is true. "Would you, A, sign it and elicit ASAP, B, spend $100 to get an attorney to write them a letter explaining how I agreed to buy it, but that I'll let them off the hook, but I'm keeping $1,000 earnest money, three, engage my small town attorney and try to make him buy it or, D, something else? My inclination is number one, A, but it pisses me off how this has happened. Plus now everyone's going to wonder why it went back on the market."
How to Buy Land the Right and Wrong Way (LA 1865) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, coming to you from the coolest city right now, I think, where we are sitting in just north of Detroit. I'm having a ball.
Steven Jack Butala: Me too.
Jill DeWit: This has been so much fun.
Steven Jack Butala: Absolute opposite of what I thought was going to happen.
Jill DeWit: Let me tell you what I accidentally did, and then we'll start this show. I didn't realize until the other day that I've accidentally put you back in 1980... fill in the blank. So 1985 or four or something.
Steven Jack Butala: Probably '83, but yes.
Jill DeWit: '83. Okay. Here's what I've done. We are sitting in Steven's hometown having multiple fun evenings of dinner and shenanigans with all is high school buddies driving around in a version of his original high school Jeep. The only thing that's different is the color. Yours was red, this is silver. This is cracking me up.
Steven Jack Butala: We're having a blast.
Jill DeWit: And then I wonder, why is he behaving like a 17 year old? Gee. So you have to think about that one.
Steven Jack Butala: You know what the difference is, you. It's because you're here. We're having a blast.
Jill DeWit: Oh, I'm keeping the wheels on the bus.
Steven Jack Butala: Yes.
Jill DeWit: Here we go. Well, thanks for that.
Steven Jack Butala: Today Jill and I talk about the right way to buy land and the wrong way. The root of this episode came from several conversations that Jill's been having with people who are being interviewed for-
Jill DeWit: Interviewing us.
Steven Jack Butala: ... for Career Path.
Jill DeWit: Well, yeah, and even people that are thinking about coming to Land Academy and learning what they're doing. It's interesting. And then all it does is make me say, "Oh, you're going to love this, and I'll tell you more in a minute."
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our investors on a land...
Jill DeWit: How you doing there?
Steven Jack Butala: How many times have I said this?
Jill DeWit: I know.
Steven Jack Butala: I can't say it right. One of our members on the Land Investors online community, it's free. Last year a ton of Land Academy members came to Jill and I needing extra help to get their offer campaigns in the mail, so we decided to launch a product called Concierge Data using the exact same employees that we've been using to do our mailers. It's called Concierge Data. They'll help you get your campaign in the mail. Whether you've done a hundred campaigns or zero, we're all set up for it. Take a look at offers2owners.com and give them a shout.
Jill DeWit: Cool. All right. Aaron wrote, "I've got a $17,000 cash offer, no contingencies, nine day close, along with proof that this guy has $35,000 in his bank account last week for a five acre property on an Indian reservation, which also happens to be near some pretty nice non-reservation lakes. The same five acres not on the reservation would be worth $40,000. This one's a $17,000 offer. "I get an email that the buyer's asking me to sign a cancellation agreement because he found out through one of the neighbors that one of the other neighbors is a drug dealer. Are they actually a drug dealer? Who knows? Maybe. The first neighbor just might not want someone to buy the property, which is true. "Would you, A, sign it and elicit ASAP, B, spend $100 to get an attorney to write them a letter explaining how I agreed to buy it, but that I'll let them off the hook, but I'm keeping $1,000 earnest money, three, engage my small town attorney and try to make him buy it or, D, something else? My inclination is number one, A, but it pisses me off how this has happened. Plus now everyone's going to wonder why it went back on the market."
Real Estate Lessons Learned From Detroit's Apparent Comeback (LA 1864) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from awesome motor city, Detroit. Technically, I'm not really in Detroit right now. We're a little bit Do North.
Steven Jack Butala: Do North.
Jill DeWit: ... of Detroit, right along Lake St. Clair.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Good, you're getting it.
Jill DeWit: Thank very much. I'm getting it. Learning my way around a little bit and it's amazing. And boy, do you people here in Detroit drive fast?
Steven Jack Butala: This is someone from Los Angeles.
Jill DeWit: I thought we drove nuts in LA. I was like, "I got to up my game to keep up with you all." It's impressive.
Steven Jack Butala: I forgot. But yeah, it's always been like that.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Man, you guys drive fast. And man, do you have a lot of cool cars around. It's good.
Steven Jack Butala: Today Jill and I talk about the real estate lessons we've learned in the short time that we've been here from Detroit's apparent comeback.
Jill DeWit: It's amazing.
Steven Jack Butala: I have to tell you that we've been in the Detroit area for two days and my opinion has done a 180 degree turn.
Jill DeWit: Yep.
Steven Jack Butala: I've been knocking on Detroit and knocking Detroit down on this show since 2015 and it's over. I'm so impressed by what we saw over the last few days to the point where we will be attending the Lions game. One of my buddies is a nicest thing ever.
Jill DeWit: Well, yeah, when this airs, we will have gone to the Lions game two days ago.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. I was going to explain that.
Jill DeWit: Oh, sorry.
Steven Jack Butala: So this airs on Tuesday, but we will see this Sunday prior to Lion's game and I hope they win. But while you're listening to this, you will know.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. And Jill gets to sit across and stare at Pete Carroll.
Steven Jack Butala: Because they're playing Seattle.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: Anyway, to the point where when I lived here when I was a kid, it was very, very unusual or difficult for a lot of reasons to go downtown to a baseball game, and the football stadium wasn't even located here. It was located in way northern suburb. So, I can't wait. We were down there for dinner last night. I can't wait to go back there again. It's so completely redone. And in the show we're going to talk about why and the people that we went to dinner with explained it to us and it's a great story. And what we can take from it is how to create equity in real estate, which we do, but with every land transaction we do.
Jill DeWit: Yep.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members in the landinvestors.com, online community's free, and I hope you know that we have a full blown commercial printing company to help you get offers to owners out in the mail. In fact, let's call Offers the number two owners.com. We process between 500,000 and a million offers a month, and to get you, and if you're a member or not a member of Atlantic Academy to get your offers in front of offersowners.com.
Jill DeWit: Megan Mote. "Hey guys, quick question. We received a signed purchase agreement back and after further investigation we decided we do not want it all together. We reached out to the buyer and said, "We're not interested at this time," and they replied, "Then why send a purchase agreement in the first place then?" Does anyone have any suggestions on how to reply to that? I tried searching the groups for this topic [inaudible 00:03:23] I can find it if this has been spoken about already, please help me in the right direction. Thanks so much." You know what I would do?
Steven Jack Butala: Nothing.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
Real Estate Lessons Learned From Detroit's Apparent Comeback (LA 1864) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from awesome motor city, Detroit. Technically, I'm not really in Detroit right now. We're a little bit Do North.
Steven Jack Butala: Do North.
Jill DeWit: ... of Detroit, right along Lake St. Clair.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Good, you're getting it.
Jill DeWit: Thank very much. I'm getting it. Learning my way around a little bit and it's amazing. And boy, do you people here in Detroit drive fast?
Steven Jack Butala: This is someone from Los Angeles.
Jill DeWit: I thought we drove nuts in LA. I was like, "I got to up my game to keep up with you all." It's impressive.
Steven Jack Butala: I forgot. But yeah, it's always been like that.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Man, you guys drive fast. And man, do you have a lot of cool cars around. It's good.
Steven Jack Butala: Today Jill and I talk about the real estate lessons we've learned in the short time that we've been here from Detroit's apparent comeback.
Jill DeWit: It's amazing.
Steven Jack Butala: I have to tell you that we've been in the Detroit area for two days and my opinion has done a 180 degree turn.
Jill DeWit: Yep.
Steven Jack Butala: I've been knocking on Detroit and knocking Detroit down on this show since 2015 and it's over. I'm so impressed by what we saw over the last few days to the point where we will be attending the Lions game. One of my buddies is a nicest thing ever.
Jill DeWit: Well, yeah, when this airs, we will have gone to the Lions game two days ago.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. I was going to explain that.
Jill DeWit: Oh, sorry.
Steven Jack Butala: So this airs on Tuesday, but we will see this Sunday prior to Lion's game and I hope they win. But while you're listening to this, you will know.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. And Jill gets to sit across and stare at Pete Carroll.
Steven Jack Butala: Because they're playing Seattle.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: Anyway, to the point where when I lived here when I was a kid, it was very, very unusual or difficult for a lot of reasons to go downtown to a baseball game, and the football stadium wasn't even located here. It was located in way northern suburb. So, I can't wait. We were down there for dinner last night. I can't wait to go back there again. It's so completely redone. And in the show we're going to talk about why and the people that we went to dinner with explained it to us and it's a great story. And what we can take from it is how to create equity in real estate, which we do, but with every land transaction we do.
Jill DeWit: Yep.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members in the landinvestors.com, online community's free, and I hope you know that we have a full blown commercial printing company to help you get offers to owners out in the mail. In fact, let's call Offers the number two owners.com. We process between 500,000 and a million offers a month, and to get you, and if you're a member or not a member of Atlantic Academy to get your offers in front of offersowners.com.
Jill DeWit: Megan Mote. "Hey guys, quick question. We received a signed purchase agreement back and after further investigation we decided we do not want it all together. We reached out to the buyer and said, "We're not interested at this time," and they replied, "Then why send a purchase agreement in the first place then?" Does anyone have any suggestions on how to reply to that? I tried searching the groups for this topic [inaudible 00:03:23] I can find it if this has been spoken about already, please help me in the right direction. Thanks so much." You know what I would do?
Steven Jack Butala: Nothing.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
Land Investing From the Road: Update Number 3 (LA 1863) Transcript:
Speaker 1: Steven, Jill here.
Speaker 2: Hello.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Speaker 2: And I'm Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from Hall, the MotorCity from Detroit.
Speaker 1: Today Jill and I talk about land investing from the road and this is update number three. We started in Arizona, we worked our way across the country. Spent way too much time because we were having a blast in Colorado. Didn't spend too much time, but had a blast in Nebraska, Iowa and Wisconsin.
Speaker 2: So last week when we were recording, we were coming to you from Traverse City, Michigan. As you can see, we didn't make it that far. We have a lot of family to see and we're actually having a good time. You know what? We have a lot of family to see and the weather has been cooperative. And those of you who know Michigan, especially know the northern parts, it's so pretty with your lakes. It's just awesome. My favorite's been Harbor Springs now. Now I moved, I keep changing my favorite places.
Speaker 1: There's a huge, huge gap between the sale prices for houses and sale prices for land, which is great for us.
Speaker 2: It's true.
Speaker 1: So the whole time that we've been doing this, Jill and I have been researching land, land values, all the way, every time we get in a car. So I've come up personally with a bunch of places I want to send mail throughout.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Isn't that interesting? So wait, let me just go... I want to continue that thought for just a minute. We're on the north west side of Lake-
Speaker 1: St. Clair.
Speaker 2: St. Clair, okay. And I've noticed homes around here. You can get a home for $200 000 to $300,000 and then there's lots for $200 000 to $300,000. So you're right, these numbers being all over the map are good for us.
Speaker 1: It is great for us. Where we're sitting is not a place you want to buy land at all. But there have been places on the way here where you got 5, 6, 7 and mostly upstate Michigan, we call it up north here, $800,000 houses. And then lots are on the MLS for $20,000 in the same vicinity. So those are great places to send mail.
Speaker 2: Well the Michigan started to come out there for a second.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah. I like it.
Speaker 1: I'm not happy about it.
Speaker 2: It's good.
Speaker 1: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free and I hope by now Jill and I instruct a handful of new and existing Land Academy members in a one on one class called Career Path. So it's for people who, this is already your career or you want it to be career called Career Path. I think Jill, you got a class coming up, right?
Speaker 2: And by the way, October 12th, as this launches we are 10 days out. I may still have slots for recording, I do. As of, when this is releasing, I'm not sure. But if this is something that you really think about, please schedule a call with me and you could actually schedule a call with me. Just go to landacademy.com/careerpath, scroll down and there's a spot to click on and schedule a call and I'll call you. If you think, "Ah, shoot. You know what Jill? I think this is the direction we're going. I think I'm ready for it or I just don't want to wait that long to get ramped up. I got this. How fast can I get to your level?" That's who Career Path is for and I will happily have a chat with you and even Jack too.
Speaker 1: Or, "Haha, we passed you guys a long time ago, but we could use your advice."
Speaker 2: Oh, not usually that, but that's okay. Anyway, just to click on that, schedule a call and I'll have a chat with you and we'll figure it out. So, thank you. All right, so back to the question Kim wrote, "I have a purchase agreement signed and there are three owners. The seller I'm talking has stated he has talked with ma...
Land Investing From the Road: Update Number 3 (LA 1863) Transcript:
Speaker 1: Steven, Jill here.
Speaker 2: Hello.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Speaker 2: And I'm Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from Hall, the MotorCity from Detroit.
Speaker 1: Today Jill and I talk about land investing from the road and this is update number three. We started in Arizona, we worked our way across the country. Spent way too much time because we were having a blast in Colorado. Didn't spend too much time, but had a blast in Nebraska, Iowa and Wisconsin.
Speaker 2: So last week when we were recording, we were coming to you from Traverse City, Michigan. As you can see, we didn't make it that far. We have a lot of family to see and we're actually having a good time. You know what? We have a lot of family to see and the weather has been cooperative. And those of you who know Michigan, especially know the northern parts, it's so pretty with your lakes. It's just awesome. My favorite's been Harbor Springs now. Now I moved, I keep changing my favorite places.
Speaker 1: There's a huge, huge gap between the sale prices for houses and sale prices for land, which is great for us.
Speaker 2: It's true.
Speaker 1: So the whole time that we've been doing this, Jill and I have been researching land, land values, all the way, every time we get in a car. So I've come up personally with a bunch of places I want to send mail throughout.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Isn't that interesting? So wait, let me just go... I want to continue that thought for just a minute. We're on the north west side of Lake-
Speaker 1: St. Clair.
Speaker 2: St. Clair, okay. And I've noticed homes around here. You can get a home for $200 000 to $300,000 and then there's lots for $200 000 to $300,000. So you're right, these numbers being all over the map are good for us.
Speaker 1: It is great for us. Where we're sitting is not a place you want to buy land at all. But there have been places on the way here where you got 5, 6, 7 and mostly upstate Michigan, we call it up north here, $800,000 houses. And then lots are on the MLS for $20,000 in the same vicinity. So those are great places to send mail.
Speaker 2: Well the Michigan started to come out there for a second.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah. I like it.
Speaker 1: I'm not happy about it.
Speaker 2: It's good.
Speaker 1: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free and I hope by now Jill and I instruct a handful of new and existing Land Academy members in a one on one class called Career Path. So it's for people who, this is already your career or you want it to be career called Career Path. I think Jill, you got a class coming up, right?
Speaker 2: And by the way, October 12th, as this launches we are 10 days out. I may still have slots for recording, I do. As of, when this is releasing, I'm not sure. But if this is something that you really think about, please schedule a call with me and you could actually schedule a call with me. Just go to landacademy.com/careerpath, scroll down and there's a spot to click on and schedule a call and I'll call you. If you think, "Ah, shoot. You know what Jill? I think this is the direction we're going. I think I'm ready for it or I just don't want to wait that long to get ramped up. I got this. How fast can I get to your level?" That's who Career Path is for and I will happily have a chat with you and even Jack too.
Speaker 1: Or, "Haha, we passed you guys a long time ago, but we could use your advice."
Speaker 2: Oh, not usually that, but that's okay. Anyway, just to click on that, schedule a call and I'll have a chat with you and we'll figure it out. So, thank you. All right, so back to the question Kim wrote, "I have a purchase agreement signed and there are three owners. The seller I'm talking has stated he has talked with ma...
Jill Friday - After 30 days We are Getting Land Deals Done From the Road (LA 1862) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Three, two... Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I am Jill DeWit broadcasting from one of the largest football rivalry states in the country. As this airs, it is Friday, September 30th, I happen to know that Michigan State will play Maryland tomorrow and U of M will play Iowa. And in case you're not sure, the big rivalry game between the two Michigan, Michigan and Michigan State, will happen on October 29th this year. So just getting that out of the way. Boy, have I learned, there's a big difference whether you wear green, or blue and gold around here, green and white, or blue and gold. And we wear green and white, and I've bought more green and white.
Steven Jack Butala: We've earned it, by the way. A lot of people wear those colors, they don't know anything. I don't understand that. People I've met, "Oh, I'm a Michigan fan." Really? Why'd you go there? Oh no, I'm just a Michigan fan, diehard Michigan fan.
Jill K DeWit: Anyway, it's been fun. Southern California wasn't as much into it as... Oh, no. Not like here.
Steven Jack Butala: I don't think they [inaudible 00:01:35]
Jill K DeWit: USC, UCLA.
Steven Jack Butala: Sports are not their integral part of the world there. Not just Michigan, everyone is Green Bays up here, all over the Midwest.
Jill K DeWit: You don't see it like you do. Even in Arizona with U of A, ASU, you see it, but not as prevalent as here.
Steven Jack Butala: I have a lot to say about this. I'm not going to say anything. Today is Jill Friday and she's going to talk about, well, after 30 days of on the road, how it's going, getting land deals done.
Jill K DeWit: I can tell.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the Landinvestors.com online community, it's free. And hope you know by now, we own and operate this website called parcelfact, F-A-C-T, .com in response to back in the day us having a difficult time finding property without a post office address, 123 Main Street. All we had was state in the county that it was in and an assessor's parcel number. Well, we built a site around that information and now within seconds, while you're on the phone with the seller, you can get the information that you need about where these properties are quickly.
Jill K DeWit: It's amazing. You can just pop it in. And this is what I do all the time. I have parcelfact.com open on my computer, I have it on one screen, and my email on another screen, a call comes up from a seller, put in state county APN because that's all there is, and I can make sure I'm talking to the right person. I can physically see the property. With one button, I can drop it into Google Earth Pro, drop a man down on the ground, even get real good visuals and check out slope and all kinds of amazing... We have flood maps on ParcelFact, lots of different views. And I get all the tax information, sale information, legal zoning, dream it up, it's all right there. It's amazing. Matt wrote neighbor letters, question mark, I have an in inexpensive property from a kill the deal offer. I think I can get it for 19,000. I know neighbor mailers are a standard practice and I think they're a fantastic way to spread local word of mouth. I'm going to send 10 to 20 of the closest owners for sure, but then how far out do I go? Should I use the data tree map view to draw a polygon and mail them within a set area? Should I use a data tree map view and then double click and select likely buyers, instead of drawing a circle, and then click through them all and see? Should I just mail the closest of 20 and then maybe pockets on the way to town? Are 100 too many or are they too few? Is there an obvious answer that I'm missing?
Jill Friday - After 30 days We are Getting Land Deals Done From the Road (LA 1862) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Three, two... Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I am Jill DeWit broadcasting from one of the largest football rivalry states in the country. As this airs, it is Friday, September 30th, I happen to know that Michigan State will play Maryland tomorrow and U of M will play Iowa. And in case you're not sure, the big rivalry game between the two Michigan, Michigan and Michigan State, will happen on October 29th this year. So just getting that out of the way. Boy, have I learned, there's a big difference whether you wear green, or blue and gold around here, green and white, or blue and gold. And we wear green and white, and I've bought more green and white.
Steven Jack Butala: We've earned it, by the way. A lot of people wear those colors, they don't know anything. I don't understand that. People I've met, "Oh, I'm a Michigan fan." Really? Why'd you go there? Oh no, I'm just a Michigan fan, diehard Michigan fan.
Jill K DeWit: Anyway, it's been fun. Southern California wasn't as much into it as... Oh, no. Not like here.
Steven Jack Butala: I don't think they [inaudible 00:01:35]
Jill K DeWit: USC, UCLA.
Steven Jack Butala: Sports are not their integral part of the world there. Not just Michigan, everyone is Green Bays up here, all over the Midwest.
Jill K DeWit: You don't see it like you do. Even in Arizona with U of A, ASU, you see it, but not as prevalent as here.
Steven Jack Butala: I have a lot to say about this. I'm not going to say anything. Today is Jill Friday and she's going to talk about, well, after 30 days of on the road, how it's going, getting land deals done.
Jill K DeWit: I can tell.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the Landinvestors.com online community, it's free. And hope you know by now, we own and operate this website called parcelfact, F-A-C-T, .com in response to back in the day us having a difficult time finding property without a post office address, 123 Main Street. All we had was state in the county that it was in and an assessor's parcel number. Well, we built a site around that information and now within seconds, while you're on the phone with the seller, you can get the information that you need about where these properties are quickly.
Jill K DeWit: It's amazing. You can just pop it in. And this is what I do all the time. I have parcelfact.com open on my computer, I have it on one screen, and my email on another screen, a call comes up from a seller, put in state county APN because that's all there is, and I can make sure I'm talking to the right person. I can physically see the property. With one button, I can drop it into Google Earth Pro, drop a man down on the ground, even get real good visuals and check out slope and all kinds of amazing... We have flood maps on ParcelFact, lots of different views. And I get all the tax information, sale information, legal zoning, dream it up, it's all right there. It's amazing. Matt wrote neighbor letters, question mark, I have an in inexpensive property from a kill the deal offer. I think I can get it for 19,000. I know neighbor mailers are a standard practice and I think they're a fantastic way to spread local word of mouth. I'm going to send 10 to 20 of the closest owners for sure, but then how far out do I go? Should I use the data tree map view to draw a polygon and mail them within a set area? Should I use a data tree map view and then double click and select likely buyers, instead of drawing a circle, and then click through them all and see? Should I just mail the closest of 20 and then maybe pockets on the way to town? Are 100 too many or are they too few? Is there an obvious answer that I'm missing?
Jack Thursday - Fourth Quarter Decision Making Time (LA 1861) Transcript:
Jill K DeWit: Camera moment.
Steven Jack Butala: And we video in three, two. Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show. Entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the beautiful, scenic land of M22.
Steven Jack Butala: Wow.
Jill K DeWit: Boy, wasn't that pretty? We did a lot of M22 the other day.
Steven Jack Butala: I'll explain it in a second.
Jill K DeWit: Okay.
Steven Jack Butala: Today is Jack Thursday and I'm going to talk to you about how it is now the fourth quarter, and you have to make some decisions about how you want the rest of your financial year to go.
Jill K DeWit: Sounds like a football moment.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: Okay.
Steven Jack Butala: There's a road called M22, the state road Michigan 22. And it goes around... If Michigan were a mitten, it goes around this finger right here, your pinky finger around here. Through... But there's a big traverse bay here. And Jill and I drove it. I grew up in Michigan, Southeastern Michigan. I never knew this stuff was up here.
Jill K DeWit: Beautiful.
Steven Jack Butala: What an amazing drive.
Jill K DeWit: Yes, we have seen the dunes. Yes, we had lunch in Fishtown. Yes, we thought, "We should buy something here." Only because, as we're rolling through, it's like 75 degrees. We hit... As Jack calls it, a chamber of commerce worthy day. That's the day that we did M22.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: Not January M22. So yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: January M22, you would do on a snowmobile.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. No, that would be fun too, actually. I did see the snowmobile signs as we're rolling around. Oh, just gorgeous.
Steven Jack Butala: What's cool, is that somebody took the concept of N22, the sign.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: The road sign. And now they have all these products with M22 on it. They have a directory of things to go to people. Buy dry suits, and actually, while it's snowing, literally surf. The surfs that... on certain points on the M22, there's great surfing. And they also have little local bars or restaurants all over the place, so. I just thought that was just brilliant, brilliant marketing. To take some kind of little local secret and just get it out there. Before we get into it, let's take a question. Posted by one of our members on a landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Please don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Not joking. It'd be great. Because it helps us develop better content, when I know what you like.
Jill K DeWit: Totally. Steven wrote-
Steven Jack Butala: This is lengthy.
Jill K DeWit: ... Okay. "Hello everyone. I've been out of the loop on here and have a lot to catch up on." I'm sure he is talking about discord. "There's always a ton of gold in these chats."
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: "I usually pop in here when I have questions about my business. So I ghost whenever things are going smoothly."
Steven Jack Butala: That's just like the typical Land Academy member.
Jill K DeWit: That's totally, yeah,
Steven Jack Butala: "You guys... Oh, wait a second. I just closed a deal."
Jill K DeWit: Right? "Discord is where I find out about all the questions I don't even know I need to ask. So here's the question I do have though. Last year, around this time, I sent out a lot of mail and set the closing date just before and after Thanksgiving. I had a decent response, but getting any through escrow after Thanksgiving was ridiculously slow. Surely it's because of the lack of staff at title and escrow, coupled with all the people still trying to 1031, take losses, et cetera. Before the new year. I still need to do $40,000 to make my goal for 2022." I love it.
Steven Jack Butala: Me too.
Jill K DeWit:
Jack Thursday - Fourth Quarter Decision Making Time (LA 1861) Transcript:
Jill K DeWit: Camera moment.
Steven Jack Butala: And we video in three, two. Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show. Entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the beautiful, scenic land of M22.
Steven Jack Butala: Wow.
Jill K DeWit: Boy, wasn't that pretty? We did a lot of M22 the other day.
Steven Jack Butala: I'll explain it in a second.
Jill K DeWit: Okay.
Steven Jack Butala: Today is Jack Thursday and I'm going to talk to you about how it is now the fourth quarter, and you have to make some decisions about how you want the rest of your financial year to go.
Jill K DeWit: Sounds like a football moment.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: Okay.
Steven Jack Butala: There's a road called M22, the state road Michigan 22. And it goes around... If Michigan were a mitten, it goes around this finger right here, your pinky finger around here. Through... But there's a big traverse bay here. And Jill and I drove it. I grew up in Michigan, Southeastern Michigan. I never knew this stuff was up here.
Jill K DeWit: Beautiful.
Steven Jack Butala: What an amazing drive.
Jill K DeWit: Yes, we have seen the dunes. Yes, we had lunch in Fishtown. Yes, we thought, "We should buy something here." Only because, as we're rolling through, it's like 75 degrees. We hit... As Jack calls it, a chamber of commerce worthy day. That's the day that we did M22.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: Not January M22. So yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: January M22, you would do on a snowmobile.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. No, that would be fun too, actually. I did see the snowmobile signs as we're rolling around. Oh, just gorgeous.
Steven Jack Butala: What's cool, is that somebody took the concept of N22, the sign.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: The road sign. And now they have all these products with M22 on it. They have a directory of things to go to people. Buy dry suits, and actually, while it's snowing, literally surf. The surfs that... on certain points on the M22, there's great surfing. And they also have little local bars or restaurants all over the place, so. I just thought that was just brilliant, brilliant marketing. To take some kind of little local secret and just get it out there. Before we get into it, let's take a question. Posted by one of our members on a landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Please don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Not joking. It'd be great. Because it helps us develop better content, when I know what you like.
Jill K DeWit: Totally. Steven wrote-
Steven Jack Butala: This is lengthy.
Jill K DeWit: ... Okay. "Hello everyone. I've been out of the loop on here and have a lot to catch up on." I'm sure he is talking about discord. "There's always a ton of gold in these chats."
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: "I usually pop in here when I have questions about my business. So I ghost whenever things are going smoothly."
Steven Jack Butala: That's just like the typical Land Academy member.
Jill K DeWit: That's totally, yeah,
Steven Jack Butala: "You guys... Oh, wait a second. I just closed a deal."
Jill K DeWit: Right? "Discord is where I find out about all the questions I don't even know I need to ask. So here's the question I do have though. Last year, around this time, I sent out a lot of mail and set the closing date just before and after Thanksgiving. I had a decent response, but getting any through escrow after Thanksgiving was ridiculously slow. Surely it's because of the lack of staff at title and escrow, coupled with all the people still trying to 1031, take losses, et cetera. Before the new year. I still need to do $40,000 to make my goal for 2022." I love it.
Steven Jack Butala: Me too.
Jill K DeWit:
Difference Between County Unincorporated and Township Land (LA 1860) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment advice. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the valley of fishing. I should say, not the fishing from the land of fishing. We'll look behind me. There's so much fishing going on here and I never knew what smelt was. Isn't that funny?
Steven Jack Butala: Oh yeah.
Jill K DeWit: Until come here I didn't. Yeah. I'm like, I thought smelt was well, something smelt. I didn't know that was a fish.
Steven Jack Butala: People think that's how you use the word.
Jill K DeWit: I know that's not how.
Steven Jack Butala: It's okay.
Jill K DeWit: No. Yeah. Like what the heck is smelt? How do you eat that? I'm like, oh, it's a fish. So anyway. Yeah. And you're loving it. I'm loving it.
Steven Jack Butala: I've been fishing since I got here. This is Silver Lake right behind us in Northern Michigan, just outside of Traverse City. And we are in our RV in arguably one of the best spots in this RV park that we're in. And I many, many times just walked out there and through the line in. I went to a simple store, got a old Shakespeare, not old, but a new Shakespeare rod, whole thing cost 25, $30. Got some pretty good lures. And I've been pulling fish out ever since to the point where I was about to start cleaning them and eating them and I'm like, why? This is just too much work. This is more fun.
Jill K DeWit: When I can go somewhere else and they'll serve it up for me all beautifully. And I love that. I'm probably going to have white fish tacos again for dinner tonight.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: Because I love them.
Steven Jack Butala: Totally. I'm right there with you.
Jill K DeWit: Yep.
Steven Jack Butala: I plan on eating white fish till it's like,
Jill K DeWit: Till I'm sick of it. Till we leave.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Exactly.
Jill K DeWit: And then it'll work out perfect. Then we're going to eat it until we can't get it anymore. And then it's going to be fine. Cool.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about the difference between county unincorporated land and township land. Everywhere we go Jill and I, especially here because my sister's a very successful almost local celebrity, like real estate agent. So we find property that's for sale. Whether it's a sign on the road, maybe it's on the MLS. We go look at it. We start asking questions. Sometimes you can answer them, sometimes you can't and this is a result of one of those conversations. And I'll talk all about it. Before we get into it though let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Last year, a ton of Land Academy members came to Jill and I needing extra help to getting their blind offer campaigns underway. Hey, it's sometimes it's complicated. It is for most people. It's complicated if your brand new. And so we created a product called concierge data, where we take instruction for you about where you want to send out offers. We put together the entire mailer, get the retail pricing component complete for you. And then we ask you at the very end to price it. It's a very, very, very popular service that we created. And it's helping a lot of people who I think otherwise would not have gotten their mail campaign off the ground. And get their career started. So check it out at offers to owners and just type in concierge data.
Jill K DeWit: I just was reading this question ahead a little bit. It's good. Eric wrote, so I signed up yesterday and I just binge watched, oh my goodness, Land Academy 3.0 and 2.0. This might seem like a dumb question, but how important is naming and niching your land business? I'm in Charleston and I want to niche in the surrounding counties and all along the coast.
Difference Between County Unincorporated and Township Land (LA 1860) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment advice. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the valley of fishing. I should say, not the fishing from the land of fishing. We'll look behind me. There's so much fishing going on here and I never knew what smelt was. Isn't that funny?
Steven Jack Butala: Oh yeah.
Jill K DeWit: Until come here I didn't. Yeah. I'm like, I thought smelt was well, something smelt. I didn't know that was a fish.
Steven Jack Butala: People think that's how you use the word.
Jill K DeWit: I know that's not how.
Steven Jack Butala: It's okay.
Jill K DeWit: No. Yeah. Like what the heck is smelt? How do you eat that? I'm like, oh, it's a fish. So anyway. Yeah. And you're loving it. I'm loving it.
Steven Jack Butala: I've been fishing since I got here. This is Silver Lake right behind us in Northern Michigan, just outside of Traverse City. And we are in our RV in arguably one of the best spots in this RV park that we're in. And I many, many times just walked out there and through the line in. I went to a simple store, got a old Shakespeare, not old, but a new Shakespeare rod, whole thing cost 25, $30. Got some pretty good lures. And I've been pulling fish out ever since to the point where I was about to start cleaning them and eating them and I'm like, why? This is just too much work. This is more fun.
Jill K DeWit: When I can go somewhere else and they'll serve it up for me all beautifully. And I love that. I'm probably going to have white fish tacos again for dinner tonight.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: Because I love them.
Steven Jack Butala: Totally. I'm right there with you.
Jill K DeWit: Yep.
Steven Jack Butala: I plan on eating white fish till it's like,
Jill K DeWit: Till I'm sick of it. Till we leave.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Exactly.
Jill K DeWit: And then it'll work out perfect. Then we're going to eat it until we can't get it anymore. And then it's going to be fine. Cool.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about the difference between county unincorporated land and township land. Everywhere we go Jill and I, especially here because my sister's a very successful almost local celebrity, like real estate agent. So we find property that's for sale. Whether it's a sign on the road, maybe it's on the MLS. We go look at it. We start asking questions. Sometimes you can answer them, sometimes you can't and this is a result of one of those conversations. And I'll talk all about it. Before we get into it though let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Last year, a ton of Land Academy members came to Jill and I needing extra help to getting their blind offer campaigns underway. Hey, it's sometimes it's complicated. It is for most people. It's complicated if your brand new. And so we created a product called concierge data, where we take instruction for you about where you want to send out offers. We put together the entire mailer, get the retail pricing component complete for you. And then we ask you at the very end to price it. It's a very, very, very popular service that we created. And it's helping a lot of people who I think otherwise would not have gotten their mail campaign off the ground. And get their career started. So check it out at offers to owners and just type in concierge data.
Jill K DeWit: I just was reading this question ahead a little bit. It's good. Eric wrote, so I signed up yesterday and I just binge watched, oh my goodness, Land Academy 3.0 and 2.0. This might seem like a dumb question, but how important is naming and niching your land business? I'm in Charleston and I want to niche in the surrounding counties and all along the coast.
Land Academy as a Legacy Business (LA 1859) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Howdy.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewit, broadcasting from the Apple Centric, awesome Michigan. How's that? How many apples are in a bushel? You know it's funny, your sister-in-law, your sister, my sister-in-law brought up picking up a bushel of apples the other day and I'm like, that sounds cool. I want that too, but I don't know if I can fit it here. How many apples are in a bushel? Is that like one big basket?
Steven Jack Butala: I'm just as much now from the west as you are.
Jill K DeWit: Have you ever had a bushel of apples?
Steven Jack Butala: I don't think you should buy a bushel of apples unless you're going to make moonshine.
Jill K DeWit: Or pie.
Steven Jack Butala: Or what else?
Jill K DeWit: Pie. Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Moonshine because it... Yes.
Jill K DeWit: Apple sauce?
Steven Jack Butala: The answer's yes.
Jill K DeWit: Maybe, oh, I'm going to get some apple cherry fill in the blank. Wouldn't that be delicious?
Steven Jack Butala: It's big! Bushel of apples is big.
Jill K DeWit: I think it's like a big bucket of apples. I know you guys are all laughing at us right now.
Steven Jack Butala: It's special. It's a bushel, like a wooden woven...
Jill K DeWit: That's what I thought. Okay.
Steven Jack Butala: Bigger than a bucket.
Jill K DeWit: That's going to be cool. I love it here. Thank you Michigan. You guys know how to...
Steven Jack Butala: Thank you Northern Michigan.
Jill K DeWit: Yes. Northern Michigan, I love your Fall weather. The leaves are starting to turn. We couldn't have picked a better time to be here. We're having a ball.
Steven Jack Butala: Today Jill and I talk about Land Academy as a legacy business.
Jill K DeWit: Yes.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question, posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And I'd like to let you know, and hopefully you already know, that Jill and I have a full-blown commercial printing company that goes along with Land Academy, called offers2owners. Offers and number two owners. It was born out of our frustration from using other people's printing companies to send out offers. They just didn't get it. They didn't understand mail merges and a bunch of other stuff. Go to offers2owners.com. I know for sure we have a promo going when this airs, until the end of the month. So you get 10% off.
Jill K DeWit: Sweet. I think it's like MAIL10. It's on the website. You'll find it.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. The promo code I think is MAIL10. Just ask them. They'll tell you.
Jill K DeWit: Mike wrote: "Hey, regarding easements, I have a 35 acre track and a contract in East Texas, with a quarter mile easement to it. The easement has never been used and is directly across three neighboring wooded properties. The pricing is great, but the easement would take serious money to turn it into real physical access. Has anyone gone through with deals like this? [inaudible 00:02:40] with access around turning $80,000, whereas I'm thinking I could sell now for around $180,000."
Steven Jack Butala: So Mike you're in a great situation and I'll directly answer your question and then I'll take a couple steps back. Hell yes, we've done deals like this, and we do deals like this. An easement is a right to cross somebody else's property to get to yours. Easements are all over the place. They're super prevalent. Chances are you cross over all kinds of properties to get to your own and don't even know it all the time. So now this is very common where luckily you're in a great situation. That's why we say access, which is one of the six A's in Land Academy. Access is when you go through your phase one due diligence, you want to check the six A's and I'm not going to go through them no...
Land Academy as a Legacy Business (LA 1859) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Howdy.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewit, broadcasting from the Apple Centric, awesome Michigan. How's that? How many apples are in a bushel? You know it's funny, your sister-in-law, your sister, my sister-in-law brought up picking up a bushel of apples the other day and I'm like, that sounds cool. I want that too, but I don't know if I can fit it here. How many apples are in a bushel? Is that like one big basket?
Steven Jack Butala: I'm just as much now from the west as you are.
Jill K DeWit: Have you ever had a bushel of apples?
Steven Jack Butala: I don't think you should buy a bushel of apples unless you're going to make moonshine.
Jill K DeWit: Or pie.
Steven Jack Butala: Or what else?
Jill K DeWit: Pie. Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Moonshine because it... Yes.
Jill K DeWit: Apple sauce?
Steven Jack Butala: The answer's yes.
Jill K DeWit: Maybe, oh, I'm going to get some apple cherry fill in the blank. Wouldn't that be delicious?
Steven Jack Butala: It's big! Bushel of apples is big.
Jill K DeWit: I think it's like a big bucket of apples. I know you guys are all laughing at us right now.
Steven Jack Butala: It's special. It's a bushel, like a wooden woven...
Jill K DeWit: That's what I thought. Okay.
Steven Jack Butala: Bigger than a bucket.
Jill K DeWit: That's going to be cool. I love it here. Thank you Michigan. You guys know how to...
Steven Jack Butala: Thank you Northern Michigan.
Jill K DeWit: Yes. Northern Michigan, I love your Fall weather. The leaves are starting to turn. We couldn't have picked a better time to be here. We're having a ball.
Steven Jack Butala: Today Jill and I talk about Land Academy as a legacy business.
Jill K DeWit: Yes.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question, posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And I'd like to let you know, and hopefully you already know, that Jill and I have a full-blown commercial printing company that goes along with Land Academy, called offers2owners. Offers and number two owners. It was born out of our frustration from using other people's printing companies to send out offers. They just didn't get it. They didn't understand mail merges and a bunch of other stuff. Go to offers2owners.com. I know for sure we have a promo going when this airs, until the end of the month. So you get 10% off.
Jill K DeWit: Sweet. I think it's like MAIL10. It's on the website. You'll find it.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. The promo code I think is MAIL10. Just ask them. They'll tell you.
Jill K DeWit: Mike wrote: "Hey, regarding easements, I have a 35 acre track and a contract in East Texas, with a quarter mile easement to it. The easement has never been used and is directly across three neighboring wooded properties. The pricing is great, but the easement would take serious money to turn it into real physical access. Has anyone gone through with deals like this? [inaudible 00:02:40] with access around turning $80,000, whereas I'm thinking I could sell now for around $180,000."
Steven Jack Butala: So Mike you're in a great situation and I'll directly answer your question and then I'll take a couple steps back. Hell yes, we've done deals like this, and we do deals like this. An easement is a right to cross somebody else's property to get to yours. Easements are all over the place. They're super prevalent. Chances are you cross over all kinds of properties to get to your own and don't even know it all the time. So now this is very common where luckily you're in a great situation. That's why we say access, which is one of the six A's in Land Academy. Access is when you go through your phase one due diligence, you want to check the six A's and I'm not going to go through them no...
In-Person vs Online Trolling for Counties to send blind offers to Buy Land (LA 1858) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the cherry capital of the world. I have to say, I love it. I love cherries. I love cherries so much that over my shoulder here, let me just show you. I even picked up some cherry flavored whiskey from the Grand Traverse Distillery, and boy is it delicious. We are actually coming to you from Traverse City, Michigan right now.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, if you don't already know from last week we've been on the road for at least two weeks, maybe a little bit more. Our destination-
Jill K DeWit: Shucks, three tomorrow.
Steven Jack Butala: Our destination was our niece's wedding here in Traverse City. We've got that behind us and apparently everybody else does too, because you know how weddings are, although we did have a blast and we're going to continue traveling, buying and selling, or taking a look at real estate. Jill just signed a deal today. We had a notary come over.
Jill K DeWit: Here to the rig.
Steven Jack Butala: We're effectively, seriously full-time testing doing this from the road and it's working out great. Today, Jill and I talk about in-person versus online trolling for counties to figure out where to send blind offers to send mail. The entire time that we're out here, I'm like, "Wow, this is a fantastic county or zip code, potentially, to check it out." Make sure it passes all the red, green, yellow tests to see if we should send land here, so we'll talk about that in just a few minutes here. Before we get into it though, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and I hope you know that Jill and I instruct a handful of people every quarter on a 10 week session called Career Path. I think the next one is starting in October.
Jill K DeWit: October 12th, it's coming up fast. If you're interested, I still do have slots. Go to landacademy.com/careerpath, and read all about it and then send my team questions if you have them at support@landacademy.com, and we will fill you in. Kevin wrote, "Hello. I'm not sure about the concept of title insurance."
Steven Jack Butala: Boy, you're not alone.
Jill K DeWit: What did you say? Oh, I didn't know. I thought you said, "Oy." I'm like where did oy come from?
Steven Jack Butala: No, Kevin, you're not alone. Jill's going to explain.
Jill K DeWit: Boy, you're not alone, okay. Am I left or right? I'm going to have to find out right now. Am I left or right? I'm left. Sorry. Okay, cool. Number one, when buying properties, should you always get title insurance and why? Number two, when selling properties, why would some buyers not want title insurance? You want to go first?
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, I'll go first and try to make it simple. Title insurance ensures theoretically any errors in the chain of title, and the chain of title is quite simply all the chain of people that have owned it since it was homesteaded, let's say in the 1800s, and so maybe 10 people have owned it since its inception, maybe one or two people have owned it because it's stayed in the family or it's stayed in some type of trust. That title insurance is supposed to ensure that chain of title. To directly answer your question, should you always get it? No, I don't think so. When should you not? The vast majority of time you should get it. When you should not get it is when you're buying a property for $500 or a thousand dollars that's really in the desert. You're going to go sell it on eBay or online or really just sell it for a thousand dollars more to somebody who's going to kind of just own it, maybe not use it, just say they own a piece of California, for example. The cost of getting title insurance and going ...
In-Person vs Online Trolling for Counties to send blind offers to Buy Land (LA 1858) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the cherry capital of the world. I have to say, I love it. I love cherries. I love cherries so much that over my shoulder here, let me just show you. I even picked up some cherry flavored whiskey from the Grand Traverse Distillery, and boy is it delicious. We are actually coming to you from Traverse City, Michigan right now.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, if you don't already know from last week we've been on the road for at least two weeks, maybe a little bit more. Our destination-
Jill K DeWit: Shucks, three tomorrow.
Steven Jack Butala: Our destination was our niece's wedding here in Traverse City. We've got that behind us and apparently everybody else does too, because you know how weddings are, although we did have a blast and we're going to continue traveling, buying and selling, or taking a look at real estate. Jill just signed a deal today. We had a notary come over.
Jill K DeWit: Here to the rig.
Steven Jack Butala: We're effectively, seriously full-time testing doing this from the road and it's working out great. Today, Jill and I talk about in-person versus online trolling for counties to figure out where to send blind offers to send mail. The entire time that we're out here, I'm like, "Wow, this is a fantastic county or zip code, potentially, to check it out." Make sure it passes all the red, green, yellow tests to see if we should send land here, so we'll talk about that in just a few minutes here. Before we get into it though, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and I hope you know that Jill and I instruct a handful of people every quarter on a 10 week session called Career Path. I think the next one is starting in October.
Jill K DeWit: October 12th, it's coming up fast. If you're interested, I still do have slots. Go to landacademy.com/careerpath, and read all about it and then send my team questions if you have them at support@landacademy.com, and we will fill you in. Kevin wrote, "Hello. I'm not sure about the concept of title insurance."
Steven Jack Butala: Boy, you're not alone.
Jill K DeWit: What did you say? Oh, I didn't know. I thought you said, "Oy." I'm like where did oy come from?
Steven Jack Butala: No, Kevin, you're not alone. Jill's going to explain.
Jill K DeWit: Boy, you're not alone, okay. Am I left or right? I'm going to have to find out right now. Am I left or right? I'm left. Sorry. Okay, cool. Number one, when buying properties, should you always get title insurance and why? Number two, when selling properties, why would some buyers not want title insurance? You want to go first?
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, I'll go first and try to make it simple. Title insurance ensures theoretically any errors in the chain of title, and the chain of title is quite simply all the chain of people that have owned it since it was homesteaded, let's say in the 1800s, and so maybe 10 people have owned it since its inception, maybe one or two people have owned it because it's stayed in the family or it's stayed in some type of trust. That title insurance is supposed to ensure that chain of title. To directly answer your question, should you always get it? No, I don't think so. When should you not? The vast majority of time you should get it. When you should not get it is when you're buying a property for $500 or a thousand dollars that's really in the desert. You're going to go sell it on eBay or online or really just sell it for a thousand dollars more to somebody who's going to kind of just own it, maybe not use it, just say they own a piece of California, for example. The cost of getting title insurance and going ...
Jill Friday - Pricing Like a Seven-Year-Old (LA 1856) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I am Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the loyal sports fans. We have the Brewers, we have the Packers, and we have the Bucks. You think I'm kidding?
Steven Jack Butala: No, we're not kidding.
Jill DeWit: We have, in the days that we have been here, seen some amazing, awesome, loyal, crazy fans, in a good way crazy.
Steven Jack Butala: And some real estate too.
Jill DeWit: Oh yeah, that too.
Steven Jack Butala: Some great real estate.
Jill DeWit: Do you think they picked the green because everything else is so green?
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Jack Butala: I do.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Jack Butala: Jill's from Southern California where everything's brown.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: So she's getting a good taste of Fall green and some colors changing.
Jill DeWit: These are what trees are supposed to look like.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. This is what nature looks like Jill.
Jill DeWit: I didn't know that.
Steven Jack Butala: Not in a desert.
Jill DeWit: Sorry. That painted wall with the cow on it, isn't that the same thing?
Steven Jack Butala: Today's still Friday. She's going to talk about pricing like a seven year old. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And I want to tell you about a time back in the day when it was impossible to find land that didn't have a post office address, like 123 Main Street. People don't assign properties an address until they want to do something with them. So all you have is an assessor's parcel number and a state and the county that it's in. Well, it was very hard to find property. We solved it. We wrote, we commissioned parcelfact.com. So where you can just type in the state, the county, the APN, right when you're on the phone with the seller and find out a lot about the property. Enough to know anyway, really quickly whether or not you want the deal to continue or stop right there.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala: Check it out. parcelfact.com. We're proud of it.
Jill DeWit: Cool. All right, back to the question. Mark wrote, "My partner and I are looking at mailer pricing. We are using concierge data to scrub and send the mailer. We're using many counties next to each other to get enough properties to do the mailer. The prices per acre very considerably on the different counties. Any thoughts on how to price?"
Steven Jack Butala: Absolutely. At the end of concierge data, you'll get the entire mailer file back in Excel. Just like we teach, it's nothing out of the ordinary at all. Just like we teach in chapters three and four of the of Land Academy 3.0. And you have to assign a pricing scenario, usually a percentage of resale, 25%, 30% or whatever number you choose. And it can vary widely from county to county, state to state and certainly zip code to zip code. So, what we do is we enable a concept called testing for reason, which is not my concept at all, it's actually an accounting concept where you test for reasons. So what we do, just like on the Thursday call, you have to ask yourself this question, "If this mailer came back priced just like this, would I buy it?" That's testing for reason. And if so, at 25%, if you're saying, "Heck yes, I would absolutely buy it." At 30%, "Yeah I still would buy it." At 40%, "I'm not so sure." Then maybe 30%, so I should price the mailer. And I go over this in great detail all the time on a Thursday, we have a weekly Thursday webinar call where everybody in the whole group gets together, throws a bunch of deals at Jill and I and we say, "Yeah, you should absolutely do this deal," or "Well wait a minute."
Jill DeWit: And here's why,
Jill Friday - Pricing Like a Seven-Year-Old (LA 1856) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I am Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the loyal sports fans. We have the Brewers, we have the Packers, and we have the Bucks. You think I'm kidding?
Steven Jack Butala: No, we're not kidding.
Jill DeWit: We have, in the days that we have been here, seen some amazing, awesome, loyal, crazy fans, in a good way crazy.
Steven Jack Butala: And some real estate too.
Jill DeWit: Oh yeah, that too.
Steven Jack Butala: Some great real estate.
Jill DeWit: Do you think they picked the green because everything else is so green?
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Jack Butala: I do.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Jack Butala: Jill's from Southern California where everything's brown.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: So she's getting a good taste of Fall green and some colors changing.
Jill DeWit: These are what trees are supposed to look like.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. This is what nature looks like Jill.
Jill DeWit: I didn't know that.
Steven Jack Butala: Not in a desert.
Jill DeWit: Sorry. That painted wall with the cow on it, isn't that the same thing?
Steven Jack Butala: Today's still Friday. She's going to talk about pricing like a seven year old. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And I want to tell you about a time back in the day when it was impossible to find land that didn't have a post office address, like 123 Main Street. People don't assign properties an address until they want to do something with them. So all you have is an assessor's parcel number and a state and the county that it's in. Well, it was very hard to find property. We solved it. We wrote, we commissioned parcelfact.com. So where you can just type in the state, the county, the APN, right when you're on the phone with the seller and find out a lot about the property. Enough to know anyway, really quickly whether or not you want the deal to continue or stop right there.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala: Check it out. parcelfact.com. We're proud of it.
Jill DeWit: Cool. All right, back to the question. Mark wrote, "My partner and I are looking at mailer pricing. We are using concierge data to scrub and send the mailer. We're using many counties next to each other to get enough properties to do the mailer. The prices per acre very considerably on the different counties. Any thoughts on how to price?"
Steven Jack Butala: Absolutely. At the end of concierge data, you'll get the entire mailer file back in Excel. Just like we teach, it's nothing out of the ordinary at all. Just like we teach in chapters three and four of the of Land Academy 3.0. And you have to assign a pricing scenario, usually a percentage of resale, 25%, 30% or whatever number you choose. And it can vary widely from county to county, state to state and certainly zip code to zip code. So, what we do is we enable a concept called testing for reason, which is not my concept at all, it's actually an accounting concept where you test for reasons. So what we do, just like on the Thursday call, you have to ask yourself this question, "If this mailer came back priced just like this, would I buy it?" That's testing for reason. And if so, at 25%, if you're saying, "Heck yes, I would absolutely buy it." At 30%, "Yeah I still would buy it." At 40%, "I'm not so sure." Then maybe 30%, so I should price the mailer. And I go over this in great detail all the time on a Thursday, we have a weekly Thursday webinar call where everybody in the whole group gets together, throws a bunch of deals at Jill and I and we say, "Yeah, you should absolutely do this deal," or "Well wait a minute."
Jill DeWit: And here's why,
Jack Thursday - All the Decisions You Make Add Up (LA 1855) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show. Entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit. Broadcasting from the valley of the cheese curds. I first-
Steven Jack Butala: Burned Wisconsin.
Jill DeWit: I first learned about cheese curds in Seattle. Now why Seattle has good cheese curds? I don't know, maybe a lot of people from cheese areas like Wisconsin have relocated to Seattle. If you know The 5 Point Cafe, that's the first time I experienced them. And then I have to say here in Wisconsin, now I found some even better cheese curds. So sorry, Seattle. They rock here.
Steven Jack Butala: Maybe it's because the weather's the same.
Jill DeWit: That's it. Wisconsin people can move to Seattle because they can handle it. That actually makes sense.
Steven Jack Butala: This is a personal note. I don't know why you need to deep fried cheese. It's already good enough.
Jill DeWit: It's really good. I know.
Steven Jack Butala: It really kind of wrecks the taste.
Jill DeWit: I know, but you know what? And then it's breaded and there's maybe beer in there a little bit? I don't know. There's just-
Steven Jack Butala: They're not bad.
Jill DeWit: They're super good. And you know what's great? When you get good ones, you know they're good ones. They're not all tater tot shaped. You know they're real. And so thank you. I love them.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's topic, all the decisions you make, add up. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. It actually helps us create content that's similar to what you like.
Jill DeWit: Cool. Will wrote, "Has anyone funded a deal as a JV? Anyone that has..." Excuse me. "... funded a deal as a joint venture, were you listed on the deed? And is anyone willing to share a sample or template of the agreement you used?" I will.
Steven Jack Butala: It sounds out too well.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. It's on landfunding.com. And it's on landinvestors.com. So if you want to go and see my sweet little EC two page agreement... And that's just a starting place. That's kind of what we use. I mean, it really is what we use. But if you want to change it up like, "Can we do this? Can we do that? Can I change this? Can I change that? I'm going to put in some money and then I'm going to do this. And then you put in money, you do that. And here's the percentages now because of this." It's all negotiable.
Steven Jack Butala: A contract is an agreement between two people and the content of that agreement and the provisions and all of that stuff is what you both decide on and sign and date. That's it. If you've ever taken a law class or basic law class, they'll teach you that. Or if you've ever spoken with a good attorney, usually with the drink in hand they'll tell you that. Why-
Jill DeWit: Is that what makes him a good attorney?
Steven Jack Butala: Yes. In my mind.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Jack Butala: What gets confusing about this, especially in real estate is because we are so brainwashed by the National Association of Realtors that... And the state departments of real estate where we are, whatever state you're doing deals in. And real estate agents have no idea. They just do stuff that the person in the cubicle that sits next to them does-
Jill DeWit: Told them to do.
Steven Jack Butala: ... or their broker. So you end up that way with a two inch thick document that allows you, air quotes, to buy a piece of real estate. And none of that's necessary. And so contracts for joint ventures... People who do joint ventures like us are a little bit more intelligent about it. And so we know that a one or two page contract that spells out what's going to...
Jack's Career Path Alumni Advice (LA 1854) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Beer.
Steven Butala: Oh yeah. Milwaukee's close.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: Didn't think about that.
Jill DeWit: Oh, exactly.
Steven Butala: We're going to test that tonight.
Jill DeWit: Oh yeah, we had something night. What was the Amber? The Shocks?
Steven Butala: Yeah. What was that?
Jill DeWit: I can't remember the name of that Amber Beer, but it was delicious. There's a... I'm going to cycle through a few of them tonight too.
Steven Butala: Yeah,
Jill DeWit: I'm going to get to know.
Steven Butala: We'll give you a report.
Jill DeWit: The good. All I keep hearing is good Wisconsin Beer. I know about the other good stuff you have.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: So cool.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about, well, I'm going to talk about Jack's career path alumni advice, because I was asked to.
Jill DeWit: Oh, by whom?
Steven Butala: By somebody. Well, on the first Tuesday of every month.
Jill DeWit: Oh.
Steven Butala: We have a career path alumni.
Jill DeWit: Oh yeah.
Steven Butala: It's somebody this time asking-
Jill DeWit: The call.
Steven Butala: ... Hey, what's the advice you'd give us?
Jill DeWit: What's your top thing? And that was good and I'm glad you're bringing that up. So...
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the online investorscommunity@landinvestors.com. It's free. And I want to tell you about Concierge Data. Last year, several people came to us and said, "We don't like doing mailers. We just want to be on the phone and do deals. We're deal makers help us." So we developed a product based on how we send our own mail out called Concierge Data. If you go to offers to owners.com, that's our mailing company and ask about career, about Concierge Data, they will tell you exactly how we will do your mailer for you and take it right to the bitter end with the exception of pricing it. We'll do the whole thing for you. It works. Tons and tons of people use it. It got so overused a couple months ago, we had to shut it down, but it's back.
Jill DeWit: Sure.
Steven Butala: We had to restaff it and we hired a bunch of people and it's working out great now.
Jill DeWit: Yep. It got bogged down. We fixed it. All right. Aaron wrote. Okay, equity planner type question. Maybe Jack has an idea about this. How many properties would you need to have on the market at any given time to have a very high chance of closing that month? I've reached out many of you, and of course everyone will feel differently based on what areas they target, et cetera. But what do you think? Do I need 10 properties on the market at that time to be confident? You'll see some income in a month. Maybe you feel like you need 20 or just five. Any thoughts?
Steven Butala: So this is a sales funnel question and the only way that you can ever quantify a number like this two days ago we did. This is all subjective. Some people need to have 40 properties in the pipeline to feel great. Some people need 10. Some people don't think about it and they still do a lot of deals. So it becomes a sales funnel scenario at the top of the funnel. Our is the largest number. You send out 10,000 thousand mailers, you're going to get 90, a hundred, 200 phone calls back. You're going to get 10, 20, 30 viable transactions. And depending on who you are, you're going to choose from those transactions how many deals to do. And I can tell you, if you do the exact same thing over and over and over again, you're going to get a different result. It's just how it is. So this is very, very, very subjective and I can't give a number. I can tell you what I think and I would love for you to tell us what you ...
Jack's Career Path Alumni Advice (LA 1854) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Beer.
Steven Butala: Oh yeah. Milwaukee's close.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: Didn't think about that.
Jill DeWit: Oh, exactly.
Steven Butala: We're going to test that tonight.
Jill DeWit: Oh yeah, we had something night. What was the Amber? The Shocks?
Steven Butala: Yeah. What was that?
Jill DeWit: I can't remember the name of that Amber Beer, but it was delicious. There's a... I'm going to cycle through a few of them tonight too.
Steven Butala: Yeah,
Jill DeWit: I'm going to get to know.
Steven Butala: We'll give you a report.
Jill DeWit: The good. All I keep hearing is good Wisconsin Beer. I know about the other good stuff you have.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: So cool.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about, well, I'm going to talk about Jack's career path alumni advice, because I was asked to.
Jill DeWit: Oh, by whom?
Steven Butala: By somebody. Well, on the first Tuesday of every month.
Jill DeWit: Oh.
Steven Butala: We have a career path alumni.
Jill DeWit: Oh yeah.
Steven Butala: It's somebody this time asking-
Jill DeWit: The call.
Steven Butala: ... Hey, what's the advice you'd give us?
Jill DeWit: What's your top thing? And that was good and I'm glad you're bringing that up. So...
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the online investorscommunity@landinvestors.com. It's free. And I want to tell you about Concierge Data. Last year, several people came to us and said, "We don't like doing mailers. We just want to be on the phone and do deals. We're deal makers help us." So we developed a product based on how we send our own mail out called Concierge Data. If you go to offers to owners.com, that's our mailing company and ask about career, about Concierge Data, they will tell you exactly how we will do your mailer for you and take it right to the bitter end with the exception of pricing it. We'll do the whole thing for you. It works. Tons and tons of people use it. It got so overused a couple months ago, we had to shut it down, but it's back.
Jill DeWit: Sure.
Steven Butala: We had to restaff it and we hired a bunch of people and it's working out great now.
Jill DeWit: Yep. It got bogged down. We fixed it. All right. Aaron wrote. Okay, equity planner type question. Maybe Jack has an idea about this. How many properties would you need to have on the market at any given time to have a very high chance of closing that month? I've reached out many of you, and of course everyone will feel differently based on what areas they target, et cetera. But what do you think? Do I need 10 properties on the market at that time to be confident? You'll see some income in a month. Maybe you feel like you need 20 or just five. Any thoughts?
Steven Butala: So this is a sales funnel question and the only way that you can ever quantify a number like this two days ago we did. This is all subjective. Some people need to have 40 properties in the pipeline to feel great. Some people need 10. Some people don't think about it and they still do a lot of deals. So it becomes a sales funnel scenario at the top of the funnel. Our is the largest number. You send out 10,000 thousand mailers, you're going to get 90, a hundred, 200 phone calls back. You're going to get 10, 20, 30 viable transactions. And depending on who you are, you're going to choose from those transactions how many deals to do. And I can tell you, if you do the exact same thing over and over and over again, you're going to get a different result. It's just how it is. So this is very, very, very subjective and I can't give a number. I can tell you what I think and I would love for you to tell us what you ...
Learning How to Run a Business (LA 1853) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steven and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show. Entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the valley of the cheese.
Steven Jack Butala: We're in Wisconsin today.
Jill DeWit: Yes we are. You know what? And I'm looking for that chocolate cheese. I've had it. I know of it. I don't know where to find it but I'm on a mission.
Steven Jack Butala: If anybody knows where to get the chocolate cheese, we'll be here for a while. Please let us know or staff know or put it in there.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: YouTube or anyway, you can get to us.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Please tell me the home of the chocolate cheese. Because it's so good.
Steven Jack Butala: Today Jill and I are going to talk about learning how to run a business. As I said yesterday, an integral part of what we do here. It takes up at least 50% of the time of what we talk about during career path. From people who have been running businesses their entire professional life. And people who are brand new. I always learn something new and make those changes based on what goes on in career path. So there's a lot of career path talk right now because we're starting to back up. The next session is in October and we just had the career path alumni call, which we have once every-
Jill DeWit: Month.
Steven Jack Butala: Once every month. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the land investors.com online community. It's free. And I hope you know by now we have a full blown printing company to send your offers to owners.com. It's called offers to owners. The number two, we send out between 500,008 or 900,000 mailers a month on behalf of members and non land academy members.
Jill DeWit: And ourselves.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. And they do our mail.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: Completely born out of our frustration, Jill and I of having to deal with commercial printing companies that didn't understand mail urges or what we're doing or how we're doing this.
Jill DeWit: Our urgency, or why we're doing it.
Steven Jack Butala: Trying to sell us color printing. When we know we don't need it.
Jill DeWit: Stuff like that.
Steven Jack Butala: Things like that.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. Matt wrote, “Hello, all I'm closing on my first piece of land and selling it retail value. Looking for advice on the best way to go about selling it. Should I get a real estate agent? Is there an inspection process I should go through before buying it? Soil test. See if something's available? Where is the best place to list it on the MLS?” Is that more of the question there? Okay, “So I'm buying it for $7,000 and I think it's going to retail between 25 and $30,000. I often use flat fee listing companies when selling houses because I haven't sold land yet. So I was considering an agent as I'm not exactly sure what information I need to market it appropriately.” You want me to go first?
Steven Jack Butala: Sure.
Jill DeWit: Okay. So yeah, if you are not sure and you've not experienced with this then I think getting an agent is stellar.
Steven Jack Butala: Me too.
Jill DeWit: You can do flat rate MLS postings, just like you did in the past. There's companies like... Can't think of the one that we used to use out there. But now I use Broker Direct, MLS.com. Because they cover all over the country and they're a great service to help you put it up there. So the great thing about those companies, if you do flat rate listing service, you're going through a title or going through a real estate agent, I should say, but they're not taking a commission. You're just paying them a fee to use them to get on the MLS. They're going to send you the forms you fill them out. They're going to say how many pictures you want? What order you want?
Learning How to Run a Business (LA 1853) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steven and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show. Entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the valley of the cheese.
Steven Jack Butala: We're in Wisconsin today.
Jill DeWit: Yes we are. You know what? And I'm looking for that chocolate cheese. I've had it. I know of it. I don't know where to find it but I'm on a mission.
Steven Jack Butala: If anybody knows where to get the chocolate cheese, we'll be here for a while. Please let us know or staff know or put it in there.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: YouTube or anyway, you can get to us.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Please tell me the home of the chocolate cheese. Because it's so good.
Steven Jack Butala: Today Jill and I are going to talk about learning how to run a business. As I said yesterday, an integral part of what we do here. It takes up at least 50% of the time of what we talk about during career path. From people who have been running businesses their entire professional life. And people who are brand new. I always learn something new and make those changes based on what goes on in career path. So there's a lot of career path talk right now because we're starting to back up. The next session is in October and we just had the career path alumni call, which we have once every-
Jill DeWit: Month.
Steven Jack Butala: Once every month. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the land investors.com online community. It's free. And I hope you know by now we have a full blown printing company to send your offers to owners.com. It's called offers to owners. The number two, we send out between 500,008 or 900,000 mailers a month on behalf of members and non land academy members.
Jill DeWit: And ourselves.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. And they do our mail.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: Completely born out of our frustration, Jill and I of having to deal with commercial printing companies that didn't understand mail urges or what we're doing or how we're doing this.
Jill DeWit: Our urgency, or why we're doing it.
Steven Jack Butala: Trying to sell us color printing. When we know we don't need it.
Jill DeWit: Stuff like that.
Steven Jack Butala: Things like that.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. Matt wrote, “Hello, all I'm closing on my first piece of land and selling it retail value. Looking for advice on the best way to go about selling it. Should I get a real estate agent? Is there an inspection process I should go through before buying it? Soil test. See if something's available? Where is the best place to list it on the MLS?” Is that more of the question there? Okay, “So I'm buying it for $7,000 and I think it's going to retail between 25 and $30,000. I often use flat fee listing companies when selling houses because I haven't sold land yet. So I was considering an agent as I'm not exactly sure what information I need to market it appropriately.” You want me to go first?
Steven Jack Butala: Sure.
Jill DeWit: Okay. So yeah, if you are not sure and you've not experienced with this then I think getting an agent is stellar.
Steven Jack Butala: Me too.
Jill DeWit: You can do flat rate MLS postings, just like you did in the past. There's companies like... Can't think of the one that we used to use out there. But now I use Broker Direct, MLS.com. Because they cover all over the country and they're a great service to help you put it up there. So the great thing about those companies, if you do flat rate listing service, you're going through a title or going through a real estate agent, I should say, but they're not taking a commission. You're just paying them a fee to use them to get on the MLS. They're going to send you the forms you fill them out. They're going to say how many pictures you want? What order you want?
Career Path Alumni Call Topic: Mailer Yield is Subjective (LA 1852) Transcript:
Speaker 1: Steven Jill here.
Speaker 2: Hello.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Speaker 2: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Rain. If you're watching this and you are looking over my shoulder like, "I see a lot of green." Yeah, that's a lot of green. And it's wet green. We are literally sitting... As you can see, it's not as glamorous. I may or may not be in an RV dinette. Yes, that's exactly where I'm sitting. Highly encourage you to go on YouTube and you'll get a kick out of this. And, "Jill, why is your hair frizzy?" Oh, because it's big hair day here in the Valley of the Rain. It's a-
Speaker 1: Our final child is officially in college, and the same week we left, Jill and I left in our RV and are driving across the country. We're in Madison, Wisconsin today. We were in Nebraska for the last couple of days before that, in Colorado for an entire week. Tomorrow will be in Michigan and we've got a wedding to go to in Northern Michigan. And then, who knows?
Speaker 2: I got to tell you, this has been a blast. We've talked about this a lot. If you worry about, is there enough land out there? Take a drive across the country just once. I don't care where you go, what state you cross, just get out of your little bubble and drive around a little bit. You're going to go, "Oh yeah. There's a whole lot of land out here." There's also a whole lot of corn out here. We've found all the corn.
Speaker 1: And beans.
Speaker 2: And beans.
Speaker 1: And-
Speaker 2: Soybeans. Yup.
Speaker 1: We obviously spent a couple of days in the heartland. Nicest people you ever want to meet.
Speaker 2: Oh, we're having so much fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely a blast. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I find myself saying things like, "I had no idea Iowa was so cool", and "I had no idea that..." Yes, we did watch the Green Bay Packers and the Minnesota Vikings game. This is what's so cool, we got to see Iowa and Iowa State play, in Iowa, in a bar. And then the very next day, that was on a Saturday night, and the next day on Sunday night, we watched in Wisconsin, at Green Bay-
Speaker 1: In Madison, Wisconsin.
Speaker 2: In Madison Wisconsin.
Speaker 1: Close to Green Bay.
Speaker 2: Here. Yeah, we watched the game, the Green Bay and the Vikings game. Not going to talk about how that all went.
Speaker 1: Yeah. We're the wrong
Speaker 2: Those who live here where we're sitting, we won't bring that up. But anyway, it was fun and cool to say that I'm here and I get to be here with everybody watching I'm going to have such a blast.
Speaker 1: The point is, we're in an RV doing our job's pretty effectively.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: All the land academy roles we have, and buying and selling land. So if we can do it, you can do it.
Speaker 2: You can do anything. You really can.
Speaker 1: If we only had to buy and sell land, we would work like half a day a week.
Speaker 2: Once a week. That's it. Four hours, that's all I need
Speaker 1: Today. Jill and I talk about career path alumni topic: how mailer yield is subjective the first Tuesday of every month. Everybody who has been through our career path program, and I think Jill's got another one start in October, we all get together and kind of have a mastermind group and this topic came up, and it was so... it hit me so square in the face in a good way that I want to talk about it today, because I think it's really going to help everybody.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the land investors.com online community. It's free
Speaker 2: And can I say about this? Can I give this little-
Speaker 1: Sure. Oh sure. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: So before you launch into Career Path, let me talk about career path for just a second. We are T minus 30 days.
Career Path Alumni Call Topic: Mailer Yield is Subjective (LA 1852) Transcript:
Speaker 1: Steven Jill here.
Speaker 2: Hello.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Speaker 2: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Rain. If you're watching this and you are looking over my shoulder like, "I see a lot of green." Yeah, that's a lot of green. And it's wet green. We are literally sitting... As you can see, it's not as glamorous. I may or may not be in an RV dinette. Yes, that's exactly where I'm sitting. Highly encourage you to go on YouTube and you'll get a kick out of this. And, "Jill, why is your hair frizzy?" Oh, because it's big hair day here in the Valley of the Rain. It's a-
Speaker 1: Our final child is officially in college, and the same week we left, Jill and I left in our RV and are driving across the country. We're in Madison, Wisconsin today. We were in Nebraska for the last couple of days before that, in Colorado for an entire week. Tomorrow will be in Michigan and we've got a wedding to go to in Northern Michigan. And then, who knows?
Speaker 2: I got to tell you, this has been a blast. We've talked about this a lot. If you worry about, is there enough land out there? Take a drive across the country just once. I don't care where you go, what state you cross, just get out of your little bubble and drive around a little bit. You're going to go, "Oh yeah. There's a whole lot of land out here." There's also a whole lot of corn out here. We've found all the corn.
Speaker 1: And beans.
Speaker 2: And beans.
Speaker 1: And-
Speaker 2: Soybeans. Yup.
Speaker 1: We obviously spent a couple of days in the heartland. Nicest people you ever want to meet.
Speaker 2: Oh, we're having so much fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely a blast. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I find myself saying things like, "I had no idea Iowa was so cool", and "I had no idea that..." Yes, we did watch the Green Bay Packers and the Minnesota Vikings game. This is what's so cool, we got to see Iowa and Iowa State play, in Iowa, in a bar. And then the very next day, that was on a Saturday night, and the next day on Sunday night, we watched in Wisconsin, at Green Bay-
Speaker 1: In Madison, Wisconsin.
Speaker 2: In Madison Wisconsin.
Speaker 1: Close to Green Bay.
Speaker 2: Here. Yeah, we watched the game, the Green Bay and the Vikings game. Not going to talk about how that all went.
Speaker 1: Yeah. We're the wrong
Speaker 2: Those who live here where we're sitting, we won't bring that up. But anyway, it was fun and cool to say that I'm here and I get to be here with everybody watching I'm going to have such a blast.
Speaker 1: The point is, we're in an RV doing our job's pretty effectively.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: All the land academy roles we have, and buying and selling land. So if we can do it, you can do it.
Speaker 2: You can do anything. You really can.
Speaker 1: If we only had to buy and sell land, we would work like half a day a week.
Speaker 2: Once a week. That's it. Four hours, that's all I need
Speaker 1: Today. Jill and I talk about career path alumni topic: how mailer yield is subjective the first Tuesday of every month. Everybody who has been through our career path program, and I think Jill's got another one start in October, we all get together and kind of have a mastermind group and this topic came up, and it was so... it hit me so square in the face in a good way that I want to talk about it today, because I think it's really going to help everybody.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the land investors.com online community. It's free
Speaker 2: And can I say about this? Can I give this little-
Speaker 1: Sure. Oh sure. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: So before you launch into Career Path, let me talk about career path for just a second. We are T minus 30 days.
Jill Friday - How to Talk to a Seller (ReAir LA 1682) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Happy Friday.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about ... Well, it's Jill Friday. She's going to talk about how to talk to a seller. Sounds trite and silly, especially to a data person like me, because people like me ... How to talk to a seller? This is how you talk to your seller.
Steven Jack Butala: "Hello."
Jill K DeWit: "What do you got?"
Steven Jack Butala: "I'd like to sell ... Yes. I got your letter, and wondering if it's legit. Yeah. Come on. You're talking too slow. Let's go."
Jill K DeWit: "Hurry it up."
Steven Jack Butala: That's not how you talk to sellers.
Jill K DeWit: "I sent out 3,000 offers today. Hurry up, ma'am. Hurry it up. Come on, lady. Get to the point."
Steven Jack Butala: "You want to sell or not? Going to the bar. I'm on my way to the bar. Want to sell or not?"
Jill K DeWit: "Just sign it and send it in, would you?"
Steven Jack Butala: That's not how you do it.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it. Let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. What's so funny?
Jill K DeWit: It's just really funny. There's a reason why we don't let you talk on the phone. It's totally true.
Jill K DeWit: Wait, wait. Truth time. Our phone ring in our office, back when we had an office, and I get excited. I'm like, "Let me answer." Steven's like, "Get me away. Is it still ringing? Why am I hearing ringing?"
Steven Jack Butala: That's my exit.
Jill K DeWit: Steven's like, "See ya."
Steven Jack Butala: You've clearly forgotten to subscribe to the Land Academy YouTube channel, but please do so now. Comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Right. You would also sneak over and go ... Close my office door. Here they go again.
Steven Jack Butala: I have 30 minutes of peace. Jill's talking to a seller.
Jill K DeWit: That's funny.
Jill K DeWit: All right. [inaudible 00:01:47] I was sharing yield data with another member here. I can't remember who. We figured out that his yield was so far off because he was using an employee to handle the incoming calls.
Steven Jack Butala: Ding, ding.
Jill K DeWit: I'm set up differently from him in a lot of ways, but I still worry that handing off my least favorite part of this could ruin it.
Steven Jack Butala: Yep.
Jill K DeWit: Jack and Jill talk a lot about the benefits of doing this as a partnership, but I'm not looking to give away half of the pie.
Steven Jack Butala: I did.
Jill K DeWit: I would only consider having the Jill work done by a paid employee or a VA. That's okay too.
Steven Jack Butala: This is all you.
Jill K DeWit: Oh.
Steven Jack Butala: Honestly, I got pure luck with Jill.
Jill K DeWit: Well, we didn't have to make this a partnership. You chose to do that. There's probably people ... There's lots of people out there that would ... The way it worked out, yes, we are partners in every way you can imagine. "Mommy, what does Miss Jill mean by that?"
Steven Jack Butala: "Mommy, I want a partner."
Jill K DeWit: "Can I have one like Miss Jill?" Anyway. Oh no.
Steven Jack Butala: The kids are in the back seat. Jill's imitating them. She doesn't talk like that at random.
Jill K DeWit: Could you imagine? No. That's true. All right.
Jill K DeWit: I understand. Yeah. I would not go into this with that intent myself. If I didn't know you ... Let's back up. I'm this person. I'm not that good on the phone. I need someone that's good on the phone. Or I'm doing it, and I'm okay on the phone, but I could be better on the phone, and it's something I don't like to do. I would be searching and finding someone.
Steven Jack Butala: So would I.
Jill K DeWit:
Jack Thursday - Land Deal Flow Machine Consistency (ReAir LA 1686) Transcript:
Steven Jack : Steven Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack : Welcome to the land academy show entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven, Jack [inaudible 00:00:08]
Jill K DeWit: And I am Jill DeWitt and we are broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack : Today's Jack Thursday. And I'm going to talk about land deal flow, machine consistency. This whole episode is about one basic concept and I'll phrase it as a question. Is it better to buy [crosstalk 00:00:28].
Jill K DeWit: Sorry.
Steven Jack : Better to buy a piece of real estate and decide what to do with it every single time, or is it better to buy the same type of real estate over and over and over again and do exact same thing? The same process, the same people are involved over and over and over again. I bet you can guess which one I think is better. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the land academy YouTube and comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Steven wrote. "Hey guys, I am currently scraping data from Zillow for my next mailer, and I noticed that in Zillow, many of the listings don't show the acreage anymore. You have to click in the listing to find out. So because of that, when I scrape the acreage is not spit out, I need manually go into each listing to find out. Does anybody know of a workaround when scraping?"
Steven Jack : There's two. And inconsistent data in Zillow is fairly common. And here's why. Some of the places in the country Zillow collects data from the MLS. Some of the places they have to be manually input by whoever's listing the property. There's two types of people that list the property, real estate agents, who don't usually don't know their ass from their elbow, or people like us, but it's mostly the ass from the elbow kind. And scraping data from Zillow can go great sometimes because sometimes they implement anti scraping software. Sometimes they don't. So it very much varies from area to area. Don't get discouraged, the sure fire away to fix this is to get a virtual assistant overseas, to manually input some of that data. It is not expensive at all. Usually wait if you order it, you'll get it back overnight because they're working, their day is our night. I've done it both ways for years, years and years, we manually order data mining from the Philippines in our case. And now we scrape. But the truth is if I can't get good data, when I scraped to price and mailer, I moved to a different area to send mail.
Jill K DeWit: Peaches and cream. What's, peaches and rainbows [crosstalk 00:02:57].
Steven Jack : This show it's been on since 2015, every day.
Jill K DeWit: Yep. Yeah. You'd think I would not be shocked.
Steven Jack : Even real estate agents have reached out to me. And said I don't like your attitude. I don't think your description of the average real estate agent is accurate. Zero, zero.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. [crosstalk 00:03:20]. Because they're not listening to this. Because they know.
Steven Jack : Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: All right.
Steven Jack : Today's Jack Thursday, by the way. So I get to say what I want.
Jill K DeWit: Yep.
Steven Jack : I'm going to talk about land deal, flow machine consistency. This is why you're listening. Jill and I have struggled with this. So for years and years and years, I bought and sold real estate through one venue, eBay for years, 10,000 plus deals. And then around 2011, Jill and I joined forces and we did it a little bit differently and I have to say, we make a lot more money together than we did separately, but it was a totally a different type of company. We would buy property the conventional way, the way we buy property now. Sending out mailers a lot of times back then I went to tax sales, but we would buy it the same way every single time, process it,
How to Buy Your First Parcel of Land (ReAir LA 1679) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Good day.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land, investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about how to buy your first parcel of land, the ever present question.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. People watch, they hear us, they see us. They're like, "I can do this. Okay. What do I do? Ready, I'm here. I showed up. What do I do? Is there a list somewhere? Do I just pick from them?"
Steven Jack Butala: Keep going. This is great.
Jill K DeWit: Do I just, I don't know, go online and pick one that looks good to me and just call the person, just call the agent? Is that the best way? And they just handle it all. I just write a check.
Steven Jack Butala: I'll tell you a hint, and we're going to obviously cover this all in just a few minutes here. The secret to buying your first piece of land is in our ebook. If you haven't downloaded our ebook, even if you're a long time Land Academy member, it's like 10 or 15 pages, I think. It's just blow through a read, but it tells you how to get your first land deal done fast. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Please don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Steven wrote, "Hope the holiday preps are going well for everyone." So this is obviously from a couple weeks ago. "A question I'm curious about. When listing with a flat fee MLS service, do you provide for the buyer's agent commission?" I have lot to say about this.
Steven Jack Butala: I know you do. It's perfect. I'm going to zip it here. You go for it.
Jill K DeWit: "I have had some horrible experiences with unprofessional realtors. The problems have been with the poor quality of the listings they prepare."
Steven Jack Butala: Unprofessional.
Jill K DeWit: I know. And in parentheses he wrote, "Why don't you use the pictures I gave you?"
Steven Jack Butala: Unprofessional realtors is a-
Jill K DeWit: I know, we could talk for a whole nother month.
Steven Jack Butala: That's a redundant sentence, unprofessional realtors. Go ahead.
Jill K DeWit: "Use the pictures I gave you, the ignorance of marketing outside the MLS." I know.
Steven Jack Butala: And out and out laziness.
Jill K DeWit: "And the out and out laziness. If you get an offer on my property, forward it the same day, not the next week. I could go on and on. I like the flat fee"-
Steven Jack Butala: I wish you would.
Jill K DeWit: "I like the flat fee because I can control the listing details. I've been offering buyer's agents the full 3%. No problem paying that if they bring a buyer. Do you guys think it makes any difference on the sales end to give the realtors their cut on the flat fee listing?" Okay. So here's what-
Steven Jack Butala: I like fat fee listing. I like your way better.
Jill K DeWit: Thank you. So Steven's talking about companies like Broker Direct MLS, and we've had other local companies that we've used. So what the heck are we talking about? Well, there are a number of places, brokers that say, "Hey, look for a flat rate fee, I'll put it on the MLS for you. You're doing the work. I'm not getting commission, but you can use my licensure and everything. This is all legal and legit. And through me, by paying me, I don't have to get a commission. I'll just take a flat rate. I'll put it on the MLS for you."
Steven Jack Butala: It's a tech company.
Jill K DeWit: And some of them, they might help you with the work. I'm sure there are people out there that do that. Most of the ones I work with, and this is the way I like it anyway, they just say, "Here's the paperwork. Fill it out how you see fit,
How to Schedule Your Days Successfully (ReAir LA 1529) Transcript:
S Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
S Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny southern California.
S Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about how to schedule your days successfully.
Jill DeWit: All right, brain, go for it.
S Jack Butala: Full disclosure, this is one of my favorite topics, and here's why. Not because I love to live in my calendar, but I love to make money. And this is the only way I know how to actually run a crew and make money and sleep at night, quite honestly.
Jill DeWit: I thought you were going to say, I love to make fun of Jill.
S Jack Butala: No, I don't want to ... Jill's amazingly good at this. She doesn't realize it, but we'll make fun of her in a minute.
Jill DeWit: I kind of am. I mean, I do, on the big stuff. Maybe the little stuff, I kind of slack on, but remember I have my reasons why. We've talked about that.
S Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And if you're already a member, please join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: Sandy wrote, "I just joined Land Academy a couple months ago. Honestly, I have stuck with my mailing procedure. Oh, I stuck with my mailing procedure instead of starting from scratch with Offers 2 Owners." I'm curious what her old procedure was. I hope it wasn't handwriting letters with the family at dining room.
S Jack Butala: You'll see. There's a reason this made it into-
Jill DeWit: Oh, it's coming? Okay, good. I'm excited to see what this is. Okay, Sandy. Here we go. "Unfortunately, I received an email today that states I have to send my mailers first class." Oh, that's funny.
S Jack Butala: But it's hilarious.
Jill DeWit: Here come the questions. "Number one, is it standard practice to send first class?"
S Jack Butala: Not at all.
Jill DeWit: "Number two, does O2O require that offers be sent first class?"
S Jack Butala: Heck no.
Jill DeWit: "Number three, how many people send first class versus standard?"
S Jack Butala: Very, very few, if that.
Jill DeWit: "Four, other than the obvious price difference, has anyone tested to see if there are any other differences, ie. performance, ease of mailing, et cetera? Thanks so much for any help you can give, Sandy." Sorry.
S Jack Butala: If you're over 80, this matters.
Jill DeWit: I don't think it matters.
S Jack Butala: If you're over 80 and you're receiving a letter. I don't even look at how it's stamped ever. I mean, none of us do.
Jill DeWit: No. No, we don't.
S Jack Butala: First class is something that happened like in World War II and, I'm not exaggerating. No. And it goes on, everybody had some stuff to say about this, me included actually on ... And if you want to see it all-
Jill DeWit: Was she licking stamps?
S Jack Butala: ... it's either he or she, we don't know. And no, they were using click to mail. And so Click2Mail, it's not even a competitor, but it's another way you can send mail for twice as much money, and it's very popular with non-members of Land Academy and everybody changes over. And even Sandy now goes on to say at the bottom of the string. It was too long for me to include in this.
Jill DeWit: It said, so I get it? I hear ya?
S Jack Butala: So Click2Mail went into this whole thing about, they sent it to all their people saying, "If you're sending these, this and this, and here's the regulations from the Post Office," and they cited it all.
Jill DeWit: How sneaky. That's sneaky, making you think you have to do that.
S Jack Butala: Our other members just jumped right in and took screenshots of how this is all fiction.
Jill DeWit: Wow.
S Jack Butala: So look, I don't want to blow my own horn here, but I am for a second, our horn. O2O rocks. O2O is set up to do this.
How Many Offers Should You Really Be Sending per Month (ReAir LA 1453) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show. Happy Friday. Entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny southern Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about how many offers should you really be sending a month. And yesterday we agreed that-
Jill DeWit: We'll do three levels, whether you're brand new, whether you're intermediate or just an average in this business and then your advanced/pro, what you should be sending. And like I said, we separately wrote down our numbers and we'll share them with you in a few minutes.
Steven Butala: But before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And if you're a Land Academy member already, join us on Discord. I really mean that. If you're a Land Academy member already, this Discord thing was one of the best things that ever happened to this group. It's just real-time advice. Hey, should I be buying this property or not? Hey, I need a lawyer in Atlanta. It's pretty cool stuff.
Jill DeWit: It is. Austin wrote, "Hello. After reading a recent post, I came across an affidavit of disclosure. I looked it up and it looks like Arizona may require this document when transacting land. For my Arizona transactions so far, I've conveyed the property to my buyers with a special warranty deed and an affidavit of property value. Am I doing the right thing or do I need to include this additional document to be above board? Thanks, Austin."
Steven Butala: You're doing every single thing right. For Arizona, it just happens to be called an affidavit of property value. There's a lot of other ... By the way, this is all you need to buy property, two documents, the deed, and let's just call it an addendum because it's called different stuff in different states. It's called a P-Corp in Colorado. What do they call it in California?
Jill DeWit: I can't remember.
Steven Butala: The reason for this document is so that the assessor and the treasurer get a copy of it. Actually, I'm sorry. One goes to the recorder, the deed, and the affidavit never gets recorded. It gets walked over or sent to the assessor to notify the assessor that a transaction happened and so that it gets reassessed, most of the time, for the next year's tax rates, which gets communicated to the treasurer.
Jill DeWit: Based on what you paid for the property.
Steven Butala: Right. In some states, they don't do it at all. They used to not do it in New Mexico. I haven't done a deal there in a while, which was just slam that stuff out. You could do a deed in five seconds. But they require something now. Today's topic ... Oh, you want to answer this?
Jill DeWit: No, no, we're good. Yeah.
Steven Butala: Usually I just sit and listen to you.
Jill DeWit: I'll be over here. Just let me know if you need anything.
Steven Butala: Today's topics, how many offers should you really be sending per month? This is the meat of the show.
Jill DeWit: This is your inventory. This is why you are in business. This I would argue is the number one thing. You can't buy any property to sell any property to make any money if you don't have any deals coming in, and you don't have any deals coming in if you don't send out any mail. So this is crucial. And I see people often make mistakes and it's one easy little fix. They're sending too little. You can't send 100 a week. You can't hand-write them. Actually today, by the time this airs it'll be last week, I'm going to talk on Clubhouse about the difference between the number of deals that we get sending direct mail versus driving for dollars, even pre COVID. Let's just say pre COVID, you can go knock on anybody's door, introduce yourself, hand them a card. And you're trying ...
Jill Friday - How to Get a Land Deal Done with a Mediocre Partner (LA 1847) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steven Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today is Jill Friday. And she's going to talk about how to get a land deal done with a mediocre partner.
Jill K DeWit: And I don't mean Jack.
Steven Jack Butala: If you did, I would sit and listen. Maybe we can fix it and maybe we can't, probably not.
Jill K DeWit: What? Wait, let's just hold. Let's take a little time out for a second. Let me think, I'm going to try to think of one way that I'm mediocre and you try to think of one way that you think you're mediocre and we're going to present them and then we'll see if we agree or not, okay? So let me think about this here. It's kind of hard for me to come up with one. Just kidding. Totally kidding. Mediocre. Okay. I think I know one, I think because I'm bored of it, I'm so bored that I've gotten mediocre. I can make a sandwich, but outside of that, if I put my heart into meal, I'll make a good meal. But I think...
Steven Jack Butala: I never thought about that.
Jill K DeWit: Most of my meals are probably mediocre. I don't care.
Steven Jack Butala: You're a mediocre cook, you're right.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. Because I don't care anymore. I did. But wait a minute on Thanksgiving, I'll pull out all the stops. [inaudible 00:01:27] See, I know what's possible.
Steven Jack Butala: You can do it.
Jill K DeWit: I choose to be mediocre.
Steven Jack Butala: Here's the truth of it. I'm a mediocre eater. So it all works out great.
Jill K DeWit: That works out. So what's your thing that you think?
Steven Jack Butala: I'm probably a mediocre handyman.
Jill K DeWit: I would agree with that. You're so good at data, baby, stick to data. I'm sorry. I was going to build you up here, but I have to agree with that one.
Steven Jack Butala: Isn't it funny when you just self describe anything. Everyone can handle it, but if someone walks up to you and says, you know what, I've been meaning to tell, you're a mediocre handyman. It's like, "what? What are you talking about? I changed the light bulb three weeks ago and it went great."
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. Yeah, that's good. Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala: The truth is I can't change light bulbs in our house because no one can reach them and I'm not going to go buy a ladder. And we have to go call somebody.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah, exactly. We have a couple of handymen on retainer.
Steven Jack Butala: Even if I bought a ladder, it would be a four story ladder, so I'm just not going to do it.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. That's good.
Steven Jack Butala: And Jill's accepted that.
Jill K DeWit: Oh yeah, I'm fine with that. Because you were so good at data, baby, and research and a lot of other things. We'll leave it at that. All right, thank you. I had to get that out of the way. I thought that that was important. We needed to share. Okay.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. That could have gone way different. What if we just announced to the world that we were all mediocre at things that really matter in an interpersonal relationship.
Jill K DeWit: I'll [inaudible 00:03:22], no we won't share anymore. Let's move on.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community it's free. Back in the day, it was nearly impossible to find land without a mailing address, like 123 Main Street. To solve this, jill and I created parcelfact.com. You can find any property in the country, just about any property by using the state, the county and the assessor's parcel number, which all properties have, because that's how counties send out real estate taxes. Check out parcelfact.com. We spent a ton of time,
Jill Friday - How to Get a Land Deal Done with a Mediocre Partner (LA 1847) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steven Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today is Jill Friday. And she's going to talk about how to get a land deal done with a mediocre partner.
Jill K DeWit: And I don't mean Jack.
Steven Jack Butala: If you did, I would sit and listen. Maybe we can fix it and maybe we can't, probably not.
Jill K DeWit: What? Wait, let's just hold. Let's take a little time out for a second. Let me think, I'm going to try to think of one way that I'm mediocre and you try to think of one way that you think you're mediocre and we're going to present them and then we'll see if we agree or not, okay? So let me think about this here. It's kind of hard for me to come up with one. Just kidding. Totally kidding. Mediocre. Okay. I think I know one, I think because I'm bored of it, I'm so bored that I've gotten mediocre. I can make a sandwich, but outside of that, if I put my heart into meal, I'll make a good meal. But I think...
Steven Jack Butala: I never thought about that.
Jill K DeWit: Most of my meals are probably mediocre. I don't care.
Steven Jack Butala: You're a mediocre cook, you're right.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. Because I don't care anymore. I did. But wait a minute on Thanksgiving, I'll pull out all the stops. [inaudible 00:01:27] See, I know what's possible.
Steven Jack Butala: You can do it.
Jill K DeWit: I choose to be mediocre.
Steven Jack Butala: Here's the truth of it. I'm a mediocre eater. So it all works out great.
Jill K DeWit: That works out. So what's your thing that you think?
Steven Jack Butala: I'm probably a mediocre handyman.
Jill K DeWit: I would agree with that. You're so good at data, baby, stick to data. I'm sorry. I was going to build you up here, but I have to agree with that one.
Steven Jack Butala: Isn't it funny when you just self describe anything. Everyone can handle it, but if someone walks up to you and says, you know what, I've been meaning to tell, you're a mediocre handyman. It's like, "what? What are you talking about? I changed the light bulb three weeks ago and it went great."
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. Yeah, that's good. Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala: The truth is I can't change light bulbs in our house because no one can reach them and I'm not going to go buy a ladder. And we have to go call somebody.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah, exactly. We have a couple of handymen on retainer.
Steven Jack Butala: Even if I bought a ladder, it would be a four story ladder, so I'm just not going to do it.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. That's good.
Steven Jack Butala: And Jill's accepted that.
Jill K DeWit: Oh yeah, I'm fine with that. Because you were so good at data, baby, and research and a lot of other things. We'll leave it at that. All right, thank you. I had to get that out of the way. I thought that that was important. We needed to share. Okay.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. That could have gone way different. What if we just announced to the world that we were all mediocre at things that really matter in an interpersonal relationship.
Jill K DeWit: I'll [inaudible 00:03:22], no we won't share anymore. Let's move on.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community it's free. Back in the day, it was nearly impossible to find land without a mailing address, like 123 Main Street. To solve this, jill and I created parcelfact.com. You can find any property in the country, just about any property by using the state, the county and the assessor's parcel number, which all properties have, because that's how counties send out real estate taxes. Check out parcelfact.com. We spent a ton of time,
Jack Thursday - Why I Killed Several Land Deals My Partners Already Approved (LA 1846) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jack Thursday, and I'm going to talk about, in detail, why I killed, recently killed, several land deals my partners already proved.
Jill K DeWit: This is fun.
Steven Jack Butala: I think this is-
Jill K DeWit: I get to sit back and let you... Because I kind of saw it in air table, kind of watched it happen, which is really nice.
Steven Jack Butala: This is going to be informative, I think.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. This is cool.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free, and please don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel. Comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Anthony wrote, "Infill lot advice from a builder," I read this the other day. This was really cool. "I recently had a conversation with a builder who took a chunk of lots off my books. It was a good talk. I asked him about the metrics he uses to decide where to build. The answers were eye-opening. He won't touch any area where new construction fetches under $400,000."
Steven Jack Butala: Boy, that's the truth.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. "Though lumber costs have fallen from recent highs, he still budgets," this is more than I even thought right now, "he budgets 150 to $175,000 a square foot. I was shocked at all the fees and hurdles on new construction. My takeaways, number one, due to the high costs of new construction for infill lots, make sure the markets you mail have a medium home price of over $400,000."
Steven Jack Butala: That's... One second before you run into number two. That's been the case for a long time.
Jill K DeWit: Right.
Steven Jack Butala: That number keeps moving, but it's been the case, because you need to make money.
Jill K DeWit: Right.
Steven Jack Butala: This is the antithesis of affordable housing. All you read about in the news, in real estate news, is, "Why the hell..." And all these articles are written by little tiny journalists that are maybe still in middle school, "We need more affordable housing." Well, great. Here's the reason we don't have it, because of this post. Go ahead.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. "Number two, I will limit my infill offers with an eye towards an expected sale price of no more than 15% of the estimated new home price." So think about that.
Steven Jack Butala: It's been that way for-
Jill K DeWit: So $400,000, you'd go back... You could go back like 20%.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: Buy for 20, sell for-
Steven Jack Butala: 40.
Jill K DeWit: Or buy for 40, you could even sell for 80 maybe. But now, he's saying go even lower than that.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, I agree with that.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. Totally. "Number three, since all these costs and the hurdles on new SFR construction, the demand for cheaper options will only increase going forward." So true.
Steven Jack Butala: Cheap land.
Jill K DeWit: Right. "I will be giving priority to mobile home zoned lots. I know there's a deep reservoir of knowledge on this subject here. So what do you guys think?" I didn't get to see what everybody else weighed in on.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. And a lot of people had a lot of stuff to say, including me. This guy's been in our group for quite some time. He's very, very bright. And these are the types of people, fortunately, that Land Academy attracts. I do a whole module on Land Academy Mobile Home Land, and actually developing or dropping mobile homes on land in our Career Path.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: So check it out.
Jill K DeWit: And you're going to add more about subdividing a c...
Jack Thursday - Why I Killed Several Land Deals My Partners Already Approved (LA 1846) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jack Thursday, and I'm going to talk about, in detail, why I killed, recently killed, several land deals my partners already proved.
Jill K DeWit: This is fun.
Steven Jack Butala: I think this is-
Jill K DeWit: I get to sit back and let you... Because I kind of saw it in air table, kind of watched it happen, which is really nice.
Steven Jack Butala: This is going to be informative, I think.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. This is cool.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free, and please don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel. Comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Anthony wrote, "Infill lot advice from a builder," I read this the other day. This was really cool. "I recently had a conversation with a builder who took a chunk of lots off my books. It was a good talk. I asked him about the metrics he uses to decide where to build. The answers were eye-opening. He won't touch any area where new construction fetches under $400,000."
Steven Jack Butala: Boy, that's the truth.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. "Though lumber costs have fallen from recent highs, he still budgets," this is more than I even thought right now, "he budgets 150 to $175,000 a square foot. I was shocked at all the fees and hurdles on new construction. My takeaways, number one, due to the high costs of new construction for infill lots, make sure the markets you mail have a medium home price of over $400,000."
Steven Jack Butala: That's... One second before you run into number two. That's been the case for a long time.
Jill K DeWit: Right.
Steven Jack Butala: That number keeps moving, but it's been the case, because you need to make money.
Jill K DeWit: Right.
Steven Jack Butala: This is the antithesis of affordable housing. All you read about in the news, in real estate news, is, "Why the hell..." And all these articles are written by little tiny journalists that are maybe still in middle school, "We need more affordable housing." Well, great. Here's the reason we don't have it, because of this post. Go ahead.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. "Number two, I will limit my infill offers with an eye towards an expected sale price of no more than 15% of the estimated new home price." So think about that.
Steven Jack Butala: It's been that way for-
Jill K DeWit: So $400,000, you'd go back... You could go back like 20%.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: Buy for 20, sell for-
Steven Jack Butala: 40.
Jill K DeWit: Or buy for 40, you could even sell for 80 maybe. But now, he's saying go even lower than that.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, I agree with that.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. Totally. "Number three, since all these costs and the hurdles on new SFR construction, the demand for cheaper options will only increase going forward." So true.
Steven Jack Butala: Cheap land.
Jill K DeWit: Right. "I will be giving priority to mobile home zoned lots. I know there's a deep reservoir of knowledge on this subject here. So what do you guys think?" I didn't get to see what everybody else weighed in on.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. And a lot of people had a lot of stuff to say, including me. This guy's been in our group for quite some time. He's very, very bright. And these are the types of people, fortunately, that Land Academy attracts. I do a whole module on Land Academy Mobile Home Land, and actually developing or dropping mobile homes on land in our Career Path.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: So check it out.
Jill K DeWit: And you're going to add more about subdividing a c...
The Role of Research in Land Investing (LA 1845) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show Entertaining Real Estate Investment Talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about the role of research in land investing and it's not a minor role. Like I said yesterday, we just are in the information age, literally. And there's not a topic I've ever couldn't find any content or reviews on on the internet about anything to make a really well informed decision.
Jill K DeWit: Let me give you some truth here about Jack.
Steven Jack Butala: Let's do the show first.
Jill K DeWit: No, no, no. This ties into this. Give me just a second here. One of the lovely things about our relationship, the ying and the yang.
Steven Jack Butala: One of the lovely things.
Jill K DeWit: Lovely. No, it is actually. This is a good thing.
Steven Jack Butala: Not one of the horrific things.
Jill K DeWit: No, I'll talk about that later. So the lovely things is you are research nut. You dig in and research like no one I've ever known. And want to know what's great about that is I hate research. Can't stand it.
Steven Jack Butala: Really?
Jill K DeWit: Oh, yeah. Oh, no. No, I
Steven Jack Butala: How could you hate research?
Jill K DeWit: Well, because I'm not because I'd rather be off doing something fun. I don't want to sit and make sure I'm doing the, pick the right one. I'm like, yeah, pick it. Let's just go. Let's have some fun. No, but you're like, no, we need to look at this. I need to think about that. I need to check this and weigh against that. I need to pull these reports and I need to make sure. So this is all ending in a positive. It may not still like it, but what's great is no matter what it is when you finally come to me with something and say, "I think we should pull the trigger. I think this is a good idea." I don't have to worry about it. Because I know you put in 10 to 20 times more research than I would've.
Steven Jack Butala: That's necessary. Probably 10 to 20 times more. But then I know.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. And welcome to land academy. That's like buying property. So I, trust me. I adopt it there and there I do it. I do it quicker. Well, not necessarily. We're both really fast about it, but I know what to look for to pick a property and if I'm not sure about it, if needs more research or something, we're going to find out. I'm not going to make a knee jerk decision. So thank you.
Steven Jack Butala: I'm in a lifelong professional and interpersonal relationship with a salesperson. Think about that.
Jill K DeWit: What was that all for?
Steven Jack Butala: Send me a note. Send me an empathetic or sympathetic note.
Jill K DeWit: What? What was that for?
Steven Jack Butala: She wants to have fun. She doesn't really care if there's any math or money involved.
Jill K DeWit: Nope.
Steven Jack Butala: Her answer to all money questions is if it costs more, then I'll just sell-
Jill K DeWit: Must be better.
Steven Jack Butala: Then I'll just sell more.
Jill K DeWit: Oh, that too. That's right. No problem.
Steven Jack Butala: I would much rather have this much larger diamond and next month I'll just sell three times as much and it'll be fine. And the problem with that is she has a long history of accomplishing that.
Jill K DeWit: It works. [inaudible 00:03:06].
Steven Jack Butala: So now I'm in this impossible position where I just pretty much can't ever say no because every time I've ever done it, she just proves me wrong. This is a show.
Jill K DeWit: You're welcome.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, just a question posted by one of our members on the land investors.com online community it's free. Last year, a ton of land academy members came to Jill and I needing extra help getting their blind offer campaigns off to a goo...
The Role of Research in Land Investing (LA 1845) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show Entertaining Real Estate Investment Talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about the role of research in land investing and it's not a minor role. Like I said yesterday, we just are in the information age, literally. And there's not a topic I've ever couldn't find any content or reviews on on the internet about anything to make a really well informed decision.
Jill K DeWit: Let me give you some truth here about Jack.
Steven Jack Butala: Let's do the show first.
Jill K DeWit: No, no, no. This ties into this. Give me just a second here. One of the lovely things about our relationship, the ying and the yang.
Steven Jack Butala: One of the lovely things.
Jill K DeWit: Lovely. No, it is actually. This is a good thing.
Steven Jack Butala: Not one of the horrific things.
Jill K DeWit: No, I'll talk about that later. So the lovely things is you are research nut. You dig in and research like no one I've ever known. And want to know what's great about that is I hate research. Can't stand it.
Steven Jack Butala: Really?
Jill K DeWit: Oh, yeah. Oh, no. No, I
Steven Jack Butala: How could you hate research?
Jill K DeWit: Well, because I'm not because I'd rather be off doing something fun. I don't want to sit and make sure I'm doing the, pick the right one. I'm like, yeah, pick it. Let's just go. Let's have some fun. No, but you're like, no, we need to look at this. I need to think about that. I need to check this and weigh against that. I need to pull these reports and I need to make sure. So this is all ending in a positive. It may not still like it, but what's great is no matter what it is when you finally come to me with something and say, "I think we should pull the trigger. I think this is a good idea." I don't have to worry about it. Because I know you put in 10 to 20 times more research than I would've.
Steven Jack Butala: That's necessary. Probably 10 to 20 times more. But then I know.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. And welcome to land academy. That's like buying property. So I, trust me. I adopt it there and there I do it. I do it quicker. Well, not necessarily. We're both really fast about it, but I know what to look for to pick a property and if I'm not sure about it, if needs more research or something, we're going to find out. I'm not going to make a knee jerk decision. So thank you.
Steven Jack Butala: I'm in a lifelong professional and interpersonal relationship with a salesperson. Think about that.
Jill K DeWit: What was that all for?
Steven Jack Butala: Send me a note. Send me an empathetic or sympathetic note.
Jill K DeWit: What? What was that for?
Steven Jack Butala: She wants to have fun. She doesn't really care if there's any math or money involved.
Jill K DeWit: Nope.
Steven Jack Butala: Her answer to all money questions is if it costs more, then I'll just sell-
Jill K DeWit: Must be better.
Steven Jack Butala: Then I'll just sell more.
Jill K DeWit: Oh, that too. That's right. No problem.
Steven Jack Butala: I would much rather have this much larger diamond and next month I'll just sell three times as much and it'll be fine. And the problem with that is she has a long history of accomplishing that.
Jill K DeWit: It works. [inaudible 00:03:06].
Steven Jack Butala: So now I'm in this impossible position where I just pretty much can't ever say no because every time I've ever done it, she just proves me wrong. This is a show.
Jill K DeWit: You're welcome.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, just a question posted by one of our members on the land investors.com online community it's free. Last year, a ton of land academy members came to Jill and I needing extra help getting their blind offer campaigns off to a goo...
How Many Blind Offers You Send is Tied Directly to Your Success (LA 1844) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Stephen Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWitt. Broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala: This week we're broadcasting from the valley of the sun. But by the time you listen to this, we are deep into the center of the country in an RV.
Jill K DeWit: I know, I'm going to have to change it every time we record. I'm going to come up with a cute saying as to wherever we are, fill in the blank, it might be brought broadcasting from the center of the rust belt.
Steven Jack Butala: Rust belt cracks you up. Rust belt's been... Jill just learned the word rust belt.
Jill K DeWit: Do you know what's funny? Do you know what it is? I actually used soup to nuts in a sentence the other day and I didn't know soup to nuts for a while too. That's old school for me.
Steven Jack Butala: People from Southern California are a very interesting bunch. Today Jill and I talk about how many blind offers you need to send and how it's tied directly to your success. Before we get into it, let's take a good question posted by one of our members on thelandinvestors.com online community. It's free. I hope by now, Jill and I own and operate, successfully, a full blown commercial printing company to help you get offers in the mail. Offers2owners.com
Jill K DeWit: Oh two. Oh, look. How cute is that? I have a cheer. O and the two and O.
Steven Jack Butala: A cheer. What's going to happen in this episode?
Jill K DeWit: Oh my God. You think I'm like drunk or something?
Steven Jack Butala: Check it out. Oh, but we send between 500,000 and a million offers a month. Check it out at offers2owners.com. Wow. Geez, Jill.
Jill K DeWit: What? All right. Kevin wrote, "Oftentimes on the Thursday call while doing due diligence, Jack and Jill click around on the neighbor scoop and say, "I would call X, be at a builder or a neighbor et cetera." My question is, well, how do you introduce yourself? Since they won't have much to gain from answering your questions, how do you navigate the situation?"
Steven Jack Butala: Let me back up and describe the situation and Jill's going to answer that. If you get to a point where you've got a property that comes back, it comes back signed or you've renegotiated the situation, and you don't know whether you're going to buy or not, you're making that final decision. So you present it on the Thursday webinar call that we have for all of our members and our answer is, you know what? I'm not sure either. It looks like a great piece of property. It looks like there's access over here and the numbers support the acquisition so you can sell it for twice as much. But it'd be great to get an opinion from somebody who's local. Why don't you call a local builder, the gas station owner next door, or a local real estate agent and ask them their opinion of what they think the value is.
Jill K DeWit: Or even not even that, it's like, I can't tell if this meets that. I can't tell if the road stops here. I can't tell how close it is to fill in the blank. I can't tell how deep it is. So in the past, I had a situation, here's a real example of this exact thing. We had an island and I couldn't tell, based on the maps, when we look at the different dates on it, there could be access certain times of the year right? As the water levels go up, go down. I think there's a bridge over here. I can't tell there's a bridge over here. So I was like, "I'm going to call somebody and figure out, can I even get over there without a boat?" So I did, I picked up the phone and started calling and it was good because there was a lumber company across the way. This is a true story. So I dropped a little man on Google Earth Pro, you know what I'm talking about.
How Many Blind Offers You Send is Tied Directly to Your Success (LA 1844) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Stephen Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWitt. Broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala: This week we're broadcasting from the valley of the sun. But by the time you listen to this, we are deep into the center of the country in an RV.
Jill K DeWit: I know, I'm going to have to change it every time we record. I'm going to come up with a cute saying as to wherever we are, fill in the blank, it might be brought broadcasting from the center of the rust belt.
Steven Jack Butala: Rust belt cracks you up. Rust belt's been... Jill just learned the word rust belt.
Jill K DeWit: Do you know what's funny? Do you know what it is? I actually used soup to nuts in a sentence the other day and I didn't know soup to nuts for a while too. That's old school for me.
Steven Jack Butala: People from Southern California are a very interesting bunch. Today Jill and I talk about how many blind offers you need to send and how it's tied directly to your success. Before we get into it, let's take a good question posted by one of our members on thelandinvestors.com online community. It's free. I hope by now, Jill and I own and operate, successfully, a full blown commercial printing company to help you get offers in the mail. Offers2owners.com
Jill K DeWit: Oh two. Oh, look. How cute is that? I have a cheer. O and the two and O.
Steven Jack Butala: A cheer. What's going to happen in this episode?
Jill K DeWit: Oh my God. You think I'm like drunk or something?
Steven Jack Butala: Check it out. Oh, but we send between 500,000 and a million offers a month. Check it out at offers2owners.com. Wow. Geez, Jill.
Jill K DeWit: What? All right. Kevin wrote, "Oftentimes on the Thursday call while doing due diligence, Jack and Jill click around on the neighbor scoop and say, "I would call X, be at a builder or a neighbor et cetera." My question is, well, how do you introduce yourself? Since they won't have much to gain from answering your questions, how do you navigate the situation?"
Steven Jack Butala: Let me back up and describe the situation and Jill's going to answer that. If you get to a point where you've got a property that comes back, it comes back signed or you've renegotiated the situation, and you don't know whether you're going to buy or not, you're making that final decision. So you present it on the Thursday webinar call that we have for all of our members and our answer is, you know what? I'm not sure either. It looks like a great piece of property. It looks like there's access over here and the numbers support the acquisition so you can sell it for twice as much. But it'd be great to get an opinion from somebody who's local. Why don't you call a local builder, the gas station owner next door, or a local real estate agent and ask them their opinion of what they think the value is.
Jill K DeWit: Or even not even that, it's like, I can't tell if this meets that. I can't tell if the road stops here. I can't tell how close it is to fill in the blank. I can't tell how deep it is. So in the past, I had a situation, here's a real example of this exact thing. We had an island and I couldn't tell, based on the maps, when we look at the different dates on it, there could be access certain times of the year right? As the water levels go up, go down. I think there's a bridge over here. I can't tell there's a bridge over here. So I was like, "I'm going to call somebody and figure out, can I even get over there without a boat?" So I did, I picked up the phone and started calling and it was good because there was a lumber company across the way. This is a true story. So I dropped a little man on Google Earth Pro, you know what I'm talking about.
Why Land Investment is Misunderstood (LA 1843) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: I'm Jill Dewitt, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun, for a few more minutes.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about why land investment is so misunderstood among real estate professionals, seasoned real estate professionals.
Jill K DeWit: I love it. I think it's the greatest thing ever. When I talk to people... maybe they're commercial brokers, fill in the blank, and I talk about what I do and their eyes gloss over. They're like, "Yeah, that can't possibly work." I'm like, "Okay, see ya."
Steven Jack Butala: I can tell [inaudible 00:00:41]
Jill K DeWit: Not my competition. Awesome.
Steven Jack Butala: I've been in real estate my entire life. I started in commercial real estate. I can tell you very clearly why this is, but we'll do it in a second here. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community. It's free. I hope you know by now-
Jill K DeWit: Oh, I'm so excited.
Steven Jack Butala: ... that Jill and I instruct a handful of new and existing Land Academy members in a live class, called Career Path. If buying and selling land is your career or you want it to be, check it out. LandAcademy.com/CareerPath.
Jill K DeWit: We are filling up right now. Career Path five starts October 13th, just a reminder. If you are thinking about this, do definitely send a note to our team. Did you say the email address? Support@LandAcademy.com. Sorry.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, go ahead. This is filling up faster than any of the career paths that we've done.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. Word's getting out.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. That's what it is. It's catching on.
Jill K DeWit: You know what it is? Word's getting out. If there's anybody in our land space that does it, what we do, they charge 50, 80, a hundred thousand dollars, if they even do it. We undercharge. I'm just going to say that. Things are going to change at the end of this year, but we'll get to that. That's a whole nother thing.
Steven Jack Butala: That's absolutely right.
Jill K DeWit: Peter wrote, "For those of you who have experience with six-digit deals, here's a newbie question."
Steven Jack Butala: Here, one second, before you read this. I went into... before pre-producing all these shows today, the five that we record today, into Discord, to look for questions, as I always do.
Jill K DeWit: Of course.
Steven Jack Butala: Because there's a lot of new people, there's a lot of new questions, a lot of fresh new content. So if you join last week, during Jill's promo, at the time this airs, welcome.
Jill K DeWit: Yay. Yay.
Steven Jack Butala: We're happy you're here. It's great to see new people's perspective.
Jill K DeWit: Fresh stuff.
Steven Jack Butala: Usually, people join because they've been listening to our podcast for a while, and so you have these pent up questions. I love to see it all just coming out in our-
Jill K DeWit: Brain dump.
Steven Jack Butala: ... environments. Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: Call it a brain dump.
Steven Jack Butala: So, anyway.
Jill K DeWit: Good. Okay. So Peter wrote, "Newbie question. My understanding with these bigger deals, is you're not necessarily trying to double your money." Oh, hold on Peter. Oh, wait. "I heard Steven and Jill mention that at some point, they would be happy to buy something a hundred thousand, they could sell for 150. So let's say we're talking about a property with a market value of $300,000. What would be a solid acquisition price, $200,000? Does the percentage you would be willing to acquire the property for change, if you wish to get deal funding? Maybe you prefer greater margins if you're working with someone else's money. I have a few leads from prospects or from propertie...
Jill Friday - Our Land Academy Community Provides 24/7 Support (LA 1842) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWitt broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I. Well, it's Jill Friday. She's going to talk about our land academy community and how it provides 24-7 support.
Jill K DeWit: Cool.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take the question.
Jill K DeWit: Yes.
Steven Jack Butala: Posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free. Hey, check out parcelfact.com. We spend a lot of time and money consolidating Parcel Fact and Neighbor Scoop into one great product. It's cheaper. It works better and...
Jill K DeWit: Mobile friendly.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, mobile friendly and by leaps and bounds it's the best product out there for exactly what we do, which is we're on the phone with the seller. I need to find this property and see if I want to take it to the next step.
Jill K DeWit: State, county, APN. I'm looking at it and that's all I need for my due diligence. It's awesome.
Steven Jack Butala: Yep.
Jill K DeWit: Corey wrote hoping to get some advice on what to do. My wife and I are getting ready to send off our first mailer. She'll be listed on the offer since she's going to be primarily handling the phone calls. After Googling her name, the top results are new stories and pictures from 2020. Oh my gosh. That she just happens to have the same name.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: About a woman con artist and scam artists who shares my wife's name. Does anyone have any suggestions about what we should do? We thought about using her middle name and I wouldn't have thought of this by the way. This is brilliant that you did. I didn't think about Googling that ahead time
Steven Jack Butala: Have you ever googled your name?
Jill K DeWit: I've Googled myself. And you know it's funny.
Steven Jack Butala: You're not a felon.
Jill K DeWit: No, I'm definitely not a felon. And I'm not that Dutch woman. A long time ago, there was a woman in Holland because of the last name, DeWitt. And I got her, she's so pushed down on the list now. And she's probably on page 23 of Google. I don't know what it is, but she got pushed way down. So funny anyway. But does anyone have any suggestions about what to do, we thought about using her middle name? I wasn't sure if what other issues could this cause. We created a LinkedIn to associate her name with the business, but it gets buried amongst the other articles. Oh man, this...
Steven Jack Butala: There's another Steve Butala out there.
Jill K DeWit: Good thing to check it.
Steven Jack Butala: Before I answer this, there's another Steve Butala out there he's like a PhD in physics or something like that. And he is a professor, and we talked to each other one time. We're only two that I know, his middle initial is the same as mine too.
Jill K DeWit: We've had bank stuff screwed up by that.
Steven Jack Butala: He makes me look good. He's like crazy intelligent. My answer is not going to be, you're not going to like it.
Jill K DeWit: What's your answer?
Steven Jack Butala: Change the name on the mailer. You don't need anybody, not even one single person Googling this and seeing the word scam. You just don't need it. Or put your name on it, or I like the middle name idea.
Jill K DeWit: Put both of your names on it.
Steven Jack Butala: Or maybe both their names or...
Jill K DeWit: Because then no matter who answers the phone. You're both listed
Steven Jack Butala: Honest. This is, I don't know what your comfort level is with this, but considering consider creating another name for your wife. Where it's not Jill Dewitt. What did you have an alias like Jill Beach or something like that?
Jill K DeWit:
Jack Thursday - Put Your Head Down and Do It (LA 1841) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jack Thursday. I'm going to talk about putting your head down and just doing it.
Jill K DeWit: Sounds like a Jill Friday topic. You think I'm kidding?
Steven Jack Butala: Does it?
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: Sometimes we trade off. I don't know what Jill Friday is tomorrow, but I think it's a little bit less spiritual.
Jill K DeWit: I already forgot. Yeah. I want to hear you. I want to hear the inspirational Jack come out.
Steven Jack Butala: We all have stuff we have started and not finished, or we've all started stuff. And it's like, yeah, this is a mistake.
Jill K DeWit: I lose interest, I don't like it. It gets harder.
Steven Jack Butala: So if you deconstruct that, I'm going to get into this in a lot of detail. If you deconstruct it and find out why, it's really just about one thing. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Please don't forget to subscribe on The Land Academy YouTube channel. Comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Dan wrote, "I have a 10 acre forested property under contract, which has a cabin on it. The forest zoning does not allow any structures. I do see the county sent a letter of non-compliance from 10 years ago, informing them that they needed to remove the structures. It looks like they removed all the structures but the cabin. It's pretty nice and surrounded by logging company land and has physical and legal access. My question is this, knowing the cabin's not in compliance with the zoning would this cause issues if I sell through a broker? I'm assuming, yes, that I'd be better off selling myself off the market and not attract any attention from some overzealous compliance officer at the county. Just want to know if anyone else has dealt with this."
Steven Jack Butala: This is a ask for permission or ask for forgiveness kind of question. And I can safely say that Jill and I are on the same page about this.
Jill K DeWit: Yep.
Steven Jack Butala: We ask for forgiveness.
Jill K DeWit: Correct.
Steven Jack Butala: I would post it. I would say there's a cabin here. Unfortunately, now you know it's out of compliance. So you really ethically should disclose this, which is fine. Not sure I would disclose it to the real estate agent, but I would before the property, whoever buys it, I would say you would have to disclose it in escrow or whatever. Maybe you want to disclose it right up front. Hey, there's great cabin here, but it needs to be moved.
Jill K DeWit: It's going to be in the pictures.
Steven Jack Butala: And honestly, if you are a legal compliance type of person, one second, Jill, you're probably going to have to move this, but go for it.
Jill K DeWit: Here's a thought. What if you make a phone call to the county, find out the cost and the time and the process, one phone call and see how much it is to change the zoning, to allow the cabin. And you could put that in your posting, like, hey FYI, I'm not doing it, but I found out it takes six months, a thousand dollars and you have to do this and this. And then you have a good chance of getting it rezoned so you can keep the cabin.
Steven Jack Butala: So, Jill's right. You have a lot of options here, which is good. It's always good to have more options than less. And this is a huge attribute versus just buying a piece of regular land, I think. Maybe it's a shed, maybe you call the county and say, I know you have this housing, primary residence or residence compliance thing with this, but we're just using that as a shed.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. No one's living there.
We Review About Twenty Properties for Every One Property We Buy (LA 1840) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show Entertaining Land Investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today Jill and I talk about how we review about 20 properties for every one or two properties that we actually buy. This is pretty important. This isn't going to be the longest episode, but if you're one of those people who are like, "Geez, I really wish they would just get to the point and stop horsing around," This is that episode.
Jill K DeWit: I love it. Let me start with this, too, by the way. I would love to say today is the last day, so you know of the awesome, awesome biggest so far in 2022 savings to join Land Academy. And not only have I got a nice chunk off, it's $1,250 off, check it out, but also, joining through midnight tonight, you also get to be... not only the savings, you are put into a drawing for a 10 acre property in Oklahoma. The details are on our website. So go to landacademy.com. And by the way, if you have any questions, always just send a note to support@landacademy.com and my team will get back to you.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into the topic, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.
Jill K DeWit: Shannon wrote, "So how do we handle buying land from disgruntled family members who just want to get away from the family who owns everything surrounding it?" That's hilarious. I feel like I'm in an episode of Bloodline. Somebody wrote that?
Steven Jack Butala: Mm-hmm.
Jill K DeWit: Oh, okay. Got that.
Steven Jack Butala: It's left over from...
Jill K DeWit: Okay. Okay. So... That's kind of funny. I wouldn't care. Here's the thing, if there's no access and they're going to withhold access, that's the only problem I would see.
Steven Jack Butala: This leads directly into what this topic is today.
Jill K DeWit: Well, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Let me back... Can I finish the sentence?
Steven Jack Butala: Sure.
Jill K DeWit: Finish my thought here. So, properties surrounded by the whatevers and they just want to get out of it. If there's, which there can be... there has to be at some point access most... pretty much everywhere, you can't withhold access, right? They think they can, but they can't. But the whole point of this is, sure they hate the family members and they want to get away from them, but you know what? The new person coming in doesn't have that animosity with the family members. It doesn't mean that it's going to be a bad situation. So I honestly don't have a problem with this. I don't see a problem with this.
Steven Jack Butala: So how does this come about? Actually, this is very common, not this problem, but to see multiple family members living in one area where the root of that is agricultural property and municipalities... Municipalities have always been in favor of taking a large piece of property and minor splitting it or splitting chunks off and giving it to the kids, let's say, so it-
Jill K DeWit: Mom and dad might have set out to do that.
Steven Jack Butala: Farmers have been doing it since farming's began. I'm going to give the back 40 to my daughter, I'm going to give this 40 acre over here to my son, they're both married to other people, they're going to farm it and we're going to be over here if they need us. And so what ends up happening is they get letters from us and everybody else in our group and sometimes it's, you know.
Jill K DeWit: And you know what I would do, too, I'd be reaching out to the other family members at the same time, by the way, as you're buying it and you're an escrow, "Hey, do you want to sell too? I'm buying Bobby Joe's, do you, Sally Sue, want to sell yours too?"
Steven Jack Butala:
We Review About Twenty Properties for Every One Property We Buy (LA 1840) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show Entertaining Land Investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today Jill and I talk about how we review about 20 properties for every one or two properties that we actually buy. This is pretty important. This isn't going to be the longest episode, but if you're one of those people who are like, "Geez, I really wish they would just get to the point and stop horsing around," This is that episode.
Jill K DeWit: I love it. Let me start with this, too, by the way. I would love to say today is the last day, so you know of the awesome, awesome biggest so far in 2022 savings to join Land Academy. And not only have I got a nice chunk off, it's $1,250 off, check it out, but also, joining through midnight tonight, you also get to be... not only the savings, you are put into a drawing for a 10 acre property in Oklahoma. The details are on our website. So go to landacademy.com. And by the way, if you have any questions, always just send a note to support@landacademy.com and my team will get back to you.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into the topic, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.
Jill K DeWit: Shannon wrote, "So how do we handle buying land from disgruntled family members who just want to get away from the family who owns everything surrounding it?" That's hilarious. I feel like I'm in an episode of Bloodline. Somebody wrote that?
Steven Jack Butala: Mm-hmm.
Jill K DeWit: Oh, okay. Got that.
Steven Jack Butala: It's left over from...
Jill K DeWit: Okay. Okay. So... That's kind of funny. I wouldn't care. Here's the thing, if there's no access and they're going to withhold access, that's the only problem I would see.
Steven Jack Butala: This leads directly into what this topic is today.
Jill K DeWit: Well, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Let me back... Can I finish the sentence?
Steven Jack Butala: Sure.
Jill K DeWit: Finish my thought here. So, properties surrounded by the whatevers and they just want to get out of it. If there's, which there can be... there has to be at some point access most... pretty much everywhere, you can't withhold access, right? They think they can, but they can't. But the whole point of this is, sure they hate the family members and they want to get away from them, but you know what? The new person coming in doesn't have that animosity with the family members. It doesn't mean that it's going to be a bad situation. So I honestly don't have a problem with this. I don't see a problem with this.
Steven Jack Butala: So how does this come about? Actually, this is very common, not this problem, but to see multiple family members living in one area where the root of that is agricultural property and municipalities... Municipalities have always been in favor of taking a large piece of property and minor splitting it or splitting chunks off and giving it to the kids, let's say, so it-
Jill K DeWit: Mom and dad might have set out to do that.
Steven Jack Butala: Farmers have been doing it since farming's began. I'm going to give the back 40 to my daughter, I'm going to give this 40 acre over here to my son, they're both married to other people, they're going to farm it and we're going to be over here if they need us. And so what ends up happening is they get letters from us and everybody else in our group and sometimes it's, you know.
Jill K DeWit: And you know what I would do, too, I'd be reaching out to the other family members at the same time, by the way, as you're buying it and you're an escrow, "Hey, do you want to sell too? I'm buying Bobby Joe's, do you, Sally Sue, want to sell yours too?"
Steven Jack Butala:
How Your Land Business Compares to Other Small Businesses (LA 1839) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Howdy.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today Jill and I talk about how your land business compares to other types of small businesses. And believe me, it's almost all good news, especially the way we have it set up now with the Land Academy membership group and funding and all of that stuff. So I'll go through the list here in a minute.
Jill K DeWit: Cool.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com community, online community. It's free. We have, Jill and I started quite some time ago, several years ago, a full blown commercial printing company to help you get your offers to owners. In fact, that's what it's called offers2owners.com. We send out between 600,000 and a million offers on behalf of members and non-members.
Jill K DeWit: Every month.
Steven Jack Butala: Every single month.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: Check it out, offers2owners.com.
Jill K DeWit: Cool. Now back to the question, which is coming on the teleprompter. Charlie responds. Okay, so this is a response to something else?
Steven Jack Butala: No, Charlie just-
Jill K DeWit: Oh.
Steven Jack Butala: You can't believe everything you read on the teleprompter.
Jill K DeWit: Oh, okay.
Steven Jack Butala: Charlie's got a question.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. Charlie wrote this question. "Anybody ever had an old communications tower on their land? I'm looking at one that has a tower. It appears to be in good shape, but is not currently being used. How would you go about advertising that you have spots for lease on your tower? Or maybe that's not how it works at all?"
Steven Jack Butala: So when people are new in this business, they have, and we picked up all of these real estate habits our whole lives, and then all of a sudden we're a Land Academy member buying and selling land and we can't help it but to apply all this stuff that we've picked up along the way.
Jill K DeWit: Right.
Steven Jack Butala: This, in my opinion, is a massive attribute. And so many people think that they need to clear the land and make it presentable and change it somehow. Or if there's structures on it or an antenna, that it's bad. The fact is, and everybody piped in on Discord about this, this is a ham radio operator's dream. And I would try to market this property to them. A lot of years ago, Jill and I accidentally bought a property, because we didn't have all the tools that we are available to us now like Google Earth, that was on the side of a mountain. It was literally and some rock climbers bought it so that they could rock climb on their own land.
Jill K DeWit: That's one of the things I always say, I want to stress is, whatever the property, I try to turn everything into a positive. You just have to accurately convey what's really going on in the property. Whether it's a serious slope or no slope at all. It's flat, grassy, perfect for fill in the blank. Or own your own rock climbing cliff kind of thing. Whatever it is, do it. Don't advertise is as, "Oh, you can build anywhere," when it's a rock climbing cliff, because you can't build on the side of that. You know what I mean? Unless you hang one of those tents on the side, but we're not even going to go there. Because if you don't properly convey what it is, you're going to have a refund on your hands or unhappy buyers kind of thing. But this is a good example. It's a positive for somebody. Every little thing is a positive for somebody. Even a falling down, it's funny we talk about this often, a falling down mobile home, that's a positive for people.
Steven Jack Butala: Absolutely.
Jill K DeWit:
Current Changes We Have Made in Our Land Business (LA 1838) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steven and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show. Entertaining Land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I, talk about the current changes that we've implemented in our Land business.
Jill K DeWit: This year.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, this year. Our hope is that you may consider making these changes too.
Jill K DeWit: Yep. This is a continuation, or a reprise, I should say, of the live YouTube Facebook talk that I gave last week, last Wednesday, which was awesome by the way. I had so much fun. It was me sharing the things that we've been doing differently this year, because my whole point is, if I'm doing it, you should be doing it too. That's what we're going to talk about today.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. I hope you know by now that Jill and I teach a class, an advanced class, called career path. For a small group of people, it goes about 10 sessions, two or three times a year. If this is your career, or you want it to be, check it out. Land academy forward slash career path.
Jill K DeWit: It's our top level version of coaching. Everybody wants to have that real personal coaching experience. That's what this is.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: So cool. Mitchell and Heidi wrote, one of the reasons we started this Land journey was to raise money, to buy and hold vacation property in other countries we like to visit. We like to own our own CR... I don't know what that is. Yucatan will probably be the first. There are possibly... Excuse me. There are absolutely risks, but one could argue the risks like that are growing everywhere, even here and having diversified foreign holdings, especially if they can give you access to multiple passports, are a good idea. A Mexican passport for instance, was the best one to have during the height of COVID, and had access to something like 186 countries, when a US passport wouldn't be allowed entry anywhere. That's very interesting. I haven't thought about it for something like that.
Steven Jack Butala: This prompted me. I'll say it in a second. Go ahead, and finish it here.
Jill K DeWit: We think there'll be some opportunities in the next few years, but this whole fourth turning thing seems to have some legs. Perhaps if governments fall, who knows what happens.
Steven Jack Butala: I love the way that you're thinking out of the box here. I really respect it. Honestly, this prompted me. This question prompted me. This is in Discord. One of our new members. To look into getting a dual passport situation in Mexico for Jill and I. I actually have started down the path of doing that. Do I ever want to own any Mexican real estate? Absolutely not. This is my opinion, and this is why you post things in Discord to get other people's opinions. I think this is a crazy risky endeavor. I think it's something that could be a really cool hobby.
Jill K DeWit: Owning a property?
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: Not the passport part?
Steven Jack Butala: No, the passport's a great idea. Brilliant idea.
Jill K DeWit: Not the hobby part? The whole property part.
Steven Jack Butala: Owning real estate in other countries immediately exposes you to a different legal system that I'm not familiar with. I'm pretty familiar with the American legal system, and there's a lot of recourse within that system if something goes wrong.
Jill K DeWit: Sure.
Steven Jack Butala: If you are wronged somehow. Owning foreign real estate, I think might be a great idea. Once you have a massive American land machine, like we do, and then you can go off, and do this maybe for yourself, or have a couple of rentals.
Jill Friday - Going up is Difficult Coming Down is a Joy (LA 1837) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land, investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jil DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jill Friday. And she's going to talk about how going up is difficult, but coming down can be a joy.
Jill K DeWit: And I stole this from you. You mentioned this as part of this series in-
Steven Jack Butala: Health and wellness.
Jill K DeWit: Yes, health and wellness.
Steven Jack Butala: Like yesterday.
Jill K DeWit: That was couple weeks ago, our own little family mantra. Like, "Okay. Here's what we're focusing on now, everybody health and wellness." When I say everybody it's the two of us here. And so you've been taking it seriously.
Steven Jack Butala: Yes.
Jill K DeWit: And I really appreciate that, including going to the doctors and things like that. Really focusing on it.
Steven Jack Butala: Catching up on all that stuff.
Jill K DeWit: I'm really glad.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And I hope you know by now, we have revamped, fresh for 2022, parcelfact.com.
Jill K DeWit: Yah.
Steven Jack Butala: Used to be called neighborscoop.com. We rolled two sites, took the best of two sites that we've had, and made them one, parcelfact.com. F-A-C-T. And check it out, because it's the easiest way to do Phase 1 due diligence on land. You can do it right when you're on the phone with the seller and see if you want to buy the property or not.
Jill K DeWit: It's amazing. There's a day pass, go check it out.
Steven Jack Butala: Or you can join us on a Thursday call, as a guest on a Thursday webinar, where we use ParcelFact all throughout that, the webinar, to review people's transactions in our group.
Jill K DeWit: Yep. Scott wrote, "Okay. Can someone explain to me why there even exists an affidavit of seller's gain? Why on earth? Why would I want to tell the buyer how much money I made?" I wonder what state this is.
Steven Jack Butala: I agree with you, Scott?
Jill K DeWit: What state is this?
Steven Jack Butala: Every state, or most states, have an affidavit that goes behind a deed that says, "I sold this property for X to somebody."
Jill K DeWit: It doesn't say what I bought it for though.
Steven Jack Butala: It doesn't say what I bought it for. Why? The deed goes to the recorder when it gets sent into the county, and it gets recorded in the new person's name and the buyer's name. And that affidavit goes to the assessor. And the assessor makes a choice, "I'm going to reassess this property based on this new value." And probably the taxes on the property are going to go up, that's why. But I agree with you, Scott. It's a lot of extra paper. It's extra stuff to do. And I think it should be on the assessor to see which properties have sold and then assess them that way. I don't think [inaudible 00:02:39]-
Jill K DeWit: This is a lazy thing is what you're doing.
Steven Jack Butala: Exactly.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. Because hello, dear assessor. You can pull the last paperwork and see what the affidavit of property value was two months ago when I bought it. And then you see the new one when I'm selling it, and do the math.
Steven Jack Butala: And what if, as buyers, because that's what we do here, we buy property inexpensively, very, very often for less than what the seller paid years ago. Does our tax rate go down? Nope.
Jill K DeWit: Oh yeah. Hey, by the way, I got something to share with you that's kind of interesting before we jump into the topic, because it's happening right now today. We have a property listed with a Whitetail property guy. It's a deal funding property, and the buyer who buys ... He has an oil and gas company,
Jill Friday - Going up is Difficult Coming Down is a Joy (LA 1837) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land, investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jil DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jill Friday. And she's going to talk about how going up is difficult, but coming down can be a joy.
Jill K DeWit: And I stole this from you. You mentioned this as part of this series in-
Steven Jack Butala: Health and wellness.
Jill K DeWit: Yes, health and wellness.
Steven Jack Butala: Like yesterday.
Jill K DeWit: That was couple weeks ago, our own little family mantra. Like, "Okay. Here's what we're focusing on now, everybody health and wellness." When I say everybody it's the two of us here. And so you've been taking it seriously.
Steven Jack Butala: Yes.
Jill K DeWit: And I really appreciate that, including going to the doctors and things like that. Really focusing on it.
Steven Jack Butala: Catching up on all that stuff.
Jill K DeWit: I'm really glad.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And I hope you know by now, we have revamped, fresh for 2022, parcelfact.com.
Jill K DeWit: Yah.
Steven Jack Butala: Used to be called neighborscoop.com. We rolled two sites, took the best of two sites that we've had, and made them one, parcelfact.com. F-A-C-T. And check it out, because it's the easiest way to do Phase 1 due diligence on land. You can do it right when you're on the phone with the seller and see if you want to buy the property or not.
Jill K DeWit: It's amazing. There's a day pass, go check it out.
Steven Jack Butala: Or you can join us on a Thursday call, as a guest on a Thursday webinar, where we use ParcelFact all throughout that, the webinar, to review people's transactions in our group.
Jill K DeWit: Yep. Scott wrote, "Okay. Can someone explain to me why there even exists an affidavit of seller's gain? Why on earth? Why would I want to tell the buyer how much money I made?" I wonder what state this is.
Steven Jack Butala: I agree with you, Scott?
Jill K DeWit: What state is this?
Steven Jack Butala: Every state, or most states, have an affidavit that goes behind a deed that says, "I sold this property for X to somebody."
Jill K DeWit: It doesn't say what I bought it for though.
Steven Jack Butala: It doesn't say what I bought it for. Why? The deed goes to the recorder when it gets sent into the county, and it gets recorded in the new person's name and the buyer's name. And that affidavit goes to the assessor. And the assessor makes a choice, "I'm going to reassess this property based on this new value." And probably the taxes on the property are going to go up, that's why. But I agree with you, Scott. It's a lot of extra paper. It's extra stuff to do. And I think it should be on the assessor to see which properties have sold and then assess them that way. I don't think [inaudible 00:02:39]-
Jill K DeWit: This is a lazy thing is what you're doing.
Steven Jack Butala: Exactly.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. Because hello, dear assessor. You can pull the last paperwork and see what the affidavit of property value was two months ago when I bought it. And then you see the new one when I'm selling it, and do the math.
Steven Jack Butala: And what if, as buyers, because that's what we do here, we buy property inexpensively, very, very often for less than what the seller paid years ago. Does our tax rate go down? Nope.
Jill K DeWit: Oh yeah. Hey, by the way, I got something to share with you that's kind of interesting before we jump into the topic, because it's happening right now today. We have a property listed with a Whitetail property guy. It's a deal funding property, and the buyer who buys ... He has an oil and gas company,
Jack Thursday - Your Attitude is the Only Thing You Can Control (LA 1836) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steven and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And, I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jack Thursday, and I'm going to talk about how your attitude is really in the end the only thing that you can control. I've been researching-
Jill K DeWit: I don't know why that makes me giggle, but it kind of does.
Steven Jack Butala: I'm now at the point in my life right now where everything's pretty good. The money's good. I think we have a forever house. Our last child is just about, is this week, actually, tomorrow being dropped off at college.
Jill K DeWit: On his head.
Steven Jack Butala: I've gone into what I call-
Jill K DeWit: I would slow down and push him out.
Steven Jack Butala: I've gone into what I call a health and wellness mode. I've been researching why people live a long time and if they do. There's all kinds of documentaries and stuff all about this. I've came across this topic and wanted to talk about it on Jack Thursday.
Jill K DeWit: And, I know this is serious and I appreciate that.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com, online community. It's free, and please don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. If you go to YouTube, we have all kinds of stuff on there in addition to this show.
Jill K DeWit: Including my live broadcaster from yesterday.
Steven Jack Butala: Yes.
Jill K DeWit: You can check that out if you missed it. Charlie wrote, "Dropping off some wisdom here like always. Back to that paid for rental house. What's the reason you're parking your money in real estate versus a bank where it would be more liquid if you needed it? I know the start is a tax question, but money sitting idle in a bank account isn't taxable either, right?"
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. This is in response to a long string about where to put your money in discord among our members. Have you ever driven down the street in a subdivision? Maybe you live there or it's a subdivision close by and you see a piece of vacant land that's totally buildable. And, there's no for sale sign on it, and it's never been built on. It's been vacant for as long as you can remember, as long as you've lived there. Here's what that's all about. And, this is what a paid for rental house is all about too, which Jill and I have both of these types of investments. Number one, that property's going up in value way the hell more than any bank account that you're going to have. If you had a hundred grand in the bank, it's going to be worth $105,000 in a few years. If you have a vacant piece of property in a pretty solid area, it's going to be worth a lot more than $105,000. That's so number one, it's a pure appreciation for doing nothing. Number two, you can lend against it. If you need money on a rental house or a piece of property, you can lend against it really, really easily with the stroke of a pen. It is liquid. And, number three, and I think this is the most important point. We have three children. We own assets with each of them. Jill might owns an asset or two and it's in joint tenants with each of our children and me too. Why? Because if I pass away that property immediately becomes, the owner is one of our children, whoever's involved in it. Not multiple children, for a lot of reasons, which Jill and I separately-
Jill K DeWit: That's the last thing we want to do is-
Steven Jack Butala: So they can't fight.
Jill K DeWit: Invoke a family squabble.
Steven Jack Butala: It's a non-taxable event. I buy piece of property, and I deed it to myself as a joint tenant with one of our kids. I pass away.
Jason Roberts Land Academy Member Interview (LA 1835) Transcript:
If you enjoyed the podcast, please review it in Apple Podcasts . Reviews are incredibly important for rankings on Apple Podcasts. My staff and I read each and every one.
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email me directly at steven@BuWit.com.
The BuWit Family of Companies include:
https://BuWit.com
https://offers2owners.com
https://landinvestors.com
https://landacademy.com
https://landpin.com
https://parcelfact.com
https://countywise.com
https://deedperfect.com
https://ownersdata.com
https://houseacademy.com
I would like to think it’s entertaining and informative and in the end profitable.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Jason Roberts Land Academy Member Interview (LA 1835) Transcript:
If you enjoyed the podcast, please review it in Apple Podcasts . Reviews are incredibly important for rankings on Apple Podcasts. My staff and I read each and every one.
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email me directly at steven@BuWit.com.
The BuWit Family of Companies include:
https://BuWit.com
https://offers2owners.com
https://landinvestors.com
https://landacademy.com
https://landpin.com
https://parcelfact.com
https://countywise.com
https://deedperfect.com
https://ownersdata.com
https://houseacademy.com
I would like to think it’s entertaining and informative and in the end profitable.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Re-Entering the Work Force with Land Academy (LA 1834) Transcript:
If you enjoyed the podcast, please review it in Apple Podcasts . Reviews are incredibly important for rankings on Apple Podcasts. My staff and I read each and every one.
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email me directly at steven@BuWit.com.
The BuWit Family of Companies include:
https://BuWit.com
https://offers2owners.com
https://landinvestors.com
https://landacademy.com
https://landpin.com
https://parcelfact.com
https://countywise.com
https://deedperfect.com
https://ownersdata.com
https://houseacademy.com
I would like to think it’s entertaining and informative and in the end profitable.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show. Entertaining land, investment talk, I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about reentering the workforce with Land Academy.
Jill K DeWit: I have some good examples of this. It's really cool that people have found this as a niche for them. Having been away from work for maybe it's COVID reasons, maybe it's family reasons, maybe somebody got sick reasons, maybe laid off reasons, who knows. There's all kinds of reasons.
Steven Jack Butala: Child raising.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah, child raising reasons that people like say, "Okay, I need to start bringing in some money. I'm online looking for stuff." While they're looking for jobs, maybe they're looking for this and we pop up. And so I have some great examples to share about people that have successfully jumped in Land Academy. And this is their life now and they're doing really well.
Steven Jack Butala: Before Jill gets into this topic because it's clearly the Jill show today.
Jill K DeWit: Thanks.
Steven Jack Butala: Let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Hopefully by now, you know that we have a full blown commercial printing company called Offers 2 Owners. Jill and I set it up a lot of years ago out of frustration, for our use of other commercial printing comedies and they just didn't understand mail merges. They just did not understand us, so we solved it by starting our own. We send out between 700,000 and a million offers a month on behalf of mostly members.
Jill K DeWit: Check out offers, the number two owners.com. And I want to add a little thing here. Don't forget, tomorrow's a big day. Tomorrow, Wednesday August 24th at 2:00 PM Pacific Time, you can find me live on Facebook and YouTube. So go check out the Land Academy Facebook page or the Land Academy YouTube channel. And you can find me there, hope to see you. Steven wrote, "Anyone ever have a seller not want to sell because of the tax burden? The offer price is around $60,000. Any creative work around?
Steven Jack Butala: So there's a lot of people that responded to this in discord. There's lots of ways to work around this and this should not be a reason for a seller to not sell the product.
Jill K DeWit: Like I can't sell it because I'm going to pay all these taxes?
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: It's going to mess me up.
Steven Jack Butala: Boy, there's a ten thirty one exchange option. There's selling it on terms to you option. And if they go sell it on terms and you know it's worth a hundred grand, you resell it and just pay it off at that time. You could co-sell this property, so you could go to this seller and say, "I'm going to sell. Who resell this anyway? Let's do a deal for 60,000 bucks when I sell the property for a 100 or 90 or whatever the number is, what do you say, I kick in about 10,000 bucks on top of that $60,000?"
Jill K DeWit: To pay for you this tax?
Steven Jack Butala: To pay for your tax liability.
Your Contribution to Land Academy is Not Based on How Many Deals You've Completed (LA 1833) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about your contribution, how your contribution to Land Academy, it's not really based on how many deals you've completed.
Jill K DeWit: You know what's funny? People think like, oh, oh, I really can't weigh in on this or I don't think you want my opinion or no, you don't want me on the podcast yet because I've only done X number of deals and it might even be 40, kind of thing. But we're going to talk more about it. No, we want to hear about that.
Steven Jack Butala: Later this week, we're interviewing a career path graduate.
Jill K DeWit: Who's not done a lot of deals.
Steven Jack Butala: For an alumni, he's done zero. He's bought a lot and they are in the process of selling and closing on the deals, but he's still bringing a ton.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. There's still some great value there.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: You know, he's owned, there's all kinds of other great stuff, like he's owned. You'll see on Wednesday, he's...
Jill K DeWit: And we'll talk about it in the show here.
Steven Jack Butala: He's owned a business for 30 years.
Jill K DeWit: Yep.
Steven Jack Butala: All that experience being poured into his land career. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on a landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And Jill has a good announcement for a live webinar that she's doing.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. Here's what I want you to know today. It's Monday. Okay. Two days from now, Wednesday, August 24th, 2022, 2:00 Pacific Time, you can catch me live on Facebook and YouTube. It's going to be called Catching up with Land Academy. And it's all about changes we've made this year in 2022 and why it's a great time to start your land investing career.
Steven Jack Butala: We've made a ton.
Jill K DeWit: So if you're not a member or even if you are a member and you want to just show up and give me some love, you're going to want to be there. And I have a special announcement coming that day. That, hmm, let's just say, if you're not a member, this is for you, really for you. So I'll have some great stuff I'm giving away.
Steven Jack Butala: We're constantly making improvements, but this year in particular, we've made a lot of improvements to :and Academy itself.
Jill K DeWit: Yep.
Steven Jack Butala: Because in response to this new economic environment we're in and how we're going to buy and how we're buying property really very, very inexpensively. We always buy it inexpensively, but now's a great time to get some huge margins.
Jill K DeWit: 2022 changes.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: Exactly. And things we've noticed. Also, where is it again? I'm going to tell you. So Wednesday 8/24, two days from now, 2:00 Pacific Time. Go to the Land Academy Facebook page or Land Academy Facebook page or YouTube channel. I have to say that right. Okay. Scott wrote, "Here's a question that has been bouncing around in my head for a while. If you get a purchase agreement back on a really good deal and due diligence is good, does anyone in the group have them sign a different contract with a deposit or to make the contract ironclad? Or does everyone just move forward with the purchase agreement, which has no consideration included? So it's unenforceable and they can bail if they get a better one." I'm going to argue that even if you take, even if you do some money down, it's still unenforceable and they can bail, because that has happened. So I move forward with the standard agreement. That's what we do.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill Friday - It's Too Easy to Get Excited about a Deal and Miss Red Flags (LA 1832) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: ... Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land, investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jill Friday, she's going to talk about, it's too easy to get excited about a deal, and miss the red flags.
Jill K DeWit: Kind of like dating, "He asked me out, I'm so excited. We went out to dinner, he didn't open a door for me, he ordered before I got there. He-"
Steven Jack Butala: "He asked me for money."
Jill K DeWit: "Asked me for money." That's so true. That's awesome. But the point is, "I gave him a hotbox, it's what he needed, he asked me on a second date, isn't this great? What do you mean there's a problem?"
Steven Jack Butala: There's a guy version of this.
Jill K DeWit: This is true, this is a true story. A dear friend of ours, I'm sure she does not listen to this, so I'm safe sharing this, we're not going to say names.
Steven Jack Butala: Of course not.
Jill K DeWit: Did multiple blind dates in a day, I don't know what she was doing, but she had two or three coffee dates in one day, and she was telling about the guy in the middle, that by the time she got there, he was sitting down, drinking his own coffee, never once offered to buy her a cup of coffee. She finally took it upon herself to say, "I'm going to go get a cup of coffee." And she, because she's the sweet thing, she just said, "Would you like another cup of coffee?" To which he said, "Yeah, sure." So she went and got her own coffee and brought him back to coffee, what does that say about that guy? And yes, that was the last time they communicated. She did not miss that as a red flag, and that's a huge red flag, it was funny, anyway.
Steven Jack Butala: You know what happens to guys?
Jill K DeWit: Oh, bring it.
Steven Jack Butala: They, for whatever reason, starts to date a girl, and all their guy friends are like, "Dude, listen-"
Jill K DeWit: Oh.
Steven Jack Butala: "That girl's a mess, she treats you like crap." And his response is, "What are you talking about? We always have fun." And they're just blinded by the whole thing, and so fast forward 30 to 60 days later-
Jill K DeWit: I thought you said years.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, it could be years.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: Just a fire ball disaster-
Jill K DeWit: Right.
Steven Jack Butala: And it's all blown up, and he's like, "Yeah, you guys were right." I've been on both sides of that. I've been the victim of it, and the person saying, "Dude..."
Jill K DeWit: Yeah, "You've got to see what we're seeing."
Steven Jack Butala: All of this, it happens with real estate deals-
Jill K DeWit: True.
Steven Jack Butala: And new people.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free. And I have to tell you about parcelfact.com, without making this complicated, go to parcelfact.com F-AC-T, and it's new and improved, we recently took two sites that we own, put them together, and made one great, amazing site.
Jill K DeWit: There's a day pass too, by the way.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: Check it out.
Steven Jack Butala: Check it all out, it's pretty amazing.
Jill K DeWit: Interesting. Do I know this person?
Steven Jack Butala: Nope.
Jill K DeWit: This is a little shout out to me in here. Okay. So Erin wrote, "Hey, Jill DeWit, and all my phone answering people, dare I say, I am enjoying speaking with potential sellers, at least the people who reach out to us are all pretty pleasant. A good chunk of the people calling me just want to know that there's a real, not corporate person on the other side of the phone, and I enjoy talking to these people.
Jack Thursday - 5 Things Your Father Never Told You About Real Estate (LA 1831) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steven and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy Show, Entertaining Land Investment Talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jack Thursday, and I'm going to, and it turns out Jill is also, talk about five things that your father never told you about real estate. Might not be your dad's fault. Maybe times have changed. Those guys never had the data access that we have. So, we're going to talk. There's a lot of things that have changed. I think my dad would've done very, very well in this new information type environment, where you don't have to guess. You have a lot of resources to make the decisions. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on thelandinvestors.com online community. It's free, and don't forget to subscribe on The Land Academy YouTube channel, and comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: You know what's funny? My dad might not have done very well with the data. I have to say that, as you said that about your dad. Knowing my dad, my dad wasn't a data guy. Guess who his data entry person was? Me.
Steven Jack Butala: Oh, really?
Jill K DeWit: Me.
Steven Jack Butala: Actually, that makes sense, Jill.
Jill K DeWit: Me. When he got a program early on, I think I was in high school at the time. I want to say early in high school, he got a program to input his flight log, he was a pilot, and put his hours and keep track of it there. I would convert it from the flight. I'm the one that would sit and put in the computer for him. So, yeah. It's kind of funny.
Steven Jack Butala: This is going to be a long, interesting, very telling, hopefully funny episode.
Jill K DeWit: Exactly. Christian wrote, "I'm buying some farmland that is currently growing soybeans. The seller lives out of state and gets pushed a check once a year from the person farming, for a percentage of the crop sales. Seller says there's no written lease agreement. Does anyone know if there's anything I should be aware of when buying farmland that is being actively farmed? My plan is to let the farmer harvest the soybeans, and then tell him the property is going to be listed for sale. Anything I should include in the purchase agreement? Thanks."
Steven Jack Butala: Oh, I have so much to say about this. This could be the greatest situation ever, or it could be a nightmare. Just like a marriage can be the greatest thing ever without a prenup, or it could be a huge nightmare, depending on how it ends, and how it all goes. Or who you're with. So, the general... Here's a conventional-
Jill K DeWit: No comment.
Steven Jack Butala: A conventional way to do this is, you either would have a land lease or you would have an option agreement, a revenue sharing option agreement. All in writing with notaries and all that stuff that lawyers have looked over.
Jill K DeWit: You should have been an attorney by the way, you would make a great attorney.
Steven Jack Butala: I know, but I would be mad every day.
Jill K DeWit: Oh, that's true. I'm glad you're not an attorney.
Steven Jack Butala: Exactly. I can't imagine being a lawyer and just dealing with everybody's anger all day.
Jill K DeWit: No.
Steven Jack Butala: Instead of all we deal with is successes here.
Jill K DeWit: True.
Steven Jack Butala: In our entire life, happy stuff happens.
Jill K DeWit: That's true.
Steven Jack Butala: So, in a perfect world, you've got this agreement and here's why I say this, not because I'm not going to get paid or any of that. Farmland and most real estate that is income generating, is valued on that income stream. So, you would value, if you've been doing this for five years, you would apply a capitalization rate, which doesn't happen as often in farmland as it does, let's say,
How Jill and I take on Other Partners for Specific Deals (LA 1830) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steven and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about how she and I take on other partners for very specific deals and real specific reasons.
Jill K DeWit: Yep.
Steven Jack Butala: It's not just Jill and I anymore.
Jill K DeWit: Right.
Steven Jack Butala: We have a huge network. One of the big advantages for us and for you, if you're a Land Academy member, is other members in the community and we didn't start this as a money-making venture.
Jill K DeWit: Right.
Steven Jack Butala: We started it to get other partners for ourselves, and what we found out over the years of getting partners, maybe for funding, maybe for a bunch of other stuff, it worked out great. There are very serious little micro experts in our group about all kinds of different things, and when we run across these scenarios in our own mailers, we contact them and we do the deal together. I'll get into it in detail in a minute. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and I hope you know by now that Jill and I have a company called offers the number two owners.com. It's a full-blown commercial printing company. We literally send out a million or so mailers on behalf of our members and other people in the industry to send out blind offers to owners. We were very frustrated with other commercial real estate, commercial printing companies, and-
Jill K DeWit: They didn't get us.
Steven Jack Butala: Exactly.
Jill K DeWit: They didn't get us and they wouldn't do a mail merge. So, we solved it.
Steven Jack Butala: We get you. We know what you want and need.
Jill K DeWit: Yep.
Steven Jack Butala: Check it out. Offers the number two owners.com.
Jill K DeWit: Everything we do, everything we create, is because you asked and we needed to, so here we are. Michael wrote, "Has anyone had a funding partner instruct the listing agent to not speak to you ..." What?
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, this is pretty funny.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. I got to read this again. "Has anyone had a funding partner instruct the listing agent to not speak with you about the transaction and tell the title agency to not provide you with a settlement statement listing in your share of the proceeds?" What the heck? "This seems a bit odd, but this is my first transaction with a funding partner so some feedback would be helpful. Thanks." Oh, you know what, Michael? Don't do a deal with this person again.
Steven Jack Butala: I mean, let's take a couple of steps back.
Jill K DeWit: Well, I'm a little pissed, but okay. Go for it.
Steven Jack Butala: This sends up a lot of red flags for me.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: There's a lot of different ways to do a deal with somebody. The traditional way that we do it is this. Someone brings a deal to us. We love the deal and we love the person who brings it to us.
Jill K DeWit: Right.
Steven Jack Butala: We write a check for most or all of it and then they go do the deal and they let us know when it's done and they send us a check. We split the money, whether it's 50-50, 60-40, or whatever.
Jill K DeWit: We're all involved together. We even have like Mike off. This was me. I'm the funding partner. I'd be making you look over the hood one before it gets to me so you make sure it's right.
Steven Jack Butala: So, this ends up a red flag to me about the personality type who's a control freak and needs to, "Well, it's my money. I'm going to do the deal. Thanks. And you're going to get your money at the end. I'll let you know how much." That's just a formula for mistrust and all of the basic stuff that you need in a good relationship...
Turning a Hateful Mailer Response into a Seven Digit Deal (LA 1829) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about turning a hateful mailer response into a seven digit real estate deal.
Jill K DeWit: Which happens all the time, by the way. Isn't that kind of funny? You know what it's interesting? It really depends on how you look at these. We are doing some deals with a certain... I know we're going to talk about later this week, too. We have many partners out there, not just our partners, but we partner with other people and do deals with them, usually through deal funding, but sometimes other ways. But the point is, this other individual thinks like we think, where he's like, "I'm not afraid of hate. What's so bad?" He's like, "We call it the hate. It's not that big of a deal." It's really how you look at it. It was not a hell, yes response. That's kind of an it. It was a no way response. And then we turn it around.
Steven Jack Butala: Here's the typical anatomy of responses that you get to a mailer. So you send out 10,000 units, you do all your homework, you price it right, do the stuff that we teach in Land Academy 3.0, you send a mailer out, and you wait two weeks for the mail to hit, between one and two weeks. And you start to get, in the beginning, some pretty angry people that immediately open the envelope, they're real unhappy with the price or some version of it, and they call, which I don't understand, but they call and tell you about it.
Jill K DeWit: Right as they're walking. You can tell they're literally walking with the letter in their hand back from their mailbox. It's the funniest thing.
Steven Jack Butala: And then as the mailer progresses... So that's the first week. As the mailer progresses, there's a little bit of a quiet period where some people call back and say, "Yeah, I actually really do want to sell my property to you. Maybe for a different price, but we're in the ballpark." And then the third and final phase of the reception of the mailer is back to the sender, which is us, "Yeah. I think I'm just going to... What do I do next? I do want to sell my property. I talked to my husband or I talked to my wife and that's it. I'm ready to go." So you get all that angry stuff up front, then there's some mediocre negotiation. And then at the end you just buy a bunch of real estate. Most of the time, if you do everything right. Jill has a real specific case study on this episode where she's going to take us step by step through what happened with this particular seller and now we're doing the deal.
Jill K DeWit: Cool.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And I hope you can now log onto parcelfact.com and see all the improvements that we made in combining two separate sites that we had, where you can do phase one due diligence. It's all now in a nifty little package. And honestly, I don't have to manage two sites anymore. I only have to manage one great one.
Jill K DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala: Check it out. Parcelfact.com.
Jill K DeWit: I like to say the test worked.
Steven Jack Butala: We did a split test and decided they're better together.
Jill K DeWit: We did a split test and we picked the best one. Exactly. It's great. Aaron wrote, "I'm double closing on a rural 10 acre property in blank state. Is there any reason I should pay for title insurance? It's a simultaneous close, so I won't own it for any period of time. And the end buyer will be getting title insurance." I'm guessing at a later date. "I figured I could save a few bucks, but not sure if that may expose me to something. For example,
You Already Know Flipping Land Works So Let's Talk about the Right Way to Do It (LA 1828) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steven and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about how you already know flipping land works. So, let's actually really talk about the right way to do it.
Jill K DeWit: I have something to say. I'm going to share more about this in a minute. I was on a clubhouse chat today, I was just a fly on the wall listening. There were like 130 people in there, and it's people talking about wholesaling houses. And I've never heard people work so hard. I'm going to share more about the conversation. But I was just like, here's the deal I would've busted in and said and dropped a little nugget like there's an easier way to do this, and there's a lot less work. Because what we do with land works for houses, but I didn't have half hour because every time I've done this, it results in who are you and what are you talking about? And how do we do this? And it needs a half hour and I didn't have enough hour. So, that's why I didn't go there. But I will share more in a minute.
Steven Jack Butala: Similarly, there has never been more bad advice on the internet about buying and selling land than there is now.
Jill K DeWit: That's really funny.
Steven Jack Butala: But we're going to dispel all the bad stuff here in the next half hour. Before we get into it let's take a question put by one of our land investors on our online community called landinvestors.com it's free and Jill has some stuff to say ParcelFact.
Jill K DeWit: So, I wanted to tell you today's the day in case you didn't notice when you log into NeighborScoop, it's going to look like a different logo. And it's going to say ParcelFact. Yes. Why? Because they are merging. So, it's happening right now today. If it hasn't already popped up, you'll see it next time you log in. It's awesome. We started with, or excuse me, we started with ParcelFact, which was our beta test of finding property for us with a state and accounting and APN and all kinds of other awesome information and maps and overlays and FEMA, flood zone overlays, all kinds of wonderful things. And now, then we came out with a second product, made it better called it NeighborScoop. We've decided that two is not always better than one. We really only need one. So, when you log in, don't worry it's just one big product NeighborScoop and ParcelFact are now combined. And it's just ParcelFact.
Steven Jack Butala: Big, long takeaway here. We took two great sites that did some stuff differently, made them one, combined the two members of each and now it's called ParcelFact and it's the best and easiest way to do what we do for a living, check to see if the property stage one due diligence. See if we should get it done.
Jill K DeWit: Cool. Look at this. Barb from career path wrote first big success story. Just got our bank wire of 75,347 acquisition was $25,000. Is there more to it or is that it?
Steven Jack Butala: No, that's it.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. I couldn't tell, I'm just...
Steven Jack Butala: She was and a lot of people Barbara's, very vocal in our group and we all love her. She's funny as heck. And I'm glad to see that she's doing really well.
Jill K DeWit: Well, that pays for all of career path, about five years of Land Academy, all kinds of things who knows.
Steven Jack Butala: All the mail.
Jill K DeWit: What she's doing with that.
Steven Jack Butala: One deal.
Jill K DeWit: But yay. Hopefully she's going to pour that into our property, knowing Barb she is. That's awesome. Yay. That's awesome.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's topic. You already know flipping land works, so let's talk about the right way to do it. This is the meat of the show. I know you have notes.
Jill Friday - What to Do If You Are Not a Data Person (LA 1827) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steven and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Well, today is Jill Friday, and she's going to talk about what to do if you're not a data person.
Jill K DeWit: Like me
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. Are we going to skip all that?
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah, let's just skip all that. Rolling. Rolling. Rolling. Rolling. Teleprompter. Rolling. Rolling. Rolling. Here we go.
Steven Jack Butala: This is good. You're going to like this.
Jill K DeWit: Okay, good. Dave wrote, "For the new people here, a little cautionary tale for you on the importance of follow up. I received a purchase agreement back from a seller, where the only thing they did was write, add another $10,000, and we got a deal. My original offer was $59,000 in change. I did a very basic bit of research, but couldn't find enough info to make me confident in the viability of the steel. On top of that, the seller didn't leave any contact info at all. I made a note in my serum to make an effort to either skip trace the owner, to give him a call, or to just send another offer for $10,000 more, just to get it signed so I could move forward with real due diligence and have my land agent go check it out. Unfortunately, I got too busy with other leads, and before I knew it, two months had gone by. I just pulled it up to see if any new comps were available and wouldn't you know it, but this specific property, shoot, had just been listed four days ago for $150,000. My failure to follow up in a timely manner just cost me $80,000, because he could have bought it for 60 or seven days emails and sold it for 150 listed here. To be fair, just because it's listed for 150, doesn't mean it will sell for that. But still, don't let this happen to you. Answer your phones, call people back as soon as you possibly can, follow up. If you're doing enough volume, hire that transaction coordinator, don't let deals slip through your fingers. And for the record, I'm usually much better about follow up, this one just slipped through the cracks, but it was a doozy."
Steven Jack Butala: Usually when they slip through the cracks, you don't know it.
Jill K DeWit: True.
Steven Jack Butala: There's been deals, Jill, and I have passed up, especially in deal funding where somebody else funds it and then everyone makes a million dollars.
Jill K DeWit: I know. I'm like, well, good for you. They're like, because it's often like you didn't get back to me in enough time. I'm like, sorry.
Steven Jack Butala: I feel your pain, man. It's just part of this.
Jill K DeWit: You know what? Keep going. You got this.
Steven Jack Butala: The other thing too, what happens actually more often for us it's like, we just don't like that type of property, so we're not going to do the deal. It got in the mailer, it's that type of property, we're not going to do it, somebody else does it, makes 300 grand. Today's Jill Friday, what to do if you're not a data person. This is the meat of the show.
Jill K DeWit: This came to me from our new customer management person. He's like, a lot of people think they're Jills. They say they're a Jill, they want to be a Jill, that's their forte. They can tell, but they don't what to do about the data part of it. They're freaked out by the data part of it. They don't understand the data part of it. They're overwhelmed by the data part of it. So, what do you do? And that happens often clearly, right? So, I could do it, not like you. I'll never be as good as you. It's very rare that you are good at both. And I mean,
Jack Thursday - Where to Start in Real Estate (LA 1826) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I am Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jack Thursday. I'm going to talk about where to start in real estate. And honestly, where not to start. Why?
Jill K DeWit: It's going to be more about where not to start.
Steven Jack Butala: Why do I know about where not to start in real estate? Because that's where I started.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. Oh yeah. We can tell you all this ... You know what? I swear, this is why you're here and listening, I hope. And I know for many of you, this is why you're in Land Academy.
Steven Jack Butala: Besides the fact that you have-
Jill K DeWit: I'd rather pay you guys and not do it, and hear all about the stuff that you failed on and what got you here today. It's so much faster and cheaper for me to just join and go with what you got figured out. Ding, ding. Yep.
Steven Jack Butala: That and the fact that you have real low standards and we appreciate that.
Jill K DeWit: Oh, silly.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel, comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Daniel wrote, "Hey, everybody. I'm getting very close to finishing my first mailer and I am very excited about it. I'm hitting a little bit of a wall though when calculating my offer price per ..."
Steven Jack Butala: Acre, just say.
Jill K DeWit: Acre?
Steven Jack Butala: It's supposed to be PPA, yeah.
Jill K DeWit: Okay, got it. I'm going, "What is PPE?" Oh my God. Okay, price per acre. "After using web scraping software and plugging my numbers into the equations," or, "plugging the numbers into my equations, the results are a bit wild. Upon further inspection it seems that the reason is because the MLS in this area is responsible for less than 40% of all the listings here for land on Zillow, and they're not accurately representing the listings."
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to my world.
Jill K DeWit: This is true. "For example, 0.002 acres is going for 30,000, while another seven acres is listed for $1,000, and so on. Nearly all of them are mislabeled." Sorry. This happens. "And without elaboration in the descriptions." Yeah, yeah. "Does anyone know a way to efficiently circumvent this dud data? For what it's worth, I have both WebHarvy and Octoparse as my web scrubbing apps. Sorry for the wall of text." That's so funny.
Steven Jack Butala: Daniel, you are going to be amazingly successful in your real estate career.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: I put this on Jack Thursday for a reason. This is absolutely the norm for scraping data, the way that we teach it, and coming up with the offer prices. What you're experiencing, it's not the exception, it's the norm. You scrape all the active and sold properties in a zip code. And what you're stalling for is a retail price per acre, from which you can submit offers to all the owners in the area at a much discounted price. So if everything's $1,000 an acre, you solve for this. What you're processing is $1,000 an acre. Then you're going to write offers for $250 an acre and few people are going to sign them, and you're going to buy the properties and sell it for $1,000 an acre, hopefully, or some number like that. That's the overview. But follow me here, let's just do a little bit of math. In his 0.002 acre example for $30,000, that price per acre is crazy, astronomical. It's going to throw your data off. Us data people call that an exception. And so if you think of it as a bell curve, the stuff that's on each side of that bell, you got to get rid of it. And we teach this in the program,
Jack Thursday - Where to Start in Real Estate (LA 1826) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I am Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jack Thursday. I'm going to talk about where to start in real estate. And honestly, where not to start. Why?
Jill K DeWit: It's going to be more about where not to start.
Steven Jack Butala: Why do I know about where not to start in real estate? Because that's where I started.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. Oh yeah. We can tell you all this ... You know what? I swear, this is why you're here and listening, I hope. And I know for many of you, this is why you're in Land Academy.
Steven Jack Butala: Besides the fact that you have-
Jill K DeWit: I'd rather pay you guys and not do it, and hear all about the stuff that you failed on and what got you here today. It's so much faster and cheaper for me to just join and go with what you got figured out. Ding, ding. Yep.
Steven Jack Butala: That and the fact that you have real low standards and we appreciate that.
Jill K DeWit: Oh, silly.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel, comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Daniel wrote, "Hey, everybody. I'm getting very close to finishing my first mailer and I am very excited about it. I'm hitting a little bit of a wall though when calculating my offer price per ..."
Steven Jack Butala: Acre, just say.
Jill K DeWit: Acre?
Steven Jack Butala: It's supposed to be PPA, yeah.
Jill K DeWit: Okay, got it. I'm going, "What is PPE?" Oh my God. Okay, price per acre. "After using web scraping software and plugging my numbers into the equations," or, "plugging the numbers into my equations, the results are a bit wild. Upon further inspection it seems that the reason is because the MLS in this area is responsible for less than 40% of all the listings here for land on Zillow, and they're not accurately representing the listings."
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to my world.
Jill K DeWit: This is true. "For example, 0.002 acres is going for 30,000, while another seven acres is listed for $1,000, and so on. Nearly all of them are mislabeled." Sorry. This happens. "And without elaboration in the descriptions." Yeah, yeah. "Does anyone know a way to efficiently circumvent this dud data? For what it's worth, I have both WebHarvy and Octoparse as my web scrubbing apps. Sorry for the wall of text." That's so funny.
Steven Jack Butala: Daniel, you are going to be amazingly successful in your real estate career.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: I put this on Jack Thursday for a reason. This is absolutely the norm for scraping data, the way that we teach it, and coming up with the offer prices. What you're experiencing, it's not the exception, it's the norm. You scrape all the active and sold properties in a zip code. And what you're stalling for is a retail price per acre, from which you can submit offers to all the owners in the area at a much discounted price. So if everything's $1,000 an acre, you solve for this. What you're processing is $1,000 an acre. Then you're going to write offers for $250 an acre and few people are going to sign them, and you're going to buy the properties and sell it for $1,000 an acre, hopefully, or some number like that. That's the overview. But follow me here, let's just do a little bit of math. In his 0.002 acre example for $30,000, that price per acre is crazy, astronomical. It's going to throw your data off. Us data people call that an exception. And so if you think of it as a bell curve, the stuff that's on each side of that bell, you got to get rid of it. And we teach this in the program,
Definition of Equitable Title in Real Estate (LA 1825) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining real estate investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun. What's so funny?
Steven Jack Butala: It's funny.
Jill K DeWit: We should change it. I'll do you on the next one. Want to practice right now? I'm Jill Dewitt.
Steven Jack Butala: I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: Broadcasting?
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: Well, [inaudible 00:00:31].
Steven Jack Butala: I don't how to say it.
Jill K DeWit: I was going to let you imitate me.
Steven Jack Butala: No, no, no. I don't want to imitate you today.
Jill K DeWit: Not today.
Steven Jack Butala: Can't do it on the fly.
Jill K DeWit: Oh, great.
Steven Jack Butala: I can only do it when you're not expecting it in the form of making fun of you.
Jill K DeWit: And this is fine too. I can take it. I told Corbin, I'm like, "Bring it. I had an older brother and my dad picking on me my whole life,, I can take it."
Steven Jack Butala: I know you can. Today, Jill and I talk about the definition of equitable title in real estate. It seems that there's some confusion and I completely understand why. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Last year, a ton of members came to Joe and I frustrated about getting their first offer campaign out, or just frustrated in general with how long it takes to price mailers and do mailers in general, so we came up with a new product called Cod Concierge Data, where we do the mailer for you. We take the entire mailer out of your life and do it for you, except for the pricing, and we show you how to price [inaudible 00:01:49]
Jill K DeWit: You pick the county, you pick the size, you pick what you want to do, and just say, "I need that data. I'll be over here."
Steven Jack Butala: We have products and tools in the Land Academy environment for just about every issue that you come across in this buying and selling of land and land investment environment, short of actually doing the deal for you, which people, believe it or not, have asked us to do exactly.
Jill K DeWit: Can I just give you some money? Call me when it's doubled.
Steven Jack Butala: Here's 10,000, let me know when it's 20. Someone said that to me.
Jill K DeWit: Happens all the time.
Steven Jack Butala: With a straight face.
Jill K DeWit: Can I just give you some money?
Steven Jack Butala: In social environment?
Jill K DeWit: I'm like, "No, I don't need your money and I'm not going to do all that work. I'm doing it with my money. I'm fine." Michael wrote, "I have a property under contract. I got funding in place. I have a closing attorney to do all the due diligence required to close." Interesting. "The attorney mailed the closing documents to the seller and then the seller refused to sign before the scheduled closing." Huh? "He basically said he wants more money before signing any closing documents. Has anyone in this group experienced situation like this? What do you all do when a seller refuses to sign a closing at the last minute?" Gosh, you know what? Sorry you had to experience that guy. That's why on Monday we said we don't want you to be that guy. Congratulations. Now you got the opposite of it. You got the seller saying, "No, I know I'd sell for 10. I meant 20." Excuse me, I've done all this work, this other person's done all this work. I have this lined up, that lined up, I may have already paid for pictures and got videos done and now you want more money. You know what? It doesn't happen really often.
Steven Jack Butala: This is a symptom of a personality disorder. If you've done this for any amount of time at all, this has happened to you. I don't know if I can count on two hands how many times this ha...
Definition of Equitable Title in Real Estate (LA 1825) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining real estate investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun. What's so funny?
Steven Jack Butala: It's funny.
Jill K DeWit: We should change it. I'll do you on the next one. Want to practice right now? I'm Jill Dewitt.
Steven Jack Butala: I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: Broadcasting?
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: Well, [inaudible 00:00:31].
Steven Jack Butala: I don't how to say it.
Jill K DeWit: I was going to let you imitate me.
Steven Jack Butala: No, no, no. I don't want to imitate you today.
Jill K DeWit: Not today.
Steven Jack Butala: Can't do it on the fly.
Jill K DeWit: Oh, great.
Steven Jack Butala: I can only do it when you're not expecting it in the form of making fun of you.
Jill K DeWit: And this is fine too. I can take it. I told Corbin, I'm like, "Bring it. I had an older brother and my dad picking on me my whole life,, I can take it."
Steven Jack Butala: I know you can. Today, Jill and I talk about the definition of equitable title in real estate. It seems that there's some confusion and I completely understand why. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Last year, a ton of members came to Joe and I frustrated about getting their first offer campaign out, or just frustrated in general with how long it takes to price mailers and do mailers in general, so we came up with a new product called Cod Concierge Data, where we do the mailer for you. We take the entire mailer out of your life and do it for you, except for the pricing, and we show you how to price [inaudible 00:01:49]
Jill K DeWit: You pick the county, you pick the size, you pick what you want to do, and just say, "I need that data. I'll be over here."
Steven Jack Butala: We have products and tools in the Land Academy environment for just about every issue that you come across in this buying and selling of land and land investment environment, short of actually doing the deal for you, which people, believe it or not, have asked us to do exactly.
Jill K DeWit: Can I just give you some money? Call me when it's doubled.
Steven Jack Butala: Here's 10,000, let me know when it's 20. Someone said that to me.
Jill K DeWit: Happens all the time.
Steven Jack Butala: With a straight face.
Jill K DeWit: Can I just give you some money?
Steven Jack Butala: In social environment?
Jill K DeWit: I'm like, "No, I don't need your money and I'm not going to do all that work. I'm doing it with my money. I'm fine." Michael wrote, "I have a property under contract. I got funding in place. I have a closing attorney to do all the due diligence required to close." Interesting. "The attorney mailed the closing documents to the seller and then the seller refused to sign before the scheduled closing." Huh? "He basically said he wants more money before signing any closing documents. Has anyone in this group experienced situation like this? What do you all do when a seller refuses to sign a closing at the last minute?" Gosh, you know what? Sorry you had to experience that guy. That's why on Monday we said we don't want you to be that guy. Congratulations. Now you got the opposite of it. You got the seller saying, "No, I know I'd sell for 10. I meant 20." Excuse me, I've done all this work, this other person's done all this work. I have this lined up, that lined up, I may have already paid for pictures and got videos done and now you want more money. You know what? It doesn't happen really often.
Steven Jack Butala: This is a symptom of a personality disorder. If you've done this for any amount of time at all, this has happened to you. I don't know if I can count on two hands how many times this ha...
How to Hire a Great Transaction Coordinator (LA 1824) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley Of The Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill's going to talk about how to hire a great transaction coordinator. All week this week, we're answering questions or doing topics on frequent customer service requests from our staff.
Jill K DeWit: Yep.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And I hope by now we have a full blown commercial printing company to get your offers out to owners. It's called offers2owners.com, the number two. Jill and I set this company up several years ago out of pure frustration with dealing with regular commercial printing companies not understanding mail merges and how our business works. So we decided to do it ourselves.
Jill K DeWit: Take matters into our own hands.
Steven Jack Butala: Fast forward to today, we do between 700,000 and a million offers a month for other people to buy land and houses and other stuff. Check it out.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: support@offers2owners.com.
Jill K DeWit: Ty wrote, "Got my first check today. Net, 79,000 bucks." Nice job. "I've had a lot of challenges this year, both in and out of Land Academy. Glad to get my first deal completed, under my belt, and glad it was significant enough to make it all worth it."
Steven Jack Butala: So as you can imagine, congratulations, by the way. As you can imagine, this Discord, everybody in the group was really-
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: Really supportive of this.
Jill K DeWit: Isn't that great?
Steven Jack Butala: There's a subsection in Discord called success stories.
Jill K DeWit: Success.
Steven Jack Butala: And that this was posted in there. Hey, if you want to check out Discord, go to landinvestors.com. We embedded it. You can't play with it, but you can just look, you can-
Jill K DeWit: Look around.
Steven Jack Butala: You can view only and check out, you'll see this question. Actually all the questions come from there.
Jill K DeWit: So does it take you right into Discord, you can click around? Or is it just that window, what pops up in the window?
Steven Jack Butala: You can click around on the stuff that the general people can click around on, the general Land Academy members.
Jill K DeWit: So you have filtered content that they can see and stuff they can't see?
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Like for Career Path and all that, you can't see it.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. I just curious.
Steven Jack Butala: And you can click through, but you just can't ask any questions or add anything.
Jill K DeWit: Cool. Noted.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's topic, how to hire a great transaction coordinator. This is why you're listening.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. The first thing about hiring a great transaction coordinator is not, "I'm going to steal Jill's." That's not-
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: That is not how you do that.
Steven Jack Butala: Our entire staff gets a lot of job offers
Jill K DeWit: Had that happen all the time. I used to get job offers when I was first working with you and doing deals. That, and I got wedding proposals, but anyway, marriage proposals.
Steven Jack Butala: Did you get one of those recently?
Jill K DeWit: Not yet, not recently, no.
Steven Jack Butala: Did you get one this year yet?
Jill K DeWit: No, no. You know what's kind of funny?
Steven Jack Butala: I don't get any of those.
Jill K DeWit: I don't wear rings at the gym.
Steven Jack Butala: Oh, geez.
Jill K DeWit: Side note. And I don't share personal stuff that much. I'll talk about traveling or things like that, but I don't say who I'm with or what we're doing.
Land Academy Tools Explained (LA 1823) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWitt, this time broadcasting from The Valley of this Sun. I got to say something funny about that. I was informed yesterday by our staff. I think there's a little contest that they kind of mimic me. They go, like, "Valley of the Sun," or "Sunny Southern California."
Steven Jack Butala: Ah, jeez. So they make fun of us?
Jill K DeWit: A few people, oh yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: As they should.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. Someone came over and said, "You know, Cody's really good at imitating you." I said, "Yeah, I bet he is."
Steven Jack Butala: Imitating you?
Jill K DeWit: Yeah, he's got it down.
Steven Jack Butala: Cody's all right. Super guy.
Jill K DeWit: So if he's listening to this, Cody, yeah, we get it. Bring it.
Steven Jack Butala: Oh, those poor guys have to post-produce all this audio and video.
Jill K DeWit: I know, and hear it all the time.
Steven Jack Butala: So they hear this, all of it.
Jill K DeWit: I know, and one of our guys the other day, bless his heart, he's new with us. And I kind of razzed him yesterday about something, and then I don't know if he was ready for it. I'm like, "Sorry." I'm like, "I hope that's okay." I can take it, so give it back, whatever you got, give it back. So I'm-
Steven Jack Butala: Did he?
Jill K DeWit: Not yet. I'm sure he's saving it up. He was probably like, "What just happened?" I was only teasing him about something. Anyways, funny.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into the topic, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and I've been asked to inform you that it's Monday.
Jill K DeWit: I'm excited.
Steven Jack Butala: It's Monday, and we have rereleased Concierge Data-
Jill K DeWit: What?
Steven Jack Butala: ... which allows you, as a member or a non-member, it allows you to put your order in and we'll do your mailer for you.
Jill K DeWit: I thought that was on the down low.
Steven Jack Butala: They asked me to talk about it.
Jill K DeWit: Well, I still thought we were like ... Is it open for new customers right now? We're catching up.
Steven Jack Butala: It's a little late now, so yeah. Contact support at offers2owners.com, and ask them, and they might say "Yes," but it might take a couple of days.
Jill K DeWit: And that would be your opportunity to say, "Well, Jack said ..."
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, throw me under the bus. Just like, apparently, our employees do.
Jill K DeWit: That's great. There we go. That's awesome. Erin wrote, "General question. Anyone have an opinion one way or another? If you want to, or need to, lower your offer price for a parcel, would you negotiate all the way down to the price you want before going into contract?" Huh? I'm a little confused on this. Let me read more and we'll see if we figure it out. "Anyone having success getting one price drop before escrow and then asking for another one while in ..." oh, now it's making sense ... "while in escrow." Oh, I have a lot to say about this.
Steven Jack Butala: I know you do. That's why I put it in here, because this is right up your alley.
Jill K DeWit: Uh-huh. "Maybe the seller will cancel the deal after a second drop, or maybe they will never enter into the deal if you go in for the full price cut." Chicken and egg problem? Okay. Here's the deal. This person is asking a question like, "Okay, I sent out the offer. We agreed on a price. It's not the price I really, really want, but I agreed on it. Now we're going to go into escrow, and I'm thinking that maybe partway through here, I'm going to throw it out to them, like, 'You know what? I know I said 10,000. I really mean eight, and now because we're in escrow,'" you know?
Jill Friday - Top Five Millionaire Habits (LA 1822) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Butala: Today is Jill Friday. She's going to talk about her top five millionaire habits. I am just as eager to listen to this as you are. We haven't talked about it at all. Before getting into it-
Jill K DeWit: I know you're going to have some good stuff to add and share and stuff.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free. And I hope you know by now, well, you probably don't know this, but back in the day, it was impossible to find land on a map, on the internet without a mailing address, we solved that by putting all 150 million plus properties and all their associated information, like ownership and everything else in a database. So you can look it up by APN and it's called neighborscoop.com. Check it out, neighborscoop.com.
Jill K DeWit: Or parcelfact.com, because the two will be one soon.
Steven Butala: Soon.
Jill K DeWit: So now you know. So Greg wrote, "I was wondering if there's a process to follow when self-closing on a sale, I bought with title insurance and then I closed with title company, but the buyer wanted a quick transaction. But if the buyer wants a quick transaction, would there be any potential issues of doing a self close as there are no real estate agents involved in the transaction? And how do you usually go about collecting the payment, wire transfer from bank to bank, and so on?" So Greg is obviously not a member because-
Steven Butala: Greg's a member, he's just a brand new.
Jill K DeWit: Sorry. I apologize, Greg. So you have this set your fingertips inside the education, but just in case, I'll cover it right now anyway. That's totally fine, here's the deal, you bought with title insurance, you went through a title company and now you own it, now you have a buyer who's really anxious to start using it. They're going to only need title insurance if they're going to build on it, that's really it, it's really personal preference. Let me say this, you can absolutely buy and sell property by yourselves, like you buy and sell a car on Craigslist without an agent, without a title company, and without title insurance. This used to be my main way of doing things anyways.
Steven Butala: That's right. This is our business model for decades.
Jill K DeWit: I would buy with title insurance and I would sell to them and say, "No, here's the title insurance policy, you have it, so you know everything's cool up until the day I own it. And now you're buying it for me, and it's two weeks later, nothing's happened." So they would feel great. I'm like, "If you want to go through Escrow, we can, if you don't, we don't have to." "No, why would I do that? You're right, it saves us each money, saves about $1,200 on the deal, so this is great." If they were going to build on it or they were going to do something to the property that might involve a lender, then they're going to need title insurance down the road. They can still get title insurance, by the way down the road. It doesn't have to be done at that time. And then how do I go about doing it? You know how we talk about DeedPerfect in making our own deeds, you can make your own deed and have it notarized it to you. You're the only one that needs to sign it, because you're the owner. And you could either send it into recording, do an online recording is the easiest, by the way, for the seller or for the buyer, or you could send the deed to the buyer with all the instructions. I like to arm them with what they need to do, where to mail it, how much the check needs to be, and so on, mail it into the county and get it recorded and they could do it the...
Jack Thursday - How to Get a Girl Like Jill (LA 1821) Transcript:
Steven James Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven James Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt, broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven James Butala: Today's Jack Thursday, and I'm going to talk about how to get a girl like Jill. There's a lot of different ways this one can go today.
Jill K DeWit: Yes, there are.
Steven James Butala: I've pretty seriously piqued Jill's interest in this topic. And so I'll wait to fill her in and you after the question.
Jill K DeWit: Well, at least even the way you word it is okay. It's not like how to get by with a girl like Jill, just how to get through life.
Steven James Butala: How to get over a girl like Jill.
Jill K DeWit: How to get over [inaudible 00:00:42]... That's right. Yeah. Depending how this goes. This is good. This perfect. Depending how today goes, tomorrow may or may not be how to get over a girl like Jill. I love it. Yep. She's gone. That's awesome.
Steven James Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and please don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Josiah wrote, "I have a good buddy who is a general contractor in Florida. He occasionally builds affordable housing. His cost to build a bread and butter basic SFR he buys, after he buys a lot. And then even before he breaks ground is about 80,000 bucks." Wow. "On impact fees and permits." Sheesh. So even if he gets a lot for free, he can barely get out of profit. My goodness. So Kevin wrote on, went on to write, "You know what? I had to pass on five acres inside a Missouri city property because the starter homes in the area would not support building anything but starter homes on small lots. I talked to builder and explained that even, who explained that even if I gave him the land, he couldn't build a home there and make a profit without getting some grant money. So I said, 'If this five acres was up in here, you could build with plenty of margin, like $300,000 and up. And he said, oh yeah, it's just with that certain area.'" We do that too. Sometimes when we're on our Thursday calls and we're looking at deals, "What'd you do this deal?" And we're like... You'll notice sometimes there's areas that you just can't find comps, right? There's not a lot for sale, not a lot sold recently. And often for, I see it as a sign of celebration, but before I do that, I go, "Let's just see what the houses are going for. And if the houses are going for a million, then it is a sign of celebration. But if the houses are going for $85,000, it's not a sign of celebration," or less, sometimes even less. So this is what everybody's talking about here. There's times. And there's just areas that man, the way things are going right now, you can't build a house for what it's selling for.
Steven James Butala: This is in the rant section of Discord.
Jill K DeWit: Got it.
Steven James Butala: These two members are-
Jill K DeWit: Makes sense.
Steven James Butala: ... long time advanced members, both of them.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven James Butala: I am... I've never in my entire career, in my 30+ year professional career in real estate, heard the noise called affordable housing. And I think it's... This is Jack Thursday, by the way. So I get to talk about stuff I want.
Jill K DeWit: Don't you every day?
Steven James Butala: No. It's the Land Academy Show.
Jill K DeWit: Oh, yeah. You do.
Steven James Butala: It's not the Jack Show.
Jill K DeWit: Even off camera, I think you're doing just fine.
Steven James Butala: I have never heard anything like of... It's just too... I can't afford to live there.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. That's true.
Steven James Butala: Yeah.
Now is the Time to Buy Land (LA 1820) Transcript:
Steven James Butala: Steven and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello. What was that?
Steven James Butala: I don't know.
Jill K DeWit: We're all good to see the top of your head?
Steven James Butala: Our producer asks us to pose for a still shot at the beginning of every video. That becomes what they use on YouTube as the title shot. The tile.
Jill K DeWit: Right.
Steven James Butala: We have resorted to doing really ridiculous stuff.
Jill K DeWit: What was that?
Steven James Butala: I don't know. Just take a look at my hair.
Jill K DeWit: Okay.
Steven James Butala: What was that?
Jill K DeWit: I was clearly deep in thought.
Steven James Butala: Oh, deep in thought about why I was doing what I was doing.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. Now that's why I was deep in thought.
Steven James Butala: Stephen and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello. Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining real estate investment talk. He's Stephen Jack Butala and I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from sunny Southern California
Steven James Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about, now's the time to buy land. "Oh my God, Jack. You say that all the time."
Jill K DeWit: Really? Are you sure? Now. All the other 423 times we said it, we didn't mean it as much as we-
Steven James Butala: 819 times.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah, this time we mean it. Now we really mean it.
Steven James Butala: It's actually a little bit more intelligent. We'll get to that in a second. Let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Last year, a ton of Land Academy members came to Jill and I frustrated with sending their blind offer campaigns that they've created to commercial printer X so Jill and I...
Jill K DeWit: It was the data part of it. The pricing and the data.
Steven James Butala: Real frustrated. They were looking, "Can't you just do our mailer please," so we are doing your mailer now. We call it concierge data. We bring you right to the five yard line. We do everything except price the entire mailer. If you're familiar with our process, we get comparison values and all kinds of cool stuff to help you get your mailer out. Well, we get it out for you actually. We do everything except price it for you.
Jill K DeWit: We tell you what everything's going for in the area and what they sold for in the area. Then you go, "Okay, I want to do X percent of that."
Steven James Butala: That's right.
Jill K DeWit: There you go.
Steven James Butala: Go to checkitallout@offerstothenumbertwoowner.com
Jill K DeWit: Drew wrote, "Just curious, how does one accumulate a network of buyers?" This is to a certain person. You can certainly market it. Is this his response right here?
Steven James Butala: No, it's a conversation between two people that I took an excerpt from.
Jill K DeWit: I know. This is Drew. Is this chip?
Steven James Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: In quotes? That's what I needed to know. Drew asked a guy named Chip this, "How do you accumulate a network of buyers?" Chip said, "You can certainly market it, but I don't put them on the MLS. I have a network of buyers for this property type, so I just package it up and send it to them. I usually meet them in person and sell it. Now, I happen to know that they're bigger, larger dollar amounts. I know we've talked to Chip when he is like, "I'm getting on a plane tomorrow to go meet somebody to walk X. We can't really walk it because it's big, but check out this property together," fill in the blank.
Steven James Butala: Land Academy's great for this. That works for networking. Putting a community of buyers together works if they all have the same taste for product type. If they all want infill lots because they're our home builders then great. You can put together a small local database of that type of buyer very, very quickly. If they only want commercial property within three or four zip codes,
Land Academy is a Performance Based Eco System (LA 1819) Transcript:
Steven James Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven James Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.`
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from sunny Southern California
Steven James Butala: Today Jill and I talk about how Land Academy is a performance-based ecosystem, I'm happy to report. When we started Land Academy in 2015 or launched it, I should say, I thought I knew all kinds of stuff. Well, it turns out I was wrong about everything and what's new about that. We started it to help a handful of people learn how we buy and sell land successfully to create a tiny little investment group where we could all do deals together. Well, mission accomplished there. The group got a lot bigger than we thought. I think there's about 480 members right now total. And we both have agreed to not allow the group to get larger than 500 people. So at times, Jill will close enrollment. I think you did last two months ago for quite some time for an entire month.
Jill K DeWit: It's open right now.
Steven James Butala: My 480 number is probably not right. It's probably closer to 500, but yeah, it's open right now. So it was all mission accomplished there. We found some great partners. We have got literally lifelong business partners now, but what we found throughout this, let's call it a little journey that I created for better, for worse, we've got this little performance-based ecosystem going on, where we're all communicating with each other. And so when I watch this group grow, while this is kind of the show. Before I get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And I hope by now you know we have a full-blown operational printing company called offerstoowners.com. And Jill and I set this company up a few years ago for ourselves because we were real frustrated about the level of misunderstanding from regular commercial printing companies that we were experiencing when we sent out our own mail campaigns. And so we were frustrated, we started our own, and now we do between 700,000 and a million letters on behalf of our members and non-members every single month. So check it out.
Jill K DeWit: It's pretty cool.
Steven James Butala: Support offerstoowners.com.
Jill K DeWit: By the way, we are seven years this month.
Steven James Butala: Oh, it is this month!
Jill K DeWit: Seven years this month that was since we launched Land Academy. Oh, been a little while.
Steven James Butala: Yeah. Wow.
Jill K DeWit: Been a bit.
Steven James Butala: It's actually eight years from the incubator stage, but seven years live.
Jill K DeWit: That's what I'm saying, seven years since we launched. And no one asks anymore, "So who are you guys? What's your track record? And does this really work?" We don't have to answer those questions anymore.
Steven James Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: Which is really kind of nice. Now we answer, "Hey, my friend's doing your thing and I want to get in."
Steven James Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: Can I get in?
Steven James Butala: It's not, "Does this work?"
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven James Butala: That's what happened for a year.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven James Butala: I got tired of that.
Jill K DeWit: I know, but we got it.
Steven James Butala: I was in a bad mood for a couple years, actually.
Jill K DeWit: That's funny. So there's actually a question here. I'm going to get to it. Steve wrote, "Went to contract today on my first section." Timeout, in case you did. Oh, he wrote it in here, a square mile, a whole square mile, 640 acres. He's buying it for $226,000, listing it for $499,000. I'm the JB funder and with a revenue share it's ranch land. Best use is as is. Unfathomable. That's awesome.
Steven James Butala: So Steve's very, very experienced investor in our group and a very a...
This is Your Company not a Side Hustle (LA 1818) Transcript:
Steven James Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven James Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven James Butala: Today. Jill and I talk about how this is your company, not your side hustle. I love this topic. Jill and I were talking about it earlier, because we are really, for some reason in 2022 here attracting people that want to make a massive change in their life and make a bunch of dough.
Jill K DeWit: The right people.
Steven James Butala: Yeah. Instead of let's see what happens and I'm not sure. I just kind of want to make extra money on the side.
Jill K DeWit: Right. I mean, I'm not going to be that serious about it, because I've got this going on, which I understand.
Steven James Butala: I do too, and I love this level of commitment.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven James Butala: This topic came out of a total different conversation Jill and I were having just in life about commitment and follow through.
Jill K DeWit: Welcome to my world.
Steven James Butala: What would you rather be talking about?
Jill K DeWit: Where we're going for dinner tonight? That's what I'd rather be talking about, not commitment.
Steven James Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and I hope you know by now Jill and I instruct a class, a 10 unit, 10 week class called Career Path, which is very specifically for the topic we're talking about today. If you want this to be your career, not necessarily your side hustle, this might be for you. Please check out support@landacademy.com and ask them all kinds of questions.
Jill K DeWit: Cool. Nicholas wrote, "Question. I'm in the process of pulling a list from DataTree. When I'm messing with the filters, there's a change in the numbers. When I change the living area square foot and the assessed improvement, the assessed improvement gives me a smaller number than the living area. Do I keep both filters on or just one?"
Steven James Butala: Nicholas, I know you're new, and I put this question in here for the benefit, obviously, of everyone. I can tell by this type of question you're going to do very, very well at this. This is a very extremely intelligent question for a new person and I will explain. I'll answer your question. In DataTree, which is owned by First American Title, they were all nice enough to write an amazing piece of software that gives us really organized access to an assessor's data base. That's what we're looking at. There are 3,200-
Jill K DeWit: 3,144-
Steven James Butala: 3,100-
Jill K DeWit: Roughly, approximately-
Steven James Butala: 3,124-
Jill K DeWit: Counting some parishes.
Steven James Butala: Townships, like Jill said, counties and in Louisiana parishes that generate their own little database to make sure that they can have control over and they can effectively tap property tax areas, property in their jurisdiction. And so during the course of that, if you can imagine, most assessors are elected. And so they have a time and then they leave, and then another one gets elected, and so they go in and so... Each assessor manages that data based on how important it is to them, or how important it is to their board of supervisors.
Jill K DeWit: And there's no... What am I trying to say? Lists of qualifications I think they have to have going into it, like I have a PhD in tax history.
Steven James Butala: I mean, or-
Jill K DeWit: Pretty sure that I wish they would, but I'm pretty sure they don't.
Steven James Butala: Do you look good in a cowboy hat seems to be one of the criteria for assessors, which I kind of respect. There should be, in my opinion, maybe, can you pass an eighth grade math test?
Jill K DeWit: That would be nice.
Jill Friday - Mailer Excitement (LA 1817) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steven and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show. Entertaining land, investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Jack Butala: Today is Jill Friday. She's going to talk about her mailer excitement.
Jill K DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative). I love this. Like Jack was sharing yesterday, a big one went out. We, I divided it up with another person and I have PATLive on standby, should any of us throw in the towel. But I like to take the first wave of it. It's all part of the excitement and learning, and I'll tell you more here in just a minute
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free. And I hope you know that we have a full blown database of all, and I mean, all 150 million parcels of real estate in this country, when I say all, I mean like 99.5%, you get the data that you need right at your fingertips to make good, fast acquisition decisions. It's called neighborscoop.com. Check it out.
Jill K DeWit: Thank you. Ooh, this. Okay. This is a long one. Is this just kind of a comment?
Steven Jack Butala: It's a comment.
Jill K DeWit: Okay, good. All right. And that's where it ends right here. Okay, good. Thank you. Evan wrote, oh, if you're looking for a Jill to help take your business to the next level, I can help. There's a subset of investors that excel at picking areas, pricing, mailer, and reviewing properties. However, they can lack the time skillset and/or interest to answer the phone and truly work their deals. This can create a major bottleneck that limits growth of their business. I have partnered with a handful of investors that fit this criteria and we're seeing great results since teaming up. Huh. Since quitting my WT last month, I can even take on some more people. So here's what I do. I will field the incoming calls. Hey, I've got 10 years of corporate sales. I know how to quickly connect with the seller assure them, If they're skeptical, I can nail down a price and see if they're willing to sell. I get deals done based on the guidance my partners provide. I know how to negotiate and do whatever's necessary to get that signed purchase agreement and know how to close a deal. A deal doesn't count unless it closes. That's true. I communicate with him throughout the whole process to keep it from falling apart. This is, this is great. So I'm sure, so he is offering his stuff in our closed-
Steven Jack Butala: Discord.
Jill K DeWit: In our closed member community, by the way.
Steven Jack Butala: So the-
Jill K DeWit: So don't miss out on any more deals. This is kind of cute. And just send me a note.
Steven Jack Butala: There are multiple people that responded-
Jill K DeWit: I bet.
Steven Jack Butala: Who's already partners with where it's really working. So my point is, just like yesterday, there's always a solution.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: If you are a data person like me and you've got some money laying around, or even if you don't and you need a partner, this person may or may not be for you, but they, you can outsource their entire, that entire part of your business and split the profit.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. Go ahead and dive into the show, because I'm going to tie these together. Today's topic, jill Friday, mailer excitement. Sorry. That's where I was going. This is the meat of the show. So finding an Evan, the point I wanted to just dive into the show here and tie this in here is not that easy.
Steven Jack Butala: I agree.
Jill K DeWit: So that's-
Steven Jack Butala: That's why I put it in here.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. It's not that easy.
Steven Jack Butala: I totally agree.
Jill K DeWit: This is a-
Steven Jack Butala: It's way easier to find a Jack than a Joe.
Jill K DeWit:
Jack Thursday - There's Always a Solution (LA 1816) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining with land investment talk, I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jack Thursday and I'm going to talk about how there's always a solution.
Jill K DeWit: Is there?
Steven Jack Butala: Always. I'm a huge proponent for this.
Jill K DeWit: I know. Does it mean I'm going to like the solution?
Steven Jack Butala: Nope.
Jill K DeWit: Got it.
Steven Jack Butala: Could be incredibly painful.
Jill K DeWit: Got it. Think I heard that-
Steven Jack Butala: You might have to check your pride at the door and all kinds of other stuff at the door. You might be defeated, you might have to turn your entire life around, but there's always a solution.
Jill K DeWit: Thanks.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and please don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Charlie wrote, "What is everybody doing to create recurring income from their land other than just buying and selling? Leasing and owner financing are the first few that come to my mind, but I'm sure there are others. And who do you lease to?"
Steven Jack Butala: Owner financing is a very, very popular option here. We have tons of people in our group who buy property for five grand, sell it for $200 down, $200 a month, and the sale price is $20,000. This has been going on forever. That's very popular. Jill and I used to do it, we don't do it any longer. We feel like we're better at selling it for cash, or we're just better acquisitions people versus babysitters. That's one way. That's by leaps and bounds the most popular way. If you have commercial property in an urban area, leasing property if it's zoned correctly to construction crews or for RV storage, that's very popular and extremely profitable. In fact, mobile home parks are based on this model where you just lease the land. The owner would put their own mobile home on that park, pay two or three or $400 a month for a pad lease and everybody's happy. It's incredibly affordable for the owner and incredibly profitable for the park owner. That's a great option. There's two, the reason I put this in here, two new ones that popped up recently. One is buying a piece of rural land, making sure that it's very usable, and then VRBO-ing it out as campground land for $30 or $40 a night. It's very popular as long as the use, again, the zoning's correct. To my knowledge in most places, especially if it's county land, there's no reason that would be restricted in any way. And so if you have an RV, you go park it out there for a certain number of nights as long as it's compliant, or if you just take a truck out there with a tent, make a fire, as long as it's all compliant. That's very, very, very profitable. You can buy in certain places, even in Los Angeles County, you can buy property for $4,000 or $5,000 and start renting it out for $30 or $40 a night.
Jill K DeWit: What's the second one?
Steven Jack Butala: And the second one is... Why? Am I going too slow?
Jill K DeWit: No, just curious. I was impatient.
Steven Jack Butala: The second one is putting up some type of structure like a yurt, this is all over Discord right now, where you take that VRBO land rental model and make it just a little bit more attractive. A couple years ago, it was Airstreams. Make a little Airstream community again as long as it's compliant, and then rent those out.
Jill K DeWit: Cool.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jack Thursday, there's always a solution, this is why you're listening. I was watching a reality show that many of you maybe have seen, or not seen. I find it fascinating,
Land Deal Case Study - Buy for 25K and Sell for 51K a Year Later (LA 1815) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steven and Jill here. Welcome.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show. Entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWitt broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill talks about a land deal case study. She did a whole land deal case study.
Jill K DeWit: Boy, do I have some notes here for you.
Steven Jack Butala: We bought a property for $25,000, sold it for about $51,000, but it took a year and we're in great detail... See about why.
Jill K DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of the members on our landinvestors.com online community. It's free and I need to tell you that we, Jill and I, released a program about a year ago called "Concierge Data", where you can completely and totally outsource your mail campaign. If you're sending out a ton of letters already, this is for you. This will remove a lot of time consuming data manipulation and all of that. Or if you're brand new and you quite simply want to get that first mailer out and you're having trouble, go to offers2owners.com and ask them about concierge data. They'll help you out for sure.
Jill K DeWit: Thank you very much. Tammy wrote: "Hi. I must have been listening to your old podcast that played again during the holidays about the next live event. I thought there's one in October, but I haven't seen anything. Does anyone know if one's coming up?" Why do we put this in here? Because we keep going back and forth on this.
Steven Jack Butala: Well, I wanted to know because I'm kind of putting you on the spot to see if we're going to have a live event.
Jill K DeWit: I don't know. We kind of accidentally did.
Steven Jack Butala: Cause I'd like to know.
Jill K DeWit: We had a post career path session for...
Steven Jack Butala: I want to know if we're going to have one too.
Jill K DeWit: Eight people came out to hang out with us and just have an evening and go to dinner. That was really fun. And most of them did it on their dime and I really appreciate that. And we did feel the love and happy. We got to see you and talk with you and have dinner with you and have a drink with you and laugh with you. That was really cool.
Steven Jack Butala: We don't know.
Jill K DeWit: So yeah, I don't know, Tammy, I go back and forth. It just takes so much. It's so involved and I got to do it right. We've been thinking about doing it for just career path only. When you finish your career path, you get added to the advanced group and that group really knows what they're doing. And we really have some great, high level discussions. Right now we're thinking if we do one, it'll be early 2023, before we do it. And we will do it probably for that group.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, that's what I think too.
Jill K DeWit: That's our latest.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's topic, Jill's going to talk about her land deal case study, where she buys property for 25 grand, sells it for $51,000, but a year later.
Jill K DeWit: Right.
Steven Jack Butala: This is the meat of the show.
Jill K DeWit: And this is just a deep dive. This is not that I'm picking on anybody. It's not like this sucked. These are just the facts, man. I want to tell you how some of these deals can go. So you're like, "God, what did I do wrong?" You know what? It happens. It happens all the time. So many things can happen and you got to roll with it. By the way, you can't get hung up on this. So I'm going to go through the calendar here. I'm going to give you my real numbers and information as best I can. And you're going to get the picture of this whole thing. And then at the end I will open it up to Q&A from Jack.
Steven Jack Butala: That's code for sip it while I talk.
Jill K DeWit: Right? Exactly. So,
The Reality of Pricing a Land Blind Offer Campaign (LA 1814) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Good day.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: and I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny southern California still.
Steven Jack Butala: Today I talk about the reality of pricing a land blind offer campaign. Pricing, pricing, pricing.
Jill K DeWit: Geez, God, I just can't get away from it. Why are we always talking about pricing?
Steven Jack Butala: Look, this is really timely for me.
Jill K DeWit: Man.
Steven Jack Butala: I feel compelled. Jill's going to do her nails during this entire episode.
Jill K DeWit: Totally.
Steven Jack Butala: I feel compelled to happily report that I very successfully completed, not only completed about a 12,000-unit mailer very recently and got it to O2O on schedule, but as a result ... Well, I'll get into it in a second.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: But a lot of really, really cool little micro changes happened throughout that process that's allowing me and the business partner that Jill and I have taken on to a bunch of these real estate deals ...
Jill K DeWit: Oh, this latest mailer?
Steven Jack Butala: ... To very effectively not just complete this mailer, but to really, we put a whole system in place to get to really never stop mailing out offers.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah, we do that now and then, we shake it up. We'll bring in other people, try to divide up the work. It doesn't always go that way, but we sure try.
Steven Jack Butala: What does that mean?
Jill K DeWit: Oh, no, because we bring other people and sometimes I end up doing the work. And you'll hear about it tomorrow in the case study. It's not about you.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And I just mentioned offers to owners, but I hope you know by now, Jill and I have a full-blown commercial printing company that's completely dedicated to facilitating your offer campaigns. So we get it printed and in the mail, the entire deal start to finish. It's called offers2owners.com. You simply need to go to support@offers2owners.com and take a look around and see if it's for you. We send out between 700,000 and 1 million offers a month. So it's really worked out as a product for our members and non-members too, people in the business.
Jill K DeWit: Can I just add a little note on that?
Steven Jack Butala: Sure.
Jill K DeWit: Because you just recently did a new order for ourselves, and they're constantly getting better. And it was kind of fun for you to show me, "Look at our company."
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: "This thing's looking really good. Look how on if they are and how professional. I'm like, "This is awesome."
Steven Jack Butala: The person that runs that operation, his name's Aaron Belt. We've been working with him for years now. And he's, like we talked about yesterday, he's got that personality type where we just all understand each other. He's making constant improvements, to the point now where he doesn't tell us any more.
Jill K DeWit: We're just surprised, we're like, "Wow."
Steven Jack Butala: Or just checks with us. There's a few parameters that we have about the number of promotions that we ... But outside of that, boy, he just is an order machine.
Jill K DeWit: Mm-hmm. Michael wrote, "Hi, friends. There are many folks here who unexpectedly had a large number of buyers bid on a recent purchase." I wonder what that was. "When this occurs, do you actively focus on the same area and remail the same list but with much higher offer amounts, knowing that there are buyers actively looking in the area?" Buyers who bid on a recent purchase.
Steven Jack Butala: Do you understand the question?
Jill K DeWit: No.
Why the Right Land Partner is Essential (LA 1813) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steven. Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show Entertaining Land, Investment Talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about why the right partner, the right land partner is essential.
Jill K DeWit: Not like this.
Steven Jack Butala: This is a topic we've covered in the past, but this is a little bit different because Jill's experiencing both sides of this. I think with deal funding...
Jill K DeWit: Why you think I'm not the right partner?
Steven Jack Butala: No, it's not with this.
Jill K DeWit: Both sides of this. Sometimes you don't get the right partner, Jill and sometimes you're not the right partner, Jill, because that could happen too. We could talk about that, and I got to make a note about that.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community, it's free. And I hope you know that Jill and I personally instruct. I advanced type, instructional session ...
Jill K DeWit: ... Intimate Group.
Steven Jack Butala: Called career path. It's for people who have made this their career, buying and selling land or people that want to make it their career. Check it out at support@landacademy.com it's called career path and I think the next one starts in October.
Jill K DeWit: It does. And actually you can sign up now just so you know, if you go to yeah, Did you say? Oh, you said the support one. I'll give you one little hint too. Go to landacademy/careerpath and you'll find out more there. Oh thank you. Tammy wrote, I found a county that I like that has a site zip code for 99% of the 2000 properties. Wow. All those 2000 properties, half of a side street address with a street number and the other half just has a street name. Should I be concerned that this is not rural enough? Because there are situs zips attached to most of the whole data set. I did spot check and it does look like there's no buildings.
Steven Jack Butala: No Tammy, this is a very intelligent question. I know you're brand new. I see in Discord a lot and I appreciate your participation and you really are asking the right questions. There's a pretty, pretty stiff learning curve to some of this, if you don't follow the program. And so to answer your question directly, the situs address or non situs address, you know, in a mailer, in a data, any given data set a property has a mailing address where the ...
Jill K DeWit: ... Tax.
Steven Jack Butala: tax bill goes to or a situs address, which is where the property's actually located. Well, a vast majority of many, many, many properties, vast majority of properties that we deal in, don't have a 123 main street post office address. They just have a situs address, which might be main way. It might be just blank. The assessor doesn't really care as long as they know which property it is and how to assess it so that they can apply the right tax amount. They don't care exactly where it is. So the fact that what this tells is you chose a relatively urban county, but it doesn't matter. As long as it passes the red, green, yellow test and you follow step by step, everything that we teach in chapter four and chapter five of Land Academy 3.0, you're going to do great. And that's ...
Jill K DeWit: ... Funny, like I'm concerned, this is going too easy. You know, I can, I can totally relate to that.
Steven Jack Butala: Well, even your result here is that you have really good data.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: Because mostly time the question's, the other way. It's like, I can't find these properties at all. What do I do? And there's a huge solution for that called geocode.io that we explain all of that and the actual education.
Jill K DeWit:
Jill Friday - How to Manage Your Team & Business from the Road (LA 1812) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Jack Butala: Today is Jill Friday and she's going to talk about how to manage your team and your business from the road, just like we're doing right now.
Jill DeWit: And I hope you interact and have some points too.
Steven Jack Butala: Of course.
Jill DeWit: I'm sure you do.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community. It's free, and I help you. I'm going to tell a real brief story here. Back in the day, it was really, really difficult to find property that didn't have a post office address, like 123 Main Street. All we had was the state, the county and the assessor's parcel number. And so we just had to make do with it and figure it out. Jill and I, about two years ago, developed a product called Neighbor Scoop/Parcel Fact. They're both one and the same. We're about to convert those together so it's just Parcel Fact. It's where, while you're on the phone with the seller, type in the state, the county, the assessor's parcel number and make a quick decision or get all the facts so that you can intelligently talk about the property with the seller on the other end of the line. You send out 10, 20, 30,000 mailers. You can't keep that stuff straight, and so this tool is custom designed to be able to interface with sellers in real time. Check it out at NeighborScoopd.com or ParcelFact, F-A-C-T, .com.
Jill DeWit: Kalu and Joey wrote, "We have a 50 acre property we have under contract at $115,000. The seller signed and returned back the offer. It has some issues, like nine utility easements, fire damage in the back, and a difficult slope at the entryway, likely unbuildable." Why are we still looking at this? I'm not sure.
Steven Jack Butala: I know, let's just go through it.
Jill DeWit: But how many red flags do we need? "The broker's opinion came back at $175,000 for a wholesale, fast turnaround, and maybe upwards towards $250,000 if we wait six months. We thought the numbers were a little tight. We're buying for 115, right? We went back to the seller and to verbally negotiate and he wouldn't give a new number considering all these factors. And then he asked us for a number, which I said, 'It would need to be in the high sixties or so.' And he said, 'Well, let me have a realtor or two go out.' And several days later, now he wants 225. What do you guys think I should do you?" You know what? I'll be truthful. Here's the story. They got the software, 115, they dig in a little bit, has all these problems, right? They reach out to the brokers. I'm just reiterating and making it hopefully easier to understand. On the low side, sell for 175, on the high side for 250, if you hang in there for a bit. This is still questionable because of all these issues that concern me, honestly. They go back to the broker and say, "All right, unless..." This is a very good real example. We say, "We're either going to walk right now or..." We talk about this all the time on Thursday. You're going to go back to this guy, go back to your seller, and give him a number that you feel really good at. This is what Kalu and Joey said. All right, obviously we felt good at 60. They went back and said, "It's 60, 69, whatever. Somewhere in the sixties, we can do it." The seller unfortunately said, "Well, wait a minute. Let me get another opinion." Right? That's what happened. And so the seller called some brokers. And now they're want to hang out with their 225 number, because probably the guy says, "I can wait six months to get 225." What do you do? Do I go back and try to change something? Well, wait, we have 175 signed.
Jack Thursday - Land Academy Member Avatar (LA 1811) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Cheers.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jack Thursday and I'm going to talk about the Land Academy member avatar. Who's the typical person who joins this group? Where do they come from? What's their background? This topic came from a recent conversation that I had with somebody, who with very serious authority, believed that they knew who my customer was to which I really laughed pretty hard in their face. I'll explain the whole thing.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWit: Do you want my water? You just a little tickle in your throat.
Steven Jack Butala: No, I'm good.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Jack Butala: And please, don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill DeWit: I was just being nice. Derek wrote, "Hello, everyone. I'm very new here and not really computer savvy, but willing to learn to make this my career. I have reviewed Land Academy 3.0 and 1.0, and when trying to pull the zip code data from Redfin or Realtor, I'm not getting all the data I need for the red, yellow, green test. Does anyone have an alternative to those two to pull the data? For better clarity, when I'm on Realtor, I was only able to find one zip code that I needed. And when I was on Redfin, I found all three zip codes, but not much data attached."
Steven Jack Butala: This is a very good question, as a new person, and I'm sure you're going to do great. And it's a very logical question. Here's the thing, not all counties are equal. And so every county and parish, I think there's 1,344 in the entire country, or is it 3,144?
Jill DeWit: 3,144. Roughly. Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: Have a way of doing things. And they're not all the same. They all have an assessor. They all have an assessor who collects data.
Jill DeWit: Who's a real person.
Steven Jack Butala: Who's a person who collects data on each one of the properties. This is a finite number of properties in their county. And they report that data to companies like data aggregators, like data tree. And that's it. So there's a finite amount of data. You have access to it. It's probably 99.8% of the counties contribute to data trees. So there's a ton of data in there. The universe of it is about 150 million records. There's 150 million properties in the entire country. It's not this big huge number. It's not a universe or an infinity. It's a finite number. And so when doing the red, green, yellow test, what you're looking for is properties that have been sold recently or properties that are for sale, or however you choose to see that. We choose to look at both. And very often a county that you may be interested in selling property and buying and selling land in just doesn't have any data. It's so rural that there's no sales comparison values and nothing's for sale.
Jill DeWit: [inaudible 00:03:08].
Steven Jack Butala: Or there's three or four. And so, as you can imagine, people who collect data for a living in real estate and aggregate it are really, really interested in reselling that data for profit and the more urban the area, the more people are interested in buying the data or using the data for all kinds of reasons, contracting reasons, you name it. How we use it, oil and gas, all of that. So the rural counties, which are places we love to buy land, at times get overlooked. So you have a couple choices here, Derek, and boy, I'll tell you, there's about 50 people in discord that answered you.
Jill DeWit: Oh, good. That's so good.
Steven Jack Butala: And so you already have the answer,
2022-2023 Real Estate Market and What it Means for Land Investing (LA 1810) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Howdy.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, Entertaining Land Investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Jack Butala: Today. I'm going to talk about, and Jill's probably going to listen the 2022 and 23 real estate market and what it means for land investors like us.
Jill DeWit: Hilarious.
Steven Jack Butala: Here's a hint. It's awesome.
Jill DeWit: I'm excited.
Steven Jack Butala: Interest rates are going up.
Jill DeWit: I hope you're going to let me share. Am I going to get to talk today? Okay.
Steven Jack Butala: God, when do you not talk?
Jill DeWit: Am I just going to be someone on your arm again?
Steven Jack Butala: Oh geez. Yeah. Yep. My trophy partner, Jill.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, that's right. Hey, watch it buddy.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free and please make sure you check us out on discord, if you're a member. If you need help outsourcing your mail operation, meaning you know, your blind offer campaigns. Check us out at offers 2 owners, offers the number two owners.com and click around for product we released called concierge data. It allows people who are brand new to help... We'll help you get that first mailer out or if you've been sending 50, 80,000 mailers out a month, like we do sometimes allows you to outsource it there. It's a great product. It's getting used widely to the point where we had to shut its down recently, because we couldn't fill the orders. So by the time this airs, it should be back open or if not very soon after that.
Jill DeWit: Sweet.
Steven Jack Butala: Staffing.
Jill DeWit: Erin wrote, "Is there a reliable way to check out whether a subdivision has an HOA with covenants?" I've never known HOA that didn't have some covenants, but there we go. Anyway. "Sometimes it is easy when they have a website. Are they recorded? For the lot I'm looking at now in a new area, I pulled the recorded plot, but all I could find related to the, is a subdivision name." There we go. "So far I see no evidence of an HOA, but it isn't a big subdivision. So what do I do?"
Steven Jack Butala: This comes up. May I?
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Jack Butala: No, go ahead.
Jill DeWit: No, that's fine. No, no go ahead.
Steven Jack Butala: What do you do?
Jill DeWit: So here's what I do. This does come up because you're not sure. Usually if there's a name like Shady Acres. All right. Shady Acres lot 23. All right. I might need to look into that just to make sure versus just the legal description and no thing like that, like lot, block, unit kind of thing. Even those could be, but usually you'll have a little indication. It's something you always want to check no matter what anyway. So how I check is there's three ways. I do my own Google digging. My Google search for Shady Acres HOA, POA, homeowner association, property owner association. See if everything pops up. Okay. Nothing there. Okay, good. This is good news. Then I go to phase two, which is... This takes a few minutes by the way. Phase two is I'm going to go out and look for property for sale or sold in that area and see if there was an HOA like, "Oh look, here's a property in the same subdivision that sold 18 months ago," I'm going to be looking at the comp anyway, cause I'm checking it out and then I'm going to go through the description and see, "Oh look, it was an agent." And I'll look through and see, is there an HOA or POA the box? There's some information in there. Often that's where I find it, by the way is doing a little recon to somebody else's posting and then I've got it like, "Okay, noted. There it is." And then the third one, it's always an easy one too.
What Kind of Person or Investor are You (LA 1808) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about what kind of investor or what kind of person are you and maybe what's...
Jill DeWit: What kind of person are you? That's true.
Steven Jack Butala: What's most conducive for being a land investor?
Jill DeWit: Got it. Do you believe in karma?
Steven Jack Butala: Yes.
Jill DeWit: Because there's part of that I do believe I get more deals because of that.
Steven Jack Butala: Absolutely.
Jill DeWit: And we'll talk about it.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free and if you're a member, please make sure you get yourself involved into Discord. It's become a huge tool. I also hope you know by now that Jill and I personally teach a class called Career Path for people who want land investing to be their career, whether you're brand new or you're doing 25 deals a month, we get all kinds. Our next class, I think, is in October.
Jill DeWit: Career Path Five is coming in third quarter of this year and I am literally working on the emails and things like that. So this month they will go out. But if you want to find out more, just go to landacademy.com/careerpath and you will find it there. Megan wrote, "There's a seller with 6.8 acres in Oklahoma. He's willing to sell, but he doesn't have mineral rights on the property." Sorry, Brock. There we go. "And it has four oil wells on the property. Any feedback regarding what to do with the situation is appreciated. Is it always a no go for land with oil wells? Or is there something I'm unaware of? Thanks." So member Chip piped in here, and it's obviously a good one because Jack included it today. So I'm going to read this and then I'm positive Jack's going to have some stuff to say, because Jack often has stuff to say. Chip wrote...
Steven Jack Butala: For better or for worse.
Jill DeWit: Too often Jack has stuff to say, we'll get to that in a minute. Okay. Chip wrote, "I have several deals currently with oil wells on the property. Now, depending on the state, there's usually a surface rights waivers," excuse me, "that allows use of the land. And the minerals do not convey with the purchase. That's kind of normal. The pads can be sizable. So I want to determine how much usable land is actually available. Also, I have one in contract to close now in which the oil company is requiring to do a topographical survey prior to them releasing the surface rights. This is the first time that I encountered this and it seems like a BS fee that they're charging. It's a three week process and it's $50,000 bucks to survey around the four oil wells on this 217 acre track. My buyer is still moving forward." How interesting is that? So that's a good example. All right. Four oil wells on over 200 acres. I'm pretty sure there's some usable land there.
Steven Jack Butala: Well, the whole point is Megan's a relatively newer... She reeled a property in with oil. It's an oil situation, its got oil wells. Chip's been doing this. He goes on to say way beyond what we posted here in discord. You know that this is his mission in life. And he did this before he joined Land Academy and he is now utilizing Land Academy as a way to get more properties, which he's obviously doing. And so $50,000 bucks is chump change for him, I'm sure.
Jill DeWit: On a 200,000 acre or 200 acre.
Steven Jack Butala: Well, he's got all kinds of properties like this that he's leasing to oil companies. So my point is, if you don't know about it. I don't know much about this, I would go into Discord and ask these questions too. So this is how Land Academy works.
Jill Friday - Duck You (LA 1807) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt broadcasting from sunny southern California.
Steven Jack Butala: Today. Jill and I, well, it's still Friday, and she has created a topic called duck you.
Jill K DeWit: This is going to be good.
Steven Jack Butala: This is some classic stuff.
Jill K DeWit: I have a good story to share with you here in a minute.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Back in the day, I got to tell you this, we struggled with finding land. None of these properties that we buy, most of them have a physical address, like 12 Mid 3 Main Street. Fast forward to today, we took that massive database of 150 million properties, took all the attributes and aspects of the data set that we think are important to make decisions and made them available on a website called Parcel Fact and/or Neighbor Scoop. All you have to do is type in the state, the county, and the assessor's parcel number. It pops right up actually so fast that if you're on the phone with the seller you can pretty much make a decision about whether or not you want to buy the property at that moment.
Jill K DeWit: It's awesome.
Steven Jack Butala: Check it out. Neighborscoop.com, Parcelfact, F A C T, .com.
Jill K DeWit: Steven wrote, I had a tangle of title issues on a property I've been working on since before I knew about Land Academy. I would've skipped it otherwise. So far, First American has been the easiest and most knowledgeable. The other title companies didn't know what to do from my situation, but First American did, and I got a lost instrument bond. No problem. That's pretty cool.
Steven Jack Butala: Here's my point in putting this in here. It's not necessarily a question. He's just informing everybody that's had a good experience with the title company. A lot of what we see in discord and in landinvestors.com is negative stuff. I can't believe this title company's taken so long. I'm getting treated poorly. Well, this guy goes out and does something about it. Title company number one didn't get it. Title company number two didn't get it. He found somebody at First American that helped him and solved it because I'm sure this particular agent wanted to get the deal done. Please don't become a victim of some silly rogue title person.
Jill K DeWit: That's true. That says can't be done. Pick up the phone and call.
Steven Jack Butala: There's something that can always can be done.
Jill K DeWit: There's a lot of them they'll say can't be done.
Steven Jack Butala: Yep.
Jill K DeWit: Call somebody else.
Steven Jack Butala: That's code for, I don't want to do it.
Jill K DeWit: Correct.
Steven Jack Butala: Not can't be done.
Jill K DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's topic is Jill Friday. She's going to talk about duck you. This is the meat of the show. I hope I don't get in trouble for this.
Jill K DeWit: It can't be done is not to be confused with can't say no. That's a whole different thing. We'll go there another time. Okay. These are the notes that I got on July 6th. This is awesome. This came to me through my transaction coordinator in Airtable, from the manager of the property. I funded the deal from the broker that we have selling it. This broker's trying to get creative here to sell this property. Here's what he wrote. The agent sent these ideas about ways to make the property sell. Just got word from a bulldozer guy.
Steven Jack Butala: Just hold on a second. Can I set this up a little different?
Jill K DeWit: Why?
Steven Jack Butala: We bought a partnership to a piece of property in deal funding, and it's not selling as fast as we think it should, or that the manager thinks that it should.
Jack Thursday - Concierge Data Plus Explained (LA 1806) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steven and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show. Entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny southern California.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jack Thursday, and I'm going to talk about, by request, Concierge Data Plus, and I'm going to explain it, and really get to the bottom of what it is, what it isn't, who loves it, who probably should be using it, and should not be using it. The components that we... I put this whole product together. It's basically a mirror image of chapter four in the formal education. But we do it for you with some new caveats. So it's actually an incredible product for the right prison.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah, I'm just thinking, sunny southern California. I wish you could tell from our background, but you really can't.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, it's okay.
Jill K DeWit: It's really kind of interesting. It made me think of the old days. If you've been with us for a while, you'll remember like, oh I don't know, six years ago, we used to-
Steven Jack Butala: Before COVID.
Jill K DeWit: Way before that. But we used to take the camera out on the pier.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: Remember that?
Steven Jack Butala: Oh yeah.
Jill K DeWit: And try to film in like remote locations. And that was the funniest thing, because there's wind blowing and all kinds of distractions going on. That was hilarious.
Steven Jack Butala: I like to rate myself on-
Jill K DeWit: All on battery power.
Steven Jack Butala: Rate myself on a scale of one to 10 about how good I am at certain stuff. And that's a 1.5
Jill K DeWit: That was fun, though. I wish I could go look and find those old podcasts. Like literally seeing those waves crashing. I'm sure it's hard to hear us.
Steven Jack Butala: Oh I'm sure you can't hear at all.
Jill K DeWit: Oh, we're on the pier and oh, that was good.
Steven Jack Butala: I'm going to talk about this since you brought it up. It's funny. It's the biggest beginner's mistake in filming anything is having this great, bright background back-lit, and then you can't see our faces.
Jill K DeWit: Correct.
Steven Jack Butala: In a cool place that's really loud. And then you can't hear us.
Jill K DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala: Then Jill and I went on a Hollywood tour once and we walked into a sound stage, a vacant sound stage. This was a lot of years ago, and during the same time. And if you've ever been on a sound stage, it's a massive building. As large as you can imagine. A Walmart-sized building that's got all this padding all over the floor in the ceiling, and you can hear a pin drop in there. And it's black. So the light bulb went off in my head. I'm like, "Well, you need a closed set for everything." You need to control the audio and the light and everything, instead of-
Jill K DeWit: And now we just do half and half because-
Steven Jack Butala: ... being on a subway.
Jill K DeWit: ... that's who we are. We're kind of half and half people. Half yeah, half professional, half whatever. This is us.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. It's 10% professional and 90% whatever.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah, exactly. All right. Did you already read the thingy? No.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the Landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and please don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel. It tells us what shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Unlike Monday's show, which was unsubscribed.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: Exactly. Okay, so Dania wrote, "Hey newbies or newbs, does anyone have access to the Land Academy mailer template?" Everybody does.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, you're going to have to [crosstalk 00:03:23]-
Jill K DeWit: That may or may not be on Offerstoowners.com.
Land Academy Member Austin Sakai Interview (LA 1805) Transcript:
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The BuWit Family of Companies include:
https://BuWit.com
https://offers2owners.com
https://landinvestors.com
https://landacademy.com
https://landpin.com
https://parcelfact.com
https://countywise.com
https://deedperfect.com
https://ownersdata.com
https://houseacademy.com
I would like to think it’s entertaining and informative and in the end profitable.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
3 Biggest Roadblocks to Success in Land Investment (LA 1804) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land, investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill K DeWit. Broadcasting from sunny Southern California. Haven't said that in a while.
Steven Jack Butala: It just rolls of the tongue, doesn't it?
Jill K DeWit: It does. Actually, I still have to think about it. I'm used to the valley of the sun now, but we'll get it.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about the three biggest roadblocks to success in land investment as I think the members see it, not necessarily how I see it.
Jill K DeWit: I would like to pause and note, if you're watching this, you see a different background, we're not our usual thing and we're certainly not at the beach where you're used to see the bikes going by behind us. So we are in a sweet Airbnb for the whole month of July, so that's what's going on.
Steven Jack Butala: The audio video production will suffer because of that, but I think our attitudes are a lot better.
Jill K DeWit: That's true. Good point.
Steven Jack Butala: Before I get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And I hope you know that we have a full blown operational commercial printing company called Offers, the number two, owners.com. Jill and I set it up a bunch of years ago out of our own frustration of trying to get our own mailers out with a regular non-specialized commercial printing company. If you'd like more information, it's the cheapest to best places to send a mailer. Trust me, check out support@offers, the number two, owners.com or just go to the website.
Jill K DeWit: Jaylen wrote, "I hope everyone had a great 4th of July. Is there anyone in here that's working with commercial vacant land. I'm getting ready to send in a mailer and I have a couple questions about it.
Steven Jack Butala: I'm just going to basically talk about it. I know, Jaylen, a lot of people piped in. Here's how I handle commercial vacant land. We keep it in our mailers. If I decide to send a zip code, a mailer out to a zip code, I certainly keep in every land type that's in there at all, commercial, industrial, there's all, most of the places we send mailers, different types of commercial property. So there's two schools of thought here. You have to figure out which one's best for you. If you just look up commercial real estate or segregated out, segregate commercial property from everything else, let's say, we just talked about this in the advanced call a couple days ago, what you're going to find is very small numbers. So you might have a really populated county or zip code, and you're going to I just want to look at commercial property and you're going to see that it's the numbers are 5% of the actual number of properties in the entire data set. So number one, that can be an advantage or a disadvantage. The advantage is this, small numbers like that, you can price it individually, you can apply a lot of methodology to pricing, but it's generally doable by hand. So I can look at every single property and price it and say, "Oh yeah, it's worth $250,000, I'm going to offer 25% of that." Go to the next one. "It's worth $350,000, I'm going to offer 25% of that." And on and on and on. There's a lot more data on commercial vacant land than there is on just regular, rural vacant land. The bad news is you're now about to send out a 500 unit mailer, what do you think about that?
Jill K DeWit: Well, this sucks. I need more phone calls than that. So do it times 10, please.
Steven Jack Butala: The best of both worlds is find about 10 places, 10 zip codes, or 20 zip codes to send a commercial real estate mailer, spend some time pricing it, and whoever's going to answer your phone, well, in your case it's probably going to be you because I know you'...
How to Unsubscribe in a Conversation (LA 1803) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steven and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWitt broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Jack Butala: Again.
Jill K DeWit: We're back here right now, haha.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about how to unsubscribe in a conversation, usually with the buyer or a seller.
Jill K DeWit: Right? Or maybe your partner.
Steven Jack Butala: This is-
Jill K DeWit: Maybe who you're sitting next to.
Steven Jack Butala: This is a concept that we came up with when we were having a lot of fun with some friends from out of town. It's interesting.
Jill K DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free. And I hope you know by now, Jill and I personally instruct a handful of new and existing Land Academy members in a live class called Career Path. If buying and selling land is your career or you want it to be, check out support landacademy.com and see if this level of involvement of this craziness that we do is for you.
Jill K DeWit: It's craziness. It's craziness that pays the bills, and puts us in Southern California right now.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, that's true.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. First let's take a question. Did we do that? Oh, we did. Sorry. Parker wrote, "I started pulling data for Texas to begin mailing that state. And I'm getting quite a few parcels that have homes on him. Kickass, sorry. Below this is shown by the circle, which is a separate APN from the land." All right. So we have an image here. "Anyone familiar with Texas and knows how to scrub this data out? Or is this something you just accept as part of the Texas parcel scheme, and who cares, mail it all?" I'm going with mail it all.
Steven Jack Butala: No way.
Jill K DeWit: Oh. Haha.
Steven Jack Butala: No. I mean, so between the two of us-
Jill K DeWit: Accidentally.
Steven Jack Butala: Guess who doesn't do the mailers?
Jill K DeWit: I know. I do just answer the phone when it rings. Go ahead.
Steven Jack Butala: This is not Texas-specific. In fact, every single mailer that you do long before you pull the data, you need to look at the preview and see if it's what you want. Really take a good look at it. By the way, when you're doing this, it doesn't charge you anything. And so when you get that data set all ready to go, that's when you want to hit the export button, because that's when you're going to get charged. So pulling data off of DataTree first of all is a thousand times easier than RealQuest. It's a huge, massive improvement from the way that we used to do it.
Jill K DeWit: Correct.
Steven Jack Butala: And it allows you to preview this and actually see, what's in that data set that you pull and preview. Those are the people that are going to get mail. And so you got to make sure. There's a lot of questions that Jill and I answer all the time where the questions are like this. "All the properties I'm getting back from this mail are wetlands." And my first response, my first mental response, not verbal, is well, you sent them offers that they responded to you. And so if you don't want wetlands buying wetlands, and some people love it for hunting. But if it's not you, then you need to make sure before you download the data that the property's not wet. So there's a big component to previewing the data before you download it. And it might very well be that the county or the zip code or whatever data set you thought that passed the red, green, yellow test, and you're all happy with yourself. It might be that that data, it just didn't come out the way you wanted it in the preview so you move on, move to a different zip code.
Jill K DeWit: So what you're saying is what you're not saying.
Jill Friday - What I Wish Everyone Knew About Getting Deals Done (LA 1797) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today is Jill Friday and she's going to talk about what she wishes everyone knew about getting deals done.
Jill K DeWit: Yes. I have a couple things that I can really take a step back and go, "Man, why is the planet not doing this? Why is everyone in Land Academy? Why is everyone in this? What is everybody ... Why are you not doing this?" I don't care what you're doing. You want to get deals done? There's some universal things that I wish everybody understood.
Steven Jack Butala: First, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free. Back in the day it was nearly impossible to find these rural properties without a postal address. All we had to go on was the state it was in, the county it was in, and the assessor's parcel number. Well, Jill and I developed a tool since then called NeighborScoop, where we make it real easy to input those three things and immediately find all we need to know about making a first tier purchase decision or a nix decision on buying a property. Check out neighborscoop.com.
Jill K DeWit: Evan W. wrote, "I'm excited to share that I officially joined the quitters club." Yay. "After nearly 10 years in sales for Corporate America, I grew sick and tired of the politics and realize how little control I had over my future. Joining Land Academy is by far the best decision I have made professionally."
Steven Jack Butala: Wow.
Jill K DeWit: "This community has been priceless." This is so nice. "I have learned so much from the discussions and have been inspired by the success that so many of us are experiencing. Thank you @stevenjackbutala and @jilldewit, for your open-handed approach. My family is entering such a wonderful season because of you and this gift you have given us."
Steven Jack Butala: That's so nice.
Jill K DeWit: "I'm also incredibly grateful for the investors in this group that I have partnered with. You have trusted me to be the frontline of your business and allowed me to do what I do best, connect with sellers, negotiate what appropriate, and ultimately get deals done." "More than anything, I'm so thankful for my wife's help and support in making this transition. I would not have made this jump without her belief in me and the steadiness she brings to my life." This is amazing.
Steven Jack Butala: This is a Academy Award speech.
Jill K DeWit: It is. "I hope this post encourages everyone who is looking to leave their W-2. The two biggest catalysts for me were getting consistent in sending out the mail and leveraging my skillset and partnerships with other investors. I look forward to learning so much more from this group and contributing when I can. Cheers to all our success." Aww.
Steven Jack Butala: Congratulations. That's fantastic. Boy.
Jill K DeWit: Evan, that's great.
Steven Jack Butala: This is why we're here.
Jill K DeWit: Totally.
Steven Jack Butala: I never get tired of hearing that. Thank you.
Jill K DeWit: That's awesome, thanks.
Steven Jack Butala: And congratulations, that's amazing.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. Yay.
Steven Jack Butala: God, I remember when I quit my job.
Jill K DeWit: Remember when we quit? Yeah, exactly. You know what's funny, I don't remember my first deal at all. I know you do and I know a lot of you do, and I don't know why. I just, I don't remember my first deal, but I do remember quitting. I know what that felt like. Today is Jill Friday. What I wish everyone knew about getting deals done. This is the meat of the show.
Steven Jack Butala: Hey, Jill.
Jill K DeWit: Thank you. So here's the deal. I'm going to try to make this easy.
Jack Thursday - My Concept of Revenue Justification (LA 1796) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jack Thursday. And I'm going to talk about my concept of revenue justification.
Jill K DeWit: Huh?
Steven Jack Butala: Exactly.
Jill K DeWit: I have my own concept of revenue justification.
Steven Jack Butala: If you make a billion dollars top line revenue and your profit margin's 3%, would you rather have a billion dollar company that makes 3% or a $10 million company that throws off 40%? That's what this show about.
Jill K DeWit: I know what I'd like.
Steven Jack Butala: And there's different... Me too.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: And there's different reasons why one might be better for you. And one might be better for us.
Jill K DeWit: Sounds like an airline versus us.
Steven Jack Butala: You said it.
Jill K DeWit: Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala: There's a huge pros and cons of both, but really this, you know what the show's about? Running your personal life with revenue justification.
Jill K DeWit: Okay.
Steven Jack Butala: Some people don't grasp it. Some people that I'm sitting with don't really fully understand in their personal life revenue justification.
Jill K DeWit: Oh, I understand it. Maybe I abuse it in my personal life.
Steven Jack Butala: Yes.
Jill K DeWit: That's the real topic. Jill gets it. She just doesn't do it. You know?
Steven Jack Butala: It's pound wise and penny foolish. That's what revenue justification is. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our land investors on our online community at landinvestors.com. It's free. Please don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel. Comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Evan B wrote, "Okay. I've sent out 10,000 units. And I think my mailer's a dud." This is hilarious. So Erin wrote back already. "Hey, at Evan B, I'll tell you that I also sent out 5,000 units all at once. And I thought I would at least have $200,000 in my bank of mine now. The first two weeks are just people wasting their time saying don't mail me. I got my first deal under contract in like six weeks after the mailer. Then like two weeks after that, I got assigned off in the mail and now and then I still get a call." So from all the interviews I've watched so far, many listen in the car or the gym ,before bed, etcetera. Seems like there comes a point of terminal velocity from sending out five to 10,000 offers per month for six months or more. At that point, you'll have something like 50, 60, maybe soon to be a 100,000 offers out there, out on the street, as I say, and that at some point, all the random calls that come eight weeks after your mail drops start to come in waves. And they're big enough and frequent enough that you can really get great deals instead of trying to make a lot of okay-ish deals work. This is so sweet. So Evan B wrote back. "Yeah, I understand. I think I'm goofing up somewhere. This is my fourth mailer and I've struck out each time." So Erin said, this is a whole conversation. "Well, start doing a diagnostic check of everything then. Number one, did you make sure that your properties passed the red, yellow, green test."
Steven Jack Butala: Ding, ding.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: That's what Jill said earlier this week.
Jill K DeWit: Exactly. Number two, did you offer two over percentage based on the hotness of the market? Three, are your phone number and email on your mailer correct? That has happened too, by the way. And then I'm going to add number four. Are you flipping answering the phone and building a relationship with these people in 30 seconds, finding out whether or not they want to sell and what their number is?
Working Full Time, Parenting Small Kids AND Killing It with Land Academy Member Nathan Cheung (LA 1795) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Steven and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today we have Nathan Cheung, current Career Path member. I've got a ton of questions for him. First and foremost, how are you finding Career Path, and what led you to the point of making the decision to join us?
Nathan Cheung: Yeah, well, first I just want to say thanks for having me on. I've been listening to the podcast for a long time, probably since 2019. When I first listened to it, I probably started with episode 100, or something, and just rolled all the way back. I had a really long commute.
Jill K DeWit: Wow.
Nathan Cheung: So, a little surreal to be talking live, but just-
Jill K DeWit: Outside of Career Path.
Nathan Cheung: Yep. Yep. That's right, outside of Career Path. I think I'm the fourth cohort of Career Path. I was really interested in joining one, two and three, but I actually work full time. I've got two young kids, so I think before, it was on Wednesdays or Thursdays, so that was... It was going to be hard to explain to my boss what I was doing.
Jill K DeWit: Why are you taking these four hour lunch breaks every Wednesday? I don't know.
Nathan Cheung: Yeah. But as soon as you guys offered it for Saturday, I just jumped all over it. I asked my wife, almost sheepishly, "Hey, there's... Land Academy is doing Career Path on Saturday." To my surprise, she didn't even flinch. She just said, "Do it. Go for it." She watches the kids while I do it. I hide out. They don't even know I'm around. It's been awesome. Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: Good.
Steven Jack Butala: What do you do in real life? What's your [inaudible 00:06:23] job?
Nathan Cheung: Yeah, so my background, I'm actually a pharmacist.
Jill K DeWit: Okay.
Nathan Cheung: So no real background in real estate or entrepreneurship, but caught the bug a few years ago. Long story short, I'm here now. I'm still working full time, but kind of... I'm really doing both.
Steven Jack Butala: We interviewed Dan Smart, who was... He's a pharmacist with his wife. I don't know if it aired yet. If it didn't, it's going to air next week.
Jill K DeWit: Brainy people travel in our group. That's the whole underlying theme here. I'm going to say, it's definitely because of you. It's not because of me. I don't think I draw in the brainy people. So, that's funny.
Steven Jack Butala: We have a really good friend, he's from Iowa. He's retired and he is got... He created from the ground up, this very successful contracting business that specializes in grain elevators for farming. He told this joke recently to us, and we were all on the floor about checking out a pharmacist with a couple of packages of bacon and his cholesterol medicine, over here. I'm sure you've seen it all.
Nathan Cheung: Yep.
Jill K DeWit: That's good. Okay, so 2019 you found us. Do you remember when you joined Land Academy?
Nathan Cheung: Yeah, middle of 2019.
Jill K DeWit: Okay.
Nathan Cheung: I didn't really know what I was doing yet, still kind of getting my first couple deals under my belt. Actually went to the live event, the last one in Hermosa Beach, so that was, that was huge for me, just kind of hearing what the other members did. I remember specifically, I want to say Matt Rogers, kind of hearing him speak, hearing some of the other advanced members talking, just thinking, "Wow, this is possible." It seemed really far away from me at the time, but realizing that it was possible, I think that kind of helped catapult me a little bit. It's like each step of another mental barrier to level up, and to level up, and to level up.
Steven Jack Butala: Someone told me a really long time ago that if you're a real entrepreneur,
3 Topics from the Advanced Member Discord Channel (LA 1794) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here. Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of this sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about three topics from the Advanced Member Discord channel.
Jill K DeWit: Okay, let's back up.
Steven Jack Butala: How do you get to be an advanced member?
Jill K DeWit: What the heck are we talking about? All right, so within Land Academy, we have an elite group of people who are doing deals like us. Volume wise, dollar amount wise, we're kind of all doing similar things, or they're pretty darn close and they're trying to get to our level. So we, a long time ago, handpicked people. We could tell... We would go back and look at who's sending the mail out, and who's sending the volume of mail, basically through our company. We could tell, and know two of them, and we would hand pick people and ask them. Since then, now everyone comes from Career Path. We do have some grandfathered in people that were handpicked, and even those people though have already gone through Career Path, anyway. They're like, "I need Career Path, to make it even better." So, that's where they come from. Then we have our own monthly meeting, we have our own Discord channel, because we're talking about some really high level stuff, and we're going to share a little bit of that today.
Steven Jack Butala: That's right. Career Path graduates are the advanced members. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of the members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. I hope you know by now, Jill and I started and successfully operate a full blown commercial printing company to get your offers in the mail. It's called offers2owners.com. We set it up several years ago out of our own frustration with a regular commercial printing industry. Fast forward to today. We do between 700,000 and a million offers a month on behalf of our members and non-members. I should add, if you're sending out more than about 5000 letters a month, it's more efficient cost wise for you to be become Land Academy member.
Jill K DeWit: Yep.
Steven Jack Butala: Contact support@landacademy.com or if you're trying to get a mailer done, support@offers2owners.com.
Jill K DeWit: Thank you. So Dan S wrote: "Okay, here's my summer intern update. So the computer science kid decided to work minimum wage at a sports retail shop instead of learning data and pricing." Yeah, that happens. "The mechanical engineer student is about to be onboarded to do data." That's good. "Land is not sexy, so I guess it takes a certain type of person." That's hilarious. I think land is sexy. I'm going to argue land's sexy, but I understand.
Steven Jack Butala: I don't think land's sexy, but it's awesome.
Jill K DeWit: Okay, you're right.
Steven Jack Butala: ... and profitable.
Jill K DeWit: Well, you know what? Land's pretty to stand on. Your bank balance is sexy.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: There we go.
Steven Jack Butala: Well said. What's a sexy business, anyway? I'm not sure you want to be in that.
Jill K DeWit: What is a sexy business? I guess fashion?
Steven Jack Butala: Yacht brokerage?
Jill K DeWit: That's sexy.
Steven Jack Butala: I don't know if it's profitable.
Jill K DeWit: That'd be a lot of work though.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: I don't want to do that.
Steven Jack Butala: You got to deal with personalities that are... They think they're better than everyone. I just think... I don't know. I think sexy and money making are separate. You make a lot of money, and then do sexy stuff.
Jill K DeWit: Do you know where it gets confusing? It's those shows on TV where they're all hot blondes. There's 20 hot blondes, supermodels that work in a real estate office in L.A. I'm not kidding.
5 Ways Land Academy Members are Over Pricing Mailers (LA 1793) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steven and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy show entertaining land, investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill K DeWit broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala: I wonder how many people fast forward all through that right there.
Jill K DeWit: I know.
Steven Jack Butala: I would.
Jill K DeWit: I don't know. You notice my hat? I'm like already in vacation mode.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I are talking about five ways, Land Academy members are overpricing mailers.
Jill K DeWit: So here's [inaudible 00:00:27].
Steven Jack Butala: Last week was our vacation by the way.
Jill K DeWit: Oh, we're back. Well, no, [inaudible 00:00:32] I'm still traveling.
Steven Jack Butala: We're still in Santa Barbara, we're in Santa Barbara now.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. I don't know what [inaudible 00:00:40] don't ask me. [inaudible 00:00:41]
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Jill just the talent. She's like, [inaudible 00:00:44].
Jill K DeWit: Thanks.
Steven Jack Butala: She's one of those people that [inaudible 00:00:46].
Jill K DeWit: I wish I could [inaudible 00:00:47].
Steven Jack Butala: [inaudible 00:00:47] Has her name in the back of the chair.
Jill K DeWit: That would be nice to just sit down and they do my hair and my makeup. Clearly I do my own hair and my own makeup. I don't get that perk.
Steven Jack Butala: Before, we get into it. Let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. And I should say, please listen to this. We are phasing out Real Quest for our community, the Land Academy community. I have a little, I get misty every time I talk about this, because Real Quest is honestly the reason that I started this whole entire company and it's just become obsolete in the contract that they're asking us to sign in this next renewal period is an absolute outrage and [inaudible 00:01:26]
Jill K DeWit: Not even the money. It's the [inaudible 00:01:28]
Steven Jack Butala: The real reason is that DataTree's so much better.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: Everybody loves DataTree, me included. I haven't logged onto Real Quest in over a year and a half. I just looked.
Jill K DeWit: Isn't that funny, me too. I don't even go there.
Steven Jack Butala: Jill and I personally instruct a handful of Land Academy members or non-members in a live class called Career Path. If you want this to be your career or it is your career, please take a look at Career Path and let us know, support@landacademy.com
Jill K DeWit: Hold please. Leonard wrote answering Evan B's question. Interesting. I guess we're going to figure this out as I go through it.
Steven Jack Butala: Yes we are.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. "It's hard to assess why particular campaign worked or not. There's a certain degree of chance. You obviously improve your odds with more mail and also diversifying areas. We don't know where you are mailing or your pricing. Hotter markets tend to have a lower response in my experience."
Steven Jack Butala: Exactly.
Jill K DeWit: "But you can make a big margin, if you get something."
Steven Jack Butala: If you hit one there.
Jill K DeWit: "Maybe you need to consider more rural areas, which you might get a deal easier, albeit this might make the sales potentially slower. I've had differences in mailers and I've just replicated the exact same pricing in comparable areas. And then it didn't work. So when I started almost three years ago, we sent out three mailers, 4,000 units. And before we got three lots from our last 200 unit mailer. What I would do is look up like 50 of your offers and do a, would you do this deal analysis, this ties into today. And then maybe even book a call with Kevin before you send your next mailer. Keep in mind the mailers only part of it.
How to Stay Motivated by Jill (ReAir LA 934) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I’m Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny southern California.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about how to stay motivated, by Jill.
Jill DeWit: You know what’s funny about this today? I’m not feeling very motivated.
Steven Butala: What?
Jill DeWit: We’ve been traveling. It’s been busy.
Steven Butala: I have never seen you not motivated.
Jill DeWit: Oh, thank you.
Steven Butala: I’ve never seen you not with a ball of energy unless you’re like dead asleep.
Jill DeWit: Well, you know why? Here’s the truth. I am internally, right now, a little bit … I’ve had a lot going on. I’ve been traveling. I’ve been a little sick, I will share, so I’m not my best. But you know what? I rally. I guess that’s what today’s about. I’m going to help other people. I get it. I know it and there’s lots of days I feel like poop, but I’m here anyway.
Steven Butala: Man, you hide it well.
Jill DeWit: Thank you. Well, and I can help you. Hey, wait. Before we get into it too, by the way, I want to say one quick thing since I’m just apparently taking over the show and it’s kind of about me today anyway …
Steven Butala: Staying motivated is not what I’m going to talk about today. It’s perfect.
Jill DeWit: Uh oh. You’re going to talk about ways that you try to mess with me?
Steven Butala: I’m going to talk about taking on a partner who’s really motivated if that’s not what you are.
Jill DeWit: Oh. I got it.
Steven Butala: Then I don’t have to stay motivated.
Jill DeWit: Got it.
Steven Butala: I can stay in a dark hole and do data stuff.
Jill DeWit: Yes you can. But here’s what I want to share real quick because this is super, super, super important for everyone listening. From now until Friday, you can save 10% on your entire order through Offers To Owners.
Steven Butala: Oh.
Jill DeWit: Right?
Steven Butala: That’s brilliant.
Jill DeWit: I’m reading this verbatim from my team and they are awesome. If you’ve been waiting to send mail, this is your chance. If you know us, by the way, you know what we’re all about. Sending out mail, getting offers in the mail to get there first and get these properties cheap. If you’ve already sent mail, this is still your chance. The coupon code is available to everyone, so it’s not just new people. It’s members as well. Visit OffersToOwners.Com and use the code MarchMail, so altogether, MarchMail, at checkout. More details are on the site. Thank you for that public service announcement.
Steven Butala: What made you guys decide to give everybody a break? I know it too well because I look at the numbers, you know? They go up every month.
Jill DeWit: You know, honestly …
Steven Butala: This whole company’s a nonprofit entity, you know what? I have to express some concern once in awhile.
Jill DeWit: That’s true. 10% off of what? I know. Well, I have to be honest with you, Steven, our team right now is taking over some departments by design. They just actually now just hand me things and say, “Read this. This is what we’re doing right now.” I think it’s the greatest thing ever.
Leave Your Land Alone (ReAir LA 785) Transcript:
Steven Butala: ... Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Steven Butala: Sorry, hi, Steve & Jill. Welcome to the Land Academy show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny southern California.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about leaving your land alone. We've been talking about her all week.
Jill DeWit: There's a lot of things I'd like to ... just leave it alone. I feel like I say it a lot.
Steven Butala: Yeah, why do we as people have to mess with stuff, you know?
Jill DeWit: That's true, and get our hands all up in everything. Leave it alone.
Steven Butala: I bet that's been going on since the beginning of time.
Jill DeWit: I'm sure it has.
Steven Butala: I more than anybody love the concept of messing with stuff to improve it, or constantly moving forward, or you know-
Jill DeWit: It's true.
Steven Butala: For me it's all data driving. Finding better ways to analyze data to make decisions and stuff.
Jill DeWit: That's true.
Steven Butala: But actually physically changing a property, like a contractor does or a developer does, and I understand all that, too. The world needs people like that, for sure.
Jill DeWit: There's a ton-
Steven Butala: I'm just not one of those people and I think if you're gonna maximize money, you know, for us at this level, there's no better way for us to maximize money than what we do.
Jill DeWit: I agree.
Steven Butala: You know-
Jill DeWit: I was gonna say, the whole point to me about leaving it alone is you already won, so why mess with it? You bought it at the right price, that's when you know. You should buy these assets knowing that if I do nothing, it's just gonna be fine.
Steven Butala: We're all in the business of creating equity, right? You know what, before we get into it, lets take a question from one of the members in the Land Ambassadors online community, it's free.
Jill DeWit: Brandon asks, "In our last mailer campaign, I suppose some properties zoned for multi-family were included and someone just signed an offer and sent it back-"
Steven Butala: Good.
Jill DeWit: "... to buy their multi-family zoned vacant land in a city for 8 grand."
Steven Butala: That's what we're in the business here for.
Jill DeWit: What?
Steven Butala: I love how this is going.
Jill DeWit: "The property across the street, also vacant, is asking $50,000. The market in this area is fairly hot and we've sold property in this subdivision before, but not multi-family.”
Steven Butala: This is good stuff.
Jill DeWit: "However, the town is currently embroiled in a lawsuit against the city or department of water resources over the prohibition of drilling new wells. I'm quite certain, though, based on city planning maps, that this property has access to public water lines. I've called the water company several times in the past, but they're never helpful with vacant land.” No kidding.
Jill DeWit: “They won't tell me if they service a particular area. Only if they service an address that already has a house on it. So my question is, is this a run to the bank situation?”
Steven Butala: Yes.
Jill DeWit: "Or are there troubles buying mul...
Member Andy Barnhart Shares Land Academy Success Stories (ReAir LA 996) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny southern California.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk with member Andy Barnhart, who shares his Land Academy success stories. But, before we get into it I have a simple question. Andy, you're sitting right there in that seat. How did you get there? Tell us your story and tell us how you chose Land Academy, and if it's working for you.
Andy Barnhart: Yeah, hello. I'll go way back to when I was a child and my dad was a farmer, a dairy farmer. He would try to grow his operation and buy more land, so he would show me plat maps when I was... So, I was looking at plat maps when I was eight years old. He's like, "Oh, we own this 80 acres, and I'm going to buy this 80, and I'd love to have-" he always wanted a section of land. That was his goal. I knew what a section was, and a quarter and a half section at a young age. After college, I got a job-
Steven Butala: I have to explain to everybody what a section is. A section is a square mile, and it's 640 acres. A half section is 320, and a quarter section is half of that.
Jill DeWit: 160.
Steven Butala: 160, and on, and on, and on.
Andy Barnhart: Yep.
Steven Butala: Anyway, go ahead. So, you're in college.
Andy Barnhart: So yeah, I got through college and I got my first job as an Auditor with the US Department of Agriculture with the Dairy Division. I went right in on my first day, and I had learned Excel and everything in college, and thought I was a whiz kid. Then I get into the government organization that I was hired with, and literally some older guys didn't even have a computer on their desk. They refused to work with a computer. All the programs were written in Lotus 123. So, it was like stepping back in time 30 years.
Andy Barnhart: I was there 10 years, and we converted everything to Excel and all the reports and everything. So, I was very comfortable with... I had the agriculture background, I have Excel background, I have an auditing background. Then yeah, I bought the realtor courses and took all of the courses to become a realtor. I thought that's something I'm interested in, and then got to the end. I did all of the education and got to the end, and I think at that time is when I found your podcast. You guys were, as you are today, dealing with realtors and [inaudible 00:03:22].
Andy Barnhart: You guys have never shied away from talking trash on realtors, so it made me think, "Well, do I really want to be a realtor?" So, I never went to take the test, and then that's when I bought the programs in 2016. Yeah, that's how I got here. I'm in my third year, and yeah still-
Steven Butala: Is it working? Have you done a bunch of deals? I guess, you're on the show so hopefully some of it's working.
Andy Barnhart: Yeah, yeah I didn't start out of the gate with a bang. I was skeptical, and I took it really slow. I wrote down my numbers. The first year, 2017, I did 19 deals, and I still had some other jobs going on, some part-time things. The revenue that year was $62,000.00-
Steven Butala: Awesome.
Andy Barnhart: And then so last year- and I was still doing this all on my own. I did last year 184 deals completed, and then the revenue was $343,000.00. Yeah, I was like, "Yeah, this is-"
Jill DeWit: I'm in.
Andy Barnhart: I'm in. I'm not a skeptic anymore.
Best Time to Start In Real Estate Investing (ReAir CFFL 445) Transcript:
If you enjoyed the podcast, please review it in Apple Podcasts . Reviews are incredibly important for rankings on Apple Podcasts. My staff and I read each and every one.
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email me directly at steven@BuWit.com.
The BuWit Family of Companies include:
https://BuWit.com
https://offers2owners.com
https://landinvestors.com
https://landacademy.com
https://landpin.com
https://parcelfact.com
https://countywise.com
https://deedperfect.com
https://ownersdata.com
https://houseacademy.com
I would like to think it’s entertaining and informative and in the end profitable.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Removing Risk from Your REI Career (ReAir CFFL 0207) Transcript:
Jack Butala: Jack Butala for Land Academy. Welcome to our Cash Flow From Land show. In this episode, Jill and I talk about removing risk from your REI career. Great show today, Jill. Before we start, let's hear some funny stuff.
Jill DeWit: It's interesting that I am still surprised by the things that come out of your blog sometimes, Jack. What were you checking for titles today?
Jack Butala: What?
Jill DeWit: I'm not sure those will pass the ...
Jack Butala: My gosh.
Jill DeWit: Who's in charge of when you write a blog and you title ... Is there an FCC? Who's in charge of that kind of thing? I happen to,
Jack Butala: You mean the boredom-
Jill DeWit: ... catch you.
Jack Butala: The boredom factor?
Jill DeWit: No, no, no, no. I caught the ... I was lucky enough to sit in on your marketing meeting today. You guys are running through some title checker thing which I thought was really cool. I was just a little surprised by how far south you two took it looking for titles is what I'm trying to say.
Jack Butala: What did you hear?
Jill DeWit: I heard things like strippers. I heard things like how horrible it is to be Italian.
Jack Butala: It's not horrible to be Italian. It's great to be Italian.
Jill DeWit: No, wait. Not horrible, but what was the word? Shucks, I forgot what the terminology was.
Jack Butala: Italian people, at times, communicate through yelling. I'm softening it for the show.
Jill DeWit: You were working on something like a blog title and print titles. That's what I caught. I was just like ... I can't believe I'm still surprised by what you guys come up with.
Jack Butala: I'm having trouble being Italian. That was one of them.
Jill DeWit: There you go. It was really funny. All good.
Jack Butala: Yeah, that is some funny stuff that we heard today.
Jill DeWit: Yes.
Jack Butala: Boy, if I knew that was the topic, I would have some [insane 00:01:40] one-liners. Anyway, let's take a question-
Jill DeWit: That's why you don't know what's coming until I get to say that.
Jack Butala: Let's take a question posted by one of our members on successplant.com, our free online community.
Jill DeWit: Okay. Kyle says, "I'm just getting started in pulling my first list from Agent Pro. For property type, do I select agricultural/rural or residential vacant land?" Do you want to back up?
Jack Butala: Can you take a crack at answering that?
Jill DeWit: Well, I would like to back up and ask, if you would, Jack, explain what he's trying to do here for people that might be just joining in.
Jack Butala: Yeah. There's lots of places to go get data. Most of them are ... Well, some of them are very credible. What you want to make sure about any data that you pull is a couple of things. One that it's fresh because properties get bought and sold all the time. If you have a database or a list ... If you're not accessing a database, chances are you have a list. A list can be old. It could be 20 years old, two years old, one year old. We don't know. It could be from yesterday. You want fresh data. The best way to do that is to access the database.
Jack Butala: Number two, you want that database for all product types, not just land,
Jill Friday - 8 Hours a Day on the Phone (LA 1792) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today is Jill Friday, and she's going to talk about eight hours a day on the phone.
Jill K DeWit: You know what? For some people that is horror, right? Some people are like, "Oh, please don't make me do that. I'll do anything. I'll flip burgers."
Steven Jack Butala: That's me.
Jill K DeWit: "Don't make me be on the phone." And you know what? For other people, eight hours isn't enough, I'd spend 10.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.
Jill K DeWit: Herbert wrote... is it Herber or Herbert?
Steven Jack Butala: Probably Herber.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. We're going to go with Herbert. Herbert wrote-
Steven Jack Butala: Whoever did the script makes a lot of mistakes, don't they?
Jill K DeWit: Yeah, I tell you. There's lots of little holes here. Thank goodness we're professional, we can piece this together.
Steven Jack Butala: You know what I was thinking in the podcast, you know movie credits?
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: It's like, key grip director, all of that, so if I ever do credits, this is what it's going to say, "Written by Stephen Jack Butala. Produced by Stephen Jack Butala. Starring Stephen Jack Butala, and sort of Jill Dewit.
Jill K DeWit: Oh, thanks.
Steven Jack Butala: Produced by... And on and on and on, it's just me. All of it. Post-production, Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: Mistakes by Steven Jack Butala.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, mistakes by... Imperfections and terribleness, Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: Steven Jack Butala. Here we go, okay, Herbert wrote, "Hey, have any of you guys helped a seller pay for their probate costs if they couldn't afford it to get the deal done, assuming the numbers make sense? If so, how'd you go about it?" I'd be open to this.
Steven Jack Butala: This is a great idea.
Jill K DeWit: I would totally be open to this. I'm trying to think...
Steven Jack Butala: Before Jill launches why with the story, here's why. Because the next person, if you say no, they're not going to go do a probate themselves.
Jill K DeWit: No.
Steven Jack Butala: The next person that buys it, or next person that says, "Hey, I want to buy your property." They're going to have to go through it anyway. Somebody's got to do it, or the asset's going to go back to the taxing authority.
Jill K DeWit: No one will get it. Then nobody's happy, and now we're back to negative attention.
Steven Jack Butala: You like that, don't you?
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. I'm going to use this all day now.
Steven Jack Butala: You're right. We didn't talk about it. Children are packed full of negative attention.
Jill K DeWit: Oh God! Yes.
Steven Jack Butala: They don't get what they want, they'll do anything, they'll take a bowl of spaghetti and throw it at the door.
Jill K DeWit: You know what's funny about that? Back to the negative attention show, we didn't even cover this part. How many people come to you? We had a person reach out to you personally in discord, not that they wanted, then come to my team, still not get there, then they get to me and I'm like, "This is stupid, you're pitting mom and dad against each other. Don't do that." By the way, don't be that negative attention guy. Thank you. Now I'm done.
Steven Jack Butala: Vast majority of the people in Land Academy who come to us already being successful at something else in their life, whether it's a business, and they sold it, or they're a successful mechanical engineer for aerospace company or whatever, we just never hear from them, and then they join career path and it's like, "Oh yeah,
Jack Thursday - Negative Attention (LA 1791) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jack Thursday, and I'm going to talk about negative attention.
Jill K DeWit: She won't be-
Steven Jack Butala: Just, right before the show, she's like, "What is this?"
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. I'm like, "Are you going to call somebody out?" And he's, "Kind of." I'm like, "Well, hold on a moment." He's, "No, I won't make it too obvious."
Steven Jack Butala: I'll disguise it.
Jill K DeWit: And I said, like yeah, what did I say? "Disguise it in the form of an insult."
Steven Jack Butala: That's no disguise at all though.
Jill K DeWit: Nope.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy.com online community. It's free. And please don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel. Comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Aaron wrote, "What does surveyed with boundary and building envelope mean?".
Steven Jack Butala: This is an excellent, excellent question. This is what I would call a master's degree, maybe even a PhD level question, and I think it's great. When you get a survey for a property or regular survey without the boundary or the envelope, what they're doing, what the surveyor is doing, is looking at the bond, the perimeter of the property. And so, we've all driven by people with survey equipment and there's, and then they put stakes in...
Jill K DeWit: The tripod.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, exactly. There's usually two people involved. One person's finding for it, and finding for it. And so, there's, and there's a lot of education, formal education that goes involved. The surveys have to go through formal education.
Jill K DeWit: The school, right? Yeah. They have to...
Steven Jack Butala: And a whole apprenticeship, and the whole thing.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. That's cool.
Steven Jack Butala: And so, vast majority of surveys are just boundary surveys, are perimeter surveys, where here's the corner, here's the corner, here's the corner, here's the corner.
Jill K DeWit: This is you.
Steven Jack Butala: And your neighbors.
Jill K DeWit: In here.
Steven Jack Butala: And a lot. We all talk about lot lines, because we all have neighbors, and it's like 'that guy's on my lot.' So a perimeter survey, our regular boundary survey, will tell, will show that's either the case or not the case. We've just been through several surveys because we do minor splits. This is a special kind of awesome survey, and if you Google it, I would encourage you to Google it. What you'll see is that regular perimeter boundary survey, and then inside of it, you'll see another shape with boundaries in it. And that is because the survey went and did the research at the county to find out what setbacks are, and what the, where you can put a structure. And it's very, very, very helpful. It's way beyond just the perimeter, because then it shows you, 'yeah, I can put a house or a building in this area', and this is, then the wheels start to turn about use and everything else, so. It doesn't cost that much more, and I would usually, if you're going to have to do surveys, or you're in the habit of doing surveys, I would ask for this in the future.
Jill K DeWit: Hope you're not in the habit of doing surveys.
Steven Jack Butala: Jill doesn't like surveys.
Jill K DeWit: Hate them. Only if I have to.
Steven Jack Butala: They're time-consuming and costly.
Jill K DeWit: Cost.
Steven Jack Butala: But.
Jill K DeWit: And usually not necessary.
Steven Jack Butala: When you minor split property, it's a, it's essential.
Jill K DeWit: I understand. That makes sense.
Steven Jack Butala: This isn't,
Land Academy Member Casey Jewett Interview (LA 1790) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here. Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today we have member, Casey Jewett, who just informed us he's been a member for a year. But for some reason, I thought you were a member for a really long time. It doesn't matter.
Jill K DeWit: That's good.
Casey: Time flies.
Jill K DeWit: You are involved and that's what's important. So thank you.
Steven Jack Butala: And you said yes, that's what's important. You said yes to my assistant, Gabriel and thank you for being on the show.
Jill K DeWit: Exactly.
Casey: Of course, of course. It's hard to say no to you guys.
Jill K DeWit: Aw, thank you very much.
Steven Jack Butala: So how's Land Academy working out for you?
Casey: It's well. Initially it's like drinking from a fire hose. There's just a lot of information, a lot of moving parts, you have to take it all in stride and take small steps as you move forward because there's going to be a lot that hits you, and a lot that continues, things that you maybe thought you knew that you don't know.
Jill K DeWit: Right.
Steven Jack Butala: That's how I would describe the Land Academy for myself.
Jill K DeWit: Exactly. What did you do before this? There's a certain mindset we pick up on people that get it and then some that don't get it. So what's your background?
Casey: In college, my internship was actually as a real estate agent. So I got into real estate in 2005 initially in that regard. It just so happened that where I went to school they had a new internship and it was at one of the real estate agencies. I was like, "Cool, I can do that." My grandfather was an agent many, many years ago. I was like, "I'll give it a shot. See what's going on here," and so I became a realtor. They paid for my classes to take, get my license and kind of moved through that. I've been in real estate a long time. I've never done land, it's just not something that I had ever thought of. I have bought and sold hotels, residential real estate, mobile homes, mobile home parks, all kinds of things. I've been in the real estate realm for quite a while. 2008 happened, market went down, I actually decided I was going to become a fireman. So funny I said drinking from a fire hose, funny enough.
Jill K DeWit: Love it.
Casey: I spent five years as a fireman, but I also was still doing real estate on the side, just not as much as I was. Fast forward... I don't know, that was 2008... fast forward 10 years, I started getting more heavily involved in real estate, became a licensed agent again working as a realtor on the daily. Saw a book, started reading the book, got interested in land, took a little while to kind of do something. I was just finagling around on YouTube one night, found you all. I don't even remember if it was a podcast or what, but it was on YouTube, started watching some videos. And it wasn't not even a month, it was probably a couple of weeks that Career Path came out. I was like, "I'm doing this. I don't know what all it involves but I'm going to do it." That was, like I said, just over a year ago that've I've been calling it doing it full time. My wife allowed me to-
Steven Jack Butala: Did you start as a commercial real estate agent. Did you seek that out?
Casey: I didn't seek it out, no, just kind of started doing. In all reality I-
Steven Jack Butala: What was the first deal you did? Did you sell a house first or was it commercial?
Casey: Yeah, mainly I sold homes. And very similar to land, everything that I've done I've actually purchased and sold. For all of my investing stuff, I bought and then sold. So like hotel, bought and then sold it. Mobile homes, mobile home park, same thing, as opposed to listing it. Everything I've done as far as a real estate agent has been residen...
Land Investors Discord Noob Channel Gives you Confidence (LA 1789) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steven and Jill here. Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, lovingly looking at my partner, bright and broadcasting from the belly of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's topic is land investors, Discord Newbie channel Gives You Confidence.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. Let's let me, you want me to give the backstory now or give the backstory in a minute?
Steven Jack Butala: Now.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. So like where did you guys come up with this one? Okay. So here's the deal. I was having a conversation with someone in our community and they're, they're saying I'm struggling. I'm like, what's going on? Like, well, I sent out $15,000. I spent $15,000 in data and mail and all that stuff and I haven't done a deal. So I'm thinking about buying one from you guys or some in our community. I'm like, hold on a moment. I'm like, I'm sure there's a deal there. You cannot spend that much money and work that hard at this and not get a deal out of it. And then I uncovered that. Yeah. I'm probably not following up on these people like I should. When they come in, I'm like, well, it's not too late. I told the story of these. It was brothers or cousins a while back,
Steven Jack Butala: Brothers.
Jill K DeWit: Brothers that we had done a consulting call with. This is like two or so years ago, maybe three years ago at the beach. And they were, they were saying, oh, our first mailer a flop. And you and I both said, let's look at it. And we went, we went through their mailer and I said, well, what's wrong with that one? And like, all the people that had called back, they had a list of like 20. So we looked them up and like, what's wrong with that one? And what's wrong with that one? What's wrong with that one? They're like, oh, they kicked all these deals to the curb. So we're like, why don't you call these people back and get this going again and do something. And they did. And it worked and it was great. So I told this story to this woman. I said, you've got some gold right there. I'm sure you do. You just need to reach out to these people and revive this conversation and make it happen. Re-look at these again. And by the way, two things, one good point is now maybe enough time has passed. They're even worth more, which is not bad. So if you can still revive them from close to your original offer, the property's probably worth more, because that's the way things have been going right now. Yay. You won even more and they've had more time too, to stare at this and wish it was sold and all that good stuff. So they're going to love to hear from you, but the backstory comes to, you know what? I think you need to hang out a little bit more with your peers. And if you hang out with your peers in Discord, you're going to soak up some knowledge and probably confidence.
Steven Jack Butala: I have a lot to say before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free. And Jill and I started it operates very successfully. A full blown commercial printing company called Offers 2 Owners, offers the number two owners.com to get your mailers out. Yep. If you can't stand the thought of doing a mailer, we have a product for you. Yep. It's called concierge data. We do your entire mailer. We give it to you. You price it at the end,
Jill K DeWit: Pull the data.
Steven Jack Butala: Oh, we got the whole thing. It's an amazingly popular service. So popular last week we had to shut it down.
Jill K DeWit: Yep. We were backed up.
Steven Jack Butala: Cause we couldn't back. Keep up with the orders. So it's not just a printing company. We actually do the mailers for you.
Jill K DeWit: Right. Check it out.
Steven Jack Butala: We're hiring. We're hiring to keep up with the demand, by the way,
Stories of Great Land Brokers (LA 1788) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today Jill and I talk about stories of great land brokers. Jill and I were talking a couple of days ago about the deals that we're doing, like we always do. And she was telling me these stories about all these-
Jill K DeWit: What a difference.
Steven Jack Butala: ... these great brokers that she's finding.
Jill K DeWit: Well, wait a minute. Because of not great brokers, the great ones stand out. Let's be clear here.
Steven Jack Butala: So we bash real estate agents all the time on this show with the... It's kind of a hobby of mine.
Jill K DeWit: Yes.
Steven Jack Butala: But this show is not about that. This show is about good ones, because there are a lot of good ones out there.
Jill K DeWit: Okay.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the Landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and I hope by now you know Jill and I personally instruct a handful of new and existing Land Academy members in a live class, live on Zoom, called Career Path. It's 10 weeks, and if this is your career, or you want it to be, check it out. Call us, or email us I should say, at support@landacademy.com, and see if it's for you.
Jill K DeWit: Aston wrote, "Hi, I have an interested seller for my first mailer, which is an infill lot. The guy inherited it from his mom, who also left her home and another property to him, his sister and his brother, who is in prison. Does anyone have an experience trying to get signatures from someone in prison?" I've not had that one. "If the numbers make sense, is this something that I should pursue, or a lost cause? Thoughts?" Well I wouldn't drop it yet.
Steven Jack Butala: No, it's not a lost cause at all.
Jill K DeWit: I'm sure there's a way.
Steven Jack Butala: In fact, I'm sure this is a benefit to you.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: People in prison sign stuff all the time.
Jill K DeWit: I'm sure there's a way that you can request the documents. They probably have a notary on staff.
Steven Jack Butala: Absolutely. Plus, people in prisons have lawyers, so-
Jill K DeWit: True.
Steven Jack Butala: I don't have any personal experience with this. This is quite the topic in Discord. Everybody kind of just said the same thing I just said. People sign documents all the time.
Jill K DeWit: Most people, I bet if you're in prison, let's just say it, and you know you might have some legal things that need to get taken care of while you're in prison, you probably have an attorney or somebody already lined up, and you already have a power of attorney to that person, and then they can do all the stuff for you. So it's probably in place. But I have not had to do that yet. Nor do I plan to learn about it from the other side.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's topic, stories of great land brokers. This is the meat of the show.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. So this started because, you walked in my office the other day and I said, "Check out this conversation with Jan and I that's happening inside of Airtable."
Steven Jack Butala: Who's Jan?
Jill K DeWit: Jan is my transaction [crosstalk 00:02:53].
Steven Jack Butala: Oh.
Jill K DeWit: So this is really how we communicate. We don't even communicate as much like via Skype or Teams or chatting like that, or texting. Pretty much all of our communication, and not even email, it's in Airtable. Airtable is... it's like Excel on steroids. It's a great place to keep track of all your transactions. How we move our properties through the system. Everything that we do. Properties come in, it goes into our Airtable base, and it gets assigned to a person. And then there's a task. It might be,
Jill Friday - Reverse Bucket List (LA 1787) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Happy Friday.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jill Friday and she's going to talk about her concept of a reverse bucket list.
Jill K DeWit: Yep.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it though. Oh...
Jill K DeWit: It's okay. No, go.
Steven Jack Butala: Tell us what a reverse bucket list is.
Jill K DeWit: No, we'll just save it. I'll dive right in.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community. It's free. And I got to tell you, back in the day, it was impossible to find real estate on the internet without a mailing address.
Jill K DeWit: It still is impossible.
Steven Jack Butala: It's very difficult now.
Jill K DeWit: But we solved it.
Steven Jack Butala: We developed a tool called NeighborScoop.com, where all you do is you put in... It's custom for how we need to find real estate and the facts that we need to know in less than 15 seconds to decide whether or not we're going to maybe take a crack at buying it. It's called NeighborScoop.com, and all you got to do is type in state, county, and the assessor's parcel number and it pops right up.
Jill K DeWit: Yep. Love it.
Steven Jack Butala: I was materially personally involved in developing that site and I'm pretty proud of it.
Jill K DeWit: I love it. Luke wrote, "Hey, all. I have a few properties that a seller has told me they're willing to sell. Trouble is I'm having a hard time deciding what I think they will retail for. I find the comps to be sporadic."
Steven Jack Butala: Yep.
Jill K DeWit: "$170,000 for a half acre on this side of the road, $50,000 for 15 acres one mile west. You get the picture. Comps are not painting a clear view. What do you suggest I do in this case? I feel bad calling a realtor when I don't even have a signed contract. Even if I did have a signed deal, it would not likely be a solid price. It would need to be renegotiated. How can I get a better sense of what it's worth? And do I try and kill the deal?"
Steven Jack Butala: No. No, you don't try to kill it.
Jill K DeWit: Wait. Hold on one moment. Let me explain the try to kill the deal thing. Trying to kill the deal is trying to get the deal, but at a price that's so great you will buy it and feel great about it because you can't lose, so I understand with that.
Steven Jack Butala: Jill came up with concept. Jill personally came up with this concept quite some time ago. She calls it, trying to kill your own deal.
Jill K DeWit: Yep.
Steven Jack Butala: What she means is you're trying to get it for such a stupidly low price. First of all, you don't like the piece of property that much.
Jill K DeWit: Right. Right.
Steven Jack Butala: And so you sent an offer for 30,000. They said, "I'll take 35." You look up the deal. It's like, you know what? This is probably worth 5,000 bucks.
Jill K DeWit: Right.
Steven Jack Butala: I'm going to try to kill my own deal.
Jill K DeWit: You're going to come in with a number.
Steven Jack Butala: I'm going to go back in.
Jill K DeWit: That's just so crazy low that... All right, everything about it's fine. It's just the price. That's the one thing that's doing it. And then maybe this, but you know what? If I can get it for five or eight, then I know it'll solve all those issues and I cannot lose. That's trying to kill your own deal. You come back and go, "Look, I don't mean to insult you. I know I said 30. You said 35." I looked it up and I'm like, "I hate to tell you this, but because of this, this and this, it's not even worth that. It's not even worth my original 30. Hey, the best I can do is eight. If that works for you, great.
Jack Thursday - The Concept of Respect (LA 1786) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show Entertaining Land, Investment Talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today is Jack Thursday.
Jill K DeWit: And we're going to talk about the concept of respect. I wrote it down, so I thought I'd help there. And this is kind of your thing.
Steven Jack Butala: It is.
Jill K DeWit: So I'm really curious. So when we sit down and do the topics, sometimes I'm involved with them and sometimes I'm not involved in the topics each week because things happen throughout the week. He goes, "that's going to be a show. That's going to be a show". So then I don't even know what's coming.
Steven Jack Butala: We were talking. There was a string on Discord about legal stuff. Get this, you don't probably even know this. Somebody sent a mailer out. I don't want to freak everybody out, but stuff like this happens once in a while. And they sent a mailer out to everybody, let's just say in Tennessee, who owns real estate. And as you know, as we all know, we don't send letters to the actual, the piece of dirt, nobody lives there. There's not a mailbox. There's not even a mailing address in most cases. So we send it to where the tax bills get sent. And somebody happened to live in Iowa, who is very, very, very familiar with the Iowa law. And so they blew a gasket and called the Iowa attorney general. And it was all fine. This happens once in a while, every month-
Jill K DeWit: There's always one.
Steven Jack Butala: Every month. I've talked to a lot of attorney generals over my career because it turns out some people don't really believe in how we value property, which I understand. And so there's a law in Iowa that prevents out-of-state LLCs, out-of-state entities that are not individuals like Jill Dewitt. It prevents them from buying farmland and it's in response to, I'm grossly oversimplifying this because it just, I am. It's in response to federal laws that have been going on for a while. There's huge, huge tax advantages for businesses to offset the regular ordinary gains, taxable gains, by owning farmland and leasing it out and getting tax credits.
Jill K DeWit: In Iowa.
Steven Jack Butala: In Iowa.
Jill K DeWit: Nevermind the property's not in Iowa.
Steven Jack Butala: Yes.
Jill K DeWit: Keep going.
Steven Jack Butala: And so, there's a happy ending to this story. It was all fine, but this person, they freaked out.
Jill K DeWit: He got bullied in schools is what happened.
Steven Jack Butala: Freaked out. The attorney general from California called me one time, woke me up. I'm sitting there shaking. What did I do? This is a lot, lot of years ago, right. When I started all this and he was fortunately, and I told this story on Discord, I typed the whole thing out. Fortunately, he was about the nicest guy there ever was. He said, look I know you didn't do anything wrong. I am obligated to follow up. I got to build a file. I got to open the file. And I got to close the file. And I have to show that I responded to this complaint. He said, "This is the last time you're going to hear from me". I wouldn't have slept for months if this guy, you know, "This is the last time you're going to hear from me, just-"
Jill K DeWit: "Humor me".
Steven Jack Butala: "Just humor me-"
Jill K DeWit: "Knock it off."
Steven Jack Butala: "And just mind your manners." He didn't tell me not to send a mailer again. So this person in Discord copied and pasted- oh my gosh, this is a whole, we didn't even do the thing yet. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And please don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: You are just so darn excited.
Land Academy Member Laurie Phillips Interviews Jack and Jill (LA 1785) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steven and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show entertaining land, investment talk. I'm Stephen Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today once again, Laurie Phillips joins us in a reverse role. She's actually going to interview Jill and I, and hopefully ask some questions or discuss some topics that Jill and I have forgotten to cover because we're so neck deep into this whole business.
Jill K DeWit: This is Laurie's show today. This is what this is. Laurie gets to lead this show and ask whatever she wants. I'm so excited.
Steven Jack Butala: Me too. Hi Laurie.
Laurie: Great. Well, thank you for inviting me to be back on. I know we spend a lot of time together on our Thursday calls and in career path and the advanced member calls, but I've really never had the opportunity to sit down and just kind of grill you on some of these things and get your opinion. I'm sure you'll have one. So to get started, I have been a business consultant for most of my life and very, very early on I was taught that when you interview people, you start out with a really easy question to kind of warm them up. So here's my question for you to get started. Have you ever lived on railroad tracks?
Steven Jack Butala: Yes.
Jill K DeWit: No.
Steven Jack Butala: Do you want some details on that?
Laurie: Well, I do want details and then I'll tell you why I'm asking.
Steven Jack Butala: It's a great question.
Jill K DeWit: I'm a little nervous right now. I just got to say, I realized, whoa, it's different being on the other side.
Laurie: Yeah, Jill's going to learn something. Go ahead, Steve.
Steven Jack Butala: The freight rail went straight through the middle of Michigan State's Campus where I graduated and I had a dorm for... It was less than a year because I couldn't take it because of this exact topic. So I lived... it was right out of a movie, right on the tracks. In fact, one of our extracurricular activities, as you can imagine, was to have a bunch of beers and then go out and stand as close to the train flying by as you possibly can. And if you've never done that, you need to do that in your life.
Jill K DeWit: Nice.
Laurie: Okay.
Jill K DeWit: Oh, my gosh. I've never lived next to railroad tracks, but I had my own version. In Tustin, I lived right next to the five, literally, our backyard, a wall, freeway. So I did a version of that and because it's Southern California, it never stopped. So you just got used to that hum of the cars.
Steven Jack Butala: To this day, I can't stand to be anywhere near an interstate.
Jill K DeWit: I know. Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala: Probably because of the train scathing.
Jill K DeWit: That's all we could afford. That was with my roommate and I, when we first moved out, that's what we could afford.
Steven Jack Butala: Can we ask you the same thing? The same question?
Jill K DeWit: No. It's Laurie's show.
Steven Jack Butala: Oh, we can't? Okay.
Laurie: Actually, I'll answer it and I'll tell you why. When I was in college, starving student, my friend and I rented a place that was right on the tracks, literally 50 feet from the tracks and the train came through late at night, probably two or three in the morning. And the first week it was like someone hit you with a defib because you just went, ah, when train came by. And after a week you didn't even notice it, didn't even hear it. But when visitors would come and stay with us, they had that experience and it was always kind of funny. But the reason I'm asking is we will frequently look at property that's on a train track on our Thursday calls. And I wondered what your thoughts were about whether that really has much effect whether the property's going to sell at a good price.
Jill K DeWit: It weighs in a little bit,
So Much Land Investing Success on Discord (LA 1784) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show. Entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about how much there's just so much land investing success being reported on our little discord community for Land Academy. Before we really, you can get a peak at it. If you're not a Land Academy member, just go to landinvestors.com. Right on the front page, there's a view only and just scroll around, take a look at-
Jill K DeWit: The conversations.
Steven Jack Butala: You can see what we're talking about with each other and how and why it's such a really, really effective tool.
Jill K DeWit: Yep.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And I hope by now, you know that Jill and I have a full blown operational commercial printing company called Offers2owners.com. We only send out offers to owners to buy real estate, whether it's houses or land or whatever. We don't print catalogs. We don't take on any type of orders in any way for any of that stuff. And it's very successful. We send out between half a million and 8 or 900,000 letters for customers every month.
Jill K DeWit: Steve H wrote, I was waiting for this-
Steven Jack Butala: Teleprompter.
Jill K DeWit: Yep, was waiting for it to catch up with me. I didn't have a brain fart or whatever that is.
Steven Jack Butala: What?
Jill K DeWit: I don't know. Like people say you're brain freezes. They say that, so, okay. So, this is obviously something I figured was going to tie into today's show. So Steve H wrote, I just broke a million bucks in partnership. I'm guessing partnerships deals.
Steven Jack Butala: Steve H is a funder.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: He doesn't send his own mailers out. He's been in our group for about a year.
Jill K DeWit: Yep. [inaudible 00:02:00].
Steven Jack Butala: Real actively discord. And he's just recently broke a million bucks. He's placed a million dollars of his own money.
Jill K DeWit: Yep.
Steven Jack Butala: For other people to-
Jill K DeWit: Get their deals funded.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: That's what people don't realize. There's a healthy group of folks like Steve in our community that are not here to do it, to send their own mail and answer their own phone and get their own deals up.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: They're here to fund people's deals and make money.
Steven Jack Butala: But it's all in discord.
Jill K DeWit: Well, the value too for him is he knows how smart these people are. He's here for a reason. He could be out on the street funding other people's deals, but he doesn't know what they know. He doesn't know what the background is, where they were trained, how they found the deal, the mechanics, all of that, which is so valuable. I too-
Steven Jack Butala: Let me get this out of the way.
Jill K DeWit: Oh.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's topic, so much land investing success on discord. This is why you're listening. Go ahead.
Jill K DeWit: Is that just killing you? Just killing you.
Steven Jack Butala: Because I have a lot to say too.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. No, I was just going to say though, and I do that too. I have to tell you, I do fund other people's deals, but it's not that often because you know what? Most of the other people's deals that are not Land Academy members that make it to me, there's problems. They bought them wrong. There's an agent involved. They don't know what they're doing. I'm just like, "Nope, nope, nope, nope and nope."
Steven Jack Butala: We have a disproportionate number of people in our group who have other companies. And Steve's one of them.
Accountability in Your Land Investing Adventure (LA 1783) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show. Entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit. Broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about accountability in your land investing adventure. This has been... I belong to a group. The way that a lot of Land Academy members are members of Land Academy, I'm a member of a mobile home park group. And accountability was a real hot topic this week because, and the guys that run this mobile home group are 10 times more cranky than I am and they're... Well, I'll get into it in the show. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on thelandinvestors.com online community. It's free. And I hope you know by now that Jill and I run a small crew, every quarter, consulting slash, what would you call it? Class. It's a masterclass,
Jill K DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala: Called Career Path. If this is your career, or you want it to be, let us know. Support@landacademy.com.
Jill K DeWit: David N wrote, "I just sent my first mailer out. I was wondering if on future mailers, I should include a picture of my wife and I, plus our dogs, just to add a little more personal touch to it. Makes it look a little more personal, and less like junk mail. What are your thoughts?" Not a fan of that, but definitely on your website. That's what I personally think.
Steven Jack Butala: David got obliterated on Discord on this.
Jill K DeWit: Oh no. Did everybody say the same thing, like "Don't do that?"
Steven Jack Butala: The reason I put this in here is not to make fun of you, David, at all. Because I think it's great that you're questioning everything, and you should, all the way through this. But please do me a favor and everybody else a favor, and stick to exactly what goes on in Land Academy 3.0. Just do what Jill and I say to the letter, make a bunch of money, and then start to make it your own. People in Career Path, this is what they've done. They did it our way for a year, made a bunch of money, proved the concept to themselves and their spouses and whoever else. And then they said, "You know, I'd really just like to do info lots." Or, "I'd just like to do ranches." Or, "I'd just like to buy and sell recreation property, and I'd like to only do it over here." Or, "I'd like to send." We have got a person in our advanced group. I love this. And I think it's nuts. I would never do it, but I'm probably going to do it now, just because he said it. He downloaded a dataset, a long time ago. It was a huge dataset, 50, 60, 70,000 records. And he just keeps mailing the same area over and over and over again with the same dataset. And for years he's been doing it.
Jill K DeWit: He's just picking up, and he's been hanging on for two years in that area.
Steven Jack Butala: And he just keeps buying property on the same dataset.
Jill K DeWit: 'Cause every time you just pick up more. No one remembers that you're the one that sent the letter the last time, for him. And you skip, because you're just hitting those people. It's the situation now.
Steven Jack Butala: Am I recommending that you do that? Absolutely not.
Jill K DeWit: No.
Steven Jack Butala: He did it because, he did it our way for a while, it worked great, and then he made it his own.
Jill K DeWit: You and I said that, remember a long time ago when we were doing LA county. I'm like, "We could hang out in LA county and probably retire with property in LA."
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: Just keep working the area, changing it up a little bit, doing a little bit this zip code, that zip code, this size, that size. That could be what he's doing, too. He could be going, "I did all the five to tens. Now I do the ten to twenties. Now I'm doing the twenties and above.
Jill Friday - How to Confidently Make Land Decisions with Limited Information (LA 1782) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Butala: Today is Jill Friday, and she's going to talk about how to confidently make land decisions with limited information.
Jill K DeWit: Yep.
Steven Butala: When have you ever heard somebody said, "I've done all the research. I'm very comfortable-
Jill K DeWit: Oh, I know everything.
Steven Butala: ... and confident that I'm ready to have a baby."
Jill K DeWit: Oh.
Steven Butala: Never.
Jill K DeWit: Wouldn't that be hilarious?
Steven Butala: No one's ever said that sentence in the history of-
Jill K DeWit: That's true.
Steven Butala: ... humans.
Jill K DeWit: That's very true. Oh, that's a weird example to bring up.
Steven Butala: Well, it's the same thing, and I know it's Jill Friday. It's obviously your topic, but you just, you never have all the information. Never. And I ... I'll save it for the show.
Jill K DeWit: Okay.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Check out neighborscoop.com. The teleprompter doesn't work correctly, or maybe it's user error.
Jill K DeWit: You're fine. Don't even worry about it.
Steven Butala: Check out neighborscoop.com.
Jill K DeWit: What he is trying to say is, if you're a land investor like us, you don't have a street address. Because you're dealing with vacant land, and they haven't signed it yet. How do I find these dumb things? NeighborScoop. So, go check out neighborscoop.com.
Steven Butala: Thank you, Jill.
Jill K DeWit: There's a bunch of videos on there. You can see how it works. And let me tell you, I don't know how I got by without it. And every single person in my world, it's on their computer all day long, because I can pop in state, county, APN, and I have everything I need. So, it's awesome.
Steven Butala: This is Luke talking about mailers.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. Luke wrote, "We're up to around 8,000 to 10,000 units a month of mail going out now. But as Steve and Jill said in their last video, so much of the work is outsourced. We pick the county and we scrub the data. We outsource the pricing, but we try to verify it by cherry-picking and running a real-life scenario to see if it pans out."
Steven Butala: Excellent.
Jill K DeWit: What do we call that? We call that ...
Steven Butala: Testing for reason.
Jill K DeWit: That's it. Yep. "This is a day-or-so project with our team member, and he's very easy to work with. We schedule about four to six counties in advance, and currently, keeping the title examiners on task is our biggest ask." Well, that's for sure. "Not the closing attorney or title companies specifically. Other than that, getting back to sellers with properties we don't want is our biggest time suck, and with no added value involved. This will soon be outsourced as well. When you send this amount of mail or more, the sheer amount of trash properties coming back starts to pile up."
Steven Butala: That's for sure.
Jill K DeWit: I feel bad. It's kind of funny. It's not necessarily ... It's just that. It's like your criteria changes. You're like, "I don't need to buy that. I don't want to buy that. I have 20 spectacular properties. I don't need to worry about those." "Everything else is easy and worth doing, since it directly correlates to our private margin. Agent conversations, pre-and-post closings at the attorney's office, seller conversations, picking the counties, working with our team all are immensely quick, easy, and profitable. Zillow also adds to the suck fest." This is awesome. "When we list our own deals, since they now aren't as easy to work with when the property doesn't have an a...
Jack Thursday - All it Takes is One Deal (LA 1781) Transcript:
Jill K DeWit: I don't know what that was.
Steven Butala: Steven and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: What was that?
Steven Butala: I don't know.
Jill K DeWit: You're like smelling my neck?
Steven Butala: No, I don't know. Our producer's told us we're supposed to pose every-
Jill K DeWit: They're going say what the hell is that?
Steven Butala: Yeah. Steven and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting for the valley of the sun.
Steven Butala: Today's Jack Thursday. And I'm going to talk about how it only just takes one deal.
Jill K DeWit: So I'd love to know what you mean. Like one deal that gets started, one deal that make your career, one deal to get people out the door? I don't know.
Steven Butala: When I was a young person with Ferraris in my eyes, a young professional person, all I saw was just, "I want to be rich. I want to be rich. I want to be rich." And that's not the furthest thing that you should be telling yourself. What you should be telling yourself is, "I just got to get that first deal done. One single deal."
Jill K DeWit: That's it.
Steven Butala: Focus on that deal. And then when you're on deal number 32, focus on that one deal. That's what this is about. It just takes one deal, and then the next deal. But don't worry about the next deal.
Jill K DeWit: I like it.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it-
Jill K DeWit: Now, we're going to leave the show.
Steven Butala: I know. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members. Everybody's like, "Thank God. They're not going to do the show."
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. That's it. Bye.
Steven Butala: On landinvestors.com, online community is free. Please don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel. And comment on the shows you liked.
Jill K DeWit: Greg wrote, "Update. I have a question for anyone that wants to answer LOL. I know Steve stresses the importance of having a schedule. And I was curious about those who are sending out a lot of mail per month. How much mail are you sending per month, and how many hours would you say you work per week? Also, do you find there's a certain way of doing things that make things easier like Steven talked about getting all the mailers done once per month and just scheduling them out for the rest of the month? Also, which aspect of the business do you feel absorbs most of your time, picking counties, pricing, due diligence, finding brokers, and getting price opinions, et cetera? Thank you. I'm just curious to see what other people's experiences have been, and see how I can become more efficient with my time or how I can improve." Really?
Steven Butala: Yeah. What's most time consuming you think?
Jill K DeWit: Okay. Well, let me think. Answering the phones, but then I don't even have to do that much. Somebody else does it. So if I was doing it myself, it would be the inbound calls
Steven Butala: Combined, and I hear people in career paths say this all the time. Combined, I think we spend about four hours a week.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: Anything beyond that is kind of a hobby/habit that I have. Because I troll for new markets all the time, or I'll troll within markets that we're already successful in and see trends. And so do I spend more than four hours a week combined doing that? Yeah. But it's because-
Jill K DeWit: That's good.
Steven Butala: ...I have an unhealthy-
Jill K DeWit: You should be doing that. You're always ahead.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: That's important. That's so important.
Steven Butala: Finding an agent, you only have to do that once or twice per market. Closing a deal, you shouldn't do that at all. You should have somebody else do that on the buy on the south side. Doing a mailer, you shouldn't do that at all.
Land Academy Member Dan Smart Interview (LA 1780) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve, and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show. Entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And, I'm Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk with, or interview Dan Smart. He's in Washington State, Land Academy member for a while now, and former career path. I think you were career path too. A couple, about last time...
Daniel Smart: Yeah, Career Path Three.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the show, Dan. We've never interviewed before, and I'm looking forward to hearing what you like, and don't like about Land Academy. Let's start there. What do you like, and not like about Land Academy?
Daniel Smart: Well, there's mostly like. I mean, there's not a whole lot I don't like. So, I started about a year ago, year and a half ago. It's just very personal, and very... I mean, we have our, the way that we do land, but there's so many niches. There's so many directions you can go, and that's just very exciting.
Jill K DeWit: How did you find us?
Daniel Smart: You know, it was kind of a roundabout way. So, it was right after COVID, and everything. I was a pharmacist prior to this, Clinical Pharmacist, and you know, healthcare just got hammered. Healthcare workers got hammered. I was a contractor for the Navy, and had a lot of vacation, had my own office. But then, the contracts renewed, and they took away most of the vacation. They started decreasing pay, and it wasn't going to be sustainable.
Daniel Smart: So like, "Okay, what are we going to do? Real estate, you know, rentals." So, we were looking into that, and we almost threw our money away with that. We were looking crazy places, even Detroit to buy rentals. I was almost ready to fly, and meet some guys to invest with. They lived in Detroit, and then COVID hit, and gosh, we couldn't fly anywhere.
Daniel Smart: So, just listening to more interviews, and then I saw, I don't remember. I think it was a Luke Smith interview about land. And, I was like, "Oh, that sounds more my style. No people, no houses." And, he mentioned Land Academy at some point in one interview. And, I had been looking at other things, and I had actually sent out a mailer, based on free education from another program. And, it was based on assessed value.
Daniel Smart: So, I was sending offers for 300 bucks for a $80,000 parcel. And, that was going nowhere, but I was like, "This makes sense, I just got to find the right way to do it." And then, by God's grace, your name came up, and I was like, "Well, let's look into this, and watch the podcast, these are just regular people. They're not trying to be flashy, or impress me. It's just, this is what we do, check it out."
Daniel Smart: And, it filled in all the gaps. And so then, I was, okay, let's do this. Forget the doctorate. I found this on YouTube, and so we're going to do it. So, yeah. We started, the first one we did was, we made quite a bit. So, after that, it was just like, "Yeah, we can do this."
Steven Butala: Well, I'll tell you what a stroke of luck that COVID, and this Detroit thing happened all at the same time for you. Because, I would've done a free consulting call, to talk you out of that.
Daniel Smart: Yeah. Well, it's completely out of my... I'm not a contractor. I don't know. I wear a white coat, and I talk to diabetes patients all day, but I know like, "Okay, people make money in real estate."
Daniel Smart: What I'm doing isn't working. Lord, what are we supposed to do? And, it's just like, God's grace, that everything lined up, and we found you, and it all worked out great.
Jill K DeWit: That's so sweet.
Steven Butala: We're having some drainage plumbing issues, in our primary residence right now. And, it's taken a strange twist, but it'll all be fine. But, the entire process I'm thinking,
Working with Your Spouse in Your Land Business (LA 1779) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about working with your spouse in your land business, or really at all.
Jill K DeWit: Had I known how much fun and how easy that would be, I would've done it... Just kidding.
Steven Butala: Here's good news. If you can work with your spouse, then you can get through anything-
Jill K DeWit: That's very free true.
Steven Butala: ... with your spouse.
Jill K DeWit: Oh, yeah. That's true. You're golden.
Steven Butala: Before I get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And I would like you to know we have a full blown, operational, commercial printing company called offers2owners.com. It's the same company that Jill and I used to send out our offers. We just made it available to everybody because we were sick and tired of dealing with commercial printing companies that didn't really understand our business. Go to offers2owners.com. We send out 8 or 900,000 offers a month, so...
Jill K DeWit: As a group, it's awesome.
Steven Butala: We know by now-
Jill K DeWit: We got this.
Steven Butala: We know what we're doing.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. It's like everything.
Steven Butala: Wasn't that way always.
Jill K DeWit: No. Jay wrote, "Hey everyone, I've been going through the education, and I really like infill lots, specifically waterfront properties. I have a few ideas in my home state, New York, but I'm exploring other markets to the south like Florida and North Carolina. Is there anyone here I can talk to about waterfront properties? As I build my criteria, I believe less is more. I like to do three to five deals a month at about, net 80 to $100,000 per deal. Is this possible with waterfront properties?" And I see one of our members here, already responded and he has this to say. Steven wrote, "I've been at this for a year and I've made most of my money from infill lots. I targeted lots that have a mobile on them or have had one in the past. If you see a lot of new construction on Zillow, lots will move fast. Set-"
Steven Butala: That's great. I love this.
Jill K DeWit: ... the filters on Zillow to show houses that were built 2020 to now." This is a good little tip. You're right. "And then Skiptrace those builders." This is brilliant. "They will be your infill buyers." And they'll tell you all the nuances of what they're looking for.
Steven Butala: Jay, I can tell you right now.
Jill K DeWit: That's great.
Steven Butala: We've had a lot of members come and go. We maintain around 500 members. That's where Jill's comfortable. And I totally agree. And I can tell you with confidence that you are going to do great. You've thought this through, you have a target acquisition criteria, you already said, "I want to make about 2 to $300,000 a month." All very accomplishable. And the first step to doing all that stuff is exactly what you're doing, writing it down, understanding it for yourself, and then asking this community if it's realistic and, "How do I go about doing that?" And that was just one person's comment there, me included, there are a lot of comments and discord, basically reiterating what I just said.
Jill K DeWit: Yep.
Steven Butala: Today's topic, working with your spouse, in your land business. This is why you're listening. I can-
Jill K DeWit: Here's what I think is cool, if you don't mind me...
Steven Butala: Sure.
Jill K DeWit: ... jumping in first? I'm sure because of you and I, we clearly attract two different things. Well more than two, but for today's show, I'm talking about two that are so interesting that I love. We attract other couples. Some start out doing this together.
How to Manage Lawyers and Accountants in Your Land Business (LA 1778) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steven and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about how to manage lawyers, and accountants, and other professionals in your land business. Like many, many topics this thing came up-
Jill K DeWit: Where did this come from?
Steven Butala: Because of Discord.
Jill K DeWit: But, why would you possibly come up with this?
Steven Butala: So what happened-
Jill K DeWit: This is not fun. Let's talk about taxes or something, like no one gets excited about that.
Steven Butala: Well-
Jill K DeWit: You're talking about lawyers and accountants.
Steven Butala: People need to know. I don't like lawyers and accountants either. I'm am a recovering accountant.
Jill K DeWit: I know that's I'm like-
Steven Butala: This is the last thing I want to talk about today.
Jill K DeWit: That's what I was going to say. I'm like, why are we doing this today? Why are we subjecting a, are we going to talk about raising young children after this?
Steven Butala: No.
Jill K DeWit: Okay.
Steven Butala: Yeah, I don't talk about that either, having a baby.
Jill K DeWit: Okay, good. Here we go.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on landinvestors.com, online community is free. And I hope you know by now, Jill and I instruct, every quarter or so, a session called career path. If this is your career buying and selling land, or you want it to be, let us know, maybe you might be a good candidate for a career path.
Jill K DeWit: It's a 10 week intense, taught by us program. That is really for, like he said, for you, if you really want to hit this home and make this big, that's what this is, so cool.
Steven Butala: There's a big, long string in Discord that started with a guy named Graham who sent a bunch of letters out.
Jill K DeWit: Is it H. Graham?
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: Okay, got it.
Steven Butala: Sent a bunch of letters out to a state, like we always do, a county, and there were a bunch of several people or one, let's just say one person that lived in Iowa but owned property in different state. And it sparked a big issue because Iowa is a non, I'll tell you about it in a minute. Anyway, it sparked a long session in Discord about how to deal with lawyers. And it, we have lawyers in our group, and it just, it was funny to see what happened.
Jill K DeWit: Some people get well to upset. I understand getting, there's a time to get upset about things when there's malicious intent or something like that.
Steven Butala: Yes.
Jill K DeWit: But then there's-
Steven Butala: That's what I said in Discord, actually.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. When there's not-
Steven Butala: That's good.
Jill K DeWit: That malicious intent, cause I've learned that phrase from you, when there's not malicious intent. And it was an, just an accident. You're not taking anything from somebody he's just like throw my letter away. I don't know why people get all upset about that.
Steven Butala: When I started buying and selling land, I went to meet with a lawyer long, long time ago in the mid-nineties, early nineties, and said, can I get in trouble for this? And so we sat down and I said, can I buy and sell land? Well, not really.
Jill K DeWit: Oh, that's funny.
Steven Butala: And so I asked all these questions, what do I need to do? Nope, nope. His answer was no to everything's. At the end I said some version of this, "So, should I get out of bed tomorrow morning"? And he looked at me and said, "There's a lot of risk in that".
Jill K DeWit: Yep.
Steven Butala: And so, this is Josiah. It's not-
Jill K DeWit: His commentary.
Steven Butala: Necessarily a question, yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
Jill Friday - How to Wing It on the Phone with Sellers (LA 1777) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steven and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show. Entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt.
Steven Jack Butala: Broadcasting.
Jill DeWit: From the valley.
Steven Jack Butala: Of the sun. Today, Jill and I talked about, well, it's Jill Friday. She's going to talk about how to wing it on the phone with sellers.
Jill DeWit: Like we're winging it here.
Steven Jack Butala: Who doesn't wing it?
Jill DeWit: Every day, every podcast, we wing it by the way.
Steven Jack Butala: I mean, does everybody go into every conversation or every task that they do in their life and really know what the outcome's going to be?
Jill DeWit: Oh, sure.
Steven Jack Butala: There's no guarantees. You can't plan stuff out. As much as we all think we have control over stuff, we don't. We have very little control over anything. Before we get into it. Let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. If you don't already know about it, please check out neighborscoop.com. It's the fastest, easiest, cheapest way to find a piece of property without a U.S. post office mailing address, like 123 Main Street. The properties we deal with don't have addresses. They have assessor's parcel numbers. You just put that in, pops right up.
Jill DeWit: Yep.
Steven Jack Butala: It's magic.
Jill DeWit: It is like magic. Helena wrote, "Has anyone had success following up on a mail or via email? We sent out our first mailer and we received three responses from people who were not interested in selling. It's been about a week so far. My partner suggested that we follow up using email and see if they received our offer. Would they be interested in selling? Does this technique help?" I haven't done that, but I'm not opposed to that. The only thing you got to be careful of is the spam laws. Go for it.
Steven Jack Butala: Not if they called you.
Jill DeWit: No, I'm saying no, the people that did reach out. But if you skip trace everybody somehow and get their email addresses, because you're not getting that off your data. I'm telling you that you got the address, but you could skip trace and get emails and phone numbers and you got to just be a bit careful. But the people who did email me, if there's a hint, here's what I really do though. If someone emails me back and there's a hint, like you must be out of your mind. If you think we're going to sell for this price. Good luck. Okay. I didn't hear we're not going to sell. All I heard is not that price. So I will email those people back.
Steven Jack Butala: Jill's Indian name is Can't Say No.
Jill DeWit: Right? I'm like, I didn't hear a no, there was no real "no". So I'm like, what is your price? But I will email those people back. I don't think that's nuts. Would I spend a lot of time skip tracing email? I don't think I would. Because you know what too? A, there's the laws that could come back to bite you. And B, all of our emails are getting so good nowadays, how much is going into spam. It's probably a big time and money waste.
Steven Jack Butala: That's a very nice and polite way to answer that. I'm going to counterbalance that.
Jill DeWit: Hi, I'm Yin, meet Yang.
Steven Jack Butala: This is the worst idea I've ever freaking had, ever. Here's why people email, because they don't want to talk on the phone. Take this from me. That's why people text. I text you all the time. I don't talk to her on the phone that much. Because I don't want to.
Jill DeWit: I call him, he doesn't call me.
Steven Jack Butala: Here's why. Because I don't want any emotion. There's no emotion in an email or there's no emotion in text. You just get stuff done.
Jill DeWit: Oh, there's emotion there. People pick up on emotion.
Steven Jack Butala: Calling people on the phone, is an integral,
Jack Thursday - Starting Your Day Off with a Small Success (LA 1776) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show entertaining land, investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jack Thursday, and I'm going to talk about starting your day with tiny little successes. I read an article, well I'll save it for the show. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free and check us out on discord. If you're a member, there's tons of amazing information being exchanged there. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy, YouTube channel comment on the shows you like.
Jill DeWit: Michael wrote update semicolon, or colon. Excuse me, update colon. I have completed my second mail campaign. My first mail campaign was 3,500 units and yielded one deal. My second campaign was 3,700 pieces of mail and has yielded one viable deal so far. I'm worrying about putting together my third campaign.
Steven Jack Butala: Working.
Jill DeWit: What I'm wondering.
Steven Jack Butala: Working, he's now working.
Jill DeWit: Oh, I'm working. I'm putting together my third campaign, but I'm wondering if these results are typical.
Steven Jack Butala: Yes.
Jill DeWit: By the way, I use a funding partner. So I basically just recovered mailing costs after deal splits. How much are you guys mailing to make this business work? I want to add one thing, getting a deal right out of the gate is perfect. I think that's really good. Especially being brand new. As you get going, you're going to get more deals and A. And B as you get going mailer number one, you're going to get calls from that six months from now, nine months from now. So it's out there now, there's going to be more coming back from it. My only concerns are answer the phone and look at them really look at them make sure you're not kicking, sometimes people kick too much to the curb, go.
Steven Jack Butala: I need proof of concept for everything I do, and you just achieved proof of concept for yourself. It works. You bought some property, you sold it. You recovered your costs. You've found a funding partner. You got yourself all set up, all the stuff that's involved in setting up a business. You're past all that. It's time to start doing bigger deals. You can do it, and if you're just recovering mail costs, you're probably buying for 1000 selling for 3000 and then splitting the difference. So how about you buy for 30,000 now you're using a funding partner anyway. Buy for 30 and sell for 90.
Jill DeWit: You're going to triple your costs in one deal that cost you the whole year.
Steven Jack Butala: It's an interestingly worded because there's this yielded a lot of response in discord. And everybody starting with Kevin Farrell, the monitor said, congratulations, you're doing it.
Jill DeWit: Right, yeah. What's the problem?
Steven Jack Butala: So yeah, don't try to find something wrong. Just start doing bigger deals, maybe larger mailers.
Jill DeWit: Keep going.
Steven Jack Butala: Obviously where you're sending mail may not be the place to buy for 30 and sell for 90. So look for another place. Check out chapter three in Land Academy 3.0 and see how we troll for new markets.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jack Thursday. I'm going to talk about starting off your day with a small success. This is why you're listening. I came across an article. I think it was in Fords, Fortune, Forbes, possibly Entrepreneur Magazine on the internet. And I sign up for all this stuff. Because we talk on the Thursday call about what's going on in the market. And so there's an article in there about how they interviewed somebody interviewed extremely successful people like Elon Musk, and really crazy multi-billionaires and they all said every single day,
Land Academy Member Luke Smith Buys a Vacant Church Riddled with Drama (LA 1775) Transcript:
Luke Smith: Hi, guys.
Jill DeWit: Hey, how are are you?
Steven Jack Butala: Hi, Luke.
Luke Smith: Hey. It's my...
Steven Jack Butala: Here we go.
Jill DeWit: Cool.
Steven Jack Butala: Let's just jump right in. I'll start it, Luke, and we'll just... We're pros, both of us. Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today we have Luke Smith, and not just an interview with Land Academy member, Luke Smith, but Luke's specifically here to tell us a story about buying a church.
Jill DeWit: It looks like a fireside story based on where Luke is sitting. The only thing we need now is a pipe.
Steven Jack Butala: And a beard.
Jill DeWit: And a fire behind you.
Steven Jack Butala: Hi, Luke, how are you?
Luke Smith: Hey. Yeah, why not buy a church, right?
Jill DeWit: We got to hear this. Okay, wait. So how did you... Was this in Discord?
Steven Jack Butala: It was in Discord. Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Okay. So, did you just drop some nuggets in there and people started asking questions? Or do you just tell the whole story, I'm just catching it?
Steven Jack Butala: It was a rant. It was in the rant section, I think.
Luke Smith: I was heated. I was heated because I just got off the phone with the sheriff, right? And I've had a lot of sheriffs call me, and my favorite sheriff call is like, "Luke, the road's blocked because there's a bunch of people here. They say they're looking at your property that's for sale and there's no for sale sign and they're blocking the road. And you made a video on TikTok and nobody sells land on TikTok, you idiot. This has to be a scam." That's my classic sheriff call. My sheriff's call, neighbors are pissed because of some TikTok video I made, right? But this one, I sold a property on TikTok earlier this week, 240 grand on TikTok.
Jill DeWit: Wow.
Steven Jack Butala: Wow.
Luke Smith: Yeah, baby.
Jill DeWit: That's crazy.
Luke Smith: I got multiple buyers, too. I got more buyers after I signed the first one. Like mom forwarded-
Jill DeWit: Was it the house next door?
Luke Smith: ... to daughter a video. Like, hell, yeah. Sorry. I'm off on a different angle here. So-
Jill DeWit: Great.
Luke Smith: ... I was heated because of the sheriff call and he just did not make sense. He did not make sense. And I get into these different phone calls, lawyers call, and people are always haggling over something, and I feel like I'm at the short end of the stick because I don't know any better. And I started taking law classes. I'm not going for a degree or anything, but like property law and contract law. I've got all the books and all the audio lessons, and I ride my bike to the notary, listening to contract law and property law. I can quote cases on down the line. And this sheriff is telling me that this church that I sold is not on the deed and these guys that I sold the property to, they went to the church and they broke into the church and the sheriff showed up and they're inside the church, and they said it's their church. I'm like, "Yeah, it's their church. What's the big deal?" And the sheriff says, "Well, it's not. I've had them in prison. I've had them in jail all weekend, waiting to get in touch with you." And I'm like, "Oh, man, these poor guys." And like, "Who's the victim? What's the problem?" Nobody owns the church. It's vacant. It's been empty forever. I tried to sell it to the pastor I found online and there's no contact. It's all closed and done. I had multiple people. I marketed the thing on YouTube. I marketed on TikTok. Lots of people got into it on TikTok. And they went and checked out the church. They researched the church. They looked at it, local people from the local town and people from...
One Percent Difference Rule and Compound Interest in Your Land Business (LA 1774) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steven and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show entertaining, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt, broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, jill and I talk about, really, it's kind of my topic as Jill informed me just now, the 1% difference rule in compound interest and how it's associated with your land business. I think it's associated with everything, but that's just me.
Jill DeWit: Do you prefer pink nail polish or red? Because that's what I'm going to work on right now.
Steven Jack Butala: It's wearer's choice.
Jill DeWit: Thank you. That's how this is going to go right now.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free. And I hope you know that we have a full blown commercial printing company dedicated to sending offers to owners. In fact, that's what it's called offers, the number two, owners.com. Check it out. Get your mailers out. We do eight or 900,000 units a month now.
Jill DeWit: Victor wrote, "After closing a land purchase, what am I supposed to receive from the title company? I closed on four properties for the first time about three weeks ago. Yay. Three in one state, and one in another. And I've not received anything from the title company. No title insurance papers or deed. Is this a typical routine?" No. They're coming. It does take a while.
Steven Jack Butala: This is all you, by the way.
Jill DeWit: You're not nuts, Victor. And yeah, they're coming.
Steven Jack Butala: Isn't it fun to just pay all that money and then get nothing?
Jill DeWit: And then just nothing. Oh, I know. So here's how it really goes. So did he say he bought? Is this bought or sold?
Steven Jack Butala: Bought.
Jill DeWit: Bought. Okay. So you bought the properties. You sent the money in. You saw all the closing documents, because you signed everything on the purchase side. And now you're like, "Well, the check cleared. What am I going to get back?" It's coming. So a good title agent will send you back a copy of everything and then they'll follow up with hard copies. But some title agents will just follow up with the hard copies, that's what's coming in the mail. Either way, I do trust them when they say it's, "Hey, we're recorded. I'm good with that. I'm running with it." And you could check with the county if you needed to just before you run with it. But it's common. I don't know what it is. I don't know if it's a laziness or COVID, or COVID induced laziness or the new COVID schedule we have nowadays. I don't know.
Steven Jack Butala: Title agents in general are drunk with power.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: They're going to tell you how it goes, tell you what to sign, where to sign. And they're playing off of the fact that they think you don't know what you're doing, which is not the case with our group. We all know what they're doing. And we're very lucky that Jill has a transaction coordinator who's 30 years in the industry as a title manager, title agent, title supervisor, and all of it. She's seen it all. So you can't slip anything by her. But when Jo closes a deal, she hasn't done it herself. She hasn't done it recently. She's on the phone on every single deal saying, "I'm not going to sign this. There's no lead-based paint. This doesn't apply because it's a real piece of freaking land."
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala: And I don't need to put a mask on because of COVID when we show the property. So there's all kinds of stuff that goes on.
Jill DeWit: And three states over.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: I promise I'll wear a mask when I call you. What? What? It's almost like that.
Steven Jack Butala:
A Day in the Life of a Land Investor (LA 1773) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: I'm over here choking.
Steven Jack Butala: Jill's having a little episode.
Jill DeWit: Sorry. I took a big swig of coffee as we started, and that was a little too big. Anyway, I'm Jill DeWit, and we are broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today Jill and I talk about a day in the life of a successful land investor.
Jill DeWit: It doesn't say, "successful." It says, "land investor," I thought we were going to go both ways.
Steven Jack Butala: Oh, all right. Yeah. Let's go both ways.
Jill DeWit: Come on. Let's not just assume it's all peaches and cream.
Steven Jack Butala: This show, this episode is a long time coming. People have said to me, my whole career, long before even Land Academy, "Hey, could I shadow you? What do you do all day?" I'll tell you, it would be the most boring day of your life.
Jill DeWit: Great.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and I hope you know by now, that Jill and I personally instruct a handful of new and existing Land Academy members in a live class, live over the Zoom. Anyway, called Career Path. If buying and selling land is your career, or you want it to be, give us a call. Or, better yet, contact us at support@landacademy.com to find out if this is for you.
Jill DeWit: I'm going to tell you right now, the next one starts in October.
Steven Jack Butala: Okay, good.
Jill DeWit: It's a 10 week program, starts in October. Just so you can plan for that, and we are about to open up enrollment for it soon. Kevin wrote, "I had a great call with a Fran and Martha yesterday. At the end of the call, they asked if I had the day off next Monday, and they could schedule another call with me. On Memorial Day, which is today as [inaudible 00:01:49]. I laughed and said, "Yeah. Heck, I have every day off," so if you're looking for someone to talk to about your land business, you can sign up at the link below. We'll have a great time, and it will help you with your land business. How cute is that? That's on our website, on Land Academy. You can schedule a call with one of our moderators, Kevin Ferrell.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Kevin's been with us for a long time.
Jill DeWit: Everybody loves talking to him.
Steven Jack Butala: He does a consulting call for any Land Academy member who wants it, and I've never heard anyone say anything negative about it.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: If you've gone through the program, you're active in discord, but you really want the icing on the cake, Kevin will really, really help you. Today's happy, a day in the life of a land investor. This is the meat of the show.
Jill DeWit: Here's what I would like to say about being a land investor. Of all of the jobs that I do, from not just here at Land Academy and being a mom, and a partner.
Steven Jack Butala: Uh-oh.
Jill DeWit: I'm totally kidding. I mean I'm totally being serious here. I've got to tell you. No offense.
Steven Jack Butala: None taken.
Jill DeWit: But, being a land investor is the easiest, and the most fun for me.
Steven Jack Butala: I agree with that.
Jill DeWit: I've got to tell you. Of every single thing I do in my life. From home renovations. You name it. This is the easiest for me, and it's fun for me. I love it. Even if I'm doing it all by myself, 100% by myself, and a lot of people who start out are. I get that. You're like, "I've got to get some money coming in. I've got to figure this out. I'm going to learn all the jobs, and I'll go from there." Yeah. That's how you should do it. Even if I was a one-man show, because I was. There was a time. Especially when you were writing and doing Land Academ...
Jill Friday - Real Relationship You Need to Establish with Your Seller (LA 1772) Transcript:
Jack: Steven Jill here. Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven [inaudible]
Jill : And I'm Jill Dewitt broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Jack: Today's Jill Friday. She's going to talk about the relationship you need to establish with your seller to get a deal done.
Jill : Thank you.
Jack: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com, online community it's free. I'll tell you what, back in the day, it was impossible to find a piece of real estate that has yet to be assigned a mailing address, like 123 Main Street. To solve this, we have created and enabled a live database so you can look it up by APN or assessor parcels number. It is called neighbor scoop and soon to be parcelfact.com. Check us out neighborsgroup.com or parcelfact.com. You can find property in seconds.
Jill : I would open up my computer all day long. It's the best thing ever. How we ever got by without it? I don't know. Aaron wrote "Hi all. So my first mailer is slowly starting to yield some phone calls that aren't hate. I want to ask the group, the script you guys have on the first time call. I know Jill has questions, has a questions list for new calls, but I'm talking a bit more about building some rapport with the seller. Like I have been getting asked, what do you do? Or why do you want the property? Or what are you going to do with the property? This is what I'm telling people so far. I'm a convenience buyer." That's good. I like that. "I provide liquidity to landowners who would like to sell their land relatively quickly. The average age of market for land in America is 235 days." Well, I didn't know that.
Jack: This is a great speech.
Jill : This is really cool. "So, basically two thirds of a year, or you can sell it to me. I do some quick due diligence and I can get you a fast, close price. So, I'd like to possibly send assemble more properties like yours and sell them all to one investor who wants the acreage. Or I may develop the property myself, make a subdivision who knows? Can I get some other ideas on what you all do? Is your intro on the call?"
Jack: I'm going to interject. This is pretty good. Well, this is your, the topic.
Jill : I know you want to just jump in?
Jack: Today's topic, It's Jill Friday. She's going to talk about the real relationship you need to establish with your seller to get a deal done. This is the meat of the show.
Jill : This is a perfect little intro because I have a checklist when you answer the phone of the questions to ask them. But some people are having other people ask, answer the phone and they don't have time to do a whole little checklist. Just get the beef, the juice there. And you don't have a lot of time when these people call in to win them over. So, that's the first thing. People are concerned about this, because it's a big deal. It is a big deal. You spend so much time pricing these offers getting them out there in these people's hands. These sellers, these owners, they don't even know their sellers yet, they're owners. They open up your letter and they call you back. First thing we want to do is calm them down, find out if they want to sell, get the property info, see if our number works or what is their number. That's the gist of it. It's easy to write a script I'm actually working on and I have written script and I have shared those within land academy and it's always tweaking a little bit. I love people. The best thing you can do is take my script and tweak it for whatever makes sense to you. I think that's great. Don't worry too much if it's not you answering the phone, some people have the luxury of their wife, like on Wednesday with the [inaudible], she can answer the phone. I know other people that do it. We did. I answered the phone and then it, but there's times that you have to remove yourse...
Jack Thursday - Chasing Zero (LA 1771) Transcript:
Steve and Jill here. Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steve: Today is Jack Thursday and I'm going to talk about this concept I created quite some time ago that just doesn't seem to die. It's sung to some people called Chasing Zero.
Jill: I'm excited. I love it. This comes up often. I'm trying to think of, probably because of career path, it comes up in career path. You talk about it and we've done a few shows on this. This whole topic and this description intrigues people, myself included. So, I'm glad we're doing another show on this today.
Steve: Good, Jill. Before we get into it though, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free and don't forget to subscribe to the Land Academy YouTube channel. Comment on the shows you like.
Jill: Josh wrote, "Hi all, new guy here with a quick question. Got my first mailer and I'm getting some responses. Tried to bring my wife into the operation/discussion, but she's having a hard time wrapping her head around the vacant land, then I mentioned houses. Her interest peaked quite a bit and she's been looking at the House Academy public website. Curious of your thoughts on House Academy training business model, and if any other newbies are doing both, or houses exclusively. Likewise, any thoughts as to why the House Academy podcast and overall focus from Jack and Jill has waned a bit? Market? Just making that model less appealing? Feel free to PM me if that's easier." Oh, I love it. This is good.
Steve: This is a very popular topic on discord.
Jill: Yep.
Steve: There is a lot of responses to this.
Jill: I bet.
Steve: I love buying and selling houses.
Jill: Me too.
Steve: Right now it is the most competitive I've ever seen it in my entire career.
Jill: And I don't want to play.
Steve: If you talk to any homeowner, especially in those target areas, with mid range, two, three, four hundred thousand dollars, buy it for 300, sell it for 400 without any real renovation, they'll tell you that they get two or three offers a week.
Jill: Right.
Steve: And very frustrated. They'll tell you in a very slam it down on the desk frustrated way. We don't care to run with that, so much competition. We could make it work. We've done it. When the market ... and everybody said this on discord.
Jill: Isn't that funny?
Steve: I'm reiterating it. When a market chills out a little we'll get back into it.
Jill: It seems counterintuitive, but you're like, "Wait a minute. Why would you want now to buy houses and jump in the pool when it's so hot because everything sells so fast?" But, Steven's right, because of the whole way that we operate everything is buying it right. If I'm in a bidding war with somebody else, I'm not buying it right. It's just too nutty. I like it to be slowed down a little bit, not as much competition, I can get some smoking deals, mark it up very effectively, and then sell it and move on.
Steve: Here's the truth.
Jill: But I like houses, too.
Steve: Here's the truth time. If somebody put a gun to my head and said, "You're going to buy and sell houses now." I would sit down. I would run data like I run it now with some changes, and then I would look at the pretty rural markets that are pretty solidly served by useful internet service providers so you can get a good connection, because everybody seems to be ... more and more people are working from home and moving out into outlying areas. So I could choose the right rural markets and buy and sell houses all day long.
Jill: Correct.
Steve: The fact is, and if I had a nickel for every Land Academy member that came to Jill and I and said, "Wow, thank you. I'm so much out of the house business now. It's so much easier and more profitable to buy and sell land.
Dan and Emily VanderVen Land Academy Members Interview (LA 1770) Transcript:
If you enjoyed the podcast, please review it in Apple Podcasts . Reviews are incredibly important for rankings on Apple Podcasts. My staff and I read each and every one.
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email me directly at steven@BuWit.com.
The BuWit Family of Companies include:
https://BuWit.com
https://offers2owners.com
https://landinvestors.com
https://landacademy.com
https://landpin.com
https://parcelfact.com
https://countywise.com
https://deedperfect.com
https://ownersdata.com
https://houseacademy.com
I would like to think it’s entertaining and informative and in the end profitable.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
How Money Works in Your Land Business (LA 1769) Transcript:
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack But...: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack But...: Today, Jill and I talk about how money works in your land business, and really just how money works at all.
Jill DeWit: Did you write this for me?
Steven Jack But...: No.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Jack But...: No.
Jill DeWit: I got to ask. Okay, let me back up here. One of us is an accountant and one of us isn't. You guess. Who do you think it is?
Steven Jack But...: Yeah, who do you like more? Jill or me? The other one's the accountant.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. That's why I thought you wrote this for me. I thought this was your subtle way of, "Babe, we got to talk."
Steven Jack But...: No.
Jill DeWit: "And your money habits suck." Because I wrote down...
Steven Jack But...: That is the exact opposite.
Jill DeWit: I have to say, I have, in my lifetime, I have changed dramatically on how I look at, view, manage and budget, and I'm very proud of that.
Steven Jack But...: I have never had a life partner or a business partner who manages money better than you.
Jill DeWit: Thank you. Really? Seriously?
Steven Jack But...: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: That's...
Steven Jack But...: That's an absolute.
Jill DeWit: I didn't know that.
Steven Jack But...: I would never, in a twisted way, write a topic that we need to talk about and then just talk to the whole world about it and then have you try to...
Jill DeWit: I'm sure...
Steven Jack But...: ... teach you a lesson.
Jill DeWit: Are you sure we haven't done... I think we've done that before. I'm pretty sure if we go back over the decade, not decade, but the years of podcast, there's probably a few hidden messages in there. Anyway, I'm excited because I wrote down the three things that I think...
Steven Jack But...: Good.
Jill DeWit: ... you need to, how you manage your money in your own personal land business. I'm excited to hear what you think. And then, I know you're going to set us all straight.
Steven Jack But...: I'm going to give you my opinion.
Jill DeWit: I know.
Steven Jack But...: And then you and everyone listening to this, the six or seven other people that are listening to this, cannot decide whether or not I'm full of it or not.
Jill DeWit: No, I know you're right, but I'm just... I want to see how close I am. But I think I'm going to be not far off, but this is my perception, but I'm not going to use the right terms obviously, because I'm not an accountant and I don't care about the right terms.
Steven Jack But...: We're going to start off with your stuff right after this.
Jill DeWit: Okay, cool.
Steven Jack But...: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our land members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and I hope you know by now, we have full blown operational commercial printing company called offers2owners.com. Jill and I set this up a bunch of years ago out of pure blind frustration with sending our own mail campaigns out and using commercial printing companies that don't understand our business.
Jill DeWit: Correct.
Steven Jack But...: We decided a few years ago to make it available to everybody.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack But...: Go to offers2owners.com and see if... If you're sending out mail, see how it fits in your world.
Jill DeWit: It can hook you up.
Steven Jack But...: I'll tell you, last month, we did almost 900,000 offers.
Jill DeWit: Cool. All right. Mike F wrote, "This is from the other member who is communicating with a broker."
Steven Jack But...: This is a...
Jill DeWit: This is part of an ongoing conversation.
Steven Jack But...: This is a written communication...
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Jack But...: ... from a broker to a Land Academy member about doing a real estate deal.
Jill DeWit: Okay,
5 Ways to Seriously Increase Your Land Value (LA 1768) Transcript:
Steven Jack But...: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack But...: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack But...: Today, Jill and I talk about five ways to seriously increase land value.
Jill DeWit: This will be cool.
Steven Jack But...: I say this with confidence - they are not what you think.
Jill DeWit: This is you bought it, you own it, and now, because you bought it right, you already are going to make money anyway. Because if you do what we tell you to do, what we show you to do, and follow us, you're going to make money anyway. But there's things you could do to make even more money and increase not only your sales, I think, but also the speed in which you sell things. I love this. This is all you.
Steven Jack But...: Why are we here? We're here to make money on land. We're here to create a healthy spread between acquisition price and sales price, so these are ways that you can seriously increase that value.
Jill DeWit: Before we get into this, I have a pet peeve that I just wanted to share with the planet.
Steven Jack But...: Did I snore or something like that?
Jill DeWit: No, it's not you.
Steven Jack But...: First time ever it's not me.
Jill DeWit: That's hilarious. There's times it's you, but there's a healthy time that it's not you, so don't say that. This is pertinent because you either are like us or probably want to do this to have your own company.
Steven Jack But...: Or you're disgusted by us, and if that's the case, which I understand, this might not be the show for you.
Jill DeWit: My pet peeve is about people who shoot from the hip, and they say, "Oh yeah, I know how to do that," and they had never done it before in their life.
Steven Jack But...: Do you have an example?
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Here's my example - we're having pool work done, which involved draining our pool. The worker showed up there hooking up the stuff, and he's like, "Well, I'm going to leave now," and I'm like, "Why am I hearing gurgling?" I'm literally standing in my entryway, hearing like a ghost gurgling throughout my home, and I'm like, "That can't be right." We're walking around the house, and he immediately says, "Unplug the pump. We got to unplug the pump," and I'm like, "Yeah." Anyway, now it's unfolded. And I stood there in my driveway before we started the process, asked a couple questions about his experience. He's explaining something, I'm like, "Sounds like you really know what you're doing. Make me feel better, you've probably done this..." He was like, "Oh yeah, I've done a hundred of these," just like this. I'm like, "Oh, good. Okay." No, apparently not. A, I don't know why people do that, that's a whole separate show, and B, don't do this in your own business.
Steven Jack But...: That's the takeaway here.
Jill DeWit: I tell people when you answer the phone is you're getting to learn about properties. Don't pretend you know. Be honest and say, "You know what? Excellent question. I'm not sure what's possible with this. I'll get to the bottom of it," or, "Here's who you call." Either I'll call the county and find out, or, "Here's the number to the county and here's who you ask, and they'll be able to tell you and answer all your questions."
Steven Jack But...: That's why we have tools like Discord and Land Investors and all that.
Jill DeWit: And the show, to help you with this stuff.
Steven Jack But...: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and I hope you know by now that Jill and I instruct a handful of new and existing Land Academy members in a live class called Career Path. If buying and selling land is your career or you want it to be, shoot us an email at support@landacademy.
Jill Friday - Lucky Career Path Millionaires (LA 1767) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here-
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: ... Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jill Friday and she's going to talk about lucky career path millionaires.
Jill DeWit: That was funny when that came up, it was good.
Steven Jack Butala: We all realized that we're lucky. We're not talented, we're not dedicated or consistent, we're just lucky.
Jill DeWit: That's it. That's all this is.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by somebody on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free. And I'm going to tell you that back in the day, it was almost impossible to find land without a mailing address, like 123 Main Street. So Jill and I solved this through technology and launched an entire website based on it called neighborscoop.com. If you are having a tough time finding property, check us out @neighborscoop.com.
Jill DeWit: Yuri wrote, is it a red flag for a seller to be motivated to sell after just purchasing, not inheriting, their land only a few years ago? My offer price is only slightly higher than what they paid and local broker told me I'll get two to three times that when I sell it. It seems like a good deal, but I don't want to get too excited and overlook something.
Jill DeWit: I don't think so, especially if it's a nice big chunk of property that there's lots of places to do stuff with then all it tells me is something happened. I think I know where Yuri's going, I'm going to finish my thought. But I do get ... because you're looking at me like, hurry it up.
Steven Jack Butala: No, I'm not.
Jill DeWit: Is that okay?
Steven Jack Butala: Don't hurry it up, I don't.
Jill DeWit: Okay, but I do get it. But on the flip side, if someone bought this six months ago with the intent of building a cabin, it's 0.4 acres and I'm looking at the train going, how are they going to do this? And all of a sudden they want to get rid of it. And at any price, I'm like, shucks, that could be a red flag that they may have bought it, thought they could build on it or do something with it and they found out they can't do what they felt they wanted to do. And I need to make sure and check that out. So I think that's where Yuri's going.
Steven Jack Butala: Every time Jill and I have done a real estate deal, which are almost always involve primary residents, there comes a point in the deal where we have to talk to the seller. And this is an absolute rule, it's a deal breaking issue for most real estate agents because they don't want you to talk to the seller and find out the truth.
Steven Jack Butala: It's a luxury to do the deals that we do because we get to talk to the seller. We talk to the seller from day one and we talk to them at the end. There's no real estate broker or anybody involved to screw up the deal. So it's opposite of what real estate agents think. We're the buyer, we're not going to screw the deal up. Or if we do screw the deal up, it needed to be screwed up. Talk to your seller-
Jill DeWit: There was something wrong.
Steven Jack Butala: ... Which is, then you shouldn't buy. Talk to your seller, ask him, you just bought this in June-
Jill DeWit: That's it.
Steven Jack Butala: ... What's going on?
Jill DeWit: Why are you selling?
Steven Jack Butala: Well, we changed our minds. We thought we were going to move there but my son went to school over here instead of over here. And that's nine times out of 10, is that you're correct. Or really if you're sensing, use your senses here that, there's going to cost $82,000 to get the sewer connected, which just happened to us by the way and we killed the deal as we found out. That will actually come out most of the time in your regular due diligence scenario.
Jack Thursday - How Most Decisions Come Down to One Number (LA 1766) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jack Thursday, and I'm going to talk about how most decisions come down to one single number. I have to say, if numbers are not part of how you make decisions, and you're really making decisions based on how you feel, you're in for it.
Jill DeWit: I can't wait to hear more of this [inaudible 00:00:36]
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landininvestors.com online community. It's free. Please don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel. Comment on the shows you like. It actually helps us produce better content.
Jill DeWit: John wrote, "If you're new, your first year is most likely going through some of the growing pains of answering some of these questions for yourself."
Steven Jack Butala: This is very long, and this is okay, and it's very ... It's not a question.
Jill DeWit: I can talk.
Steven Jack Butala: John is a ... Let me set this up a little bit.
Jill DeWit: You don't like how I'm reading it.
Steven Jack Butala: No, I love how you read it.
Jill DeWit: Oh, okay.
Steven Jack Butala: It's just really long and I don't want you to burn through it. This is a long ... It's not a question, what John did here, because there are a lot of questions. He decided, thank you, and this is why I put it in the show, to share his experience after a few years of sending mail successfully, and the things that he learned his first year that he's sharing with about, you know, get over it.
Jill DeWit: Cool. I kind of gathered that.
Steven Jack Butala: Okay, good.
Jill DeWit: All right. So he says, "If you're new, you're going to go through some growing pains and answering some questions for yourself. You're going to make some mistakes. You're going to have some mailers that don't go as planned and deals that fall through, et cetera. You're looking to weather those storms and make mistakes so you can come out of the first year knowing what you need to accomplish in order to succeed. If you have a budget for 30,000 mailers, to see if this works, I know it's tempting to jump in with both feet and send out a bunch of mail, but I would suggest spacing that out over a year so you're learning the cycle of this business. Mail goes out, hate wave and missed price offers come in a week, and then the core of the campaign happens over the next couple months, and then offers trickle in indefinitely. Rinse and repeat. It's not foolproof, but understanding where you are in the response window for your mailer campaign is important, because over time you'll get a sense of what type of seller responds at different stages.
Jill DeWit: "And more importantly, if a campaign deviates too far from the norm, it's good to reflect on where you're targeting your pricing. If every time you send out 3,000 letters in California, you're going to get about X hate, y no-deal leads, and then Z actual deals. And one campaign goes completely flat or turns into an ATM, you'll have that knowledge of previous campaigns to say, 'Let me pause and dig into what happened with this one.' If you send out 30,000 offers all at once and nothing for another six months, it's really hard to get a feel for what's happened and what can be improved on. I partner with various members on campaigns, and another thing I notice is a batch of mail going out is like a birthday or a lotto ticket or spring training."
Steven Jack Butala: That's how I feel about it.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. "That excitement for what could come, starting from a clean slate, puts wind in people's sails, versus trying to circle back on a previous mailer and looking to salvage it or...
Hard Working Land Academy Members Steven and AJ Holbrook Interview (LA 1765) If you enjoyed the podcast, please review it in Apple Podcasts . Reviews are incredibly important for rankings on Apple Podcasts. My staff and I read each and every one.
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email me directly at steven@BuWit.com.
The BuWit Family of Companies include:
https://BuWit.com
https://offers2owners.com
https://landinvestors.com
https://landacademy.com
https://landpin.com
https://parcelfact.com
https://countywise.com
https://deedperfect.com
https://ownersdata.com
https://houseacademy.com
I would like to think it’s entertaining and informative and in the end profitable.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
How a Double Mailer Works and Why (LA 1764) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala:Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit:Hi. Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala:Today, Jill and I talk about how a double mailer works and why. What the hell is a double mailer, Jill? Jill DeWit:I know. Are you going to explain it? Steven Jack Butala:Sure. Jill DeWit:Okay, good. Steven Jack Butala:This happened by accident. Here's what a double mailer is. We had a guy call us on clubhouse, who was a long time member, pretty successful actually, and said, "I just sent out a mailer in an area and found out after I sent it out that somebody right before me mailed the same thing." And we talked about it and he got all kinds of deals about out of it. And the first guy who sent the mail out didn't. So now, he does it on purpose. He sends out the mail first... This is a double mailer, sends out the mail for himself and then waits about a month and sends it out again and does a bunch of deals. Jill DeWit:There you go. Now we had the show. Steven Jack Butala:Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. I hope you know this by now. We have a full blown commercial printing company called Offers 2 Owners. Jill and I set this company up several years ago, because we were frustrated about outsourcing our mail to other commercial printing companies that didn't understand our business. So that's a couple years ago. So last month, we actually sent out about 800,000 offers on behalf of our customers and members. So if you think this is for you, check out offers2owners.com. Jill DeWit:Afrain and Martha wrote when doing your search in data tree, do you all exclude corporate owners? I've been excluding corporate owners, do not mail and HOA and all my mailers, but I wonder if I'm missing good deals because of it. Steven Jack Butala:So this is a theme in these questions for this week. This isn't the first or this is not the last question that pertains to this topic and I'm going to answer it emphatically like this. Jill DeWit:Okay. Steven Jack Butala:This is the worst idea ever. Jill DeWit:Yep. I was going to say. Steven Jack Butala:In Land Academy 3.0, which is the most recent education product that Jill and I put together for members, we have a list of very, very specific list of things that you should exclude in your mailer. And they are owners. For example, if a property is owned by the United States of America in your data set, I think you're wasting your time and money by sending them mail. Jill DeWit:Yeah, those should not get mail. Steven Jack Butala:If you're sending an offer to the county of X, wherever you're mailing it, they're not going to respond. They're not actually even able, even if they wanted to sell you property. It's government property. So there's a whole list of things like that. Railroads and cemeteries and hospitals, they're not going to respond. I think it's a waste of 50 cents. Jill DeWit:However... Steven Jack Butala:I can't name the number of properties that we purchase from companies. All of our properties are- Jill DeWit:Those should stay in. Steven Jack Butala:All of our properties are owned by companies, the companies that we own and we sell property all the time. Jill DeWit:Yeah. HOA should stay in. Steven Jack Butala:All of that. Jill DeWit:So yeah. So the basing is everyone go look at the list like Jack's saying and take those out, just the obvious ones. But yeah, if you've taken out any corporate owner, are you taking out trust too? Gosh. How many properties, like maybe your personal residence is in a trust as it should be, kind of thing. If you take out corporate owners, you're missing me, all my properties that I own. That's the way of the world nowadays.
There are Uncovered Deals in Your Existing Mailer (LA 1763) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today. Jill and I talk about how there are uncovered deals in your existing mailer right now.
Jill DeWit: Yep. It happens.
Steven Jack Butala: Every once in a while, Jill and I talk to somebody or it gets back to us and somebody says some version of this. "Yeah, I sent the mailer out and it just didn't work."
Jill DeWit: Right. I actually got an email that got to me. There's an individual, let's just say the name rhymes with clue, who has got very close to our transaction coordinator because he's submitted several deals. And the ones that he submitted that were not-
Steven Jack Butala: I know who you're talking about.
Jill DeWit: They were not accepted. They're all valid reasons. I wrote back, "Hey, this location stinks. There's no access." There's really good positive things. But then there's some that are good. So we have one right now that we funded-
Steven Jack Butala: Is this the show?
Jill DeWit: I guess I should hold it.
Steven Jack Butala: "I guess I should hold it." Yeah, hold it, Jill.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And I hope by now you know that Jill and I personally instruct a handful of new and existing Land Academy members in a class called Career Path. If buying and selling land is your career or you want it to be, let us know. Please email support@landacademy.com. See if this level of involvement is for you.
Jill DeWit: It's called Career Path.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, career path.
Jill DeWit: Did you say it? I don't know if you did.
Steven Jack Butala: Yep.
Jill DeWit: Okay, good. Sorry. Victor wrote, "To those who have done minor improvements on a property, like underbrush clearing or minor tree trimming, did you ever see any difference in the amount of time it took to sell?" I don't.
Steven Jack Butala: This is a very intelligent question and it's probably rooted in experience. In fact, I know in your case, Victor, it is because 20 people responded to this in Discord, and ultimately I responded too, and so did Kevin. And the answer is no.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Jack Butala: I know you have this deal. I know it's a great deal, and you go all the way down and there's a river back there and it's beautiful and all that. And I know it's your first deal. Congratulations, by the way. I'm sure you're going to do great. But in this case, I know a real estate agent came to you and said, "Look, this property's great, but you can't get back to the river. And if you can clear some of this stuff I might be able to sell it faster for more money."
Steven Jack Butala: And so this taps into a bigger thing for me as a business owner and as a real estate deal maker, and that's the real reason I included this question in this episode. Throughout your entire career people will come to you and say, and have this notion ... I'm going through it right now with an employee and they're not going to be with us for much longer. "If you just do this one more thing for me. Please, do this one more thing, then I can get my stuff done."
Steven Jack Butala: In this case, the real estate agent saying, "Yes, but if you can just do this one more thing, can you just clear this?" And trust me, it will not end there. That's a personality issue. And I'm sure that many of you listening have had personal relationships like that, where the person in your relationship comes to you every once in a while and says, "Yeah, I like this thing about you over here, but you really need to work on this thing over here for me, because it's just not working for me.
Jill Friday - How Long do Land Academy Members Stay in the Group (LA 1762) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, Entertaining Land Investment Talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jill's Friday. She's going to talk about how long do Land Academy members actually stay in the group?
Jill K DeWit: I have some stats. I know you like stats.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com, online community. It's free. I got to tell you, back in the day, it was nearly impossible to find land without a mailing address, like 123 Main Street. Well, eventually Jill and I put together a website called neighborscoop.com that allows you to find property that doesn't have an address, which is really almost all the property that we purchase by just using the state and the county that it's in and the assessor's parcel number. It's called neighborscoop.com. Check it out. If you need more information, you can always email support@landacademy.com.
Jill K DeWit: Cool. Jeff wrote, "This is my third try giving away good deals with some money in them."
Steven Jack Butala: This is what goes on discord.
Jill K DeWit: Why is this? This is funny.
Steven Jack Butala: This is a thing on discord right now, giving away deals that people don't want to do. Just giving them away.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. Finding them and giving them away. All right. [inaudible 00:01:16] takers on this one, it's three strikes and that means they kicked me out of this group. Not sure if that's funny. No, I've an info lot on Shreveport for $2,200. It's corn lot. Private message me for details, assignment fees just 20% of the profit after you sell.
Steven Jack Butala: Of the profit after you sell so it's no risk to whoever takes over this deal. Why would somebody give away a perfectly good transaction, Jill?
Jill K DeWit: Because they don't want to do it or they don't know how to do it, or they just not good at it.
Steven Jack Butala: Or it's not in their acquisition criteria. If a deal came in from a way past mailer for 2200 bucks and we knew we could sell it for eight pretty quickly, we would not do the deal. Why? Because that's not in our acquisition criteria anymore. We're buy for 30 to 50 and sell for 90 to 150. That's what we do.
Steven Jack Butala: We have limited amount of resources, just like everybody. There's only so much time Jill can spend on the phone and her staff and the whole thing. Is it crazy profitable when you look at the margin? Yep. We're just not going to do it. That's what's going on here. This is one of the things that happens in discord often. I'm going to bring this up now. I just approved right before we sat down to record this, a sneak peek at discord, the tech thing is done.
Jill K DeWit: Is that good? Good. I can't wait to see it. Got something on my eyes, sorry.
Steven Jack Butala: If you go to landinvestors.com and just go to the front page. You can horse around, read and read only fashion with what's going on that minute in discord. It's pretty amazing.
Jill K DeWit: Cool.
Steven Jack Butala: I think you will be amazed at the conversations that we're all having as Land Academy members, which is fitting for today's topic. Today's topic is Jill Friday. How long do Land Academy's members actually stay in the group? This is the meat of the show.
Jill K DeWit: I went back and looked at some numbers and it's pretty much what I thought. They join land academy. They get started. They're doing data, doing mail, whatever. How long do they stick with this? Well, some of them I'm going to say the number is right around 20% are here for a year. They give it a year. What happens after a year? Two things. One is, I find out this is not for them or life happens and more often than not life happens...
Jack Thursday - 5 Things I Refuse to Spend Money On (LA 1761) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Howdy.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jack Thursday and I'm going to talk about five things I refuse to spend money on. I should have called it, refuse to spend too much money on. Some of these are really unavoidable.
Jill K DeWit: I got some that are just automatic, I can think of.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel. Comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Dave wrote, "I've got the VP of Business Development for a large senior living community asking me to birddog suitable land for them. Anyone ever indulge something like this by actually sending a mailer in an area with buying criteria that might be different than what you would normally do otherwise? The risk seems pretty obvious, but the upside could be pretty big. I'm thinking. What do you all think?"
Steven Jack Butala: I started my career on this very thing, in the very early '90s, buying and selling long-term care facilities and associated companies, and land even, to people who already own long term care companies. So I responded to this person in great length in Discord, and I said, "Yeah, I would do it. However, here's a few things that I learned that you really need to do before you get too excited about it."
Steven Jack Butala: If it's a nonprofit group, we've done this, Jill and I have done this for people, apartment owners, in Los Angeles with mild success. And I only say mild because mild, not extreme success, because Jill and I got really frustrated with the amount of time that. Just know that it's a client. When you're buying property on behalf of yourself, you can make a decision really quickly.
Jill K DeWit: Yep.
Steven Jack Butala: When you're buying property on behalf of anyone else, especially if it's an organization and there's multiple people making a decision.
Jill K DeWit: They've got to love all over it and feel it and I can't take it.
Steven Jack Butala: So, mild success, But if you're really, really young and you're super ambitious, you can get a mailer out. I'll tell you what's great about senior living or any specific use type property like this, maybe properties for subdivisions. These people live and die by these acquisitions so they have to make a decision. So you got that going for you. Number two, they're very specifically zoned. So you can do a mailer, in an entire state, if you've got real good data, assessor data, for that specific zoning, like people who want trailer parks. That's specifically zoned. RV parks, very specific zoning. Self storage and on and on and on. So when you find a client that's on a real aggressive acquisition schedule, it's not hard to put those things together.
Steven Jack Butala: If they're for-profit group, you need to find out who's making the decision and you need to sign a contract that says, "You're going to pay me 2% of whatever you buy, whatever I send you. And I'm not going to represent you in this transaction in any manner, because I'm not a licensed real estate agent."
Steven Jack Butala: If it's a nonprofit group, and I did the majority of work myself long time ago for nonprofits, you really need to put a suit on and go to the next board meeting and find out, take their pulse about how thirsty they are for doing acquisitions. Because nonprofits all say they are. They want to expand and do better and spread their mission and the whole thing. But when it comes to reality, the vast majority of the time is that they just don't have the [foreign language 00:03:26] to do what a for profit company does...
Blind Offer Mailer Campaign Competition in 2022 (LA 1760) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining real estate investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: I'm Jill Dewitt, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, jill and I talk about blind offer mailer campaign competition in 2022.
Jill K DeWit: Well, I guess that's it. We're done. Just kidding.
Steven Jack Butala: I'm so sorry, but you're not the only person sending mail out. It used to be like that. I used to be one of two people that sent out mailers.
Jill K DeWit: That's true. I do know that.
Steven Jack Butala: We used to talk to each other all the time, me and Steve Seal.
Jill K DeWit: Mm-hmm. That's good.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community. It's free.
Steven Jack Butala: Last year, a ton of Land Academy members came to Jill and I, needing extra help getting their blind offer campaigns in the mail.
Steven Jack Butala: Jill and I took a look at it. We took a look at how we personally send out mail, why it's so efficient. And we realized that we had some staff that rock at doing mailers effectively and getting them out, right to the point where then I would go in and price it.
Steven Jack Butala: Well, we made that available to the public, well to Land Academy members. We're calling it Concierge Data Plus.
Steven Jack Butala: It's a year later. Hundreds of members are outsourcing their entire mail process with this product.
Steven Jack Butala: Whether you're brand new and you don't want to go through, it's good, it'll work for you. Or if you're five, 10 years into this and you're sick and tired of doing mailers yourself, you can outsource it.
Steven Jack Butala: This is a good product for you. Check out Support@LandAcademy.com or offers the number two, owners.com. See if it's for you.
Jill K DeWit: Cool. Aiden wrote, "If anyone in the group doesn't like the sales aspect of this business, we need to chat. My partner and I joined the group last summer and have been able to close approximately 65 deals since last July.
Jill K DeWit: We partner with another member of the group, for the data and the mailing aspects and our team handles inbound leads, due diligence, sales, transaction coordination, acquisitions, and dispositions. We all feel like we've built a pretty decent system, and we have a great team in place.
Jill K DeWit: We're currently sending out 30,000 mailers a month and have a bandwidth to handle more inbound calls, analyze more deals and get more contracts. If anyone here is potentially interested in partnering up, we're looking to do the data, mailing, preliminary due diligence and the sales aspect of business and partner up with someone who's more interested in experience in the second half of the process. I'm located in..." Do you want me to even say?
Steven Jack Butala: It doesn't matter. Sure. It's okay.
Jill K DeWit: "East coast state. We would like to partner with someone who is also in east coast states," although it's sprinkled around the country. So, it doesn't really matter.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: "And then send me a message, if you're interested." This is cool. This is clearly in Discord, probably in the Partners Wanted section in there. That's cool.
Steven Jack Butala: On Monday we talked about, this is not the place to save time or money. These guys are not doing either. They're not saving time or money because it's their full-time job. So, let's do some math.
Steven Jack Butala: They're sending out 30,000 mailers. That costs about $15,000 a month. Oh my God, Jack, $15,000 a month. Where there's a will, there's a way. $175,000 a year, but they did 65 deals.
Jill K DeWit: Mm-hmm.
Steven Jack Butala: So our average probably group-wide,
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Land Investment is Not the Place to Save Time or Money (LA 1758) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Stevie, Jill, here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Stephen Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about how land investment, the environment, is not the place to try to save time and money.
Jill K DeWit: Or even specifically, getting it going. Please don't... There's things you can't skimp on. I know we're going to go through a list. I'll ask you. It'll be fun. We'll make a list of things that you can skimp on and you cannot skimp on, like how much you spend on a sandwich. Skimp on that. How much you spend on mail, don't skimp on that.
Steven Jack Butala: Buy a used car. Don't buy a new one. Even if it's one or two years old. We all know this, and we're all entrepreneurs here. Our whole listening base, I'm sure, is some version of an entrepreneur, and everybody loves to save money. You know where you save money in this environment? When you buy a piece of property.
Jill K DeWit: Not everybody loves to save money, by the way.
Steven Jack Butala: Oh, really? You think it's just me?
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. I'm not even going to tell you how much I just spent on concert tickets. Let me tell you real quick.
Steven Jack Butala: Sure.
Jill K DeWit: All right. I got us tickets for... If you're listening, I'd love to know if you know who this is. Rufus Du Sol. I personally love, love, love Rufus Du Sol, and I just got us tickets to go see them in Santa Barbara, general admission. Just no seats, on the floor, on the front. You ready? $400 each.
Steven Jack Butala: Oh my gosh. It'll be worth it, though.
Jill K DeWit: I know. I'm like, "I don't care."
Steven Jack Butala: That's a good break for us, too, just to go out there.
Jill K DeWit: Ah, yes.
Steven Jack Butala: I don't care about saving money about stuff like that, either.
Jill K DeWit: See? See? That's the thing. Not going to save money on that. Will I save money on how I get there? Sure. Or where I stay? Yeah. But on the show, on the event? Heck no. That's an event.
Steven Jack Butala: Actually, I have a bunch to say about this. Let's do the commercial first. I think the gist of it is, if you're saving money, if you're being frivolous about how personally comfortable you are, that's silly.
Jill K DeWit: Yep. [inaudible 00:02:09] hear more about that. Okay. Go ahead.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and I'm hoping that you know by now that Jill and I personally instruct a handful of new and existing Land Academy members in a live class called Career Path. If buying and selling land is your career, or you want it to be, let us know. Check out support@landacademy.com and see if it's for you.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. That reminds me, Career Path number five is scheduled for October. It'll be the week after this event, so apparently, this concert will be our kickoff.
Steven Jack Butala: Oh, that's why you just...
Jill K DeWit: I just thought of it.
Steven Jack Butala: It fit into your schedule.
Jill K DeWit: No. Oh, no. I would have moved the schedule to go see Rufus Du Sol there. Don't even think about that. You know what's funny? It's either the next night, or it's not long after that, they're playing the Hollywood Bowl. Can you believe that?
Steven Jack Butala: Rufus Du Sol's playing the Hollywood Bowl?
Jill K DeWit: I know.
Steven Jack Butala: You did the right thing.
Jill K DeWit: Oh, of course.
Steven Jack Butala: Santa Barbara's way better than Hollywood Bowl.
Jill K DeWit: Exactly. Okay. Enough about our little personal lives. I'm sure you're like, "Get on with it." Okay. This is so cool. Josiah wrote... What would he call himself? Josie the...
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill Friday - How Fast and Accurate We Help People Buy and Sell Land (LA 1757) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steven and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy show, entertaining land, investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewit broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today is Jill Friday, she's going to talk about how fast and accurate we help people buy and sell land.
Jill K DeWit: Let me tell you what this means. It's about experience. We, because of who we are and the years of, gosh, what did you say? 25 for you and pushing 15 for me.
Steven Jack Butala: It's almost 30.
Jill K DeWit: You know, of experience doing land deals. I, we both and I learned from you, so I've got that behind me. We can pretty quickly assess a property and tell you if it's a good deal, not a good deal, things to do, what to do. You can't get that. That's not a six month endeavor, like, oh, I got this.
Steven Jack Butala: It's not just, [crosstalk 00:00:53].
Jill K DeWit: I nailed one county, I got this, I can help the planet.No.
Steven Jack Butala: And it's not just us. We have a.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: Just a massive library of [crosstalk 00:01:00].
Jill K DeWit: Of our...
Steven Jack Butala: Transactions that we've reviewed.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: On behalf of our members and [crosstalk 00:01:04].
Jill K DeWit: So you can.
Steven Jack Butala: We have a live Discord channel where all of our members are conversing with each other and doing deals with each other, from a funding standpoint and all of that. So it's not Land Academy is, we downplay it, probably too much. The Land Academy group of investors is quite amazing, it's not just Jill and I.
Jill K DeWit: Right, but I'm going to talk about that a little bit more
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free. Back in the day, it was nearly impossible to find land without a mailing address, which is most of the properties that Jill and I deal with, or that all land investors deal with. To solve this, we used to access this very crude database that I created, where you just post the APN, the assessor's partial number and the state and county where the property is, was, and or is and it would locate the property relatively quickly, which would set off a chain of events. And a half hour later, you would know where the property is and all the pertinent statistics that were involved. Well, that got to be pretty old. So we re-created it and web enabled it into a company called neighborscoop.com. So that can happen in seconds now instead of hours or days, so I get used to.
Jill K DeWit: Oh my goodness.
Steven Jack Butala: Check this out @neighborscoop.com.
Jill K DeWit: It's one of those massive time savers that I can't believe how we used to get by without it. It's amazing. All right. So Greg wrote, I apologize if this post is somewhat long, but I just wanted to say, I wanted to thank Stephen and Jill so much for starting this whole thing and teaching all of us how to do this when they could have kept this all to themselves. Thank you guys so much for everything you've done for everyone here. Thank God without faith and prayer, none of this would be possible and thank everyone here who provides feedback and helps teach us newbies the ropes.
Jill K DeWit: Starting out, it's easy to doubt your next move or fear the outcome of making an inexperienced decision that may cost you and y'all don't have to share your thoughts or provide any feedback. So I appreciate everyone who takes the time to respond and help out. This is truly changing my family's life forever and giving me the opportunity to provide a better life for them. I never been able to, God bless everyone here. I saw that you showed me that. That was so nice.
Jack Thursday - Minimum Value Product or MVP Land Investing (LA 1756) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Jack and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Stephen Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jack Thursday and I'm going to talk about, "Why is land investing like pulling teeth?" This is a direct quote from Herbert Graham, a career path, now advanced member who we had pleasure of meeting with one time, because there was a brief live event in Phoenix that we were invited to. And we didn't host it but we were invited to it. And recently he said he was having trouble with an escrow agent and he said, "Why is getting a deal closed, like pulling teeth?" Which inspired me to talk about, why is this whole thing like pulling teeth? Because it can be.
Jill K DeWit: Sometimes.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Sometimes Jill says little things like sometimes and reminds me of my childhood.
Jill K DeWit: Oh, I'm sorry.
Steven Jack Butala: And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on this show as you like.
Jill K DeWit: What does that mean?
Steven Jack Butala: It's just funny. Sometimes you just, it's funny. That's how I know I love you, like some of this stuff to do that's quirky.
Jill K DeWit: Doesn't sound like it, sound like-
Steven Jack Butala: No, it's a compliment.
Jill K DeWit: All right. Now I know how you traumatize, it sounds like I'm traumatizing you on reminding me of your childhood and I don't want that.
Steven Jack Butala: No, it's all positive. It's like quite the opposite. It's all positive.
Jill K DeWit: Matthew wrote, this is more of a success of my mindset shift. I came in hoping I can make this work. That's changed. Here's why last month I brought in $25,000 of profit from a flip. Now I'm in the process of purchasing another two parcels. I already have a funder, one parcels, larger, one smaller, but buy one for 117,000, one realtor put the total combined value at 280,000, wait, buy one parcels larger one small buy for 117,000. Sounds like buying both for that. I'm thinking, one realtor put the total combined value of the two at 280,000 and another realtor put the total combining value at 325,000. We're doubling, we're tripling our number. Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: It's way more than that-
Jill K DeWit: I'd be happy with either. The mindset shift is incredible now, that I've personally seen incredibly profitable properties come in, I received my usual two week paycheck and I'm very appreciative of it, but I wasn't as excited as I used to be.
Jill K DeWit: And not even as close as to as much as I'm making in land. Now I know I can do this business. Oh, I see. You know, I just talked to somebody about this recently too, that the shift in adding a zero and not being afraid to go for these bigger deals. And then once you do a couple of them you're like, huh, and the numbers you throw around are like, let's see what's that? 80, $90,000. Sure. Where do you want me to wire the money when, before you'd be like, holy, oh my gosh. I mean even $8,000. That was a lot. And then you jump ahead and ahead and ahead.
Steven Jack Butala: The takeaway that I took from this is that, we all can have personal anecdotes or experiences like this, where one month you look at something and say, there's no way I can do that. Not because I don't think I've had talent or not. I just don't want to put the energy into it. I know I can do it, but I don't want to figure it out. And for whatever reason a month goes by and it's like, I'm doing this and it's not as hard as I thought and I'm actually going to make a business out of it. So we all have things like that. For some kids it's like,
Coaching Real Estate Agents about Our Land Business (LA 1755) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Howdy.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show entertaining real estate investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today Jill and I talk about coaching real estate agents about our land business.
Jill K DeWit: How about coaching real estate agents about the land business?
Steven Jack Butala: I'm not real excited to talking about real estate agents. I'm not really excited about talking about coaching real estate agents and teaching them about our land business, because almost none of them understand it. But Jill is. Jill told me she's really excited to talk about this today.
Jill K DeWit: All right. We'll get there.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And I'll tell you last year, a ton of land academy members came to Jill and I needing extra help getting blind offer campaigns in the mail. In a very short, descriptive way, Jill and I made a company out of it. We made a service out of it for land academy members called Concierge Data. If you go to offers2owners.com, ask them about outsourcing your entire mail process because that's what it's set up for. That's what I do. Concierge Data.
Jill K DeWit: You give them your order. You tell them the property size, and you give them the zip codes or the county. And they pull the data. They do the scrubbing all under your direction, but they do the work.
Steven Jack Butala: Same exact people that I have do my mailers and have done long before that whole entity had a name.
Jill K DeWit: Yep. Exactly. Steven wrote, we have a seller that wants the purchase of the property to be contingent on us installing a fence around it. Who flipping cares if he's selling it?
Steven Jack Butala: I love your reaction to this.
Jill K DeWit: It's hilarious.
Steven Jack Butala: Because this imploded on discord.
Jill K DeWit: What the heck? Well, I'll sell it to you, but you got to pay for a fence. What?
Steven Jack Butala: And why do you need fence if you're selling it?
Jill K DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala: So, anyway, go ahead.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. The property would require about one mile of fencing, and it's not a cheap endeavor. Of course not. Has anyone had to sell or make a strange request like this? Nope. Is this something that can be written in and dealt with through escrow and can be done after the close on the deal? I don't want to spend money on installing a fence just to have the sellers back out. Yeah, this is the weirdest thing on the planet. He could put in a deed restriction or something, but that doesn't make any sense. What? He must live next door, and say I want a line.
Steven Jack Butala: That's what everybody said online.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. He's got to live next door. And I want everyone to know this is my dance area. This is your dance area.
Steven Jack Butala: The only logical reason. And I'm not saying logic applies here. It might just be...
Jill K DeWit: No logic applies.
Steven Jack Butala: Just be wackos. Is that they don't want to pay for... They have an adjacent property, and they don't want to pay for a fence.
Jill K DeWit: That's got to be it.
Steven Jack Butala: That's what I would think.
Jill K DeWit: That's the only way.
Steven Jack Butala: I would never do this by the way.
Jill K DeWit: Nope.
Steven Jack Butala: This is the biggest red flag ever. I would just say no. And if you're neighbors and you want to split the cost, now we can talk about that. But this just doesn't... The person's either messing with you or they don't understand.
Jill K DeWit: A mile fence. That's a lot. Oh, my. Could you imagine? How long would that take? That's a long time.
Steven Jack Butala: It depends.
Accurate Mailer Pricing in this Hot 2022 Real Estate Market (LA 1754) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: ... Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today Jill and I are going to talk about accurate mailer pricing in this hot 2022 real estate market.
Jill K DeWit: Yep.
Steven Jack Butala: There seems to be, as there always are, Jill and I used to joke, and we still joke in Career Path, all questions lead to pricing, or answering your phone. In fact, there's Career Path, you don't need to go, price correctly and answer your phone.
Jill K DeWit: There you go. By the way, you know how I know that this is all confused and screwy right now, because I have people sending me offers that are just too high.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: So we need to clarify a few things here, [inaudible 00:00:51] I hope we do.
Steven Jack Butala: Do before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and I'd like you to know, we have a full-blown commercial printing company Jill and I own called offers2owners.com. And we set it up a lot of years ago, because we were unsatisfied with using products like Click2Mail, they just don't really understand our very specific mailer campaign operations. So that was then, and now we do between 700 and 900 and offers, we get those in the mail every single month on behalf of our members, and non-members. Go to support@offers2owners.com, and check it all out.
Jill K DeWit: JD wrote, "Just curious what everyone's thoughts are on the following, does a buy for 25 to 35% of cost, and sell for 75 to 85% of market value, flipped 30 days or less, work for higher price land also?" I love this.
Steven Jack Butala: This is a great concise question. JD was part of Career Path the last time, and I know what market he's in, and yeah, of course it does. I can't stress this enough, this is the moment of the podcast that you should really pay attention to, if there is one.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: In fact, this is the moment of the whole week, [crosstalk 00:02:12] save you some time.
Jill K DeWit: Okay.
Steven Jack Butala: Common sense applies here. If you look at a piece of property, and you can watch Jill do this multiple times on the Thursday call, if you say to yourself, "Oh, I'm buying this. The real estate's great, it's got all the six A's, the price is amazing." I can tell you right now, at the purchase price that it's been accepted on the mailer of $30,000, and there's immediate comps in the area for 100 to $200,000, or whatever the numbers end up being, we're buying it. So how do you arrive to that point? How do you actually arrive to just being confident enough, and comfortable enough to say, like we all do on the call, Laurie and Brandon, and you and I that, "Yeah, I'm buying it and there's no doubt about it. Let's open escrow."
Jill K DeWit: I know-
Steven Jack Butala: Experience.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah, they were going to say the same thing. Good, yep.
Steven Jack Butala: How do you get experience if you're brand new? By watching the library of content that Jill and I have put together, thousands of hours, literally thousands of hours of us reviewing people's deals.
Jill K DeWit: That's a good exercise, you know what I would do? I would watch the Thursday calls. They're all recorded for you, our members, and I would go through, as we're doing the, Would You Do These Deals? I would pause it on the video, and then kind of guess what I think my answer would be, and then let us, you and I, weigh in.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: How we do it is, people submit, they put in the state county APN, purchase price that's accepted, what they think they could sell it for, and then any details,
If I Were a Land Academy Member (LA 1753) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about, well, what if we were Land Academy members? What if I was Land Academy member? How would I...
Jill K DeWit: Approach this?
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: What would I focus on?
Steven Jack Butala: Jill took a lot of notes and it's usually a much better show when she does, so...
Jill K DeWit: Well, thank you.
Steven Jack Butala: We'll get to that in a second.
Jill K DeWit: Thanks.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Did you know that Jill and I personally instruct a handful of new and existing Land Academy members in a live class called Career Path? Hey, if this is your career, or you want it to be, check it all out. Please go to support@landacademy.com or just landacademy.com and do a little bit of self-research.
Jill K DeWit: Career Path #4 is going on right now and we are having a ball. Okay, Dave wrote: "Hi all, my husband and I are brand new to Land Academy and getting systems set up. I had a call with..."
Steven Jack Butala: Go ahead and say it.
Jill K DeWit: I don't know, is that...
Steven Jack Butala: I'll talk about it in a minute.
Jill K DeWit: REI Conversion.
Steven Jack Butala: That's a thing.
Jill K DeWit: Is it Seth?
Steven Jack Butala: No.
Jill K DeWit: No, that's not Seth. Okay.
Steven Jack Butala: No, I'll-
Jill K DeWit: It's funny. Everybody takes everybody's words and they put a spin on it, because they think, "Oh, it must be Seth." No, it's not Seth. Okay, good. He mentions soon to have a website with them and, "We'll be required to have a membership to their CRM, which is Pebble, as well. I think it's a great value, but it seemed like a big commitment just to get our initial website set up and our business started. I'd love your feedback from you on if there are other suggestions for an inexpensive web developers, just to get our business website set up, or if the entire package is worth it as a starter." So he's trolling our people?
Steven Jack Butala: No, there's no trolling.
Jill K DeWit: Okay.
Steven Jack Butala: He uses the Land Academy name on there. My point in putting this question in here today is this... And Jill didn't read this question until just now. So I'm actually pretty, fairly researched on it this morning. There are a lot of people popping up in this space that are in their early 20s that are good at doing websites. And I'm not so sure they're good at doing... Good at buying and selling land. In fact, I am sure they're not good at selling land... Buying and selling land.
Jill K DeWit: That's okay. If they're good at websites. That's good.
Steven Jack Butala: Right. There's a ton... Like, everything. There's a ton of places to go to get websites done and whatever tools that are needed, which we... Jill and I instruct all the time and talk about in all of our education, but there's a lot of places to go that are popping up now that are land specific to get these tools. Like most people, I got this question out of Discord. A lot of people had a lot of stuff to say, and I'm going to essentially repeat what just about... well, everybody said, "This is silly."
Jill K DeWit: I was going to say they all Upworked and [Fiverr 00:02:50] and...
Steven Jack Butala: These tools are... Well, there's just no easy button to this. If there was, and it worked, and it was relatively flawless, Jill and I would create it, and we would release it to everybody. The best way to buy and sell land is by learning. And spending a tremendous time, amount of time on research.
Jill Friday - How to Pick a Great Land Business Partner (LA 1752) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Jack and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land academy Show, entertaining land, investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today is Jill Friday. She's going to talk about how to pick a great land business partner. I can't wait to hear this show.
Jill K DeWit: This comes up all the time. Everyone ask me, "How did you get so darn lucky?"
Steven Jack Butala: Oh, I thought you were going to say, "How do you put up with that?"
Jill K DeWit: "Your life looks like a dream."
Steven Jack Butala: Oh my gosh. No one says that. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.
Steven Jack Butala: And I'll tell, you back in the day, it was almost impossible to find land without our actual mailing address. So we developed a product called neighborscoop.com, where all you do is put in the state, county and APM, and up pops the parcel. You can complete what we call a [inaudible 00:01:02] due diligence in seconds, instead of weeks, like it used to. Check it out atneighborscoop.com, or give us a email at support@landacademy.com.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. This is the right question here, not this one. Okay, okay. So Martin wrote, this is hilarious. "You two are great. How can I get my wife interested in working with me?"
Steven Jack Butala: Oh, geez. Martin says this?
Jill K DeWit: Yes.
Steven Jack Butala: Oh, Martin.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: The cards are stacked against you.
Jill K DeWit: This-
Steven Jack Butala: How do you get your wife interested in anything, is the real question.
Jill K DeWit: Oh. You know what's funny? I hear this often from men, "My wife kind of gets it." Usually it's just trying to get your wife on board. It's people I'm talking to that are thinking about joining Career Path or thinking about joining Land Academy. And sometimes they get to me and I'm just answering questions, and one of it's like, "Gosh." And I will ask, "By the way, is your significant other on the same page?"
Jill K DeWit: Because, look, men, you all know, or look men or women, doesn't matter who you are, if your partner is not on the same page it's probably not going to work. If they're adamantly against you doing something like this, they're not going to be supportive.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, don't do it then.
Jill K DeWit: And you shouldn't.
Steven Jack Butala: My favorite is, "I bought this from my wife," meaning Land Academy. And she said, "What the hell is this?"
Jill K DeWit: Right. "I'm not doing this."
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. And the guy says, "Here I am 14 deals later and I quit my job."
Jill K DeWit: Exactly. It's funny. I do know that there are many couples that listen to our show, not even I think in the land space, but for the comic relief. I get that. I know what it is, it's like, "Hey, we're not that bad, babe."
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, yeah. "Boy, they make me feel better about myself."
Jill K DeWit: Exactly. "Do you imagine if we worked together? Woo, sheesh. Dodged that bullet."
Steven Jack Butala: Let me get this out of the way. Today's Jill Friday, how to pick a great land business partner. This is the meat of the show.
Jill K DeWit: Okay, we're going to dive in and cover it all at one time. All right. And I understand, you can't push it. You really can't. If they're interested, they are. If not, at least I would share ... To kind of answer Martin's question, offer to get them involved, share with what you're doing, show them the bank account when it's growing. And if they weren't involved initially and they see the bank account growing, they'll probably be supportive after that.
Jill K DeWit: That used to be a thing a long time ago. I remember a guy years ago said,
Jack Thursday - Why is Land Investing Like Pulling Teeth (LA 1751) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Jack and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Stephen Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jack Thursday and I'm going to talk about, "Why is land investing like pulling teeth?" This is a direct quote from Herbert Graham, a career path, now advanced member who we had pleasure of meeting with one time, because there was a brief live event in Phoenix that we were invited to. And we didn't host it but we were invited to it. And recently he said he was having trouble with an escrow agent and he said, "Why is getting a deal closed, like pulling teeth?" Which inspired me to talk about, why is this whole thing like pulling teeth? Because it can be.
Jill K DeWit: Sometimes.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Sometimes Jill says little things like sometimes and reminds me of my childhood.
Jill K DeWit: Oh, I'm sorry.
Steven Jack Butala: And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on this show as you like.
Jill K DeWit: What does that mean?
Steven Jack Butala: It's just funny. Sometimes you just, it's funny. That's how I know I love you, like some of this stuff to do that's quirky.
Jill K DeWit: Doesn't sound like it, sound like-
Steven Jack Butala: No, it's a compliment.
Jill K DeWit: All right. Now I know how you traumatize, it sounds like I'm traumatizing you on reminding me of your childhood and I don't want that.
Steven Jack Butala: No, it's all positive. It's like quite the opposite. It's all positive.
Jill K DeWit: Matthew wrote, this is more of a success of my mindset shift. I came in hoping I can make this work. That's changed. Here's why last month I brought in $25,000 of profit from a flip. Now I'm in the process of purchasing another two parcels. I already have a funder, one parcels, larger, one smaller, but buy one for 117,000, one realtor put the total combined value at 280,000, wait, buy one parcels larger one small buy for 117,000. Sounds like buying both for that. I'm thinking, one realtor put the total combined value of the two at 280,000 and another realtor put the total combining value at 325,000. We're doubling, we're tripling our number. Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: It's way more than that-
Jill K DeWit: I'd be happy with either. The mindset shift is incredible now, that I've personally seen incredibly profitable properties come in, I received my usual two week paycheck and I'm very appreciative of it, but I wasn't as excited as I used to be.
Jill K DeWit: And not even as close as to as much as I'm making in land. Now I know I can do this business. Oh, I see. You know, I just talked to somebody about this recently too, that the shift in adding a zero and not being afraid to go for these bigger deals. And then once you do a couple of them you're like, huh, and the numbers you throw around are like, let's see what's that? 80, $90,000. Sure. Where do you want me to wire the money when, before you'd be like, holy, oh my gosh. I mean even $8,000. That was a lot. And then you jump ahead and ahead and ahead.
Steven Jack Butala: The takeaway that I took from this is that, we all can have personal anecdotes or experiences like this, where one month you look at something and say, there's no way I can do that. Not because I don't think I've had talent or not. I just don't want to put the energy into it. I know I can do it, but I don't want to figure it out. And for whatever reason a month goes by and it's like, I'm doing this and it's not as hard as I thought and I'm actually going to make a business out of it. So we all have things like that. For some kids it's like,
How to Overcome buying Land You Never Visit (LA 1750) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Jack and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining real estate investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala-
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about how to overcome buying land that you've never seen in person. I'm going to start with a little anecdote, if it's okay with you.
Jill K DeWit: Sure.
Steven Jack Butala: Jill and I are car people, and we're always looking for some car that's been in our soul forever, this is how I like to describe it, separately. This not something that we ever had or developed together. I think since we were little kids, we're car people.
Jill K DeWit: Yes.
Steven Jack Butala: And so, as you know, like anything online, these are rare cars. When they come up and they're the color you want, and they we have the engine you want and all that stuff, you got to make a decision quick. And it's never my first choice to buy a car, especially without seeing it. So recently, I bought an old Corvette that's been on my list for quite some time, and I took delivery on it, and I had this thought, if I saw this car in person, I would've paid to twice as much as I actually paid.
Steven Jack Butala: Patted myself on the back, but when in reality, I didn't do anything. It was just luck. Jill had the same experience with the Supra car recently when we took delivery on it. I tried to find a scratch on that car, and whoever owned that just babied it. So, the opposite is true with an old Volkswagen bus I bought. I did go to see that, luckily, and we ended up buying it for half of what the person was asking because it was just too banged up. And so the same applies to land. I can tell you that every single piece of land that I have ever gone to see, I would've paid more for.
Jill K DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yep. I understand.
Steven Jack Butala: I don't want to steal your thunder. I don't know what you're going to talk... This is Jill's show today.
Jill K DeWit: I've got-
Steven Jack Butala: I want to hear this too.
Jill K DeWit: We'll talk about that.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and I got to tell you, last year, a ton of Land Academy members came to Jill and I, needing extra help getting their blind offer campaigns in the mail. Getting the mail out is a tough thing for some people, and I get it. It was tough for me the first few times I did it, too. So I took a look at how we were personally sending mail out, with our key employees, and who does the stuff for me personally in our mailers, and we decided to create a product called Concierge Data Plus. It's a year later, and hundreds of members are using it. Go to the offers2owners, the number two, owners.com, click on Concierge Data, and see if it's for you.
Jill K DeWit: Ross wrote, "I just sold a property for $49,000 that was in a flood plain, and I made $30,800 on it after commissions and fees. Nearly didn't buy it because of the flood plain, and ended up price dropping the original offer down $20,000, to a purchase price of $12,500, and was willing to walk away if the seller didn't like this offer."
Steven Jack Butala: I love this.
Jill K DeWit: "Only after that did I contact a land agent that I have a great relationship with on the ground in that area, and they said the area was hotter than I thought, and that the flood plain would lower the sale price, but it would still sell fast, regardless. Didn't even know what I had, and that blind confidence allowed for the biggest price drop I've accomplished to date".
Steven Jack Butala: On the buy side.
Jill K DeWit: On the buy side, the purchase price. Yep. "Got lucky with that one. Full price offer within days of listing it, watch out for the hidden gems.
How to Handle Multiple Land Buyers at Once (LA 1749) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Jack and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today Jill and I talk about how to handle multiple land buyers at once.
Jill K DeWit: This is coming up more and more right now, and I love this. I was watching-
Steven Jack Butala: A good problem to have.
Jill K DeWit: Right. Several conversations in our closed environments on Discord and Landinvestors.com where people are going, "What do I do? I got this guy, and then I got this other guy. And I don't know how to juggle all this." So we can help you with that.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the Landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And did you know that we have a full blown operational commercial printing company called Offers2owners.com. Jill and I set this up a lot of years ago. We've always had it for ourselves, but we set it up for the public to address this specific and customized needs. So, if you need to get offers out to owners to buy real state, this is the only dedicated place that I know of on the internet to get this done. We do about 700,000 offers a month. Email support@offers2owners.com and see if it works for you.
Jill K DeWit: Cool. G-throat, "What do you do when you get..." Oh, we're just going to talk about it right now and then I'm going to answer it in the thing. So this is one of the questions that prompted this today. So Geeth said, "What do you do when you have two people wanting to buy your land after you've sent out purchase agreement to a different person 24 hours ago? The other two contacted me within an hour of each other and had wanted a PA sent to them now. I haven't received the PA from the first lady yet. She said she was having transportation issues and would do it tomorrow. Her purchase agreement has a hard number on it and has a hard date for the funds to be posted in escrow by. It's also worth noting that there's a place for me to sign on the document after she signs, and then I sent it off to the office who's closing it. Do I wait until tomorrow and see if the potential buyer sends it back and just tell them the two people it's pending? How could I better prepare for these situations in the future? Do you do backup offers on pending but accepting offers?"
Steven Jack Butala: Before Jill answers, I'm going to just paraphrase this. This person Geeth in our group inadvertently and unwillingly set off a bidding war for his property, for his land. And he is asking what we do, if it happens often and what do we do?
Jill K DeWit: Exactly. So you need to have you... I hate... This is a tough situation.
Steven Jack Butala: I love this situation.
Jill K DeWit: No, I love this situation, but you're like, you don't want to be a jerk to the first person, but there's a little bit of an element of she might fall through, this little old lady, and you don't want to lose these two people that are hot and excited and ready to go. So we could take... You know how real estate agents say, "Now accepting backup offers"? You could do a version of that and let people know that you're in number two position or number three position honestly and truthfully and say, "I'm giving this person," and I would call and set hard deadlines for the lady. If you don't know how to do this, walk over to your next door neighbor's house, help them take a picture of it with your signature and whatever some money we could get this done in 12 hours. I've walked people through this, not kidding, if they really, really want it. And, if they don't want it, just say, "Look, I've got two other people. I need to know now. And it's okay. We don't have time to waste. What do you..." Sometimes you give me this look like,
Using Real Estate News to Forecast Your Land Investing Choices in 2022 (LA 1748) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steven Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy show entertaining land, investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today Jill and I talk about using real estate news to forecast your land investing choices.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. This, I like this because, and I'm glad we're talking about this because we all are reading "oh my gosh, it's slowing down. Interest rates are 5%. We haven't seen that since 2000 and whatever", everybody's panicking now it's going to be changing. What do we do? What do we do? And so everybody there's always a fire somehow. Happy to talk about it. And I want to talk about too, what pieces of that do we pick out and use for our purposes? And when do we just go, well, whatever,
Steven Jack Butala: I don't care who you are or where you come from. If you don't agree with this statement, something's wrong. The news is a mess.
Jill K DeWit: Oh gosh.
Steven Jack Butala: I don't care.
Jill K DeWit: They like it that way.
Steven Jack Butala: I don't care. Yeah. It's all shock value. I don't care where you come from. Right, left, up down doesn't matter. We have now more than ever, I tell our kids this all the time, you kids have a massive responsibility in your generation to cipher through all the gunk that's out there. Way more than, and Joe and I ever had to. We had three or four television stations, a bunch of radio stations and old school parents telling us and just it's we didn't have any choices and I'm not saying that's good or bad. I'm just saying it's a lot harder now.
Jill K DeWit: Do you think we're swinging back, I do.
Steven Jack Butala: I hope so.
Jill K DeWit: I think we're swinging back where everybody was someone of their phones and this and that, no one communicated. And now I honestly think that there's a little bit of a pushback and swinging back a little bit where I'm going to pick up the phone or I'm going to get on my bike.
Steven Jack Butala: Look, there's some really...
Jill K DeWit: I'm going to get on my bike and ride over to see and see who's home.
Steven Jack Butala: I'm a lot to say about this and it is very, in my opinion, very easily decipherable. And it's real easy to find the good real truth in news and statistics and economics and all of that really easily. And I'll talk all about it here in a few, few minutes, every single week on Thursday at two o'clock Pacific time, we have a map closed membership call for land academy members. There's several hundred people on there every week. And I start the call off by talking about exactly what we're going to talk about today, right? Hey, let's look at the market and is it good for us or bad for us or what's coming? The good news is that if you pay attention, if I don't know, four or five things she'll talk about, you can see into the future. It's not like the stock market.
Jill K DeWit: That's true.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com, online community, it's free. And I hope you know that Jill and I personally instruct a handful of new and existing land academy members in a live class called Career Path. If buying and selling your land is your career, or you want it to be give us a call or actually email us at support@landacademy.com and find out if it's for you.
Jill K DeWit: Dave wrote, is anyone out there having their deal funders ask them to assign the contract to them. The funder prior to closing on the buy side, one of my funders I've done multiple deals with is asking for this now. I like this person and trust them as much as you could trust someone you haven't met, but it makes me nervous signing over all legal interest in this property with only a TIC agreement,
Jill Friday - When Have You Made Enough Money in Your Land Business (LA 1747) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewit broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today Jill and I... Well, it's still Friday. And she's going to talk about...
Jill K DeWit: When have you made enough money in your land business?
Steven Jack Butala: Exactly.
Jill K DeWit: Thank you. When's enough, enough? That's what we're going to talk about.
Steven Jack Butala: I love this topic. I have a lot to say, I know it's still Friday, but I'll zip it as instructed and talk with-
Jill K DeWit: Because we may have different decisions. We have different philosophies here, and I will... We are going to share them both.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our landinvestors.com online community participants. It's free. I'll tell you back in the day, it was nearly impossible to find land without a mailing address, which is most of the properties that we actually are involved in. So to solve this, Jill and I put together over about a year, an APN driven assessors personal database so that you can find properties just with the APN within seconds. And so like all of our products, we built a shabby rickety products for our own use and then polished it all up and web enabled it so that everyone can use it. It's called NeighborScoop.com. Check us out at NeighborScoop.com.
Jill K DeWit: [Chase R oute 00:01:23]. How many times is someone allowed? Oh, I answered this. This is good.
Steven Jack Butala: You did?
Jill K DeWit: I did. How many times has someone allowed a role in career path? And I wrote back, I said, awesome question Chase. Because we have had past, we're only on career path number four, and we already have people from career path one, two, and three, wanting to go through it again. So we came up with a half price program. And if you want to know about that, just send a note to supportatlanticacademy.com. Cause it's a hidden link. Because you have to be a former career path member. So we don't have it published on the website, but you just reach out and we'll get you the link and then you could do it again. Because we've changes, we did career path one at the end of...
Jill K DeWit: What did we do? Oh, we started it in 2021. We did career path one, two and three. We took the fourth quarter off and now we just... Wait, one and two. I have to think about this. Three was here in 2022. That's right. And now we're on number four. My main point is, in the, I don't know, eight, nine months since we started career path, we've already made some changes. And so that's why people are like, wait a minute. Now you're talking about this and now you brought in this person. Now you added these office hours and now you're doing that and do this. I'd like to go through it again and you're not nuts.
Steven Jack Butala: I'll tell you it's real different. Just this is what number five coming up, number four?
Jill K DeWit: This is number four. We're on number four.
Steven Jack Butala: So, it's pretty different. We keep in adding and improving stuff based on the previous course.
Jill K DeWit: It's wonderful.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's still Friday. And we're going to talk about when have you made enough money in your land business? This is the meat of the show.
Jill K DeWit: This topic came up initially, because I was thinking about the people in our community. We have people in our community that do one deal a month and we have people in our community that do a deal a week and more than that, multiple a week. It's all over the map too as far as their comfort zones and the size of the properties. And when I say... And the dollar amounts. That's really what I mean, size. It's like, are they more than $10,
Jack Thursday - Life is a One Way Trip so Live Consciously (LA 1746) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jack Thursday, and I'm going to talk about how life is a one way trip so you need to be real conscious about what you do in my opinion.
Jill K DeWit: It's funny.
Steven Jack Butala: Bear in mind, this is Jack Thursday. There are some people on the internet, I've noticed, that this is what they think about this show. Oh my God, really? I thought this was supposed to be a show about buying and selling land. I thought I was going to tune into this show and you were going to have a show like, "This is how you send out mail." Like Ferris Bueller's math teacher, and you send mail out. That's not what this is. This is a podcast. If you want to know how to send out mail, you should join our club or ask other people in the club if the education is worth it and all that. And trust me, it is.
Jill K DeWit: Well, I'm confused too, then, because that's not what I thought this was.
Steven Jack Butala: If Jill and I did a show about how to send out-
Jill K DeWit: Wait.
Steven Jack Butala: Mail on how to buy property real inexpensively and then resell it for a lot more, it would be like 20 shows and that's it.
Jill K DeWit: Well, I have a little side note. Hold on a moment. If I'm not sitting here and you sit down and do your own podcast, brand new right now, about anything you want to talk about, what would it be?
Steven Jack Butala: This topic.
Jill K DeWit: Oh.
Steven Jack Butala: That's what Jack Thursday is.
Jill K DeWit: Oh.
Steven Jack Butala: Because I'll tell you right now, Jill and I do exit interviews for people who choose to leave the group. None of them, none of them, not one person that I'm aware of has ever said, "This system of selling, sending blind offers out and then answering your phone and putting a deal together, running through some due diligence and reselling it, that doesn't work." Not a single person's ever said that. What they say is, "I couldn't get organized enough. Some stuff changed in my life." It's all life stuff. It's driven us. We don't just sit around and talk about what we want to talk about. Most of the time we respond to what our members are asking for and many, many members, way more members ask for, "How should I deal with this thing that's going on over here?" They don't ask for clarification on what kind of offer to send out or what should be in the offer.
Jill K DeWit: I get you.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community. It's free, and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel. Comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: This is the question I accidentally started to answer that I also saw in Discord from Monday. Drew wrote, "Is it a hindrance or a benefit having a real estate license? Now that I'm telling people what I do at gatherings and out and about, is it worth getting my state real estate license even if we see way better margins as our normal way of doing business? What about the occasional warm leads to list?" Oh, this is actually very different than what I read, so no. "What about the occasional warm leads to list a property as an agent? What's the deeper worry? Anything non agents versus agents can benefit or hinder as being a Land Academy..." He used the word wholesaler, but I don't use that word anymore.
Steven Jack Butala: We don't use it.
Jill K DeWit: Because it's not-
Steven Jack Butala: It's got a different meaning.
Jill K DeWit: It does. It took a life of its own on. And then the way people think wholesale is not what we do. Wholesale to me is how I price it.
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Why Not to Accept a Low Ball Offer Too Soon (LA 1744) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about why not to accept a low ball offer too soon when you're selling your property. Boy, if I had a nickel. This whole business, or this whole episode, came from during this uptick in pricing and hot market hotness that we're all experiencing right now, Jill and I sold a bunch of properties too low and too fast. And so we're going to talk about a little bit about that and how to gauge where you should price your property these days versus, let's say, maybe, a couple years ago.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it. Let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community. It's free. And I hope you know that we have a full blown operational commercial printing company called Offers2Owners.com. Jill and I set out a lot of years ago to rectify poor perform in the industry. We set up our own company and a few years ago, we set that up for you. You can either call (800) 725-8816 or you can email support@offers2owners.com and see what they have to offer if you're sending out blind offers to real estate owners.
Jill K DeWit: Just like we do. All right, here's our question. Greg wrote, "Hey, do you guys ever use a non broker/agent for boots on the ground in your due diligence phase? I've got a timber guy that hit me up from an area mail who wants to be my boots on the ground. We're on the same page but I'm trying to see how we can come up with a contract test agreement for compensation, make sure I don't get cut out of the deals I have him look at. I appreciate any suggestions if y'all have any experience with this." Oh, that does worry me a little bit.
Steven Jack Butala: I have real bad taste in my mouth about this whole thing.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: What this person's asking is, I sent a mailer out to a bunch of owners and I'm getting responses back. And we're doing the Land Academy thing. Timber guy called me back, probably because he got one of your letters, or he is talking to a landowner and said, "Hey, how about I just go bird dog these properties for you? And the ones that we buy together, you pay me?" What he's really saying is how about you shove me the great deals that you got and I can steal them from you?
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: That's what I think.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. I wouldn't do this.
Steven Jack Butala: The boots on the ground that we've had with great success are we have a personal former relationship with them.
Jill K DeWit: Or they're Land Academy people.
Steven Jack Butala: Or they're Land Academy members. And that's what I was going to say. Find a Land Academy. Often, very, very often on a Thursday call, when we look at people's deals to give them our opinion about whether or not they should buy them, there's other people in the group that'll chime in and say...
Jill K DeWit: "I'm right by there."
Steven Jack Butala: "I live 20 minutes from there. I'm happy to go take a look at it for you."
Jill K DeWit: Right.
Steven Jack Butala: That's what [crosstalk 00:02:52]-
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. I'm sorry. I got some red flags.
Steven Jack Butala: Me too.
Jill K DeWit: I wouldn't do that.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's topic, Jill's going to talk about why not to accept low ball offers too soon. This is why you're listening.
Jill K DeWit: We haven't had this in a while. When I say while, I mean, weeks. It hasn't been that long, but it pops up every now and then that someone says, "Shucks, I wish I wouldn't have taken that offer. They came in so fast. I was so excited. It sounded great. Hey, I doubled my money, even though it wasn't what I listed it for. It was a good offer,
How to Train Your Real Estate Agent to Post Property (LA 1743) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steven, Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about how to train your real estate agent to post property. What?
Jill K DeWit: You know, what's funny? Why do they change too? Have you ever had a, here's what happens to me? I go on the internet. I'm looking in areas to find good agents that are clearly selling property similar to mine. I can look at their postings. I can look at the closed transactions. I can see what they've done. I see good descriptions. I see good photos. I'm like, great. That's a person that I want. And they start off well. This is a normal how it goes. So I start off great, and then somewhere around deal number three, number four, when I stop looking at their postings, they get crappy.
Steven Jack Butala: Just like a marriage.
Jill K DeWit: Oh, why do you do that? I think ...
Steven Jack Butala: Why do real estate agents consistently do a worse job over a better job? I don't get it, but there's very few exceptions.
Jill K DeWit: I got to tell you, truth time here. Today's not the right day to be bringing up marriage stuff like that. It's really going to come back to bite you right now.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question, a hint taken by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Did you know that Jill and I personally instruct a handful of new and existing Land Academy members in a live class call career path, usually between 10 and 20 people? If you're buying and selling land and it's your career, or you want it to be, career path might be for you. Call this number (833) 522-5545, or email us as always at support@landacademy to see if this level of involvement is for you.
Jill K DeWit: Exactly. I want to talk about that for just a second, can we?
Steven Jack Butala: Sure, sure.
Jill K DeWit: Because this is wait, this is Monday and it starts on Saturday. This is the first time we've ever done a Saturday session, and I'm already telling everyone, this is the last Saturday session. There were a lot of people that wanted it. I moved it from Wednesdays to Saturdays and I thought there were more people that were going to jump on the Saturday schedule. And I think there's some people that don't realize it's a Saturday schedule too. So if you have some time commitments, you need a Saturday and you think you're going to hold out for me to do another Saturday, you might be holding out for a while. That's kind of the point I want to get across.
Steven Jack Butala: So you think that Saturday is harder for people to ice out then Wednesday?
Jill K DeWit: For some reason, I think.
Steven Jack Butala: Because it would be for me. It is for us.
Jill K DeWit: Isn't that kind of funny? I think people would rather skip work. I'm not kidding. And ditch work for five or so hours every Saturday or, excuse me, every Wednesday then they do on Saturdays.
Steven Jack Butala: So let's be super clear, because we're throwing all these days of the week out. It's on Saturday.
Jill K DeWit: It's on Saturday this time. So it starts April 23rd and it goes for 10 weeks on Saturday. So we had a number of people that asked for Saturday because of their commitments. So we said, okay, we'll do one as a test and we will continue this as a test. And I know the people that jumped on right now, because they jumped on the very first day. They're like, "We need this Saturday. Thank you for doing this. We've been waiting for it." So if that's you, this is it. This is a time. This is career path for Saturdays only, and we are happy to help you. Thank you very much. And how do you learn about this too, by the way? Just go to landacademy.com/careerpath.
Jill Friday - Why AirTable is Imperative when Buying and Selling Land (LA 1742) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land, investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today. Jill and I, well, it's Jill Friday. Today she's going to talk about why Air Table is imperative when buying and selling land. Before you get into it, though, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Back in the day, it was nearly impossible to find land without a mailing address, which is almost all of the property that we buy. To solve this, we now access a live database by assessor's parcel number, APN, to find property instead of its actual address, like 123 Main Street. Like all of our products, we've developed it for our own use and then released it to the public on a website. In this case, we call it neighborscoop.com. It's incredibly easy to use, almost all of our members use it to find property very, very quickly. In fact, fast enough while you're on the phone with the seller to see if you want to buy it. Contact support@landacademy.com to see if it's for you.
Jill K DeWit: David wrote, can anyone give me any advice on setting up my website as it pertains to land acquisitions for a new land company with no land. I'm a beginning Land Academy member. Anyone know of a web developer with you have used that I could work with. I'm sure that that was all over Discord with a bunch of people sharing tips, right?
Steven Jack Butala: It was slammed. By setting up a website, the real reason you want to set up a website very quickly is because, when you send a mailer out, you're going to have your website on there. The first thing that people are going to do, just check you out on the internet to see if you're for real. You want a great website all set up, maybe one or two pages at most. Nothing complicated that says, I'm Jack. This is my girl, Jill, here's our dog, here's a new car we just bought. We're real people, just like you. Call us. We'll buy your property.
Jill K DeWit: Cool.
Steven Jack Butala: Real, simple stuff and really inexpensive.
Jill K DeWit: Thank you for not bringing up the color palette. I thought since it's Jill Friday, you want to talk about the color palette.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jill Friday. She's going to talk about why Air Table's imperative when buying and selling land. This is the meat of the show.
Jill K DeWit: Here's the scoop. We are aggressively hiring right now because, yep, we're growing again. It just happens and not just Land Academy, but land business growing our numbers are... I just can't keep up. We're building it and, this is a little side note. If you are in the Scottsdale Arizona area and you want to work for us, send a note to support@landacademy.
Steven Jack Butala: Seriously.
Jill K DeWit: I'm not kidding. All right, got that out of the way. But the point is, we've been meeting with our team, our hiring team right now and talking about what we want and the right kind of people and who is successful working with us. One of the common themes is how much... We have realized a direct correlation to our successful staff members, if they are organized and they have a great system. So it's not just everything that we do every day, but also our land business.
Jill K DeWit: Let me bring this down to what this show is right here. So much of my, and our success in just our day to day buying and selling in land, is in a direct relationship to how organized we are. The only way we could do that is having a system. We use Air Table, but there's Jura. There's all kinds of great things out there. But having that system, where six people can log in at the same time and only focus on what specific task is needed of them,
Jack Thursday - Beating the Odds at Getting Rich (LA 1741) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steven and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land and investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from The Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jack Thursday. I'm going to talk about beating the odds at getting rich. I found a very, very interesting summary of millionaires and billionaires and percentages and what really is going on out there in the world about getting wealthy in this country.
Jill K DeWit: I love it.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Please don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Drew wrote, "Hello all, and Steven Jack Butala, sorry in advance if I'm missing something, I'm rewatching Land Academy 3.0 and it seems like I'm having trouble determining what Jack says are the percentages of each. I'm not finding what the range is. So what's the range in categories and what's the percentage range for the red, yellow and green for days on market, new list of soul and parcels on the market? This is our red, yellow, green test. Does the Excel file that you made for this lesson auto-populate or do we have to mainly make the adjustments ourselves to determine what is accurate for red, yellow and green?
Steven Jack Butala: Land Academy 3 this is a very good question, which is why I put it on Jack Thursday instead of Jill Friday.
Jill K DeWit: What the heck? None of my stuff's intelligent. Thanks very much.
Steven Jack Butala: Jill comes at this from a different way, which is [crosstalk 00:01:40]
Jill K DeWit: My questions tomorrow's going to be what color should I pick my website background? Thanks a lot.
Steven Jack Butala: Jill and I just come toward this edit from a different angle. What do we teach in the Land Academy 3.0 program is you need to find a place to send mail. It works everywhere, but why not make it easy on yourself and go through this process I call trolling to see where there's properties that fit your acquisition criteria and all that. And when you find some places that make sense, or you think it makes sense to send mail, test it. And that's what Drew's asking about, this red, green, yellow test that you're asking about, or that you're telling us to use, where on a red, green, yellow test I look at maybe five adjacent zip codes. Maybe let's say, just for example, in West Dallas, which is a hot market, and I pit them against each other and see who's got the best days on market.
Steven Jack Butala: There's several statistics in there, how much property's been listed, how much property's been sold in the last month. So you're not shooting blind, you're doing this. So what Drew is asking is how do I know what is all green and I should send mail there? What's all yellow or what's red where I shouldn't send mail and which percentages work? And my answer is, and everybody answered in Discord the same way I'm about to answer, it's all relative. You can't take a look at Alaska, let's say, and a couple of zip codes outside of Anchorage and apply the same percentages for red, green, yellow that you can in West Dallas, it's apples to oranges. You can apply those types of apples to apples comparisons if they're all in the same market. And so he's asking me what are the percentages? What makes it green? If it's 30 days or less days on market, then I send a mail? No, it's not like that. It's all relative.
Steven Jack Butala: What happens in Alaska is relative to Alaska and maybe specifically Anchorage. And what happens in Dallas is those five zip codes are going to tell you where to send mail in Dallas. Oh my God, Jack, can you make this more complicated? This is not a easy button.
Learn More About House Academy Here
Land Academy Discord Walk Through Wednesday (HA 1740) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala:Steve and Jill here. Jill K DeWit:Hello. Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun. Steven Jack Butala:Today, Jill and I talk about... well, we're going to do a Land Academy Discord walkthrough. If you dig it, we're going to do it every Wednesday. Jill K DeWit:Well, I want to explain what Discord is. We started Land Academy... I'll try to make this brief, not like once upon a time. There was Adam and there was Eve. I'm not going to go there. So once upon a time, we started Land Academy. And then from the first month we launched, our people said, our community said, "We need to talk. We want to communicate with you, with each other. How can we ask questions and just get stuff?" So we said, "Oh, okay. We're going to make this an online community." And we did. When I say we, I mean, Steven, so Jack. So Jack did. Bless his heart, and it's been phenomenal for years. It's landinvestors.com. Jill K DeWit:Then we got the bright idea too. And we have a public facing view where anybody can join up and sign up and please do and use it. And then we have a hidden view, which is for members where there's more in depth than we talk about deals and really get personal and share stuff that we don't want the planet to see, APNs, phone numbers, numbers, all that stuff. So then we took it a step further. We wanted a little more robust, exciting, fast, quick, easy on our phone, on the fly 24/7 environment. And somebody in our staff, gamers obviously... This is a gaming community. It's called Discord. So we said, "Well, we could use Discord too. It's pretty darn cool." So we use Discord now in addition to our regular environment, but so much is happening on Discord. And it's closed that you can't see it. Steven Jack Butala:It's exploded. Jill K DeWit:And so we want to show you a little bit now what it is. So it's cool. Yeah, so if you haven't heard a Discord, don't worry. If you're not playing Call of Duty, you might not know Discord. Steven Jack Butala:I mean, you should leave the gaming out of it. But if you're young and you know about Discord as a gaming... What this is it's a channel for people to talk about whatever they're into. And it was designed for gamers, but we're obviously into buying and selling land. And it turns out, it works great for that. Jill K DeWit:We love it. Steven Jack Butala:It's very quick. It's very online. Jill K DeWit:There's not a learning curve by the way, just so you're like, "Oh, I can't figure that out." Steven Jack Butala:I mean, it's designed to do this and you'll see this in a second. I join Land Academy. I'm going through Land Academy 3.0, which we just launched. And I got a question about chapter three, or about this exact one specific thing. And I need some advice from other members. I'm going to stop what I'm doing, go onto Discord, keyword search it, find out what's going on in all these strings as I'll show you in a second, and I get my answer. And I don't get it from anybody like a customer service person that Jill and I hired or us ourselves. Although, I do answer a ton of questions in there. I get it from somebody who's my peer, who's just went through it six months ago and had the same question and they answered it for themselves or found another member to answer it. So stick a question real quick, and then I'll dive right in. Jill's excited. I can tell because- Jill K DeWit:I am. Steven Jack Butala:Because she went off the teleprompter here. Jill K DeWit:I know. So Luke wrote, "So what's the general consensus on discounting a property value based on easements for access instead of road frontage? So I have 44 acres of prime hunting land/ag land, but the only access is via two easements by the neighbors to the north and the Southeast.
Why It Makes Sense to Make Your Hobby a Business (LA 1739) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steven and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Good day.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land, investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt, broadcasting from the valley of this sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Jill and I talk about why it makes sense to make your hobby a business sometimes.
Jill K DeWit: My latest hobby collecting cars, what's yours? Kind of the same.
Steven Jack Butala: Well, here's what I'm going to talk about. If your hobby is price is no object, I want to collect statues and I will pay top dollar then making your hobby a business is a super bad idea. If your hobby is to try to get stuff cheap, it's obviously our hobby like land. Then maybe you can make a business out of it, which we're in the process of doing and I'll describe it.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community it's free. And also people don't know this. We have a full, Jill and I own and op rate a full blown commercial printing company called Offers 2 Owners. Over the years, jill and I internally developed a system to send blind offers to owners, tens of thousands in the mail sometimes through direct mail. And we found out the through, after we started Land Academy that our members wanted this product. So we launched it. Probably several years ago.
Steven Jack Butala: Today we mail between 700 and 800,000 offers a month on our members' behalf and I would just want you to know about it. Contact support at offers2owners.com there and just check it all out. It's pretty straightforward and simple.
Jill K DeWit: Thanks. Mark wrote, "Just read this great article. I had a question. When I'm buying a land property, I will buy with tile insurance. Then when I'm selling with a title company, I'm also purchasing tile insurance for the buyer, like $5,000 plus the purchase price. Will you ..." I can't read the whole question here.
Steven Jack Butala: That's it.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. So I didn't know, this Aaron, his name is used a lot. I didn't know if you liked all his questions or if it was a typo. So that's why I didn't say Aaron. Sorry. I made it. But if it really is Aaron, I believe you. So this article is-
Steven Jack Butala: Let me explain this, how this works. When you go to buy a piece of-
Jill K DeWit: I know what he's saying. Oh, okay.
Steven Jack Butala: Let me super, super clarify this, because this is a popular question especially with my people. When you go to buy-
Jill K DeWit: Am I doing double work?
Steven Jack Butala: When you go to buy a piece of property, whether it's your house or a piece of land, you go through the escrow process. And when you look at the closing statement, one of you, the buyer or the seller is going to pay for stuff. Or sometimes it gets combined. When you buy a piece of property, the person before you, the seller pays for your title insurance policy. When you go to sell it, because now you are the seller, you pay for the title insurance policy for the next person. Don't ask me why. This is just how it is. And it's a very small amount of money on vacant land, usually two or $300, but it varies around the country. So it looks like you're paying for it twice. What you're really doing is paying for the next guy when you sell it.
Jill K DeWit: You know what? Sometimes I have to, no offense, I have to interject here. Because sometimes we have to pay closing costs and we pay the title insurance.
Steven Jack Butala: That's correct.
Jill K DeWit: That's where he's going with that. Like, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Are you guys advocating this, which is, I think of the question, when I buy it, I told the guy, "Here's a deal net to you is ..."
Steven Jack Butala: 10,000.
Jill K DeWit: Exactly. And I'll pay all the costs. And so I make sure that guy,
How Real Estate Becomes Distressed (LA 1738) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about how real estate becomes distressed.
Jill K DeWit: You know, I'm a little stressed.
Steven Jack Butala: You're distressed?
Jill K DeWit: Oh, I'm sorry. Is it distressed? I heard stressed. I am a little stressed.
Steven Jack Butala: Who knows where sayings come from. This word distressed is really, it's a popular thing. It's been popular for a while. To throw real estate into this category of everything's great over here, oh no, this is distressed. We'll talk about that in a minute.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. Thank you. You're going to clear it all up for us?
Steven Jack Butala: Yes. Yes, I am.
Jill K DeWit: Okay, good.
Steven Jack Butala: As complicated topics go, this is a zero.
Jill K DeWit: Oh, good.
Steven Jack Butala: This is the least-
Jill K DeWit: I don't need to take notes.
Steven Jack Butala: Nope. This is the most simple thing you'll ever hear.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala: In fact, it's one of the reasons that we buy and sell land instead of apartment buildings. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Did you know that Jill and I personally instruct a handful of new and existing Land Academy members in a live class called Career Path? If buying and selling land is your career, or you want it to be your career, this might be for you. Call us or email us at support@landacademy and see what your real level of involvement is in all this, and we'll help you.
Jill K DeWit: I want to add too, because by the time this airs, I may still have a few seats. I'm looking at the calendar right now. The class starts April 23rd. So this is Q2 2022. This is Career Path session four, and it's amazing. I just sent out an email earlier to a closed group because I realized that they were not real sure about Career Path, what it really was. So it's not just for someone new and just doing land, by the way. We talk about everything. There's guys in there that have REITs and manage REITs. There's guys in there that own mobile home parks and storage facilities.
Steven Jack Butala: Or subdividers.
Jill K DeWit: Right, or just doing large commercial deals or, hey, even own house flipping franchises. So this is a professional room, where you have the opportunity to get to know those people. If that's you, this is for you. If that's not you and you want that to be you, this is for you.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. There's always four or five or eight people. We only do this once a quarter for a handful of people, like I said. It's usually between 15 and 20 people, and about five or eight of them are brand new or they've only done a couple of deals. So, we separate-
Jill K DeWit: But they come from other professional experience or they wouldn't be in. So, no offense. It's a screened environment too. We make sure that you're a good fit.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. I mean, it's for people who want this to be their career and you're sure of that.
Jill K DeWit: Thank you. Jessica wrote, "What kind of value do existing mobile homes," excuse me, "do existing utilities to a mobile home add"-
Steven Jack Butala: No, you can say ... She says crappy, it's appropriate.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. Let me back up. "What kind of value do existing utilities to a crappy mobile home add to a parcel? Is there a number value you assign to it versus a parcel that has never been built on or does it simply make it easier to sell?" Do you want to add.
Steven Jack Butala: This is a very, very popular question on Discord, tons of responses. And by the way, tomorrow I'm going to screen share live.
Jill Friday - How Much Land Research is Appropriate (LA 1737) Transcript:
Jill K DeWit:
Steve and Jill here.
Steven Jack Butala:
Hello.
Jill K DeWit:
Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Stephen Jack Butala.
Steven Jack Butala:
And I'm Jill Dewitt. Happy Friday. Broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Jill K DeWit:
Today is Jill Friday. She's going to talk about how much land research is appropriate.
Steven Jack Butala:
This came up because of a phone call, a phone call I had the other day with a really nice gentleman, who was doing a lot of research in what I think is not the right areas, and not enough research in the areas he should be thinking about and wanting to get into land investing, like what we're doing. That's what I want to cover today.
Jill K DeWit:
Are you going to tell us about his story?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. Before we get into it-
Steven Jack Butala:
Nope. That's it.
Jill K DeWit:
That's the end of the show. I talked to a guy and he was.[crosstalk 00:00:45]
Steven Jack Butala:
I had a great call, it was awesome. It was great.
Jill K DeWit:
Talked to a guy and he was working on the wrong stuff.
Steven Jack Butala:
I got so much out of it. And so, anyway, that's all I wanted share. No.
Jill K DeWit:
Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Back in the day, it was nearly impossible to find land without a mailing address, which is almost all the properties that we deal with. To solve this, we can now access a product that I developed, access all properties by assessor's parcel number, even if they don't have a mailing address. Like all of our products, we developed it for our own use and then released it to the public on a website when we cleaned it all up. In this case, we call it neighborscoop.com. If you want to find out more about this, go to neighborscoop.com or email us at support@landacademy.com.
Steven Jack Butala:
Greg wrote, "I have a deal which would possibly include four parcels and three different neighbors who all want to sell." This is hilarious. Apparently it's a very tight community. "Does anyone know if I'd be able to include all of them on one purchase agreement and close as one, or whether it'd be better off with separate purchase agreements for each owner? Also, one owner was wondering if he may be able to have the other neighbors' quitclaim deed their properties over to him, so I can directly purchase all four properties from him under one transaction. I'm not sure if that would be complicated or drag things out even longer, though." I wouldn't do that. I'd have four different things and going on.
Jill K DeWit:
You're breaking the chain of title, so let's take a couple steps back. This is a huge opportunity.
Steven Jack Butala:
Good question.
Jill K DeWit:
This is a great opportunity to buy four properties. Four properties are better than one. As long as you're very confident that all of these properties are super profitable and that they can support the costs to close these properties correctly.
Steven Jack Butala:
Are you saying that because all four of them want to sell, that sends up a red flag?
Jill K DeWit:
Yes.
Steven Jack Butala:
Thank you, because I was just now thinking about that too. Good observation. What's going on in that area that they all want out?
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
That's a little weird.
Jill K DeWit:
But you know, hey, it's happened to us where it's like, wow, these four, we got them for a great price. Again, listen to the show last Wednesday with Brandon where he's, buy for 8,000, sell for 120 times two. Two properties next to each other. Let's just assume that's, that's one of these deals. I would separately close.
Steven Jack Butala:
I'd get title policy through four separate transactions.
Jill K DeWit:
I would do for four purchase agreements,
Jack Thursday - Land Investing Rules to Live By (LA 1736) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit:
Hello.
Steven Jack Butala:
Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today's Jack Thursday, and I'm going to talk about land investing rules to live by. It's the same rules that I live by to get deals done, and have been for many, many, many years. Jill, not so much. Jill's got her own rules. She kind of just wakes up each day and see what's-
Jill K DeWit:
Well, what's that word? R. What starts with an R? What was that word?
Steven Jack Butala:
Rules.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, I'm not familiar with that word. Please explain.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill has to have feelings, and I have to have discipline.
Jill K DeWit:
Rules were meant to be talked about after I figure out how I want things to go.
Steven Jack Butala:
All kidding aside, people come to us every once in a while and say, "How the hell can you work with your spouse?"
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. I ask myself that all the time.
Steven Jack Butala:
And to which I say, Jill and I have the same goal. Way out there, we have a goal together. It's the same goal. And how I get there is completely different than how she chooses to get there on a minute by minute, moment by moment, day by day basis. And that's what this show is like. I have rules and I have a way to get stuff done, and she has whole different way of how she works. She's works later in the evening, I work in the morning, and that's just the beginning. There's some very, very different stuff. And we just, most of the time, not all the time, stay out of each other's way.
Jill K DeWit:
Let me tell you how Jack sees me.
Steven Jack Butala:
Right now is not going to be one of those times that we stay out of each other's way. Watch.
Jill K DeWit:
This is how Jack sees me. For those of you who are over 40 ish. You know exactly what I'm talking about. There's a cartoon called Family Circle, and they would draw these pictures and this cartoon in the paper, and you'd see how the kid got from point A to point B, and he would be over the rock, and under this, and picking up that, and swinging on this, and taking apart that, and then eventually would get there. That's how Jack sees me.
Steven Jack Butala:
That's true.
Jill K DeWit:
I know.
Steven Jack Butala:
It's true. And I'll tell you what, we have goals every month for all this, and she hits or exceeds her goals every single month. And very often does it in the last two days of the month.
Jill K DeWit:
That's the way I like it.
Steven Jack Butala:
I know.
Jill K DeWit:
I like to make you sweat.
Steven Jack Butala:
It gives me a heart attack every single month.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on thelandinvestors.com online community. It's free, and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit:
Mike wrote, "Anyone with mobile home experience? I have a property where the seller is living on site and wants to make me an offer. That includes her 22 year old mobile home. She wants to move to a smaller lot and a newer mobile home. So do you increase your offer for a mobile home this old? It's being lived in, so I know there's value to the water, septic, and electricity." I love these. These are my favorite kind of deals that come along.
Steven Jack Butala:
I love these deals. Love them. You know what this is? Bucket two property. So you sent out a bunch of mail. We talked about this two days ago on the show.
Jill K DeWit:
Basket three for Team Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
You know what, just set out to confuse people.
Jill K DeWit:
I'm sorry.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is a big,
Brandon Koon Land Academy Member Interview (LA 1735) If you enjoyed the podcast, please review it in Apple Podcasts . Reviews are incredibly important for rankings on Apple Podcasts. My staff and I read each and every one.
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email me directly at steven@BuWit.com.
The BuWit Family of Companies include:
https://BuWit.com
https://offers2owners.com
https://landinvestors.com
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https://landpin.com
https://parcelfact.com
https://countywise.com
https://deedperfect.com
https://ownersdata.com
https://houseacademy.com
I would like to think it’s entertaining and informative and in the end profitable.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
3 Types of Land Investment Deal Buckets (LA 1734) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit:
Hi.
Steven Jack Butala:
Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today Jill and I talk about the three types of land investment deal buckets that we kind of live by.
Jill K DeWit:
Yep. I think it's interesting that ... These change by the way. You're one, two, and three different kind of buckets that you're working with, and properties, and prices. It's going to change and evolve.
If you know us, you've learned that over the years if, and heaven forbid you've been watching us and following us for the seven years we've been doing this. But we-
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah that's [crosstalk 00:00:38]
Jill K DeWit:
- are getting really good at eating our words. We at one time were going to do a whole separate podcast on poor broker agent bashing, and now we love them. So when you hear us talk about these buckets, know there's an ebb and a flow, and things change. And there's no wrong way.
Steven Jack Butala:
I named them buckets for a reason, and we'll get into it in detail here in a minute. The buckets themselves, the holder, never change. The stuff that goes inside changes.
Jill K DeWit:
I thought becoming a parent and eating my words there was enough. But oh no, there's age and experience eating of words that goes on. I'm sure that when we're 80 I'm going to go, "Oh we are so wrong," and we're going to be eating our words again.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. It's not the opposite actually, it's like the older we get the more I don't think I'm smart. I get like not-
Jill K DeWit:
You get stupid again?
Steven Jack Butala:
- I get less intelligent and less knowledgeable about ... I think most people get older and they get real set in their ways, and say "this is it." For some reason, I'm going the other way.
Jill K DeWit:
That's true. That's very true.
Steven Jack Butala:
Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our Land Investor members on our online community. It's free. Did you know that we have a full blown, operational commercial printing company called offers2owners.com. Jill and I set this company up several years ago to specifically mail out our blind offer campaigns. We started sharing it with our members -
Jill K DeWit:
And the public.
Steven Jack Butala:
- and some non-members, yeah, a couple years ago. Today we mail out between 700,000 and 800,000 offers a month on their behalf. Give them a call, 800-725-8816, or support@offers2owners.com.
Jill K DeWit:
It's offers, and the number two, and then owners.com.
Erin wrote, "How do you know if a property's an infill lot?"
Steven Jack Butala:
Here's how. It's actually quite simple. It's a very good, simple question. An infill lot has properties ... You know what an infill lot is going to be used for. How do you know that? Because the stuff that's around it or adjacent to it, hopefully adjacent to it, is developed that way. And it's almost always houses.
It might be, in some cases, a strip mall. But it's an infill lot, and not a piece of real vacant land. Or we don't know exactly how it's going to be developed because it's really far out from any type of urban center. If it's within an urban center or close to it, and there's houses all around it, you know it's going to be used to build another house. That's an infill lot, it's being infilled.
Jill K DeWit:
Like it's in a subdivision.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, it's a great example. 98 percent of them are in subdivisions. An incomplete subdivision and there's a lot that needs to have a house on it just like next door.
Jill K DeWit:
Mm-hmm (affirmative), thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Real easy to value. Real easy to sell. You sell it to the person who ... The developers who built all the other houses aro...
Six Steps to Getting Your First Land Deal Complete (LA 1733) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
Steven Jack Butala here.
Jill K DeWit:
And Jill DeWit here.
Steven Jack Butala:
Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. Oh, I already said it. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
That's okay. And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today, Jill and I are talk about the six steps to getting your first land deal complete. Super popular question. We just got done, Jill and I, wrapping up the most recent Career Path, I guess it was Career Path number three.
Jill K DeWit:
Yep.
Steven Jack Butala:
And we always follow this format throughout Career Path and we leave no detail out. So I figured we'd just do a short summary here about how to get a deal done.
Jill K DeWit:
That's great. Can I pause for a second and just let everybody know, since you mentioned Career Path, that Career Path number four is open. And by the time this airs, I believe I'm still going to have some seats. So if you are interested, go check out landacademy/careerpath, and you'll find out all the details there about what it is, what we're talking about. It's basically, Land Academy is like a self-study program. This is the opposite of that. If you want to really talk to us and dive in and have discussions and ask questions throughout the whole process and then find out what we're working on right now today, that's Career Path.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, if you want this to be your career, then Career Path, buying, selling land is your career, then you should consider Career Path. Whether you're brand new or you've done 180 deals.
Jill K DeWit:
And you retired from something else.
Steven Jack Butala:
Sure.
Jill K DeWit:
Or done, you know, there's everything in there. Cool.
Steven Jack Butala:
Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on landinvestors.com online community is free. And did you know that Jill and I personally.
Jill K DeWit:
We just answered that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, you're fast.
Jill K DeWit:
You can skip that part. Hey, by the way, I want to apologize real quick here. Before I read this question, I may not sound like myself.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill's been working. This month, for some reason, we have bought and sold a ton of property. And Jill's been on the phone-
Jill K DeWit:
For some reason.
Steven Jack Butala:
Selling.
Jill K DeWit:
How about, I'm doing a good job. What do you mean for whatever reason?
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, because Land Academy works. And we sent a lot of mail out and we're buying and selling property. That's what I mean.
Jill K DeWit:
For some reason, that's hilarious.
Steven Jack Butala:
Michael asks.
Jill K DeWit:
All right. Michael wrote, do you send mail to properties in a flood plain or do you exclude flood plain properties in DataTree?
Steven Jack Butala:
Great question. You cannot exclude properties that are in a flood plain in DataTree or any other assessor data set. Here's the deal. Here's a real big picture question here. The issue is assessors collect data about properties that's important to them so that they can report that data to a treasurer who assigns a property tax amount. And for whatever reason, for better or for worse, properties that are in flood plains, don't matter to them. And so we can't capture a data set. In the future, we might capture a data set on that, but you can't exclude or include that for some reason. You know, some of the things that are really important to assessors are, is there a structure on it? Is it improved? Is it a vacant piece of property or does it have a house on it or does it have an office building on it or a hospital? So those are the way that they assess taxes.
Jill K DeWit:
I have-
Steven Jack Butala:
You don't have to raise your hand. I don't know when, that's just hilarious.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Why Smart People Understand the Land Investment Business Model (LA 1732) RERUN Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt, broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about why smart people understand the land and business model, and maybe why some un-smart people don't.
Jill DeWit: Un-smart... Smart-less.
Steven Butala: Like all these topics, there's something going on below the surface. I know what it is. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWit: Greg wrote, "I'm buying blocks of lots out West, but the acres and the dimensions on the plat map don't seem to match up with ParcelFact, and Parlay 2.0 specifically. One dimension of lots is 165 feet on the plat, while as best I can measure, is 145 feet, according to both ParcelFact and Parlay 2.0. The total acres the County references seems to match the online data, shorter domain dimension, lower acreage, but not on the original plat. Which is more likely to be correct? That's a you, all day long.
Steven Butala: You ever see the Rain Man?
Jill DeWit: I have. Dustin Hoffman? Tom Cruise?
Steven Butala: And how chronic his OCD was? We love Greg, and I don't know Greg, but I love Greg's question here, but I'll tell you, these are satellite images that are lined up with manual GPS coordinates that are coming from a database. Imagine GPS coordinates and a corner point of a piece of property that's not a square, it's all kind of a polygon with 22 points. That data set's literally got 22 data points for each of the, not the corners, but the edges, even. Multiply that, times 150 million properties in the country, then, technically think about the image, this is 10 feet off for Greg, the image is coming from space.
Jill DeWit: Can I add, throw in there the curvature of the earth.
Steven Butala: Yes.
Jill DeWit: Which is reality. Thank you.
Steven Butala: The image is coming from space, and not just one satellite. Very often the satellite images are overlapping each other and they're not perfect. So, what's going on with this question is, it's not perfect, and it's never going to be perfect. If you want a perfect survey, you have to order one, and the guys come out with the orange coats on and devices, and they tell you exactly what your lot dimensions are. And even then, there's a plus or minus margin of error. You can't overlay.
Steven Butala: I'm extremely confident that the ParcelFact dataset from which you see the data on your screen, and the Parlay dataset are identical. How it's getting presented, we use S-Ray. Jill and I own ParcelFact. Parlay is another, I know those guys and they're great guys, and they have a great product. They're also the makers of LandGlide. The products are all coming from the same dataset, and while our presentations are different, the data behind them are the same.
Steven Butala: Here's my big picture point. Who cares? It's a few feet off. You understand the boundaries. If you're going to build a road, you need a survey. If you're going to build a house, you need a survey. If you're going to get financing, you're going to need an in-person survey. I'm not knocking you, Greg, at all. In fact, I bet you a dollar you're either an engineer or an accountant. I'm an accountant, so I can say this stuff. Accountants and engineers are in a different planet. It's like the Rain Man. If the light says, "Don't walk," and you're in the middle of the street, you stop walking. But in the real world, that's a great way to die.
Steven Butala: Is this 20 feet to stop you from buying this property?
Jill DeWit: That's hilarious. Do you know what's funny though?You brought up a good point that even the guys that go out there, they're doing the best that they can.
Chasing False Due Diligence (LA 1731) RERUN Transcript:
Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about chasing false due diligence. And right at the end of the show yesterday, I asked Jill to tell us a story about how this episode came about. Can you please repeat it?
Jill DeWit: Yes. So we have a new member in Land Academy. First deal came in, they loved it, submitted to me for deal funding. I looked at it, I didn't love it. Specially-
Jack Butala: Loved the asset, not the price.
Jill DeWit: Not the price. It's like, I wasn't in love with it. And don't be afraid to do this. I just sent an email out yesterday, by the way, to a seller. They got our offer in the mail. Instead of calling, they decided to email me and I said, "All right." And she's like, "Hey, it's my grandma's property. We like the offer," dah, dah, dah. And I had to write her back and said, "Look, I like it. I don't love it. So my original price is going to be the end price." So, that's where we are.
Jack Butala: The old grandmother's property story.
Jill DeWit: It is? No, and I believe her. I'm sure it's true.
Jack Butala: Yeah. Me, too. It's hard to get a really great price out of your grandmother. You just don't want to do that.
Jill DeWit: I know. I'm not even sure of the original price I loved. So what I wrote back was, "I like it. I like it. I don't love it." I said, "The best I would do and the highest offer is my original offer. Let me know what you guys think," and then walk away. So you have to get to that point, so, where we are.
Jill DeWit: So back to what you asked me about this person. They're trying to make this deal happen and they've submitted it a couple times and I keep saying, "Shucks." Originally, I said I would, I think their offer was 30. And I said, "You know what? I'd give them five," kind of thing. That would the best I would do. And then they wrote back, and they're like, "But Jill," and then I said, "I marked it canceled." Not going to happen because 30 and five are very different.
Jill DeWit: So then they came back and said, "But we found these other comps and we feel really good about it." And I looked at the comps and I said, "Well, maybe 10." And then I kept reading. I said, " [inaudible 00:02:17], I would consider 10,000." And they said, "Well, we got them down to 20,000. They won't go below that." I said, "Well, then the deal's done. As far as I'm concerned done. They're either going to accept 10,000, really I like five or that's it. I'm not going to come up to their 20,000."
Jill DeWit: And the thing is, and what this episode is about is going to be more about how to not get into this predicament of trying to chase a deal and why it happens.
Jack Butala: Yeah. And again, I have, like I said, yesterday, I have like 10 questions for you because I have personal experience with this. When I started, I had issues with pricing and not necessarily pricing a mailer, but just pricing like in letting go of a deal. And I think there's a lot of reasons and they're all the reasons that I couldn't let go of deals were all in my head. And I still find myself doing it on big, high price, personal investments for us. And we'll talk about it. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWit: Douglas, it looks like, who is new to the group not yet a member wrote, "Recently, my partner and I were contacted by a Land Academy lender."
Jack Butala: What is that? I put this in here for a reason.
Jill DeWit: We don't have Land Academy lenders.
Jack Butala: I couldn't agree more.
Jill DeWit: I'm very curious. I hope somebody said who's Land Academy lender. That's really funny.
Jack Butala:
Land Academy Career Path is Not Just for Pros (LA 1730) RERUN Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWitt: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWitt: And I'm Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from sunny Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala: When will we be back in California to do this?
Jill DeWitt: I don't know.
Steven Butala: In the middle of May.
Jill DeWitt: Maybe. You'll be there and I'm going to go back for a couple of days in a week or so I think.
Steven Butala: Oh, I didn't know that.
Jill DeWitt: Yeah. It's on the calendar.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about how Land Academy career path, it's not just for pros. Before we get into it though, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and if you're already a member, join us on Discord.
Jill DeWitt: You know what I should've said is I'll be back when it warms up.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWitt: It's been cold there, like not even 60. I'm like, no, I'm good. Ross wrote, "Hi everyone. I'm interested in possibly not selling a land property with seller financing, but actually buying one from a seller. My intent is to sell it though and, of course, when I sell it I want to write it into the contract that the seller will make whole once I-"
Steven Butala: Will be made whole.
Jill DeWitt: "I'll make him whole once I sell it, just like a traditional montage would be."
Steven Butala: Mortgage.
Jill DeWitt: Oh, okay.
Steven Butala: It's okay. it's not you.
Jill DeWitt: All right.
Steven Butala: It's a puzzle.
Jill DeWitt: Okay.
Steven Butala: This question is written in puzzle format.
Jill DeWitt: Oh, good. You're going to help put this all together. Thank you. "In order to be legal, I understand that my name needs to be on the title in order for me to market it for sale. Otherwise I'm marketing property that I don't legally own. So I'm not sure how, what kind of contract or deed instrument I should use in this situation. For example, I buy this hundred thousand dollar property from you, but you have to provide owner financing. I pay you $3,000 per month in monthly payments and when selling the property, the next buyer you'll be made whole at that point. Is this possible? Anyone would have a contract that could see or use or hire someone to write me the contract in the legal way? Thank you for all you do."
Steven Butala: So what you're, if you do this and there's a contract in the Land Academy program, the first one, to do this. So it's in there. I don't recommend doing this at all. I think you're getting yourself into a mess, but if you want to do it, I understand. You're not breaking the law at all, in my opinion, you're not representing someone else in the sale of their property because what you're doing when you sign this is creating equitable interest in a property. And so if you buy the property on a contract, you own it. You just have a lien, there's a lien on it, just like you do with a mortgage. So if you go buy a house and Bank of America provides a mortgage for you, you will move in, paint it, do whatever you're going to do to it, clean it up, renovate it. If something goes sideways and you stop making payments, the bank comes and gets it. It's the same situation here. So I don't believe that there's any legal issues here with this at all.
Steven Butala: You own the property. There's a lien on it. You have equitable interest. The real problem here is there's just a lot of stuff that can go wrong. Let's say you don't, if you don't sell the property, you're going to stop paying. So there's some huge financial concerns that I have. But if this is the way you want to start, knock yourself out.
Jill DeWitt: Yeah, I'm not a fan. If it's that good, here's the bottom line, if it's that good, somebody will fund it, like us.
Steven Butala: If it's a great deal.
Jill DeWitt: Yeah.
Land Academy Membership vs Owning a Franchise (LA 1729) RERUN Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt broadcasting from awesome Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today. Jill and I talk about Land Academy membership versus owning a franchise couldn't be more different.
Jill DeWit: But sounds like, well, hey, wait a minute though, well, Land Academy to be an investor, right? So it's really kind of about being an investor versus this business... What business do you want to be in? You want to be an investor, which is what we teach you how to do and set you up for, versus owning a franchise, which is kind of, they teach you how to run, let's just say it's Cold Stone Creamery. You even go to Cold Stone school, and then you have your business. But there's a lot of different things going on.
Steven Butala: We teach you how to get free, and autonomous, and independent, and happy and done. We don't have our hooks in you forever, like, let's say, Cold Stone.
Jill DeWit: Well, we'll talk about that because I made a list and you're tying into my list. I'm trying to just state the facts, man.
Steven Butala: I'm not talking about you.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Butala: I just, I'm not a huge franchise fan.
Jill DeWit: No kidding.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free.
Jill DeWit: I'm here to tell you, truth time, there's one and only one franchise this person likes to go to, and it's Wendy's.
Steven Butala: Just because I want to eat for free?
Jill DeWit: No, just the chilies. No, not because you want to eat for free, I'm here... it's truth time. You're like, "I don't like that, I don't like... " You don't like the franchise, anything, but you're like, "I do like Wendy's Chili." How's that? Okay.
Steven Butala: Let's see. If you had a franchise, it would be a Zales Jewelry or something.
Jill DeWit: No. What would my franchise be? Oh, Nordstrom.
Steven Butala: Yeah, that's for sure.
Jill DeWit: Well, it's not a franchise-
Steven Butala: I know, I know. Neither is Zales-
Jill DeWit: Oh yeah-
Steven Butala: ... I'm just joking around.
Jill DeWit: I don't know what my... Maybe subway? No. I have to think about that.
Jill DeWit: Okay. Herbert asks, "Hello. I know this isn't our typical vacant land leasing, single family convo, but I would like some help clarifying some things, and figured what better place to gain information about this topic than from our super knowledgeable and amazing group here at Land Investors?"
Jill DeWit: Okay. Herbert, are you trying to get brownie points? Because you're winning. It's working.
Jill DeWit: All right. I'm pretty new to real estate in general, never owning a home before. So I'd like your advice on the process slash plan of action for acquiring a four unit, multi-family property to serve as a primary residence. I plan to purchase the four units by using an either FHA or FHA 203(k) loan to renovate, and then live here in Miami, Florida.
Jill DeWit: My questions are, number one. Am I correct to assume that our direct mail approach to acquiring real estate is also the best way to acquire my first multi-family deal for a primary residence?
Steven Butala: Yes.
Jill DeWit: What are some of the differences in the approach that I should be aware of?
Jill DeWit: Number two. Will House Academy teach me how to acquire multi-families as well as single families?
Steven Butala: Yes.
Jill DeWit: Steven. Ready. Go.
Steven Butala: Yes, but I have to tell you, I think you're on the wrong path here.
Jill DeWit: Ah, uh-oh. Well, like you said, Herbert, you really want to pick the brain from the knowledgeable, amazing group here at Land Investors. And one was going to really pick apart your thing, and I'm sure he's right.
Barb Avery Land Academy Member Interview (LA 1728) If you enjoyed the podcast, please review it in Apple Podcasts . Reviews are incredibly important for rankings on Apple Podcasts. My staff and I read each and every one.
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email me directly at steven@BuWit.com.
The BuWit Family of Companies include:
https://BuWit.com
https://offers2owners.com
https://landinvestors.com
https://landacademy.com
https://landpin.com
https://parcelfact.com
https://countywise.com
https://deedperfect.com
https://ownersdata.com
https://houseacademy.com
I would like to think it’s entertaining and informative and in the end profitable.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Jill Friday - Investing Like a Girl (LA 1727) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the Valley of this Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about, well, it's Jill Friday, and she's going to talk about investing like a girl.
Jill K DeWit: You came up with this topic. Are you picking my brain here? You want to know what I've been reading and what I think about?
Steven Jack Butala: There's a book on Jill's desk by Warren Buffett.
Jill K DeWit: It's by a girl who works for Motley Crew or Motley Fool.
Steven Jack Butala: Crew?
Jill K DeWit: A brilliant woman who works for Motley Crew, I mean, Motley Fool. She wrote a book, and it's called Warren Buffett Invests Like a Girl and Why You Should Too.
Steven Jack Butala: I see.
Jill K DeWit: It's not written by Warren Buffett, sorry.
Steven Jack Butala: Oh, me and the whole world think it's [crosstalk 00:00:46].
Jill K DeWit: Oh, you got all excited thinking Warren Buffett wrote a book.
Steven Jack Butala: No. This is actually even better. I'd rather hear from advice ... I think that's great. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.
Steven Jack Butala: Back in the day, it was nearly impossible to find land without a mailing address like 123 Main Street. The reality is nearly all properties that have never been built on, which is what we buy and sell, don't have a post office address yet. They have an assessor's parcel number. Well, there is no database for that. Jill and I set out and now have 150 million up-to-date unit assessors parcel look-up database and spatial environment where you can look this up and find any property just in seconds. Like all these products, we've been using this for years. We just had never made it pretty enough to present to the public, but we have now. It's called neighborscoop.com. Go to neighborscoop.com for more information and check it all out. See if it's for you.
Jill K DeWit: Dan wrote, "I just got an email from a mailer I sent a year ago, asked if I was still interested in buying. This was someone I had needed to reduce the original offer on, and they initially needed more. They had bought the 40 acres in 2007 for $50,000, and I had reduced my offer from 19,000 to 13,000 due to massive back taxes. They wanted to recoup more of their losses. Well, the property taxes for this year are about due and the assessed value took a hit from last year. So they are now ready to sell. Hooray. That would be the 12th great deal from a mailer of about 900 units." Wow.
Steven Jack Butala: Geez, listen to that.
Jill K DeWit: Holy moly.
Steven Jack Butala: This guy's in Career Path too, in this Career Path.
Jill K DeWit: Wow. This one is a base hit, base hit. I think it's more than that. Okay. All in for 19,000 and sell within a week comfortably for 30. I got it. I may push the price up a bit on this one.
Steven Jack Butala: I would too.
Jill K DeWit: It's not a huge profit percent-wise, but I've sold six exactly like it after buying five to $15,000 range and then selling between 25 and $29,000 range. It will be just so easy because I still have people lined up from missing out on the last couple that were a few parcels over. This is great.
Steven Jack Butala: This is a direct result of Career Path.
Jill K DeWit: That's so good.
Steven Jack Butala: And I'm not selling anything. I'm just saying this is what we talk about in Career Path all the time.
Jill K DeWit: And it's true. You can't really gauge these mailers sometimes, because you might not get calls for ... You get three now. You could buy a couple deals. And then a few months go by and you get another call and another letter. And more time goes by, another call, another letter.
Jack Thursday - Is it Okay to Bend Rules to Succeed (LA 1726) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Jack and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jack Thursday. I'm going to talk about when it's okay to bend the rules to succeed. I have several examples professionally and socially. You're either going to love the show or hate it. Like all Land Academy episodes.
Jill K DeWit: If you know me, I've never bend the rules.
Steven Jack Butala: Jill's middle name.
Jill K DeWit: I'm a rule follower.
Steven Jack Butala: Jill's middle name is-
Jill K DeWit: [inaudible 00:00:34].
Steven Jack Butala: There's several, I'll save it for the show. Before we get into it. Let's take a question posted by one of our members on the land investors online community it's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy, YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Dan wrote, "Does anyone have any banking relationships for a lender who would lend on a subdivide?"
Steven Jack Butala: Dan, I'm going to answer your question, but think the bigger question is, does anybody have any banking relationships to help me succeed in the land business? And the answer is emphatically, no. And if they did, and they were in discord saying I'm an asset manager or a lender for a bank, we have tons of money to lend. I would kick them out of our group, you don't believe. I mean it, Jill thinks it's funny, but I'm not exaggerating.
Jill K DeWit: All right, that's true.
Steven Jack Butala: I don't believe philosophically this is me. And clearly maybe not Jill. I don't believe that all these sayings that we've all heard a million times, other people's money and use other people's money. Hahaha, I got somebody to give me money and there's people in our group that are like that. On the other end of that. There's people in every group that are like that. I don't think debt is okay. I just don't, debt.
Jill K DeWit: Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala: I don't think it's okay in your personal life to really, to any degree with very few exceptions. And one of them is a primary resident's first position mortgage when rates are really low and the market's doing what it's doing right now. I think that's probably okay. But tertiary debt, which is what I think you're talking about here is a bad idea. That's not to say, "Well great Jack, thanks a lot. So, but I don't have any money." That's okay.
Jill K DeWit: Wait till you do.
Steven Jack Butala: There's a massive difference between, no. There's a massive difference between debt and equity financing. I love equity financing, Jill and I provide equity financing all the time. "Oh Jack, it's so expensive. That's terrible." Yep, it is. Equity financing is way more expensive than debt financing. The consequences of defaulting on debt financing will destroy your life for 10 years. The consequences of defaulting on equity financing. When you have a partner with somebody like Jill and I, or many people that are in Land Academy, usually amount to one or two or three phone calls where the person that provided the equity financing. And we've done this many times. We say, "You know what? This deal didn't work out the way we thought."
Jill K DeWit: We say, congratulations you're out of the deal.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Tell you what, why don't you throw us the figurative keys and we'll take it from here. And when we do sell it, because we lent you all the money to do it. When we sell it, you're not going to make anything. So I want you to put-
Jill K DeWit: Not take it back.
Steven Jack Butala: And I'll tell you what pal, why don't you send out another mailer and you're going to do great. And then it ends right there. Debt, if you want to spend some fun, if you want to blow a couple hours in your lif...
3 Circumstances That Tell Us it's Okay to Flip a House (LA 1725) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the House Academy Show, entertaining real estate investment talk. I'm in Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today Jill and I talk about the three circumstances that tell us it's okay to flip a house.
Jill K DeWit: There's probably 30, but we broke it down to three.
Steven Jack Butala: What are you guys talking about? What are you talking about? Why are you talking about houses, Jack? I thought you buy and sell land. We don't advertise it, but Jill and I also have a company called House Academy. You can check it out on houseacademy.com. It's got regular members who buy and sell houses, usually alongside their land operation.
Steven Jack Butala: And it's not something that we're really, really focused on right now. Actually that's the content of this episode, because there's a lot of competition. The market's super, super hot. And we would rather be over here, making tons of money buying and selling land right now. But that doesn't mean you can't do it, it's not profitable.
Jill K DeWit: House's Academy is alive and well. We just had to check out the other day.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, just saw that.
Jill K DeWit: We saw people joining us.
Steven Jack Butala: Right.
Jill K DeWit: I don't want you to think that this is a bad thing that we're not invested in it, we're not doing it, because we are.
Steven Jack Butala: Exactly.
Jill K DeWit: And we're going to tell you, so for people who are thinking about House Academy and doing ... And we'll explain here in a few minutes who is a candidate for House Academy and why people come to us.
Jill K DeWit: And then we'll talk about what we're doing now in this environment, because it was really important. And I want you guys to know that you are important to us and we are doing it with you, but we're being strategic. And that's what today's shows about.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com, online community. It's free. And last year a ton of land academy members came to Jill and I, needing extra help to get their blind offer campaigns into the mail and off the ground.
Steven Jack Butala: I took a look at how we personally are sending out mail with our key employees, and ultimately made those exact same people available to Land Academy members to get the mail out. And we gave it a name, it's called Concierge Data.
Steven Jack Butala: So it's a year later, and hundreds of our members are outsourcing their entire mail process with this product. Some of those members are people that have been doing mail themselves for years and they're tired of it. They're outsourcing it. And some of those members are brand new and are not fully ... It's stopping them from getting into the business. And they're in both cases and everything in between, using Concierge Data to get the mail out. Check us out at offers, the number two, owners.com and give them a call.
Jill K DeWit: Aaron wrote, "Hi, I'm brand new to this course. I just bought it today. I was wondering, number one, should I set up an LLC in my home state? Number two, should I get an email forwarding service, slash virtual business address? Number three, should I get a local number or an 800 type number?" Well, good news is, that thing you just got today, watch it.
Steven Jack Butala: What's that?
Jill K DeWit: Because it's in there.
Steven Jack Butala: What's that thing that he got today?
Jill K DeWit: He just said, "I just joined Land Academy. I just got the education today." I'm like, "Congratulations. Watch it." Because all three questions are answered. They're in there.
Steven Jack Butala: Yes, Jill's exactly right.
Jill K DeWit: No, it's really good, I'm trying to say.
Josiah Ronco Land Academy Member Interview (LA 1724) If you enjoyed the podcast, please review it in Apple Podcasts . Reviews are incredibly important for rankings on Apple Podcasts. My staff and I read each and every one.
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email me directly at steven@BuWit.com.
The BuWit Family of Companies include:
https://BuWit.com
https://offers2owners.com
https://landinvestors.com
https://landacademy.com
https://landpin.com
https://parcelfact.com
https://countywise.com
https://deedperfect.com
https://ownersdata.com
https://houseacademy.com
I would like to think it’s entertaining and informative and in the end profitable.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
How to Split Land Parcels Toward Huge Financial Success (LA 1723) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here. Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land, investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about how to split land parcels toward huge financial success.
Jill K DeWit: This sounds like a lot at first.
Steven Jack Butala: It is a lot.
Jill K DeWit: I know.
Steven Jack Butala: I like to divide the whole land business and the education process into high school and college. And so splitting property is your last year of a master's degree and your first year of a PhD.
Jill K DeWit: Okay, that's kind of funny. And a lot of people come to us with an associate's degree or they're wrapping up their associate's, or they're thinking about their associate's and they're like, "I want to do this." Hold on everybody.
Steven Jack Butala: I'm glad you bring that up because, and I'll tell you why they do that. Because for the same reason I originally said, "This is what I'm going to do, split property." It's that whole bottle case theory. You buy a case of beer for 12 bucks or $24. There's 24 bottles in there, and you sell it for $3 each. It's not hard to do the math that you can make $50.
Jill K DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala: $50 net on a case of beer. So it's the same thing with land. You buy 40 acres for $10,000. You split it all up into one acre parcels. This is all theory. And now you've got 40 properties you can sell for $5,000 each. That's the intrigue.
Jill K DeWit: I understand.
Steven Jack Butala: Show me where to start, Jack. That's what they're saying. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And did you know that Jill and I personally instruct a handful of new and existing land academy members in a live class called Career Path? We do this every quarter. If you're buying, selling land and you think it's your career, or you think you want it to be, give us a call.
Jill K DeWit: I would like to add, we are open right now and enrolling for session number four, and it starts April 23rd. We are doing it now on Saturdays. I'm so excited. Go to landacademy.com/careerpath and you'll find all the details there.
Steven Jack Butala: This is not a commercial in any stretch. But I will tell you, one person a day is signing up for this. I expect that, what do we have? Typically 20 people.
Jill K DeWit: I'm making it a commercial because it's good. Why do you always say that?
Steven Jack Butala: I hate commercials.
Jill K DeWit: I know.
Steven Jack Butala: I hate selling and all that stuff. That's not what this is.
Jill K DeWit: Okay.
Steven Jack Butala: We're here to instruct everyone how to buy and sell land.
Jill K DeWit: Yes, but we need to inform you.
Steven Jack Butala: To a huge amount of success, so.
Jill K DeWit: There you go. All right, Greg wrote, "I was wondering for those of you that send out neighbor letters first, how much time do you usually wait after sending the letters to list with a broker if you think you're not getting any interest from the neighbors?
Jill K DeWit: I'm getting ready to close, and I guess I should get a drone video first. Send neighbor letters, post on Facebook, et cetera. And then the last step would be to list with the broker if none of that seems to get much interest. Or maybe I have it all wrong.
Jill K DeWit: Also, when you do commit to list with a broker, you owe them commission no matter where the lead comes from. Right?" Okay. So first things first, I'm just jumping in here.
Steven Jack Butala: I'll comment at the end if it's necessary because I know where you're going to go with this.
Jill K DeWit: I love where you're going with this. A lot of properties are fit into this model. And I love the neighbor letter, get the drones, get the pictures,
Jill Friday - Running Out of Land to Sell (LA 1722) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steven, Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I... Well, it's still Friday and she's going to talk about running out of land to sell, what a beautiful thing.
Jill K DeWit: That's great. We're both going to talk about it because it's happening to you too.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free. And back in the day, it was nearly impossible to find land without a mailing address, which is almost all of the property that we buy, we're in the land business. To solve this, we now access a live database by assessor's parcel number to find any property in seconds. And like all of our products, all the products we developed, we used it for ourself first to solve these problems and then made it public on a website. In this case, we call it neighborscoop.com, call us, or check us out at neighborscoop.com or landacademy.com.
Jill K DeWit: Perfect. Sandy wrote, "I've heard some investors complain about certain states like New York because of the additional work in order to close the deals. What other states have a lot of hoops to jump through in order to get deals done efficiently? I read in a group, Ohio has extra issues to deal with." So one of our moderators, Lori wrote back. I'm going to read her response and then we'll weigh in here too.
Jill K DeWit: Lori said, "I used to think that about this too, but I found that if you're doing closing with title escrow or an attorney, there's not much difference in the effort and the headaches between states. Some are slower, more expensive and more antiquated during deal process, where you need to do your homework is before you start mailing that state. Learn whether the state allows a post-sale disclosure of the sale price, if not, you won't have any sold comps to use. Not always a problem, it's fine, but find out if there's legal to send offers there. Are assignment's legal if you're planning to do that. Make sure your target county has data online before you mail and make sure it's up to date." Those are just some extra things that matter. I love that.
Steven Jack Butala: There's no real difference between states at all-
Jill K DeWit: Not any more.
Steven Jack Butala: At any state, you can use a lawyer to close just about any state with very, very few exceptions. They don't embrace the concept of escrow agents as a replacement for every... Used to be lawyer's [inaudible 00:02:26] to close the real estate deal. And then in California, they devised this process to make it faster, and it's since then worked its way east from California's from back in the... I don't know exactly when it all started.
Jill K DeWit: I don't know.
Steven Jack Butala: So, she's right, just do your home work.
Jill K DeWit: [crosstalk 00:02:45] and things like that. Yeah, so that's the thing. It really isn't, especially the deals that we're doing. So I think what she's talking about is once upon a time, doing smaller deals and closing yourself, there were states that you couldn't do that. That's true. But now all the deals that we're doing is... Even newbies right out of the gate. We're teaching you how to add a zero and do bigger deals right away. And for those deals, you're using an attorney or escrow or something, and so, it's not hard at all. I would argue it's even easier by the way.
Steven Jack Butala: So would I.
Jill K DeWit: Back in the day, I used to fight. I used to say, "Closing my own deal's easier." No, I thought, let somebody else do it, and they do all the work. It's nice.
Steven Jack Butala: Absolutely. Today's deal Friday. She's going to talk about running out of land of sell.
Jack Thursday - Deadlines Deliverables and Communication (LA 1721) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Jack and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, Entertaining Land Investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today is Jack Thursday, and I'm going to talk about deadlines, deliverables, and communication. Yes, there is a possibility that Jill's going to be bored out of her skull.
Jill K DeWit: Because I've already had this team meeting. I've had to sit in it several times. I have it down.
Steven Jack Butala: All kidding aside, I just developed this thing recently, because we were having trouble getting stuff done in the education companies, like we call it around the office. Not so much the land companies, we've got that licked. Mostly because the people who have been working in the land companies under Jill's direction, they just understand each other really well. But, our education companies are getting bigger and we're hiring more staff and we needed a better way. And we built this deadlines, deliverables and communication thing after Jill's model. She didn't have a cute little label for it, and maybe I don't either. I don't know. But we built it off of what she's been doing with her land transaction coordinators and people that work there and it's working great.
Jill K DeWit: Thank you. I appreciate the compliment.
Steven Jack Butala: The goal is to never talk to your employees and never have them talk to you. And that's what this accomplishes.
Jill K DeWit: That's the whole point here. That's what he paid attention to. Like, wait a minute. I'm like, "No, Jan, I go weeks. We don't, I feel bad, we don't talk." We have to like every two weeks we kind of sit down like, "How are you? Check in. You got 10 minutes?" "Sure." And we catch up real quick, but all of our communication is all online and we don't miss anything.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our land... Our members on the landinvestors.com online community is free. And don't for forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Chuck wrote, "Does anyone have a LinkedIn profile in which they have info about their land investing company and their current job on it? I love to see how much you lay out. I don't know much about designing it."
Jill K DeWit: I do.
Steven Jack Butala: I do too. Everyone does. I think LinkedIn, is it LinkedIn? Yeah. LinkedIn is a great place to put, just to lay it all out. Everything. Yep. I graduated from college or I didn't graduate from college. This is a formal education I have. I'm still in college. Doesn't matter. This is the 21st Century now. Nobody cares about that stuff really anymore. Unless you're, you know,...
Jill K DeWit: A doctor, attorney maybe...
Steven Jack Butala: A doctor, a lawyer, and you're going to work for a high price firm and that whole old school kind of concept. That's all kind of gone. I say, just throw it all out there. Say, you know, "I live with my two dogs and my favorite person on a boat and wherever..." It just makes you that much more interesting. "Yeah. I've got this job over here. Sometimes I moonlight over here and I buy and sell land with Land Academy."
Jill K DeWit: Perfect.
Steven Jack Butala: I think I, you get my instant respect if you just, if you got a lot of stuff going on,
Jill K DeWit: I agree.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jack Thursday. I'm going to talk about deadlines, deliverables, and communication. This is why you're listening, or maybe not. Jill has a system set up and she's going to explain it to us in great detail in a second here, because I modeled my education company system after her land system. It took her two years to do it,
Recovering HGTV House Flippers Make Great Land Academy Land Flippers (LA 1720) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Jack and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to The House Academy Show. It must be Wednesday, entertaining real estate investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about recovering HGTV House Flippers and how they make great Land Academy, land flippers.
Jill K DeWit: I love this. You know what's funny, I was watching HGTV last night, as a matter of fact. You know what?
Steven Jack Butala: Does it get better or worse, that channel?
Jill K DeWit: It's great. Because you know what? It is so fun, it's so entertaining, and I'm not doing it. And it was funny because we were talking about one the other day too. Like, "That doesn't even sound real." I'm like, "You know I question it." I'm sure some of it's-
Steven Jack Butala: No.
Jill K DeWit: ... probably not exactly-
Steven Jack Butala: None of it's real.
Jill K DeWit: ... accurate or real, but again, it is entertaining.
Steven Jack Butala: Somebody told me in there, when we lived in Los Angeles, somebody from Hollywood said, "You know, reality TV is a style. It doesn't mean it's real."
Jill K DeWit: That's true.
Steven Jack Butala: [inaudible 00:01:00].
Jill K DeWit: That's actually really funny.
Steven Jack Butala: The sit the way that some people film westerns, some people film reality TV.
Jill K DeWit: Does the name start with a B?
Steven Jack Butala: I don't remember who said that.
Jill K DeWit: Okay.
Steven Jack Butala: I will say this that, the numbers that they flash on the screen about, "Oh, we bought this house, especially in Indiana, we bought this house for $5,000. The city was going to tear it down and we scraped it and put a new house up for $38,000." How is that possible? There's no stretch of, there's no way those numbers can be right. You can't put a new mobile home on a piece of property, I know this from recent experience, for less than 150,000 bucks. So, how you build a new house for 30,000 is just a crack up.
Jill K DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community. It's free. I've got to tell you, last year a ton of Land Academy members came to Jill and I needing extra help getting their blind offer campaigns in the mail. So, I took a look at how we personally send out mail with our key employees and ultimately, made the same people available to Land Academy members to get their mail out. We call it concierge data. It's the exact same service I use with the same people that I've trained over the years to do our mailers.
Jill K DeWit: Our staff.
Steven Jack Butala: Our staff. A year later, hundreds of our members now are outsourcing their entire mail process with this product. Check out offers2owners.com and take a look at concierge data. See if it's for you.
Jill K DeWit: Erin wrote... Okay, I'm still running my red, yellow ring tests. I found out what appears to be some promising zip codes and decided to look at 12 months of past data. They look great in the last month but not so great for several months last year. See example. I saw that, what was there a minute ago. So, how much weight do you give to historical performance versus the last month or two?
Steven Jack Butala: This is brilliant. A brilliant question. Do you look at just very recent data or the last two or three months? Or do you take a look at it a year back. Because this is kind of the experience that you're having here, Erin, has flipped from my experience. Usually the most recent months, at least where we're sending mail, are the best. They have the lowest days on market, the highest number of properties sold, and the lowest number of properties that are for sale. And all the ratios that were the red, green,
Why Sending Blind Land Offers within a Price Range Backfires (LA 1719) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Jack and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about why sending blind land offers within a price range, backfires.
Jill K DeWit: I have a lot to say about this.
Steven Jack Butala: Jill said earlier, or yesterday I should say, that we own a ton of real estate all over the country at any given time, and she's never received...
Jill K DeWit: Not one of these.
Steven Jack Butala: Never received a range offer. What I mean by this is instead of sending an offer for, this is what we teach in Land Academy and very successfully implement, Jill and I together and have for decades. Is, "Hey, we want a buy your property that's located in this area, that we know you own for $16,832.28." We don't send an offer range like, "Well, we think your property's worth between $14,000 and $22,000 and call us back and we'll talk about it together."
Jill K DeWit: Right.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community, it's free. Did you know that we have a full blown operational commercial printing company called offer2owners.com? Jill and I set this company up several years ago, specifically, to mail out our blind offer campaigns and then we've ultimately started sharing it with our Land Academy members and some non-members only a couple years ago. Last month, I just checked, we mailed out about 700,000 offers that month on our member's behalf. Give us a call or go to offers2owners.com and see if it's real.
Jill K DeWit: Cool.
Jill K DeWit: I am waiting for it to scroll up. Okay. Erin wrote, "Until recently, I have mostly avoided no access situations and used the title company to confirm access when it is questionable. Interestingly, I had one deal where one title company wouldn't ensure access, but the other one in town would. I guess the first title company just had a claim or two for a similar situation." Kind of funny. So one of our moderators, I already have one of their answers. So I'm going to answer this. I'll read this before we answer. So Kevin, one of our moderators wrote, "I have had a title company insurer with no access, but they had a disclaimer that said they would not govern any issues resulting from not having access. Also, I'm closing on a few right now that have a legal easement, but no rotor path. I purchased these and had a surveyor go out and mark the easement so that my buyers can clearly see that they do have a legal easement.
Jill K DeWit: I avoid those with no access and even avoid deals or accesses through the neighboring parcel on a friendly verbal arrangement, since it's that part is not usually transferable. So now I sell all parcels with agents and then I need to have at least legal access for them to be able to show it by law." So he is taking it to a step further. Oh, one more thing. This is really lengthy. "I purchased a property from a guy who buys tax liens. Somehow he gets the deed. This property had no access, so he's sued for access. Cost him some money, it took about a year. Then I came long and made a good offer. I sent my surveyor out there to locate and mark the new easement through the neighbor property. That neighbor did not answer any attempt to contact during the suit or the easement."
Steven Jack Butala: Sure.
Jill K DeWit: "The suit for the easement, they may be uncooperative. So I work with an agent in the area who knows the neighbor and he went out there am fair warning that the surveyor will be working on the property next week." That was very nice. "I would not have done this deal without the connection with the agent to help with the neighbor.
Three Mandatory Tasks to Complete Every Day in Your Land Life (LA 1718) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steven and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today Jill and I talk about three mandatory tasks to complete every day in your land life. I think they're going to be kind of surprised about some of this stuff.
Jill K DeWit: All right. I'm excited. I know you put this together and you have some thoughts on this. I'm just going to let you run with it.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and did you know that Jill and I personally instruct a handful of new and existing Land Academy members in a live class called Career Path? If buying and selling land is your career, or you want it to be your career, this may be for you. Check us out on the internet at LandAcademy.com and give us a call.
Jill K DeWit: I would also like to add a little follow-up announcement that we are doing a live all about Career Path tomorrow because we have some great changes that we're making to it. This is actually session number four that is starting in April. So, tomorrow's the big announcement. Check out YouTube or Facebook live under the Land Academy pages at four o'clock Pacific time, eight o'clock Eastern time. So, that's Tuesday, March 15th, four o'clock Pacific time, 8:00 PM Eastern time. Go to Land Academy on YouTube or Facebook and you could see us live and ask us all kinds of questions about Career Path. And we're going to fill you in with some exciting new things that we're doing this time. Thank you. And back to the show. Okay. So, Casey wrote "$16.53 cents net profit. Be careful of HOA properties, as mentioned a lot." Aw, yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: I have to tell you this. So, Casey's been with us for a while and I don't like all this rah-rah peaches and cream. So, Casey has a little story here about a property where he basically broke even and I think the world needs to hear it.
Jill K DeWit: Yep. So, here's the story. "I bought this lot a year ago, assuming values were around $3,000, as was all the information that I could find. That included MLS access, which I have. After buying for $750, which I bought a second lot for $100 in the same HOA and sold a few weeks as the price was too good to pass up, I learned that the HOA had a board of property for sale at $1,500 or less. Thankfully, I was able to find a buyer this weekend who loved it. After all the fees I made a whopping $16.53 cents. I'm happy this one was a net positive and no matter how small, it's off my plate, but the point is watch out for those HOA properties."
Jill K DeWit: That's one of the reasons why we kind of like... Unfortunately, initially I have a negative feeling about HOA stuff because of this and it may not be that bad. Some of the HOA rules are not that bad. Maybe just some nice, common sense, like let's not trash the place up, and I don't disagree with that. But some have really hefty transfer fees every single time and the way we do it, we buy the property, we own it, and then we try and sell it. So, I'm paying those transfer fees twice and they can be a couple thousand dollars each time. I've been hit with that. So, you got to really budget for it.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. This is still the land of the free and the home of the brave and HOAs kind of throw a wrench in all that with their fees and their rules and all of that. So, we're rural vacant land people. It just goes against what land represents.
Jill K DeWit: It kind of does. Isn't that funny? I know. Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala: That cowboy type freedom.
Jill K DeWit: Do you think Yellowstone has an HOA? Could you imagine? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. That back 40 over there,
Inconsistency in Sending Mailers Equals Inconsistent Income (LA 1717) RERUN Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy show, Entertaining Land Investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about how inconsistency in sending mailers equals inconsistent income.
Jill DeWit: That's a mouthful.
Steven Butala: Seems simple.
Jill DeWit: Say that three times fast.
Steven Butala: It seems simple. I can easily do it and bore the heck out of everyone. It seems like a simple concept-
Jill DeWit: Saying it three times fast?
Steven Butala: Yeah. It's a very, very simple concept, but it's hard. It's harder to do, we're finding from our members and even with us, once in a while, in our land buying and selling effort, harder to do than it seems. You know why? Because you run into issues.
Jill DeWit: I don't think it's hard, I think it's discipline.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: That's really all it is and this-
Steven Butala: You know what? That's exactly right. Discipline's hard.
Jill DeWit: Oh, well, that's true.
Steven Butala: Well said. [crosstalk 00:00:55]
Jill DeWit: Who was the last person you disciplined? And please don't say me.
Steven Butala: Geez.
Jill DeWit: Give me your last discipline moment.
Steven Butala: You know what? I hate the concept of discipline. I always have.
Jill DeWit: I suck at it.
Steven Butala: It's the thing about being a parent that I just... I never have gotten my head around it and never will.
Jill DeWit: I know. Someone said that once a long time ago and I believe it to be true, the hardest thing about parenting is parenting. I would have easily been one of those parents that just went to bed at whatever time I was tired and let the kids just figure it out. Like, I'll fall asleep when they're tired. No, we got to do bedtime, we got to get them... That's a lot of work. That's not what this show is about, but anyway.
Steven Butala: It's a lot of stuff.
Jill DeWit: It kind of ties in to-
Steven Butala: It totally ties in.
Jill DeWit: ...to this too. And I know we'll talk more about it.
Steven Butala: We just recorded a show, actually, with a couple of guys, and it aired yesterday, or I guess, by the time this series, last week. And we really ended up talking about this topic. The stuff that it takes to do well, anything in life, is all the same. It's discipline, and a schedule, and staying on a schedule.
Steven Butala: We used to say stay motivated a lot. I don't think that comes up that much any longer, because I think being motivated at this is pretty easy. I just think it's sticking to a schedule. It's all some version of that.
Jill DeWit: I hear you.
Steven Butala: Why don't you stick to a schedule? Because stuff goes on.
Jill DeWit: That's true. I hear you.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWit: Skylar wrote, "Hi Jack and Jill. I found out about your live event the day before and I could not attend." You must have saw my note here, too. "I've been, however, listening to your podcast every single day. Please, would you consider this live event again? I'm a beginner, by the way, and I would really like to do what Jack says in the podcast." And then this member is just killing it. That was your note?
Steven Butala: This member is just killing it? No, they wrote that about themselves.
Jill DeWit: Oh, that's funny. Well, I wrote... It's funny you say this, I'm getting out my calendar right now so I can look it up. So I responded to the person and said, "Yes, because here's the whole deal, it's all about our live event." And it's cool to get together-
Steven Butala: The reason I included this question is-
Jill DeWit: Yeah, tell me.
Steven Butala: ...
People are Getting Rich (LA 1716) RERUN Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Happy Monday.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I am Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about how people are getting rich. This whole title, and show, and episode came up because Jill had a consulting call with a couple of people, and they're getting rich. They're in our group, getting rich, and they want to know how to get, I guess-
Jill DeWit: Richer.
Steven Butala: Better.
Jill DeWit: It's so funny. It was just like, I hung up the phone ... Or, wasn't on the phone. It was a Zoom call. I got off the call, and I'm like, "Holy cow." It's just a sweet couple in our group about to quit their jobs. Those are good jobs, by the way. I'm like, "Do they even realize what just happened?" Then what we were talking about is what's possible. That's what's ... They're ready for it. They're like, "Yep, we get you." They weren't even shocked, as we talked. I know we'll share more about this.
Steven Butala: Yeah, we'll get into it in the episode, because we haven't talked about it at all, except for the title. I want to know what they said and what their situation is, and how they got there, and all of that.
Jill DeWit: It's funny. Yeah.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWit: [Pete 00:01:23] wrote, "Hi, all. I'm new to Land Academy and loving it all. I just approved my first batch of 10,000 units of mail, 10,000 mailers, with offers to owners. I can't wait until the activity starts."
Steven Butala: Yikes.
Jill DeWit: I know. I wonder if Pete's going to send it out all at once, been there, done that, or he's going to sparse it out. I'm guessing he's going to sparse it out, but we'll see.
Jill DeWit: "In my opinion," here we go, "I'd rather send a large quantity of mail and be a little picky instead of moving forward with marginal deals that will take longer to sell. I'm hoping to get on this schedule, this amount of mailers per week as a base, and then build up from there. Am I setting myself up to be overwhelmed, or is this a level that I can manage as long as I delegate as much as possible? I'm planning to use PATLive, and I've got a couple assistants already that work for me for other businesses."
Steven Butala: Oh, okay.
Jill DeWit: That's good.
Steven Butala: Here we go. He's got other businesses.
Jill DeWit: "It should be pretty easy for me to get them up to speed on some of the other tasks."
Steven Butala: Excellent.
Jill DeWit: "Is there anyone out there that sends 100,000 mailers a month? From the response rates I've heard just reading here, this type of volume could be really lucrative as long as you can turn your system into a well-oiled machine." This ties into what we talked about yesterday. "If any pros out there have some advice or tips on anything, I'm all ears."
Jill DeWit: You want to go first?
Steven Butala: No, you go first.
Jill DeWit: Okay. This ties into ... It was last week, actually, the call that I had with this couple that we're going to talk about today, and just what's possible.
Jill DeWit: To answer Pete's question, see what you can do. I personally ... We talked about this in the last couple weeks, those people that are go-for-it people that just jump off the cliff, there's people that, "I'm going to stand over here and watch you guys," and there's some that can't get out of the car. Pete's clearly a "jump off the cliff", and he's a "run off the cliff" person.
Steven Butala: Just like Jill.
Jill DeWit: I'll figure it out. You're either going to sink or swim. You're going to figure it out. It sounds like Pete has other companies and things going on. This is not nuts for him. I think it's great.
Steven Butala: I do too.
Learn More About House Academy Here
Interview with Land Academy Member Tiffany Carter (LA 1715) RERUN Transcript: If you enjoyed the podcast, please review it in Apple Podcasts . Reviews are incredibly important for rankings on Apple Podcasts. My staff and I read each and every one. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email me directly at steven@BuWit.com. The BuWit Family of Companies include: https://BuWit.com https://offers2owners.com https://landinvestors.com https://landacademy.com https://landpin.com https://parcelfact.com https://countywise.com https://deedperfect.com https://ownersdata.com https://houseacademy.com I would like to think it’s entertaining and informative and in the end profitable. And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Pushing Past What's Holding You Back (LA 1714) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land, investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny, Southern California.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about pushing past what's holding you back. This is a direct result of a conversation that Jill had with her... Well, you described where you got this topic [crosstalk 00:00:24].
Jill DeWit: It's the Land Academy ladies group. This is actually an upcoming topic that we're going to talk about. I think it's next week in our meeting. So, what it is, is if you don't know, I'll tell you. You can get in on this. For all the women, whether you're the primary person in your company or your secondary in your company, it's you and your husband or you and your brother or you and your sister, or you and your friend, whatever it is, it's for the women of Land Academy, we call Land Academy ladies. We have a weekly, closed zoom call where we get together. Guys are not allowed, sorry. And we talk about things that are unique to us. And this was one of the things that we talked about this week, and we're going to cover more in depth next week.
Steven Butala: Awesome. How did it go? It was the first time, right?
Jill DeWit: Oh my gosh, it was awesome. So much fun. And we had people there from Sydney, Australia. We had Hawaii, we had all over the U.S., you name it. And it was just a really... And we had all different backgrounds and all different ages and some with little kids and some way retired, almost. And this is just another thing they're doing. It was great.
Steven Butala: That's great.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: It's always coming up with something new Jill.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative). It was really fun.
Jill DeWit: I was inspired.
Steven Butala: Awesome.
Jill DeWit: What's so funny... That's the whole thing. I kind of... This came about because people were asking about it and I wanted to do it. And then I walked away with like, wow, I can't wait to do that again. I'm inspired. And I had an aha moment. It was awesome.
Steven Butala: Good. Before we get into it today, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. I'm going to read the question today. We're going to answer the questions as we go, because this is a very, very, very positive, very good, realistic experience, I think, for what happens, even now with us today, when we buy land.
Steven Butala: Thomas asks, "I would like to know some strategies that others are using. I sent my second mailer in October. A couple of weeks, went by with no responses, so I sent another one out in November to a different county in the same state, when my lack of patience bit me."
Steven Butala: Every single time this happens to us.
Jill DeWit: It does. Even to us.
Steven Butala: "I began getting several calls and sign agreements for my second mailer. I have one purchase in title right now, and another behind that one and possibly a third. I have had a massive response on my third mailer, where I can't even keep up with the calls, emails, and sign agreements. Many I pass over because of the lack of the five A's."
Jill DeWit: Yay.
Steven Butala: "I have several deals lined up with my third mailer. Many sellers are in no rush, but I don't want to put them off. I can't handle the volume. What are some of you doing to delay purchases without seeming like a 'novice'", in quotes, "which I am."
Jill DeWit: I think this is so great. Well, first, I want to say, thank you, Thomas, for picking up on the five A's or used to be four, and now there's five, because I added, alive, because that often comes up.
Steven Butala: We should say what the five A's are.
Jill DeWit: Okay. They are access, attributes, acreage, affordability, and alive. So,
Send More Mail with Land Academy Members Tom Debicki and Patrycja Zak (LA 1713) RERUN If you enjoyed the podcast, please review it in Apple Podcasts . Reviews are incredibly important for rankings on Apple Podcasts. My staff and I read each and every one.
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email me directly at steven@BuWit.com.
The BuWit Family of Companies include:
https://BuWit.com
https://offers2owners.com
https://landinvestors.com
https://landacademy.com
https://landpin.com
https://parcelfact.com
https://countywise.com
https://deedperfect.com
https://ownersdata.com
https://houseacademy.com
I would like to think it’s entertaining and informative and in the end profitable.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Jill Friday - Female Land Investors Unite (LA 1712) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Happy Friday.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Stephen Jack Butala...
Jill K DeWit: ... and I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, jill and I talk... It's Jill Friday, and she's going to talk about female land investors unite.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. That should be a patch. We need to make that a thing.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel. Comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. Someone wrote... I know it's not this name because I keep seeing the same name repeated.
Steven Jack Butala: It is. There's multiple.
Jill K DeWit: The one before was of Luke, but yeah. Okay. Maybe this is Erin. If it's not Erin, I apologize. You know who you are. On mailer...
Steven Jack Butala: Are you questioning my podcast production value?
Jill K DeWit: Nope. Nope. Nope. Not today. Thanks for asking. That was good, though. "On mailer yield, my mind asked the same analytical guide question. I've been doing one deal per a thousand letters. Target, 10 to $30,000 in profit lately, in an area I know really well. And I've been getting really, really fine-grain on the pricing." Good job.
Steven Jack Butala: And it works.
Jill K DeWit: "I've logged a 5,000 unit mailer at a new area and ended up with no deals, although I bet there was one in there with the right phone work. And just another variation, I lobbed 1.3 thousand unit mailer with really low pricing and did one nice deal." It depends. If you think you sent out a bunch of mail, you will both make some money and collect data to answer your own question.
Steven Jack Butala: I put this question in here because this is Land Academy. What this person is describing is the same experience that Jill and I got on our last mailer, and it's the same experience I've gotten for 25 years. Sometimes, you hit it, and sometimes... We've honestly never been skunked, but largely because Jill, on her end, can... She and her team do things on her end that creates transactions for us out of mail that maybe I sent out that might be substandard, but it's never perfect. You can do this for 30 years. It's not going to be perfect, but it's very, very profitable, and very predictable.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jill Friday. Female land investors unite. This is the meat of the show.
Jill K DeWit: I was thinking about this when we were sitting down picking topics this week, and I love how many women I am seeing pop up in Land Academy. I see when there's a checkout and there's a woman's name. I see them in career path. In every session of career path, we have had a healthy, healthy showing of solo and partnered female investors, and it's great. I love it. I am so excited, and I wanted to just talk about it and let you... Every time you take a breath, I'm like, "He's holding back on something." Nope. Okay. I wanted to talk about it for a few minutes and just let you know that, if you weren't sure, you can do this, and I'm going to tell you some of the reasons why. I know that we can definitely... There's things we do better.
Jill K DeWit: Sorry, but I got to say it. There's things that we do better. For example, who do you want to talk on the phone with when the mail comes out? Do you want Jack to the phone, or do you want me to answer the phone? It's just as simple as that. I'm totally serious. And, even if Jack put on as nicest... We talked about the happiest and the friendliest states. If Jack put on his, "I'm living in Utah," hat, so, "I'm the friend, I'm happy, and I'm going to talk like I'm from Tennessee or Minnesota, and so I'm the friendliest state,
Jack Thursday - Numbers (LA 1711) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steven and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jack Thursday. And this episode is called numbers. And I'm going to surprise, surprise, share my thoughts on why everything starts and ends with the numbers in business.
Jill K DeWit: I understand. Hey, before we do that, can we do our fun thing?
Steven Jack Butala: Sure.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. So we mentioned yesterday, we were talking about from the question that [crosstalk 00:00:36].
Steven Jack Butala: We're the nicest people in the country.
Jill K DeWit: Aaron wrote, hold, please. Yeah, Aaron wrote, and we launched into this question about like it was picking an address and picking area code for you to have as your home base for your mailer in your company. So we're thinking one of my ideas was what if you just researched and picked where the nicest people are in the country, and you use that as your place to have your phone number and everything tied to because everybody knows that you're so nice. What's funny is I guess two of the top three, I'm pretty proud of myself. So do you want to share?
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, you did. Well, this comes from a survey. This is 2022, where big seven travel. We have no affiliation in any way, asked 1.5 million of their social media followers to vote by state where the friendliest, nicest people are. And the results are.
Jill K DeWit: Let's do the top three. Number one, this one, I didn't guess. Minnesota. That's number one. I love it.
Steven Jack Butala: I can tell you with personal experience. There are a lot of people from Minnesota that are snowbirds here in Phoenix right now.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: They are the nicest people.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. Number two and number three, I guessed, I got Tennessee, and I was thinking there's probably someone we don't even hear about like South Carolina by golly; they're number three. Here's what's funnier.
Steven Jack Butala: Keep going down the list.
Jill K DeWit: Do you know what the meanest are? Oh, you want to keep going?
Steven Jack Butala: Oh, there's meanest.
Jill K DeWit: Oh, I wrote, oh wait. I've worked ahead on my project.
Steven Jack Butala: I'm going to reel down the list.
Jill K DeWit: Can you do the nicest? And then I'm going to add mine.
Steven Jack Butala: Number four is Texas, number five, Wyoming. Number six, Indiana, a little bit of surprise there. Number seven, Colorado, no surprise. Number eight, Kansas. Number nine, Oklahoma, no surprises here at all. Number 10 Hawaii, which was very surprising.
Jill K DeWit: Now let me add my research because this is funnier. This is what it said are the meanest people in the country? Number one is; New Mexico.
Steven Jack Butala: What? Really?
Jill K DeWit: I know.
Steven Jack Butala: That's strange.
Jill K DeWit: I know. And number two is; Arkansas. Okay. Then wait.
Steven Jack Butala: That's not right.
Jill K DeWit: That's what this says. I'm not kidding. And it said even like New Mexico, even though they may have friendly names of their towns are not that nice. And then this is even better. I wrote down the happiest and the unhappiest. This is a different study. They used 31 metrics. It was like a medical group, like a hospital that did this one on the happiest and the unhappiest. And they used 31 metrics, including unemployment and suicide rates. Not kidding.
Steven Jack Butala: Jeez.
Jill K DeWit: I know it's kind of scary. So the happiest state in the country is, do you know?
Steven Jack Butala: I have cheated. I looked at it, so I do know.
Jill K DeWit: Okay, Utah.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. I'm surprised that Utah didn't come up on this list.
Jill K DeWit: I know.
Steven Jack Butala: Of the friendliest.
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Extraordinary Deal Funding Volume (LA 1710) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala:Steve and Jill here. Jill K DeWit:Hi. Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to The House Academy Show, entertaining real estate investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala:Today, Jill and I talk about the extraordinary deal funding volume we're experiencing. Jill K DeWit:It's so good. Steven Jack Butala:I, for years and years said, "We've created Land Academy and House Academy to create business partners for ourselves." Well, it's happening. Jill K DeWit:Well, you know what's so funny? We didn't plan for everybody... The way it worked and doing deals together and having more money and helping people with our money was, we thought about, but the fact that other people are helping other people with their own money, I never thought about. Steven Jack Butala:This is one big legal syndication that we have going on here. I've never said a sentence like this in my life and never thought it was possible. Jill and I could get anything funded, any deal of any size. If we believed in the real estate deal and sent out mega crazy mailers, which we're doing this year, and we will run out of money at some point that we've allocated to buy land, we'll very easily get funding on the rest. And that goes for you too. Steven Jack Butala:As a Land Academy member, you have access to tens of millions of dollars or more if the deal's good. I'm really proud of that. It's a serious accomplishment. It was one of the things that I tried to set out to do with this right from the beginning. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill K DeWit:Erin wrote, "Anyone have a suggestion for this one? I need a mailbox to get back offers, but I'm not sure what to do since I may move in the next six months from the West coast to the East coast. If I set up one on the West coast, then I guess I could forward the mail to the East coast, but it seems very inefficient and would create a lag in responding to potential deals. Any ideas on how to better do this? Piggybacking on my last question, how about a phone number? Should I try and get a local area code number for Texas, let's say if I'm after Texas land, if no one cares what area they're calling back as long as you have the money?" I'll read this one response. Is it one response in here? Steven Jack Butala:Yeah. Jill K DeWit:Okay. Steven Jack Butala:Just one. Jill K DeWit:And then I'll add to it. Member Leonard already wrote in to help Erin here, and it says, "Hi. What I typically do is keep the phone number to the same area as my mailing address. We have used local area numbers and I don't think it makes a considerable difference. It does help if you're calling local realtors to have a local number. Don't overcomplicate it for yourself. We use," this is what I was thinking anyway, "www.virtualpostmail.com, and they email us a scanned copy of any letter." This is the best. That's what I was going to say. "Our phone system is open phone and it's $10 per number per month. Keep your business address forever." There you go. Steven Jack Butala:This response is- Jill K DeWit:Perfect. Steven Jack Butala:- from a father and son team in Ireland. Jill K DeWit:Yeah. [crosstalk 00:03:16]. Steven Jack Butala:If anybody has figured this out, it's somebody from a different country and got a time zone that's what, seven or eight hours different? Jill K DeWit:Yep. There you go. I can't do it any better, but I was going to mention, thank you, Leonard, for putting in there the name of the company. I couldn't think of the name of the one, but I knew they existed, where you have a physical mailing address where your mail will go. They open it, they scan it,
How many Land Academy Members are There Really (LA 1709) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steven and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land, investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today Jill and I talk about, how many Land Academy members are there really?
Jill K DeWit: Well, there's got to be like five million of you guys, right?
Steven Jack Butala: We asked this question to our Career Path people. We said, "You know what? Just type in-"
Jill K DeWit: What you think.
Steven Jack Butala: Jill and I ... Hold it. We have Career Path, we're in the middle of Career Path right now. "Please type in how many members you think there are, and then how many members you think are active." And we got crazy responses.
Jill K DeWit: We'll share.
Steven Jack Butala: We'll clear it up here in a second.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question, posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and please don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Luke wrote, "With all this talk of the IRS." I guess it is the beginning of the year and it's tax time, that's true. "With all this talk of the IRS, taxes and our business model, I think Steve and Jill should nail down a CPA to have on a Thursday night call or one of the newbie calls. I'm sure we'd all learn a ton and have a general idea of what to take to our own CPAs. Just a thought."
Jill K DeWit: Boy, I wish we could.
Steven Jack Butala: How many times-
Jill K DeWit: We tried to nail down our guy.
Steven Jack Butala: Here's my question to Jill, this is unrehearsed. How many times have we contacted lawyers and accountants to be part of our group and help educate us and, "Give you a free time slot. Join us on the Thursday call, join us on the podcast. Maybe, I know it's crazy, maybe you offer your services to a closed group of people that have the same interest."
Jill K DeWit: "And maybe you can charge for it, and maybe build your business."
Steven Jack Butala: And here's their answers, across the board, "Nope, nope, nope. We have enough clients. Thanks, no. No."
Jill K DeWit: It's shocking.
Steven Jack Butala: Just the answers have been from all different types of lawyers and accountants-
Jill K DeWit: Shocking.
Steven Jack Butala: ... and CPAs. Across the board, no.
Jill K DeWit: Shocking. Yeah, it's hard. I get it. I'm with you, Luke. It's hard to find a CPA who connects with you. We were talking to one of our ... Speaking of Career Path, we were talking to one of our moderators and helpers in Career Path. And his accountant is more on the ball a bit than our guy. And we're doing fine with our guy, thank goodness I have Jack here to make sure our guys stays ahead of the game.
Jill K DeWit: But Brandon's guy's even better than that. I'm like, "I want your guy," but I know the answer. They're going to be like, "Nope." They're happy. So when you find an accountant-
Steven Jack Butala: Or if you are one.
Jill K DeWit: ... or an attorney, and you guys connect and they understand your business, I mean really understand your business. Don't have you getting an LLC and filing tax return on all 50 states.
Jill K DeWit: That's a pet peeve of mine. If you're listening to this right now and your accountant says, "You need to have an LLC and do taxes in all 50 states," you need to interview another accountant. And here's the point.
Steven Jack Butala: Let's not give advice here, Jill.
Jill K DeWit: No, but here's my point. Let me finish my thing.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: Accountants and attorneys all take things ... They all read things differently. So my point ... Even down to how you're going to pay your employees. Some people say you should pay them this way, W-2,
Evolving with Land Academy (LA 1708) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Stephen Jack patella.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about evolving with Land Academy.
Jill K DeWit: Yep.
Steven Jack Butala: There's so much new stuff that constantly happens in real-time here. Land Academy evolves at the same speed that the internet involves evolves.
Jill K DeWit: Yes, evolves revolves.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Would you like a drink of my water?
Steven Jack Butala: No, I'm going to... While you read this question, I'll handle it.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. Just checking. Here's [falls 00:00:50]. Heard a little tickle there. Troy wrote, "Has there been any discussion here on Russia and Ukraine? If a war happens, and the effects on land sales, could sales increase or decrease? I personally think sales will stay steady." You know, I never thought of tying them together.
Steven Jack Butala: Well, Jill, you don't have to worry your pretty little head about such things. That's my job.
Jill K DeWit: That's perfect. Okay. Troy, why? What are you talking about? What do you mean about, "What's going on with Russian Ukraine?" That's what I should have said. Is something wrong?
Steven Jack Butala: Every once in a while, I have to go into discord. This Russian came from discord and I have to address some of these political things, because this is not the place for politics. And so that was my immediate reaction to this, but it found its way onto the show. So I think it's a very, very good point. And what the, really the question is, what happens to land purchases and sales or what happens to land market-
Jill K DeWit: If we go to war.
Steven Jack Butala: When there's a recession, when some stuff in happens. Is it like the stock market? And the answer is no.
Jill K DeWit: That's a good question.
Steven Jack Butala: No, it's not.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: What would ultimately end up happening, if we find ourselves in a recession, which I don't personally think is going to happen for economic reasons, anytime soon. For political reasons, like this, nobody knows, nobody knows what's going to happen next. I know that there are more, and more, and more, especially in this country, people that standing on the sidelines, waiting for stuff to happen and then buying everything cheaper.
Jill K DeWit: Right.
Steven Jack Butala: Specifically with the stock market. And I know that happens last. It happened with us last time with land. So you want to make sure that you're not overpaying for real estate, but that goes... That's any time. So, no. Do I think this is going to have any real negative effect? There's a possibility it might affect things short-term, but I doubt it. It's not like the stock market. When those things happen, you buy for lower and you sell for lower. And when it recovers, like we're in a total real estate bull market right now, you buy for a little bit higher and sell for a little bit higher.
Jill K DeWit: Thank you for the visual. Oh, is that supposed to be me? That's supposed to be you, isn't it?
Steven Jack Butala: Hold on.
Jill K DeWit: Okay.
Steven Jack Butala: I'm having computer malfunctions.
Jill K DeWit: Has our script kind of goofed up? I can help.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's topic: Evolving with Land Academy. This is the meat of the show.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. I looked at the script and it was rolling by so fast. I'm like, "Am I missing something? Am I supposed to be talking?" Oh my goodness. All right. Here's what's going on.
Jill Friday - A Little Kindness Goes Along Way (LA 1707) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Happy Friday.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, Entertaining Land, investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jill Friday. She's going to talk about how a little kindness goes a long way.
Jill K DeWit: Yep.
Steven Jack Butala: Boy. Isn't that the truth?
Steven Jack Butala: Why is it so funny?
Jill K DeWit: I'm just laughing. No, this is not directed at poor Jack here.
Steven Jack Butala: Sure, it is.
Jill K DeWit: I'm sure he might get something out of this. I don't know. Just saying. It's funny, this is not what the show is about. I mean, it is kind of, but we have different management styles. This is not about your employees. But it kind of could be. But Jack and I have different ways of coaching and motivating and mentoring our staff and this could apply there.
Steven Jack Butala: I'm very kind, right at the beginning.
Jill K DeWit: Oh sure.
Steven Jack Butala: We all are.
Jill K DeWit: You start off great. That's the best part. You start off great and then the person's going, "What just happened?" Myself included.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question. We're going to roast Steve today, posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free. Please don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy, YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Erin... Is this the same Erin or a different Erin? Oh, it's the same Erin?
Steven Jack Butala: I don't know. I'm not sure if it's the same person.
Jill K DeWit: All right. Erin wrote, "It is clear now from the many videos I've watched that the biggest thing is to..." All caps, I love this. "SEND OUT MAIL. It solves all problems. More deals, better selection to choose from, more money, et cetera, et cetera. Okay, I get it. But does anyone have a good metric on the number of mail pieces on average it takes to get one closed deal?" We have all this. Yes.
Steven Jack Butala: Yes.
Jill K DeWit: "Like 2,000 mailers on average will lead to one closed deal because I'm trying to work backwards. I like to have three good deals per month on my desk. How much mail will that take on average?" That's in the Equity Planner. Isn't it?
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. It's all in there. 2,000 is a really good number. 2,000 mailers is a... Per closed, make money, deal is great. If you want an insurance policy, let's do some math real quick, because this is a Jill show and I want her to get to it.
Jill K DeWit: Okay.
Steven Jack Butala: Let's just say it costs 50 cents a mailer to send out. So you send out 2,000, you spend a $1,000. If your target net equity per deal is $30,000, you spend a 1,000 bucks to make 30. Nobody's going to argue with that, no one. Let's say you want to buy the best deals ever. You want to remove all the risk from anything that you're doing here entirely. So you send out 6,000 and you pick the best one. Now you spent $3,000 to make $30,000. You see where I'm going with this?
Jill K DeWit: Mm-hmm(affirmative).
Steven Jack Butala: You want to make super share, because you've got pricing and you get it and you've got somebody to answer your phone, whether it's yourself or somebody like Jill or however you're manipulating. And all the answers to all this are in the Land Academy program. You send out 10,000 units, you spend $5,000 to make 30. It still works.
Jill K DeWit: We got it. Do you want me to read what Lori wrote here today?
Steven Jack Butala: Sure.
Jill K DeWit: Lori, one of our moderators, this is very sweet, responded with this. "This is like asking how much for one entree. It depends on the quality of the restaurant. Is it a good zip code? How popular it is. Is it obvious that many people are mailing there? Your budget.
Jack Thursday - Just Do it then fail and succeed and fail again (LA 1706) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining, land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of The Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jack Thursday, and my show today is called, Just do it, then fail, then succeed, and then fail again.
Jill K DeWit: I'm just going to let you go.
Steven Jack Butala: It's my take on the whole Nike slogan, "Just Do It." Well, it's a little bit more complicated than that in land investing. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the Landinvestors.com online community, it's free, and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel, and comment on the show as you like.
Jill K DeWit: [Aaron 00:00:40] wrote, "If you mailed an area at a price per acre of let's say, 30%." I'm guessing, 30% of-
Steven Jack Butala: Retail.
Jill K DeWit: Retail. Okay, got it. "And you get a certain response, then you like the county, and want to do more, and you would even mail the same people at 40, 45% of price per acre. But you remind yourself that sometimes Jill and Steven have said that sometimes they get responses from people two, three, six months later, sometimes longer." That's true. "Are you shooting yourself on the foot by remailing people who might have responded to you in a month or so later? In that case, would it be better to have a set time to wait before remailing maybe, three months?" I know what my answer is-
Steven Jack Butala: Go ahead.
Jill K DeWit: ... I don't know about your answer.
Steven Jack Butala: Go ahead.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. My answer is, you find an area you're doing well, right? You did all the one to five acres, or five to 10 acres, or whatever your mailer was, and instead of hitting those people again, I would do all the 10 to 20, 20 to 40, 40 above. By the time you work through all those, you've given these people more time, and then you may have moved on, and your stuff's still out there. So we are not remailing like you think we're remailing.
Steven Jack Butala: This is exactly what the show is about, just do it. Here's what... For everybody out there, who's a Land Academy member, and has questions like this, and I'm not picking on Aaron at all, I'm not, it's because this is a good question, and I can tell he is going to do well, very, very well, and it's well thought out. This is not the type of business model where you spend nine months asking 1000 questions, and eventually getting a reasonable, satisfactory number on every tiny, little thing that possibly could happen when you send a mailer out, "30%, 35%, is it 40%? Is it 20%? I don't know. Should I remail it? I don't know." I mean, on and on and on. Real... This is what you need to do. I'm going to cut to the... You know what? This is Jack Thursday. The show is called, just do it, then fail, and then succeed, and fail again. This is why you're listening.
Jill K DeWit: When you're done, I have a follow-up to Aaron.
Steven Jack Butala: Go ahead.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. So my last follow-up to Aaron is, the point of the mailer is uncovering who wants to sell, because you might send them an offer at $30,000, but you end up buying at 35 or 40 anyway, because they come back and counter you, and you say, "You know what? It's worth it, I'll do it." So sometimes that works out. And that's my final, I will be quiet now.
Steven Jack Butala: At the time of when this airs, I believe Land Academy 3.0 will at some point [inaudible 00:03:26] will be launched [crosstalk 00:03:28].
Jill K DeWit: [crosstalk 00:03:28] I know, it's coming.
Steven Jack Butala: Soon.
Jill K DeWit: Yes.
Steven Jack Butala: What I want you to do, is watch Land Academy 3.0 as many times as you need to. Jill and I spent a ton of time updating the program.
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Has Your Real Estate Agent Been Around the Block (LA 1705) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala:Steve and Jill here. Jill K DeWit:Hello. Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to the Land Academy Show? Jill K DeWit:House Academy show. Steven Jack Butala:Oh, sorry. House Academy Show. Jill K DeWit:That's okay. That's why you have me. Steven Jack Butala:Entertaining real estate investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun. Steven Jack Butala:Today, Jill and I talk about, has your real estate agent been around the block? Do they have experience? Do they have experience in land? Have they ever done a deal? Jill K DeWit:It's houses. We're going to talk about everything. Steven Jack Butala:Well, yeah, we're going to talk about everything. Have they done more than 10 deals in the last month? Jill K DeWit:Mm-hmm (affirmative). Or a year? Seriously, even 10 deals a year analysis, I'll take that. We'll talk more. Steven Jack Butala:Not me. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on thelandinvestors.com online community. It's free. Don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill K DeWit:Dan wrote, "Okay. I sent a mailer to a few counties in Maine a while back. I may not do that again because it's a literal checkerboard of what shows up in NeighborScoop and what doesn't, and there are tons of decommissioned roads that make it look like there's access, but not anymore. Anyways, I picked up a 13-acre wooded property on a county road with mobiles on adjacent parcels. It has a gas pipeline running across it and I figured I could sell it for around $20,000, no problem. Got it for seven. Fantastic, right? I called a local broker and she said with the current market and demand, she would have zero problems selling it for $52,000. We'll see how it goes, but that would definitely make it worth the headache, with headaches with the area." Jill K DeWit:Isn't that great? I'm with you, Dan. Well, a couple things. Number one, wow, how I love it when that happens. You're like, "I don't even realize what I bought," and you're like, "Woohoo, home run," and two, you're like, "Now I'm eating my words. I don't care if I got this one deal out of that whole mailer that paid for it." Steven Jack Butala:Yeah. Sure. Jill K DeWit:All the struggle, all the aggravation, that's just fine. Steven Jack Butala:$40,000 that. Jill K DeWit:Yeah, I'm totally cool with that, and that's the right attitude. We've had that sometimes. We've had states or different things that were like, "Oh, I didn't realize." And now you know too, you need to add that to your list of your due diligence when you're picking an area, make sure it's in NeighborScoop. That's the little things you don't know until you're into it sometimes, like, "Oh, I can't find anything," or, "Shoot, good luck getting the county on the phone because they're only open two days a week from noon to 2:00," or something crazy like that. Or the county's not computerized. This is even really hard kind of thing. They don't even know where the properties are. That still goes on, by the way. So, good job. Steven Jack Butala:Yeah. Well, this happens a lot. You know, people send out their first mailer, they get a little antsy, like, "Oh my gosh, is this going to work?" Honestly, I get a little antsy every single time to the day. I'm concerned if the mailer works, and it always does. All it takes is one deal to cover all the costs of the whole thing, so congratulations. Jill K DeWit:You know what too, Dan? Some people would say, "Oh, it was a fail." Steven Jack Butala:Yeah. Jill K DeWit:This is the right attitude. I want everyone to hear, too. This is not a failed mailer. Some people would say, "I only got one deal and I made $40,000. It failed." Please listen to yourself. Steven Jack Butala:Well, I'd go back. I'd send it out again.
Buyer Management in this Hot Market (LA 1704) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: I'm Jill DeWitt broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about buyer management and this super hot market we're all experiencing.
Jill K DeWit: Isn't it great.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Greatest real estate market I've ever seen my entire life.
Jill K DeWit: Who was I talking to? I can't remember who I was talking to the other day, but I was just like we all need to take a step back and just think about what's going on right now and how great this is. I was going to say this at the end, but lately the longer I have a property in inventory, the more the price goes up and I'm watching this too.
Jill K DeWit: There's a property behind us. It's a spec home, and every six months they raise it $500,000. Instead of lowering it, they're raising it.
Jill K DeWit: We've done that. We've had some properties that we priced a while back and then an offer comes in. And we countered it. Not only our full asking price but we went, "You know what, we actually priced it too low." So we countered with something else. And they're like, "What?" And they walk, and that's fine. They're like, "You know what, we're going to reset this with the agent." [inaudible 00:01:19] like, "All right." We're like, "This [inaudible 00:01:21] right now that we doubled." That's the price it commands. We'll talk about it more, don't be too fast here.
Steven Jack Butala: When I was in public accounting in the late '90s at KPMG, I was working under a partner and our specialization was healthcare. But there were other partners that were in the same office building and their specialization was Y2K readiness. We all thought that computers are going to go haywire and all of that. Those guys retired and the amount of consulting that they delivered between 1997 and 2000 to get huge systems ready. We're in a situation now where if you wanted to, you can.
Jill K DeWit: You go nuts in retire.
Steven Jack Butala: A return of $20 million a year for the next few years can just be done. Or whatever your magic numbers.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah you don't need that much.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free. Don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel, comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Where would you retire with those numbers by the way? If you want to retire in Paris, then you need that money. If you want to retire in Mexico like we are talking about, you don't need nearly that much money.
Steven Jack Butala: [inaudible 00:02:41] retire in Mexico at our age, honestly if you wanted to on a million bucks.
Jill K DeWit: Exactly. And have a great life.
Steven Jack Butala: Sure.
Jill K DeWit: Yep. Austin wrote, "Just listed a property on the MLS on Friday with my broker, buying for $13,500 and selling for $38,000. I have two parcels in title right now, will probably be three next week. Land wheel turns."
Steven Jack Butala: Austin is... he was reporting that in the subsection on Discord of Success. Success stories and he's also in our career path right now.
Jill K DeWit: He's working him through the system.
Steven Jack Butala: Yep.
Jill K DeWit: And the great thing is with that a broker, the broker's doing the work and Austin can focus on getting more of them. That's perfect.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's topic, " How do you manage your buyer in this market of total hotness." This is why you're listening.
Jill K DeWit: I'm going to say once... I don't know if it's once a week, but a few times a month, I get a call because whether it's a deal funding or whether it's a deal that we have. But the message gets to me like this, "Hi Jill,
Undoing preconceived Real Estate Habits and Notions (LA 1703) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining real estate investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about undoing preconceived real estate habits and notions.
Jill K DeWit: This makes me think of this clubhouse talk, this room I was in earlier today. It was a real estate group, and it was multifamily apartments and things like that they were talking about. The conversation part of the way through, like halfway through shifted to not talking about that at all, the nuts and bolts, but talking about the mindset of a person coming into this environment. It was so interesting to me because that part doesn't change, and the whole point of what this person was saying was, why do you not trust someone who has experience? Usually a mentor doesn't say, "Hey, you want me to mentor you?" Usually, you go to them and say, "Will you please mentor me?"
Jill K DeWit: And you're doing that because you recognize that they have experience, and they've made a lot of mistakes, and by not trusting them, and... hold on a moment, this all relates, trusting their experience and their way of doing things and getting out of your own head is nuts because that mentor is going to probably shave years off your learning curve. That's what this whole topic is for me today, and I really want to dive into this that, why people have a hard time dropping their habits and things. When someone's right there saying, "I've got 16,000 reasons why I do it this way."
Steven Jack Butala: This, what you're saying specifically, in this topic, absolutely baffles me.
Jill K DeWit: Right.
Steven Jack Butala: And Jill and I talk about this often. Not often, once a week, usually when we're prepping for a show like this, or when something strange happens in the Land Academy Group, or there's a slew of questions in Discord, or when we have the opportunity in a real positive way, to get immediate and direct feedback, audio and video feedback, on career path. And we're on, what? We're in the middle of career path right now. So, we're on module 5 of 10. It's just shocking to me that how, I don't know if it's generational, I don't know what it is, but it just shocks me that people's minds, we're saying the same thing, just aren't open to listening to somebody that's got decades of experience. I've been fighting it.
Jill K DeWit: We're going to talk about it.
Steven Jack Butala: Oh yeah, this is the start of the show. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on thelandinvestors.com online community. It's free, and please don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel, and comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Sarah wrote...
Steven Jack Butala: By the way, if you don't like this, which I completely understand, don't subscribe. We take pride.
Jill K DeWit: All right. Please subscribe or not subscribe, however you see fit. And if you need to hit the off button, we understand.
Steven Jack Butala: Our subscribers, we take pride in the fact that our subscribers are into it, and we actually, when we communicate with our subscribers, not just on YouTube, everywhere, they respond really well.
Jill K DeWit: There we go. Sarah wrote, "I have someone who wants to sell a property with some liens on it, but she doesn't know how much they are." I can relate to that. Who does know exactly?
Steven Jack Butala: This is a perfect question for you.
Jill K DeWit: Could you imagine? I know exactly what I owe. Really? Okay. "With the resources that we have here, is there a way to check for liens? I've only closed for attorneys, so I don't know how to do my own title search."
Steven Jack Butala: You just answered your question. No, yeah, is there a super easy,
Jill Friday - How to Get Over the First Deal Jitters (LA 1702) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today is Jill Friday, and she's going to talk about how to get over the first deal jitters.
Jill K DeWit: This is a thing. I understand. I always tell you, if you want to wake up tomorrow and be an investor, you can. Just wake up, you're an investor today.
Steven Jack Butala: I love that.
Jill K DeWit: Yep. This is what I'm going to do. Making some changes. This is it. And then it's like, "Oh crap. I told everybody."
Steven Jack Butala: Now you have to do it. Now I have to be one. Now I have to be one.
Jill K DeWit: Oh my gosh. I sent out all these letters. Now they're going to come back. Holy moly. I'm pretending to be an investor. I'm going to fail. No, no. You got it.
Steven Jack Butala: You're going to be fine.
Jill K DeWit: You will be fine.
Steven Jack Butala: Because you have a massive group here that was where you're sitting right some time ago.
Jill K DeWit: Right. And I'm going to tell you, I got three things that I'm going to tell you right now that are really going to help you and calm this all down.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. I bet that I'm not one of those things that's going to be calming.
Jill K DeWit: No, that's why this is Jill Friday. Yeah. Yeah. Get a partner like this.
Steven Jack Butala: Putupwithapartner.com.
Jill K DeWit: Oh boy. Ian wrote, "I sent out a 2,400 unit mailer last Monday, and I have another 1400 letters going out today. This is awesome. I thought they were really good zip codes with good numbers, and I just wanted to things moving. Yesterday, I listened to a podcast where Jill talks about talking to sellers. And one of the examples I used was a member of Career Path who had good deals coming back, but he just wasn't picking up the phone enough to get the deals. So now, since I work a lot, I'm worried that I'm going to be negatively impacted by the calls from these mailers going straight to voicemail."
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. "Jill has mentioned in the past how you want to wait until you have some experience to go with something like PATLive, but I'm wondering if I should set up PATLive? I have enough money saved up, and I think I'm really more worried about missing phone calls, and thus, mail being wasted than I am paying for pat live. Any insight?" Yeah. I'd rather have the phones being answered.
Steven Jack Butala: Me too.
Jill K DeWit: You're right. I really want a live body on the other end.
Steven Jack Butala: And I love that you're this concerned about it.
Jill K DeWit: And you planned for it and you could afford it.
Steven Jack Butala: Me too.
Jill K DeWit: So you're right. Because the voicemail, it's not effective. It's not as good as that. And I'm not... And I want you to call everybody back, by the way. Any missed calls, call them back, every one. But yeah, I think you're right. Good. You're exactly right.
Steven Jack Butala: Today is Jill Friday. She's going to talk about how to get over your first deal jitters. This is the meat of the show.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. Yeah. This kind of came up a little bit from Career Path, because we have some newer people in there, and a little bit from the session that we did, that first session that we did. Those of you listening know who you are. That was really fun. We budgeted an hour to answer some newbie questions with a really small group. There were 20-something people in that room. And it went a little over two hours because we wanted to get through all your que...
Jack Thursday - Concept of Deal Flow (LA 1701) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Howdy.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Stephen Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting for The Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jack Thursday and I'm going to talk about the concept of deal flow. Grossly, taken advantage of, not taken advantage of, taken for granted in this group and in our Land Academy group, because Jill and I are doing our jobs and we're teaching everybody. Instructing everyone to create an amazing amount of deal flow that's controllable and manageable. I'll talk about it in a minute.
Jill K DeWit: Is there a problem?
Steven Jack Butala: No, it's a great thing ever.
Jill K DeWit: Are we in trouble?
Steven Jack Butala: No.
Jill K DeWit: Okay.
Steven Jack Butala: It's just the greatest thing ever and I'll talk about it. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel, comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Edgar wrote, "I got the chance to meet Lori Phillips over the weekend in person, while she was on a trip down to Florida. We met at a nearby diner for coffee," this is funny, "and maybe a big breakfast for me. It was surreal because she is just as one would expect and really genuine person who wants the best for you. We talked for hours about a variety of topics. Although I'm sure she had millions of other things to do, she made me feel like I was her top priority that day."
Steven Jack Butala: That's what you get out of being a Land Academy member, is access to people like Lori.
Jill K DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative). That's it, that's all there is?
Steven Jack Butala: Yep.
Jill K DeWit: Okay.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jack Thursday and I'm going to-
Jill K DeWit: Thanks for sharing Edgar.
Steven Jack Butala: ... talk about concept of deal flow.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah and thanks for doing that, Lori, by the way. That was so cool.
Steven Jack Butala: This is why you're listening, I want you to clear your mind for a minute and think from a philosophical or academic standpoint about why people are successful at anything. In my opinion... my goodness.
Jill K DeWit: Let me cover for you.
Steven Jack Butala: No, my goodness. People are successful in my opinion, because they have choices and when you are in a business where you have control over which deals you do and which deals you don't do at the level where we do, because we have so much self-generated deal flow, that's truly amazing. In all the companies and businesses that I've ever been involved in and responsible for bringing in new business, like in accounting bringing in new clients. You're sitting in front of 22 choices of new clients and you get to pick the best two or three, the ones that you think you're going to be able to make the most money with and get along with the most, they've all succeeded. When you don't have deal flow opportunities, it's very hard. When I started out in real estate, I wish somebody would've sat me down and said, deal flow is the whole key.
Steven Jack Butala: If you're a real estate agent and you have 14 opportunities to list 14 opportunities to list properties that day, you're going to smash it out of the park in your career and it's your responsibility to generate those opportunities, not anyone's else's. Well, we make that easy through these mailers. If you send out 25,000 mailers and you do it correctly, like we teach, you're going to buy up to 50 properties at least 10. If you're making $10 or $20,000 per property, now you're making a quarter of a million on a mailer, all because of deal flow. This gets overlooked in this group. Jill and I get hundreds of questions all the time in different formats, the Thursday call hourly on discord,
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Due Diligence for Off Grid SFRs (LA 1700) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala:Steve and Jill here. Jill K DeWit:Hi. Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to the Land Academy Show. Sorry, the House Academy Show, this Wednesday, entertaining real estate investment talk. I'm Stephen Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun. Steven Jack Butala:Today, jill and I talk about due diligence for off grid houses or SFRs. Jill K DeWit:This came up because of the one we went and looked at? Steven Jack Butala:Yeah. Jill K DeWit:Okay, cool. So we're going to tell you all about that. We drove, gosh, an hour and a half each way to check out a really cool property. Steven Jack Butala:Full blown real ranch. Jill'll tell you all about it. Jill K DeWit:Let me remind you, we drove an hour and a half each way. Am I going to do that every weekend, maybe not. And then it was a good least half hour from civilization. Steven Jack Butala:Yeah. Easy. So in the end we didn't buy it. It was for personal use, but is it really ever for personal use? If somebody offers more, you always sell it. Jill K DeWit:Right. Steven Jack Butala:It's a lot of work. We'll explain it. But it was off grid. Jill K DeWit:It was cool. Steven Jack Butala:It was an interesting due diligence process. Jill K DeWit:Really cool. Steven Jack Butala:Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the land investors.com online community. It's free. Please don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel, comment on the shows you liked. Jill K DeWit:Erin and wrote, "Hi everyone. After receiving a signed purchase agreement, how often do you try to reduce the price? I got back to signed PAs today. I offered 12,500 and would probably sell for 20 to 24,000. And the other one I offered 7,000 and would probably sell for 12 to 15,000, not including title and agent costs. If they sell at the low end, each deal is a little skinny. At the same time, I have cash sitting around, and I'd like to keep it moving. A 30 to 50% return in a couple of months would be pretty awesome in any other context." Jill K DeWit:You want to go first? Steven Jack Butala:No. Jill K DeWit:All right. I hate to be that guy. So I'm assuming you came in higher, obviously than you intended to on these offers or maybe you didn't come in higher, maybe now that you've looked at the properties, you realize, oh, because it's in this area or because the access is this situation or it doesn't have the attributes I thought it did, something like that means that your sales price is lower than what you were originally expecting. So there's a couple ways to look at this. There's a lot of ways to look at this, but first of all, I don't want you to go, if you have to adjust a sales price for something like that, I get it. But you don't want to be that guy and try to do that on every deal. You're going to be miserable with this, by the way, always talking to people down, it's harder to take away money than it is to add money. Jill K DeWit:We always try to come in lower and then add to it when we find out some great things about the property. So you could go back to the seller and point out because I thought it had X and it doesn't, look, we have physical access, we don't have legal access. It's going to cost some money to obtain that. Or X solution, whatever it is, you could do that and try. I'm even wondering, these numbers to me are not bad anyway. Jill K DeWit:You are holding back. You're sitting on your hands. Please, please share. Steven Jack Butala:Negotiation, like marriage is too prevalent. There's too much negotiation going on- Jill K DeWit:That's kind of what I'm trying to say. Steven Jack Butala:On this planet. And it's all because it's been ingrained in our heads, especially with this personality type, real estate personality type, to try to get it cheaper. When in reality,
Role of Your Telephone in Your Land Business (LA 1699) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steph and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy Show. Entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, jill and I talk about the role of your telephone in the land business. Well, really, Jill's going to talk about it.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah, exactly. That's how it's going to go.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on The Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Jessica wrote, "Do you have a business line of credit? If so, where? And are you pleased with the service?" Well, this is interesting. Was this in discord?
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. It was a very popular topic and heavily responded to by other members.
Jill K DeWit: Does anyone?
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah,
Jill K DeWit: Really?
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. A lot of people.
Jill K DeWit: Ah.
Steven Jack Butala: And different types of line of credit. So there's lines of credit, there's house, regular mortgage, second mortgages and all kinds of stuff. And everybody had a lot of positive stuff to say, which is why ...
Jill K DeWit: I don't have ...
Steven Jack Butala: Which I brought it up here.
Jill K DeWit: We don't.
Steven Jack Butala: This is why I brought this up because Jill and I don't believe in debt.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: Whenever we need to get something done, which is every single day, we use equity. And so do I have a business line of credit? No. Could we go get a multimillion dollar line of credit against ...
Jill K DeWit: Anything?
Steven Jack Butala: Probably just our credit scores.
Jill K DeWit: Right.
Steven Jack Butala: It'd be tertiary debt, just like unsecured debt, like a credit card. We choose not to do that for a lot of reasons. Mostly because both of us collectively and individual have been burned, extending too much credit, whether it's asset based or not and having things go south and then having to mop that up. And this is in the way distant past for both of us.
Jill K DeWit: Let me know and I can share.
Steven Jack Butala: So what I think you need to do, it's cheap as hell right now. You can get a line of credit for just 1% or 2%. So if you're crazy confident in what's going to happen in your career, that might be a good idea. It's a personal preference, but I vote no.
Jill K DeWit: Here's my personal preference. We never have done this. So back in the day when we were huh, getting this going again, like I had acquisition funds, right? I had like a balance of our money that was set aside to buy land. And then when I was out of the acquisition funds, guess what I had to do? Hurry up and sell something so I could have the money to reinvest in something else. It just kept going and it would build up. It was great. So that's my first choice. Like you just said, I'm just not a fan of this at all.
Steven Jack Butala: Me too.
Jill K DeWit: If you have $10,000, then you buy stuff up to $10,000. And you need to hurry up and sell it. If you do it right next, in 30 days, you have $20,000. And in 30 more days, you have $40,000. You hurry up and move this money through.
Jill K DeWit: Now, if you need something more than that, or you don't even have $10,000, then I would use a partner. Bring in a partner where you're doing the deal together. You're not borrowing the money. It's like you're partnering on the deal. And it all goes sideways, that person gets a deal. You don't owe them anything. You're just like, well, shoot.
Steven Jack Butala: That's equity.
Jill K DeWit: I don't get part of this. It's the, yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: It's also way more expensive.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Building a Land Work Flow Process like Machine Events (LA 1698) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Happy Monday.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy show "Entertaining Land," investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun
Steven Jack Butala: Today Jill and I, aside from Jill looking like a hippie, are going to talk a little bit about building a land flow.
Jill K DeWit: What are you talking about?
Steven Jack Butala: Building a land workflow process, like machining events.
Jill K DeWit: Why do you think I look like a hippy? Because of my necklace?
Steven Jack Butala: You got a little hippy thing going on. And it's good.
Jill K DeWit: Well yeah. By the way, this is Laguna Beach sand in here. And by the way, did you know that there's a fire? Did you see the news today?
Steven Jack Butala: No.
Jill K DeWit: As we're recording this it's Thursday, it's four days before this is going to air and there's a big fire in Laguna Beach right now.
Steven Jack Butala: In Laguna Beach itself?
Jill K DeWit: Yes. And it's real close to the homes, so the firefighters, a wall of them standing between homes, it's in the little canyon and it's sitting in the winds and that's what's happening, it's blowing at the wrong, you know...
Steven Jack Butala: Every single year.
Jill K DeWit: I know, that's true.
Steven Jack Butala: Every year this happens.
Jill K DeWit: This is true. I know.
Steven Jack Butala: It's still terrible.
Jill K DeWit: I know, it's scary, but I'll take my hippy...
Steven Jack Butala: That's an outstanding way to change the conversation almost immediately.
Jill K DeWit: Wearing my Laguna Beach sand.
Steven Jack Butala: It took an eighth of a second for us to not talk about real estate.
Jill K DeWit: Yes, thank you. Now you know. Welcome to my world.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free. And please don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel, comment on the shows you like
Jill K DeWit: Kim wrote... "Does anyone know if there's an easy way to search days on market for agents? I'm one by one-ing my way through Zillow and LandWatch at the moment, researching listing and brokers to engage. But I keep thinking there's an API or Excel download that I could be accessing. I'm attempting to weigh sales price versus days on market for these agents." Interesting. "This approach seems to make sense when choosing who I contact, let me know if you look for other characteristics as well in a listing agent." Oh, I have a few! "I don't want this to take forever, but right now I'm new to this piece of the process and wanting to make a little sense out of who I should engage."
Steven Jack Butala: Kim, this is an extremely intelligent question. And Jill's got a lot to say, but before she says it, I want you to stop this notion of tying a real estate agent, the best real estate agent out there, maximizes your price. So I think that's what you're trying to do. You're trying to get a download to see who's getting the most price per acre, and then you're going to contact that agent and they might be your agent. Jill's going to dispel that for you right now.
Jill K DeWit: Totally. So Kim you're clearly like Jack, and it's all data driven. And I do understand that, but here's my first tip to finding an agent. Do they answer the phone?
Steven Jack Butala: Yep, call them.
Jill K DeWit: That's number one.
Steven Jack Butala: Jill calls him at like six in the morning sometimes to trick him.
Jill K DeWit: I don't do that!
Steven Jack Butala: Two or three days ago, you did that.
Jill K DeWit: It was 8:00 and it wasn't a trick! Okay, wait a minute. It was between 7:00 and 8:00. It wasn't 6:00, but it was like 7:30 in the morning. Yes, it was early, but we were getting ready to go on the road an...
Jill Friday - Short Cuts (LA 1697) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Stephen Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWitt broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today it's Jill Friday and she's going to talk about shortcuts.
Jill K DeWit: How do you think I feel about shortcuts?
Steven Jack Butala: I'm pretty confident that you're not a big fan.
Jill K DeWit: Nope, Nope. Not a fan. I'm going to give you ... we got to talk. This is brutal truth week, right? Sorry. I have a tickle in my throat. So I'm going to talk about first of all, when it's not okay, and then I'm going to talk about when it is okay.
Steven Jack Butala: There's a massive difference between shortcuts and laziness.
Jill K DeWit: That's usually what it is.
Steven Jack Butala: Because laziness ... I've driven by laziness at times. And I'll tell you when I catch myself being lazy, the first thing I do is find somebody else to do this stuff, because I obviously don't want to do it. That doesn't mean I can't get it done. If I'm taking a shortcut, I'm just trying not to do it all together.
Jill K DeWit: We're going to talk about this.
Steven Jack Butala: That concerns me a lot.
Jill K DeWit: Okay.
Steven Jack Butala: Plus, well, it's Jill Friday.
Jill K DeWit: We're going to talk about that.
Steven Jack Butala: Jill's going to talk and I'm going to listen.
Jill K DeWit: There you go.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and don't forget to subscribe on The Land Academy YouTube channel. Comment on the shows you liked.
Jill K DeWit: Sandy wrote, "How do you come up with a price when there's nothing else for sale or sold in the area on Zillow, Redfin or Realtor? Do you keep zooming out or do you have another method? Or just give up?"
Steven Jack Butala: You just give up.
Jill K DeWit: This is a shortcut day. Yeah. Yeah. Who cares? Move on to where you do have some data. Give up. Shortcut. Now wait, you asked somebody else to do it for you. How sad.
Steven Jack Butala: Nobody's ... We're not making fun of you, Sandy.
Steven Jack Butala: Wait or copy someone. Here's a even better idea. Just copy somebody else.
Steven Jack Butala: We don't give up on anything.
Jill K DeWit: This is awesome.
Steven Jack Butala: Giving up is not even a discussion.
Jill K DeWit: You know, there's other ways.
Steven Jack Butala: There's always data.
Jill K DeWit: You got to dig.
Steven Jack Butala: Yep.
Jill K DeWit: You got to get in there Sandy. You can give me any zip code, any area and I'm going to come up with some numbers. I'll find them.
Steven Jack Butala: I agree.
Jill K DeWit: And if I can't find really good numbers, I can at least get a gauge in the area. For example: what if it's somewhere that I'm really having a hard time pricing land, but I can get house prices and house prices are either starting at $4 million on the beach, because I'm trying to [buy 00:02:45] I got to cut a good idea how that's going to go there.
Steven Jack Butala: Yep.
Jill K DeWit: Or I can buy a house for $4,000. I got a good idea how the line prices are going to go there. And so in both of those extremes, I at least know that I don't want to play in that pool.
Steven Jack Butala: Yep.
Steven Jack Butala: There's all kinds of alternative ways to find data. And I know we're poking fun and stuff, but this is a real issue. Lack of data in certain real estate markets in a lot of real estate markets, especially if they're rural is a, is an issue. So there's a couple ways to go on this and all kidding aside, you can move on, and if you're brand new, I would move on. If you're brand new, this is senior in high school stuff. This is not, I've just started doing this. Housing values are a really smoking great indic...
Jack Thursday - The Honest Truth about Business Ownership (LA 1696) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jack Thursday. I'm going to talk about the honest truth about business ownership.
Jill K DeWit: How honest you going to be?
Steven Jack Butala: Brutally honest. It's brutal honesty week.
Jill K DeWit: Oh. Maybe we should call the brutal honest truth.
Steven Jack Butala: I should have. I don't know about putting brutal in a title though.
Jill K DeWit: That's true. I don't know someone might be searching for that. I'm sure.
Steven Jack Butala: I'm sure. I'm sure there are people searching for all kinds of stuff.
Jill K DeWit: Tell me the good, bad and the ugly. I need to know. Well, that's why we're here. Again we're here to save you. Boy, do I wish I had us.
Steven Jack Butala: Here's a prelude. Probably 80% of owning a business sucks. The 20% that's awesome.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: Like getting rich?
Jill K DeWit: It outweighs that.
Steven Jack Butala: Is worth it. And the 80% that's awful? You can outsource,
Jill K DeWit: You know what though? You're talking about the 20%, the good part. I love. I'll never go back.
Steven Jack Butala: Oh gosh. There's no way.
Jill K DeWit: And I knew that. I knew that right away. I'm like, oh man. I knew that I was destined to do something like this with you. I knew.
Steven Jack Butala: I know you did.
Jill K DeWit: Every day, I got up and, yes, back in the day, I'm telling you how old I am because I actually had to punch a time clock. I really had to take a card off a wall back in the day and clock in and then clock out. I just knew that this is stupid. I shouldn't be doing this. I'm not this person. And I'm very happy where we are. I know we'll talk more about that.
Steven Jack Butala: Me too, Jill. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community that's free. Please don't forget to subscribe. Seriously. Don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Carl and Samantha, hello, wrote, "When looking at the red, yellow, green test, I was comparing the last three months, month over month, to establish a baseline and understand if the area was showing a downward or an upward trend." Love this. "I know every market is different. So looking at one month wasn't giving me enough of a story to make a decision." Brilliant.
Steven Jack Butala: This is a slice of brilliance, Jill's right. In the red, green, yellow test we provide what I think is an infrastructure to test a zip code about whether or not you should send mail there and whether or not it's going to work for buy for 30 and sell for 60, but it's a basic concept. The question that they're asking, and these people are in Career Path right now, what they're really asking is, "Doesn't it make sense to look at some more stuff just to make sure?" And the answer is, "Hell yes. Absolutely, it does." Whatever makes sense to you beyond that structure. That's what Career Path is. It's taken this to the way next level and making it your own.
Steven Jack Butala: And so month over month statistics or year over year statistics, what they're talking about specifically is are there more properties selling this month versus last month? Or less properties or there more properties selling this year over last year? Year over year, month over month, it's in every statistic in all kinds of real estate. So if there are more properties selling, and there are not more properties listed, this is the kind of stuff we talk about in Career Path and in Land Academy itself all the time, that's a good place to send mail,
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Real Difference Between a Land and House Flip (LA 1695) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala:Steve and Jill here. Jill K DeWit:Hi. Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to the House Academy Show, entertaining real estate investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala:Today, Jill and I talk about the real difference between a house and a land flip. Basic structure, basic mechanical, send out blind offers, receive them, choose the ones you want, close the deal. There's a lot of stuff in the middle. Jill K DeWit:It's different. We're going to share this with you. It's different. Steven Jack Butala:There's a lot of stuff in the middle. Jill K DeWit:And I'm sure you can tell by my sigh which side I'm on. So there's Beth Dutton in me that just loves land. Steven Jack Butala:Once a week, a new Land Academy member reaches out to me. I'll put it in terms you can understand, and then we'll get into the details. Once a week, maybe once every other week, a Land Academy member reaches out to me and says, "That's it? I just got done with this land deal. We bought it for 10, sold it for 25. The whole thing took 35 days. And I think I talked to somebody three times. That's all you do?" And I can tell before they even say anything, that they're former house flippers. Jill K DeWit:Oh, gosh. Steven Jack Butala:That's why? Jill K DeWit:That's true. Oh, that's funny. Okay. Now I get it. Steven Jack Butala:Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill K DeWit:Corley wrote, "I was wondering if anyone has any advice for building credibility, other than social media presence. I just got off the phone with a seller and they wanted to know where they could learn more about my company other than my website and social media. I haven't done any deals, so I really don't know what direction to point them in. I haven't set up a LLC yet, but I'm waiting to get a few deals under my belt." I think what you've got is perfect. What are you going to do, say, "Call the Better Business Bureau. I have an A plus"? I don't do that anymore. Uh, oh, you have something to say. Steven Jack Butala:Watch this. Watch this. Listen or watcher, watch this. Jill, why should I sell my land to you? Jill K DeWit:Oh my. Okay. I wasn't ready for that. That's good. What are your concerns? Steven Jack Butala:I just want to know it's real. I actually do want to sell my land and I'm pretty sure the price works out, if it works out for you. I want to know that the deal's going to go okay and you have some kind of credibility. Is this a scan? Jill K DeWit:No, that's why we're going to do through escrow too. I'm going to make sure it all goes smooth. We're going to have an escrow agent closing the deal, if that's the case, whatever it is. Yeah. Then otherwise I just do refer them back to me. Look me up. Google me. Please Google me if you're not sure. Actually I do that now all the time for all kinds of things. We might be doing an Airbnb and I'll say, "Google me," and they go, "Okay, I see who you are. I see that you're real." And it's totally fine. Steven Jack Butala:If you're going to own your own business, you are, like it or not, in the business of selling yourself for now and forever. If you own a convenience store and you run it, and you're standing behind the counter and running it, you better get to know everybody in the neighborhood, so they subconsciously start to choose you for light grocery shopping. That's it. So know, this business model and Land Academy itself attracts a disproportionate number of Jacks, not Jills. There's a technical solution for everything. Well, if I just price it perfectly, like we talked about yesterday, if I price this mailer perfectly,
3 Critical Success Points in Every Land Deal (LA 1694) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Good day.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting for the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about the three critical success points in every land deal. If you can envision a flow chart, a chart of all little events that happen starting from when you find an area that you want to send mail to all the way to when you get that check in your hand or that wire transfer on the sale, there's all these little points in between, but there's three of them that I think are imperative and critical. And we'll talk about that.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. I was thinking something funny-
Steven Jack Butala: What's your interest level in land today, Jill?
Jill K DeWit: Well, first of all, I notice have an earring and that's kind of falling out. So I want to fix that.
Steven Jack Butala: You should do a whole show about...
Jill K DeWit: I've got that taken care of.
Steven Jack Butala: How interested is Jill in this really?
Jill K DeWit: Oh my goodness. I feel so bad. I was really trying to hang in there yesterday when we were doing some... It's career path and we were, you were in a deep discussion and it's just your side of the sheet. And it's data stuff that like the back of your hand.
Jill K DeWit: And everybody's leaning in and drooling and I'm like, "Stay awake, stay awake, stay awake." So funny. I'm like, "Don't zone out. They can probably see that." As I'm trying to. So that's not happening here, but my mind goes other places. I'll be honest.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's see if this will wake Jill up.
Jill K DeWit: Oh, good, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on this shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Kim wrote, is there a dollar amount for a sale? Would it make sense to involve an agent? Oh, I like this question. This is kind of a, my question. Thank you for doing this.
Steven Jack Butala: Sure. Sure.
Jill K DeWit: We're buying a property for $8,500 and based on comps, expect to sell it for a minimum of $25,000, maybe up to $40,000. Hey, nice numbers, Kim. This is where I would like the experience of a local agent, but I'm curious your thoughts. We plan to self close, but would need tile insurance, et cetera, on the sell side. All right, this is shaping up great. This is an awesome deal. I love these kind of a numbers-
Steven Jack Butala: She's interested now.
Jill K DeWit: Shucks. You could do 20 these a month. Think about that. And with the person that you hired from the show yesterday that we talked about and no, I think those are great numbers. So that's a good number. I think 25 to 40,000 number. I have brokers that will get involved and they are interested.
Jill K DeWit: But what they will do is like, the good ones we'll have this conversation with you go look, all right, here's the deal though. I'm happy to take the deal down, but I need a minimum of X, maybe it's $4,000 or something like that because my cost costs, I have assistance. I have to get the photographs. I have a team. So if I can make a minimum of X, I'm happy to do it because my percentage would leave me with negative $10.
Jill K DeWit: That's not going to work by the time I'm done. And I'm totally good with that. And you may need to offer that and maybe you found someone great, but they're worried about it. Commission wise, the percentage is so small. You could say, look, what is a minimum flat dollar amount that you would be interested in, that you could get?
Jill K DeWit: And I think that's wonderful, the sweet spot, I have a relationship with these guys. So now that I bring them whatever size and they're good with it.
Outsourcing to Scale Your Land Business (LA 1693) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about outsourcing to scale your land business. Every 10-
Jill K DeWit: This-
Steven Jack Butala: Go ahead.
Jill K DeWit: The topic for me is, kids, we need to talk.
Steven Jack Butala: Really?
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: Every 10 weeks we teach a course called Career Path. We're about the third week, third let's say module, third week in the 10 week class.
Jill K DeWit: Where we are now.
Steven Jack Butala: And every time we teach this, there becomes a theme. And last Career Path was pricing, and this Career Path is scaling up. And the only way to do that is through outsourcing, so I wanted to share some of the highlights with everybody on this, because it's incredibly important, and we're all here to make money.
Jill K DeWit: Yep.
Steven Jack Butala: Sometimes we forget that.
Jill K DeWit: Isn't that funny, where I've got to pause on that. That's a good note. We were joking about that the other day, because everybody was talking about hiring. We're going to talk more about that, but they were talking about hiring and how do you motivate them, do you pay them per transaction or whatever. And we were kind of saying, you would be shocked and amazed how many people at that level, like a transaction coordinator position, they're not there for the money. They're not there to get bonuses when they close something. They're there to make sure they have a steady paycheck. And it's so amazing, you need to ask people by the way what they want. Usually they want flexibility, consistency, I know I'm going to get a check, that kind of thing. But we both chimed in and said that's not how we are.
Steven Jack Butala: No, no. No, every-
Jill K DeWit: The owners are not that way.
Steven Jack Butala: Totally off topic already, but I ask everybody before we hire them, what are you motivated by? Not a single person in my entire career, hundreds and hundreds of people, have said, "I'm motivated by money."
Jill K DeWit: Except for me.
Steven Jack Butala: Which is my only motivation. Except Jill, which is now why we're here in front of you after all these years later.
Jill K DeWit: Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala: And I never wanted to hire you anyway.
Jill K DeWit: I know, [crosstalk 00:02:12].
Steven Jack Butala: And we're kind of in this together.
Jill K DeWit: Just kind of, I fell into it backwards.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel. Comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Luke wrote, "I'm assuming that most, not all, parcels from county to county labeled NEC are unusable in some way. Not much on the interwebs from my initial search, but after getting a signed contract back with one of these designations, I discovered it was mostly wetlands and in the FEMA flood zone. Just curious to everyone's experience with the properties they have that have these zoning labels."
Steven Jack Butala: Okay, so Luke, I'm not picking on you here, but we need to make some definitions. There's two designations that these data aggregators, national data aggregators, put properties in to make them different from each other. One is land use, and one is zoning. They're very, very different. And some counties, most counties, don't use both. They just use one. NEC is short for something not yet classified. I'm not sure what the E is, but that just means we don't know what to do with it yet. It's another way of saying it's really rural. It doesn't mean it's bad.
Jill Friday - Land Love Language (LA 1692) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Happy Friday.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, well, it's Jill Friday. Jill's going to talk about land love language.
Jill K DeWit: This came up a couple weeks ago. I realized, "What's your land love language?" Because we look at things differently and I say we meaning him and I, so I'm sure that's probably going on in your world. First, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the Land Investors online community. It's free, and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. You want to read it?
Steven Jack Butala: No.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. Kyle wrote-
Steven Jack Butala: I don't know where you're going with this.
Jill K DeWit: You could just sit back this show.
Steven Jack Butala: Jill's on a mission today.
Jill K DeWit: I am. Kyle wrote, "So I've been doing a lot of red, yellow, green testing in the past 48 hours."
Steven Jack Butala: Good.
Jill K DeWit: "Hundreds of rows. Is it weird that 80 to 90% of all of them are passing as green for infill lots? I'm just worried that I'm doing something wrong."
Steven Jack Butala: No, in fact the opposite. I think you're doing something very, very right.
Jill K DeWit: Like you picked the right areas out of the gate?
Steven Jack Butala: I think you did everything. You followed the program. I think-
Jill K DeWit: If you are in doubt.
Steven Jack Butala: ... probably, you trolled for the correct areas. I think you tested and retested and tested the zip codes that you found against each other and then you priced it correctly, because 80 to 90% of what's coming out is a go. And so that's what these fail-safe stopgap measures that I put in place for all this stuff, they're working for you. So step-by-step you're doing this, at any point when you go back and test it, if you're coming up with 20 or 30% are green, then you go back and go back and choose different areas, or choose different pricing, or trace your steps back so that you don't send out a bad mailer. That's what these steps are all for.
Jill K DeWit: So he's got hundreds of zip codes that are working for him. So there's going to be a way, Kyle, that you could... You picked the hottest. Even though they're green, they're hitting your green criteria, whatever that is, like days on market less than 30 and this percentage and that percentage. You know what I'm talking about. So I would pick the hottest ones first, obviously. And then my question to you, Steven, is how long is this data going to be fresh? Can I use the same? So he's got hundreds of rows. He's not going to send out 900,000 units of mail this month. So he's going to stretch it out. How many months is this data good for?
Steven Jack Butala: Six.
Jill K DeWit: Six months. Okay, good. So you can use this and divide it up, pick your hottest ones and hopefully have six months worth of mailers ready to go, which, in my world, I think that's awesome. I think that'd be great.
Steven Jack Butala: I'll tell you, I mean, when this happens to me, and it doesn't happen that often where it's 80 to 90%, that's really pretty strong, I would just send it all out.
Jill K DeWit: But again, unless it's you don't have the staff to handle that much mail. You don't want to-
Steven Jack Butala: I would-
Jill K DeWit: You want to be able to handle the calls.
Steven Jack Butala: ... comfortably send out 25,000 units at a time.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: Do you think that's too many?
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. It depends on who's taking the calls now. I do.
Steven Jack Butala: Well, I don't take the calls. I just send the mail out.
Jill K DeWit: I know. But, see, you have us. This is my point.
Jack Thursday - How to Host a Successful Podcast (LA 1691) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Howdy.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jack Thursday, and I'm going to talk about how to host a successful podcast.
Jill K DeWit: Is this one?
Steven Jack Butala: This is one.
Jill K DeWit: Oh, good.
Steven Jack Butala: As I mentioned yesterday, we have 100,000 unique downloads a month now on this show, and Jill and I've been doing it since 2015. That's what? 1700 or 1800 episodes.
Jill K DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven Jack Butala: Pretty much daily. Used to be seven days a week, we went to five days a week a lot of years ago. And it turns out it worked. It turns out that people actually like it, so most people.
Jill K DeWit: Most people. Well, at least 100,000 of you.
Steven Jack Butala: For several months in a row, we've hit 100,000, so I can safely say it's probably reasonably successful.
Jill K DeWit: I would concur.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Corley wrote, "If your data has several records where the site address matches the mailing address, but there are not actually any structures or houses showing up on the property in Neighbor Scoop, do you still mail to these owners if they live on an adjacent parcel, and think that they may be interested in selling?"
Steven Jack Butala: Emphatically yes. Scrubbing the mailers, look, so we talked about this a little bit yesterday, and these are good questions. They're good, reasonably unique questions from people who want to know if they're making a mistake. And this is what Discord's for. So but I'll tell you, this whole business of scrubbing mailers down, here, let's do the math real quick. You do a 2500 unit mailer, it's going to cost you about $1000, maybe a little bit more with data and mail and using offers to owners and all of that. If you scrub out 200 because you're doing things like this, scrubbing out let's say 200 units out of the 2500 unit mailer, you're going to save yourself about $100. But what if the property that you're mailing in the 2500 unit mailer is the one that is that you've going to buy and sell?
Jill K DeWit: Right.
Steven Jack Butala: So this whole business of micro scrubbing all these types of things, like duplicate owners. There's four or five of them that always come up, and my answer's always no.
Jill K DeWit: It's interesting. People assume that this little thing is going to make a difference in their mailer yield. And instead, they might be hurting themselves.
Steven Jack Butala: That's what's happening, you're hurting yourself.
Jill K DeWit: That's the thing. Spread a wider net, and just see what comes back is always better. And I can't even tell you how many times where I've bought properties that the people, they're in a money pickle. And it's this exact situation, where they live on the ranch next door, and they're selling the back 40 because they need the money, and they're not using it. It's just sitting there. And they can still enjoy it and look at it anyway, you just don't have to own it. And so you're going to miss that opportunity.
Steven Jack Butala: I've had many people have come up to me in person and send me notes, whether it's in Career Path or wherever else, and say, "All I did was follow the program exactly what you said to do. What you and Jill said to do, I did it." Every single step, it took all ... I can save you a lot of stress and a lot of concern. Just mechanically like a robot, follow the Land Academy program. In the very beginning,
Learn More About House Academy Here
Best Place to Buy Houses Right Now (LA 1690) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala:Steve and Jill here. Jill K DeWit:Hi. Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to the House Academy Show, entertaining real estate investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala:Today, Jill and I talk about the best place to buy houses right now. What is right now, Jill? February 1st, 2022. Jill K DeWit:What is today? Wait, what is today? Well, today is two, two, two, two, two. Steven Jack Butala:No, tomorrow. Jill K DeWit:I know. Hold please. Steven Jack Butala:Oh, well, we're recording it. Jill K DeWit:Yeah, it's a little early. Steven Jack Butala:Yeah. Jill K DeWit:Is it early? Okay. I understand. Yeah. As we record this on 02/01/22, this show is airing on 02/02/22. How cool is that? Steven Jack Butala:I don't know. Things like that amaze you. Jill K DeWit:I don't think I'm alone. Last time I checked by the way, silly. Steven Jack Butala:You know what amazes me? Jill K DeWit:What? Steven Jack Butala:Revenue. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the Landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and please don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel, comment on the show as you like. Jill K DeWit:It's not me that amazes you, it's just revenue. Steven Jack Butala:Well, you're amazing. I don't need to. Jill K DeWit:Oh, thanks. Steven Jack Butala:That's redundant. Jill K DeWit:Me wearing a dress made of spread sheets. Would that impress you? Steven Jack Butala:Sure. Jill K DeWit:Okay. Steven Jack Butala:Sure. Let me think about that. Jill K DeWit:Okay. Awesome. All right. Michael wrote, I got a call from a seller that accepted my offer, and then he provided the following information, and he had the following question. He said that the land is designated as a flood detention area, and what would I use the property for? Does the flood detention area kill the deal? Steven Jack Butala:Yes. Jill K DeWit:How would you address the seller in regards to your potential use of the property. Thank you for letting me know. Have a nice day. I mean, is it like a dam now? Oh, here we go. Is there more to it? Steven Jack Butala:Yes. Jill K DeWit:Okay. Oh, there's more to this point. Hold please, and I received a signed purchase agreement by email in a PDF format. Do I need to have the seller also mail me a copy of the purchase agreement with a wet signature on it? Or is the PDF version sufficient to complete the transaction? Well, I'm still wondering if we're going to complete the transaction at all. Steven Jack Butala:Let's decide. Jill K DeWit:Let's see if we need to get all hung up on this PDF thing for a moment, which is not a hangup. Go ahead. Steven Jack Butala:We've all seen flood detention areas. They're way different than waterways or FEMA flood zones or any of that. A flood detention area, and they're not everywhere. They're only in certain parts of the country. For some reason, you never see them in Arizona, or if you do see them in Arizona, they're master planned so that there's a soccer field there. Steven Jack Butala:But a lot of times in pre-planned industrial parks, you'll be driving down the street and an industrial park, there's buildings everywhere, semis all over the place, loading and unloading. Then there's a vacant piece of property with a fence around it that you can look way down into. It's way sub, it's not on the level of the streets or anything, it's way lower. That's because it's a designated retention, water retention area for flooding. Steven Jack Butala:Again, you only see this in certain parts of the country. Honestly, I don't know why. I probably should look this up and find out why some places you see it, some places you don't. You see it in California a lot. Jill K DeWit:Yeah. Steven Jack Butala:You don't see it in Arizona almost ever,
3 Types of Land Transactions We Do (LA 1689) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I are going to talk about the three types of land transactions that we do. This is something new that Jill and I just came up with in this current career path that we're instructing. It seems to be getting really, really good response and I think you should consider doing three types also.
Jill K DeWit: I was going to pause and talk about for a second... It's kind of funny, this sounds like... Do you have IT issues too? Does your website go down at random times and you just need help and can't find a good person? Well, you are not alone. We're meeting with an IT person today, and we were just talking about... I'm like, "I wonder if anybody else has these same issues we do?" The whole problem about IT is not IT. It's the contracts and the way people go about it, how much money everybody wants up front, and how the projects never seem to end.
Steven Jack Butala: Thanks for just blowing this whole thing, Jill.
Jill K DeWit: I'm so sorry. I just thought that was interesting to hear and understand and share.
Steven Jack Butala: Right before we turned the camera on for this show, we were talking about what's going to happen today, and I have to meet with a new tech person, who's extremely intelligent and a super good guy. But just that industry has gotten to a point where it's just no fun at all.
Jill K DeWit: It's weird.
Steven Jack Butala: Contracts are real thick, like contracts always get thicker, not thinner.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: It costs $25,000.00 to do a website now, bare minimum. It used to cost like $700.00. It's just all liquid pain.
Jill K DeWit: Isn't it funny?
Steven Jack Butala: It's so painful to get a website done.
Jill K DeWit: Do you know you're right? I remember years ago going to this company that was going to build us a site, and they quoted $25,000.00 back then and I about fell out of my chair. We obviously didn't do it. We did it ourselves.
Steven Jack Butala: Right.
Jill K DeWit: Clearly we did it ourselves back then. If you remember Landacademy.org, that was us. Hey, but we did it and we got here and now we're like... "If it was only $25,000.00 I'd be fine with that."
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: Not so much.
Steven Jack Butala: It's more fun to do a podcast times 10 than it is to deal with any IT issues.
Jill K DeWit: Very true. I'm glad we're here.
Steven Jack Butala: Before get into it, thanks for letting us rant. Let's take a question, posted by one our members, on the Landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and don't forget to subscribe to The Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the show as you like.
Jill K DeWit: Lance wrote, "How do you price mailers for land in really hot markets?"
Steven Jack Butala: This is totally on topic for what we're about to talk about today. You price them higher. We're going to talk about the three types of deals that Jill and I do. It didn't come to me, these types of deals, in an organized way. We just sort of organically started doing different types of deals to respond to the market. And so, Lance, I'll answer your question here in a second. Today's topic, there are three types of land transactions that we currently do. This is why you're listening. For some reason we started calling them buckets. Transaction number one is buy for X and double your money, then sell it.
Steven Jack Butala: This could be in desert squares. We call it a bread-and-butter type land transaction. For us, the prices kept creeping up, so we would start... I mean, a typical deal for me before Jill and I joined forces was buy for $1,500.00 to $2,000.00 and sell for four, five or eight,
Going Broke Land Investing or Not (LA1688) RERUN Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Howdy.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about going broke land investing or not, hopefully not. This came up because somebody directly emailed me and asked me, "Am I going to go broke doing this?" And I said, "I don't know. Are you?" I mean, I can tell you... That's what this episode is about. I can tell you exactly how to go broke or how not to go broke, hopefully. And what it takes like in your soul, and in your skillset, and in your attitude, and everything. Jill has got a lot of notes too, because I think a lot of it... Jill talks to a lot more, "I'm thinking about joining, but I'm not sure yet," people.
Jill DeWit: And this is one of their big concerns.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: And I tell them, here's exactly what you do then, and you won't go broke.
Steven Butala: Excellent. I'm going to enjoy the show, just like you are, listener. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWit: Mike wrote, "I've seen a lot of talk and varying opinions on this. When would you remail the same acreage," and he put in bold, "Same acreage in a county you've mailed before. Would it depend on days on market and activity in the county, since some places will have a quicker turnover and change of ownership. Remailing after two months, I guess you'd piss off a lot of people, and it would be too soon to get a significantly different response or change of ownership. There must be a sweet spot. Any thoughts?"
Steven Butala: So this question is not addressed in our formal education program, so it comes up. In fact, it comes up every single live event. It just comes up a lot. And it's a great question. And God, I hate when people answer questions like this, but I'm going to answer it like this. It's up to you. But I can tell you what we do, and I can tell you what other people do, and both are successful. We never ever remail the same acreage county, maybe in our lifetime.
Steven Butala: What we do is, if we mail a county in, let's say, it doesn't matter, Minnesota, some specific county in Minnesota, I usually mail between five and 10 acres to begin with, or some number like that, depending on how the number check comes out. There's 5,000 properties in one county in Minnesota that are between one and five acres that don't have any improvements on them. Okay, bang. I'm going to mail it. If we have success, then we'd mail five to 10 acres. If we have success with that, then we mail 10 to 20 acres or whatever.
Steven Butala: I cannot think of a single time in my entire career where I went back two months later because I had a bunch of success and remailed the same thing. So every time I get questions like this, this is what I ask myself. Why would you do that? And I bet you a dollar the answer is this. Because I don't want to buy any more data. I don't want to spend any more money.
Jill DeWit: That's what you think is going on? Oh, that's interesting. Got it.
Steven Butala: I already scrubbed all this data. It's already all in place. I'm happy with it. I got a good response on it. I'm just going to do it again. I want to skip that whole part of my life and just send it back to O2O, or maybe just call O2O and say, "Hey, can you just mail the same thing again?"
Jill DeWit: I've heard people doing this when they thought they priced it so wrong, and they want to come back with a new price, and they want to hit the same area. I can kind of wrap my head around that one. Maybe you came in and you offered too little, you offered $100 an acre, and you realize, "Oops, I should have been offering $500 an acre." Something like that. And you're like,
Jill Friday - Your Goals are Your Goals Alone (LA 1687) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi, happy Friday.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jill Friday. And she's going to talk about how your goals are your goals alone.
Jill K DeWit: Yes, they are.
Steven Jack Butala: What does that really mean?
Jill K DeWit: It's not 2022. What are your goals? Let's all talk about it. Let's set some goals together, shall we folks? No, it's not that. No, it means that, with us, we have very different goals. I'll share something, like your goals, you have financial goals that are very different than my financial goals, and I support you in your financial goals. I have been happy and done and at the level I wanted to be as of a couple years ago and...
Steven Jack Butala: Really?
Jill K DeWit: Yeah, two houses ago.
Steven Jack Butala: I didn't know that, Jill.
Jill K DeWit: Two houses ago, I thought, "We've arrived." It was the greatest thing. And I was just so happy and it was a sweet little house, very little house, but it was just, in the location and the right neighbors. And we didn't have to sweat anymore. I think it was just getting over that hurdle is what it was for me. That's what I thought. I just needed to sleep well and not worry about things. But you have different goals and I'm happy to support you and continue down this path and keep up. And so we together now we up our goals kind of thing. You're like, "I think we can do X. What do you think?" I'm like, "Yep. I'm in." I always going to say yep, but it's just interesting that even we have different things that we want. And we'll talk about that.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community it's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the land academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: John wrote, "I just got a letter from a guy who does custom lists. Is this a good or a bad source of data?" It's funny, I had this happen to me too recently. I got a mailer from a random person in Florida and it was really like, "Whatever you need, I can get it for you kind of thing." And they listed all these different examples on here. And I'm like, "How do I know this guy's good. And how do I know where he gets his information from? And I wish you hadn't have done this." He's like, "This is great for all kinds of lines of businesses, including MLM." I'm like, "Oh, it's like." MLM to me just gives me such a bad feeling.
Steven Jack Butala: I wonder if you received this question or inquiry on a fax machine, because that's how old this concept is.
Jill K DeWit: Right.
Steven Jack Butala: Somebody like me or anybody out there more and more, there's tons of people that can pull data. Just like we all do.
Jill K DeWit: Mm hmm (affirmative).
Steven Jack Butala: All the time off a data tree or wherever put together a custom list and send it to you. The hell is that.
Jill K DeWit: Right.
Steven Jack Butala: That's ridiculous. That is the old... That's like 1993.
Jill K DeWit: How do I know the guys pulling what I want to pull.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: That makes me think of too. Remember we used to go back, this used to be the way before we figured out all the other great places that aggregated, but you go to the county and you could go to the county and say, "I need to get a list of all this and this."-
Steven Jack Butala: Tax role.
Jill K DeWit: And you're trusting that this person cares and they sit down and spend the time-
Steven Jack Butala: And that they know about computers-
Jill K DeWit: And they download it and give it to you in the right-
Steven Jack Butala: It's silly.
Jill K DeWit:
Jack Thursday - Land Deal Flow Machine Consistency (LA 1686) Transcript:
Steven Jack : Steven Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack : Welcome to the land academy show entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven, Jack [inaudible 00:00:08]
Jill K DeWit: And I am Jill DeWitt and we are broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack : Today's Jack Thursday. And I'm going to talk about land deal flow, machine consistency. This whole episode is about one basic concept and I'll phrase it as a question. Is it better to buy [crosstalk 00:00:28].
Jill K DeWit: Sorry.
Steven Jack : Better to buy a piece of real estate and decide what to do with it every single time, or is it better to buy the same type of real estate over and over and over again and do exact same thing? The same process, the same people are involved over and over and over again. I bet you can guess which one I think is better. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the land academy YouTube and comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Steven wrote. "Hey guys, I am currently scraping data from Zillow for my next mailer, and I noticed that in Zillow, many of the listings don't show the acreage anymore. You have to click in the listing to find out. So because of that, when I scrape the acreage is not spit out, I need manually go into each listing to find out. Does anybody know of a workaround when scraping?"
Steven Jack : There's two. And inconsistent data in Zillow is fairly common. And here's why. Some of the places in the country Zillow collects data from the MLS. Some of the places they have to be manually input by whoever's listing the property. There's two types of people that list the property, real estate agents, who don't usually don't know their ass from their elbow, or people like us, but it's mostly the ass from the elbow kind. And scraping data from Zillow can go great sometimes because sometimes they implement anti scraping software. Sometimes they don't. So it very much varies from area to area. Don't get discouraged, the sure fire away to fix this is to get a virtual assistant overseas, to manually input some of that data. It is not expensive at all. Usually wait if you order it, you'll get it back overnight because they're working, their day is our night. I've done it both ways for years, years and years, we manually order data mining from the Philippines in our case. And now we scrape. But the truth is if I can't get good data, when I scraped to price and mailer, I moved to a different area to send mail.
Jill K DeWit: Peaches and cream. What's, peaches and rainbows [crosstalk 00:02:57].
Steven Jack : This show it's been on since 2015, every day.
Jill K DeWit: Yep. Yeah. You'd think I would not be shocked.
Steven Jack : Even real estate agents have reached out to me. And said I don't like your attitude. I don't think your description of the average real estate agent is accurate. Zero, zero.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. [crosstalk 00:03:20]. Because they're not listening to this. Because they know.
Steven Jack : Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: All right.
Steven Jack : Today's Jack Thursday, by the way. So I get to say what I want.
Jill K DeWit: Yep.
Steven Jack : I'm going to talk about land deal, flow machine consistency. This is why you're listening. Jill and I have struggled with this. So for years and years and years, I bought and sold real estate through one venue, eBay for years, 10,000 plus deals. And then around 2011, Jill and I joined forces and we did it a little bit differently and I have to say, we make a lot more money together than we did separately, but it was a totally a different type of company. We would buy property the conventional way, the way we buy property now. Sending out mailers a lot of times back then I went to tax sales, but we would buy it the same way every single time, process it,
Learn More About House Academy Here
Record Low SFR Inventory (LA 1685) Transcript: Steve Butala:Steve and Jill here. Jill K DeWit:Good day. Steve Butala:Welcome to the House Academy Show, entertaining real estate investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit:I'm Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steve Butala:Today, jill and I talk about record low single family residential inventory. Record low housing availability. Jill K DeWit:Since we are sitting in the Valley of the Sun, the Phoenix Metro area, let's just say, it's been nuts. COVID nuts. There was a lot of sales, a lot of transactions, a lot of stuff, available things, just moving hands. And then I've noticed very recently and we're through the holidays, so we're past all that. There's just not a lot of inventory. And the days on market are still like record low. So I want to talk to you about this, because I'm like, and I have a list of questions that I would like to hear your answer, and I'm sure you would like to hear his answer on. Steve Butala:Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill K DeWit:Luke wrote, "Any tips for building an online presence? I was staunchly anti-social media for years." Steve Butala:Me too. Jill K DeWit:"And now it's coming back to bite me when sellers search me on Google and find very little information about me." Steve Butala:Yeah. Same with me. Jill K DeWit:I have a buying. Well, it doesn't, they find Janelle. Steve Butala:Yeah, we're past it. Jill K DeWit:Yeah. "I have a buying website, LinkedIn and a few other socials, but most haven't been indexed by Google yet. So it doesn't show up in the search results. Also, if anyone wants to add me on LinkedIn, by all means." That's cute. I get a lot of LinkedIn stuff like that and I'm pretty much, like sure, let's connect. Yeah. Steve Butala:Here's how you solve this permanently. And I didn't like this either in 2011 ish. I was just never, I didn't, I had no usernames on any of this stuff at all. And I forced myself because I realized, I was one of the last people to get a cell phone, by the way. That's where I was mentally and still am in a lot of ways. But you have to make this mental shift and hopefully this will really help between using Facebook to talk to your graduating high school class, which is how I was using it in the beginning, and it was the most annoying, like I don't want to ... I don't care. Jill K DeWit:Like who had a baby. Steve Butala:Yeah, I don't. I mean, I had a blast with all of my friends in high school, but that's over. So I don't need to know. And some people do. And that's what social media really is for. Even these kids now, I watch how our kids use it and it's very much like that times eight. And so that's why they call it social media, not business media. Steve Butala:If you use, you have to make this mental change, social media for your company and inform people about where you are traveling to look at land or whatever you're doing that day, that might be interesting in a couple of sentences or one picture about buying and selling land, you're going to knock it out of the park. You're going to, one entry, is what you need across to all those platforms every day. Steve Butala:And you put it in your calendar. Maybe it's at 5:00 at the end of the day and you've taken a picture of yourself or maybe whatever content you think is meaningful and hopefully unique, then you will do incredibly well. But you have to start somewhere and five years from now, it's going to be five years from now anyway. So if you have all those entries in there, you're going to get indexed and everybody's going to get it. Jill K DeWit:So that's a mom thing, five years from now. Or I don't know if it's a mom thing, that I feel like it's like one of those few sentences that I g...
The Solution to All Land Business Bottlenecks (LA 1684) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land, investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about the solution to all land business bottlenecks, and I would even venture to say all bottlenecks.
Jill K DeWit: This is kind of like struggling week.
Steven Butala: Struggling week?
Jill K DeWit: I don't know. Because we talked yesterday about burnout. Today, we're talking about bottlenecks. I don't want to make it ... It's not bad week. It's not struggling week, but it's the beginning of the year. I hope you, like us, are taking a look around everything that you're doing and making sure going into 2022, am I doing it right? Am I motivated? Am I excited? Is my team excited? The goals and the things that we have forecast for this year, are we going to hit them? Are we all on the same page? And then you go, all right, what could be holding us back? What could be our bottlenecks? I want to talk about that.
Steven Butala: Do you ever listen to a podcast or listen to someone speak or even read a book where everything's just, you can do this?
Jill K DeWit: Oh.
Steven Butala: This is how you ... You're great. You are a perfect person.
Jill K DeWit: Jack Smiley, and everyone, and by golly, I like you.
Steven Butala: Every single person that joins the Land Academy is successful and they smile all the way through and it's so easy. None of that's true. That's why. That's why we have a real podcast about real issues that deal ... We just are in the beginning of teaching this first year's Career Path, and everybody went around the table last week and talked about how successful they are. And then with this really negative tone in their voice, yeah, well, I only did $800,000 last year and netted 500,000 and that's not going to work for me. I'm not joking.
Jill K DeWit: Isn't that funny? I know, yeah.
Steven Butala: I'm not exaggerating at all.
Jill K DeWit: It's true. That's why I'm giggling.
Steven Butala: So that's my point. My point is we all know this works. Let's all take a minute and pat each other on the back, if that's what we need to do, Jill, here.
Jill K DeWit: I didn't say that.
Steven Butala: But the fact is-
Jill K DeWit: I did not say that at all.
Steven Butala: ... we're either going to improve tomorrow or we're not. So I don't care where you are in your business, if you're just starting or if you're not knocking it out of the park, I think improving tomorrow's in everyone's best interest, especially your own.
Jill K DeWit: How about improve right this minute?
Steven Butala: I see this very different than motivating employees. None of our employees listen to this, I'm sure. I'm sure they've had it.
Jill K DeWit: But there's real bottlenecks and then there's in your head bottlenecks. That's how I see it.
Steven Butala: But I'm really addressing not bottlenecks the topics of the show this week, because you're saying they're all negative and I just don't think they are.
Jill K DeWit: Oh, we're starting off a little bit-
Steven Butala: I think they need to be addressed. This stuff needs to be addressed.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. I understand.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, for sure, really get into it, because I think that's how this episode is going with Jill, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel. Comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Dave wrote, "Getting my mailers ready is by far the largest speed bump in my process. Looking to be much more efficient with my time this year. Having said that, I'd really love to hear from anyone who has used the concierge data service with O2O, Offers2Owners.
Managing Land Business Burnout (LA 1683) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of this Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Jill and I talk about managing land business burnout.
Jill K DeWit: It's a thing.
Steven Jack Butala: Jill and I are neck-deep in Career Path right now, and we're coming up with a lot of good topics, because these are some of the things ... A lot of these topics this week, probably for next several weeks, are legitimate Career Path discussions.
Jill K DeWit: Well, and even our discussions.
Steven Jack Butala: On this topic, yes.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. We're just going to share it and air it right here with you.
Steven Jack Butala: A little bit burned out, jill?
Jill K DeWit: One of us does get burned out. And shockingly, not usually me, but we'll talk about that.
Steven Jack Butala: Aah, this is how this is going to go.
Jill K DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it. Let's take a question, hosted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Kyle wrote, "Hey, I just joined yesterday, hitting the ground running. I started on Land Academy 1.0, but I'm a little confused. Should I be starting with Land Academy 2.0? Is that the most up to date? It was just confusing because one says Infill Lots and one says Vacant Land." I get it, it is a little confusing. Kyle, you are not alone.
Steven Jack Butala: Here's the deal. We've really explained this in multiple areas and I'm glad you're asking here, because we'll explain it here too. It's a lot like Microsoft Windows. We're on Microsoft Windows 10 now, Windows 10. It's not often that, or ever, that I'll go back to Windows 3.1 and learn from it.
Jill K DeWit: You know what's funny, my dad used to do that. He hated updates. He didn't understand it and he would just struggle through. We're like, "Why are you doing that, dad?" And he would still be on the 3.0 version when we're all on 8.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Well, back then-
Jill K DeWit: So don't be that guy.
Steven Jack Butala: Back then, since we're going to talk about computers.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: Back then, once you got the new version of Windows you needed to get new computer parts-
Jill K DeWit: And [crosstalk 00:02:23] bought that.
Steven Jack Butala: ... because the hardware couldn't hit handle it.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: So that's just not the case at all now, almost always. But anyway, back to this, start with the most recent. There are die-hard people on Discord in Land Academy that love the Cash Flow From Land program from-
Jill K DeWit: 2015.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. And Kevin Farrell's one of them, Kevin, our famous moderator in Discord. So he always tells everyone, "Don't do anything except go back to that. Follow it step-by-step." We had people in Career Path that just brought that up.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: "I just followed the step-by-step program and Cash Flow From Land program," which was our first one.
Jill K DeWit: Not how I got here.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: Today.
Steven Jack Butala: So 3.0, they're all kind of the same. They have extra stuff in them that I think is really helpful as we have gone through these years. But 3.0 will probably be out by the time this airs, or close to it. And so if I was brand new, I would start with that.
Jill K DeWit: That's the new thing. It is coming out probably in a couple weeks, honestly. But so one point, the Cash Flow From Land is our original program. 1.0 was an updated version with some different things and tips and tricks that we've learned since then.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill Friday - How to Talk to a Seller (LA 1682) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Happy Friday.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about ... Well, it's Jill Friday. She's going to talk about how to talk to a seller. Sounds trite and silly, especially to a data person like me, because people like me ... How to talk to a seller? This is how you talk to your seller.
Steven Jack Butala: "Hello."
Jill K DeWit: "What do you got?"
Steven Jack Butala: "I'd like to sell ... Yes. I got your letter, and wondering if it's legit. Yeah. Come on. You're talking too slow. Let's go."
Jill K DeWit: "Hurry it up."
Steven Jack Butala: That's not how you talk to sellers.
Jill K DeWit: "I sent out 3,000 offers today. Hurry up, ma'am. Hurry it up. Come on, lady. Get to the point."
Steven Jack Butala: "You want to sell or not? Going to the bar. I'm on my way to the bar. Want to sell or not?"
Jill K DeWit: "Just sign it and send it in, would you?"
Steven Jack Butala: That's not how you do it.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it. Let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. What's so funny?
Jill K DeWit: It's just really funny. There's a reason why we don't let you talk on the phone. It's totally true.
Jill K DeWit: Wait, wait. Truth time. Our phone ring in our office, back when we had an office, and I get excited. I'm like, "Let me answer." Steven's like, "Get me away. Is it still ringing? Why am I hearing ringing?"
Steven Jack Butala: That's my exit.
Jill K DeWit: Steven's like, "See ya."
Steven Jack Butala: You've clearly forgotten to subscribe to the Land Academy YouTube channel, but please do so now. Comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Right. You would also sneak over and go ... Close my office door. Here they go again.
Steven Jack Butala: I have 30 minutes of peace. Jill's talking to a seller.
Jill K DeWit: That's funny.
Jill K DeWit: All right. [inaudible 00:01:47] I was sharing yield data with another member here. I can't remember who. We figured out that his yield was so far off because he was using an employee to handle the incoming calls.
Steven Jack Butala: Ding, ding.
Jill K DeWit: I'm set up differently from him in a lot of ways, but I still worry that handing off my least favorite part of this could ruin it.
Steven Jack Butala: Yep.
Jill K DeWit: Jack and Jill talk a lot about the benefits of doing this as a partnership, but I'm not looking to give away half of the pie.
Steven Jack Butala: I did.
Jill K DeWit: I would only consider having the Jill work done by a paid employee or a VA. That's okay too.
Steven Jack Butala: This is all you.
Jill K DeWit: Oh.
Steven Jack Butala: Honestly, I got pure luck with Jill.
Jill K DeWit: Well, we didn't have to make this a partnership. You chose to do that. There's probably people ... There's lots of people out there that would ... The way it worked out, yes, we are partners in every way you can imagine. "Mommy, what does Miss Jill mean by that?"
Steven Jack Butala: "Mommy, I want a partner."
Jill K DeWit: "Can I have one like Miss Jill?" Anyway. Oh no.
Steven Jack Butala: The kids are in the back seat. Jill's imitating them. She doesn't talk like that at random.
Jill K DeWit: Could you imagine? No. That's true. All right.
Jill K DeWit: I understand. Yeah. I would not go into this with that intent myself. If I didn't know you ... Let's back up. I'm this person. I'm not that good on the phone. I need someone that's good on the phone. Or I'm doing it, and I'm okay on the phone, but I could be better on the phone, and it's something I don't like to do. I would be searching and finding someone.
Steven Jack Butala: So would I.
Jill K DeWit:
Jack Thursday - Tranche Your Land Deals (LA 1681) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show. Entertaining land investment talk. I'm Stephen Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jack Thursday. And I'm going to talk about traunching your land deals. Jill thinks for some reason, this is some highfalutin concept, but I'm not sure. I don't think I agree. It's pretty simple, actually. Buy a bunch of property.
Jill K DeWit: I wonder how many people are Googling this exact phrase right now. What do I want to do this week? I want to traunch my land deals. This is good.
Steven Jack Butala: Traunching is used. It's a French word. Meaning-
Jill K DeWit: I know.
Steven Jack Butala: Separate and gather, or it's not just separate.
Jill K DeWit: I always thought it was more, I thought it was grouping them together more than that.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. That's a little bit. The American use of the word, especially in finance, is a little bit different than the strict translation. I researched all this before I went [crosstalk 00:00:53]
Jill K DeWit: Well, good, because like you're making me need to do the research. That's the whole point. If we have a show that I got to actually, excuse me, I need to Google this for a moment. [crosstalk 00:01:01] Make sure I'm right.
Steven Jack Butala: You've heard people in the stock market or in finance markets traunching their portfolio and you know-
Jill K DeWit: Bundling them up, right?
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: That's how I think of it like-
Steven Jack Butala: Buying and selling in traunches, which means not just taking a certain asset and selling it. It means bundling it up, putting the good with the bad. We heard the word traunch a lot in 2010 where they were taking home loans.
Jill K DeWit: Houses.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. AAA rated home loans and bundling them with non-performing C minus loans.
Jill K DeWit: Putting a few crappy ones in with the good ones and just kind of sliding them under the rug that way.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Well not under the rug, but here's a portfolio. Take it or leave it. There's some golden here and there's some terrible stuff.
Jill K DeWit: Got it.
Steven Jack Butala: Like every garage sale. Let's say.
Jill K DeWit: Thank you for not associating it with dating.
Steven Jack Butala: Oh my God. You could buy-
Jill K DeWit: Or marriage.
Steven Jack Butala: Buy partners in traunches. I think that's a felony.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah, oh my gosh. Wow. I didn't think we were going there, but it is Jack Thursday. He can do whatever he wants.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it. Let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Here's what's going on right now for some of you, "Mommy." This is from the back seat, "Mommy. What did Mr. Jack mean when he said that?"
Steven Jack Butala: I hope that's not true.
Jill K DeWit: Exactly. Somewhere.
Steven Jack Butala: Poor kids.
Jill K DeWit: Somewhere in the minivan, this woman is quickly turning off our show.
Steven Jack Butala: Poor children have to... All you children. I'm sorry.
Jill K DeWit: Who are stuck listening to this.
Steven Jack Butala: Your parents make you listen to this.
Jill K DeWit: This is their nap time. Fall asleep.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, yeah.
Jill K DeWit: Thank you everyone because you put my kid to sleep every afternoon at three o'clock like clockwork. That's awesome. Better than Dr. Seuss. All right. Peter wrote, "I am slowly scaling up my land business and would love to hear about the anatomy of bigger deals. I presume we all start small, usually under $10,000 purchase, and then we, or 20 to $30,000.
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House Deals Made as Easy as Land Deals (LA 1680) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala:Steve and Jill here. Jill K DeWit:Hello. Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to the House Academy Show. Entertaining real estate investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun. Steven Jack Butala:Today, jill and I talk about house deals, made as easy as land deals. Is there really, such a thing? Jill K DeWit:Yep. You know what's funny? I'll share one story with you now. And then I have another story for in a minute. Well, first of all, happy Career Path Day, for those of you who are with us and joining us in Career Path, today is day one day. One of the rest of your life. Steven Jack Butala:Jeez, that's cheesy. Jill K DeWit:I know, isn't it. Steven Jack Butala:Something's probably cheesy. Jill K DeWit:It's stupid. I know. Steven Jack Butala:Who else walked up to me and said, you are cheesy. Some people have said a lot of stuff to me. Jill K DeWit:I'll do it. Steven Jack Butala:A lot of crazy stuff to me, but not you're cheesy and fake and this doesn't work. Jill K DeWit:Well, I never say you're fake, but sometimes I say goofy. I do. I did call Aaron a goofball the other day. So anyway, it was funny, because this whole show is, house deals made as easy as land deals. So last week, and I was talking to one of the attendees who's in Career Path with us, starting today. He was talking about how, two or three years ago, I think that they were three years in now. He's adding land to his portfolio, but they were doing all houses. Started year one doing one house, year two was six houses. And then year three was 145 houses. Well, here's what the difference was. And the money was so much better. But year one, they were doing it all wrong. They were doing the renovations themselves. Steven Jack Butala:Yeah. Jill K DeWit:And they got one done. Year two, he and his partner got six done, because again, they're doing renovations. And then they realized, why are we doing this. Year three, they transitioned to what we're about to talk about today. And they're like, "I'm not doing any renovations. I'm buying it, selling it quickly, and moving on", kind of thing. And that's how they went from six to 145. He's like, "And this year we want to do 250 or something like that." And it's a small crew, but they've got it. Steven Jack Butala:Yep. Jill K DeWit:It's good. Steven Jack Butala:Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com, online community. It's free, and don't forget to subscribe, seriously. Subscribe on the Land Academy, YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill K DeWit:Luke wrote, "If I have a signed purchase agreement and the owner gets a better offer in the mail for other land buyer. Do I have any recourse?" I think we covered this question last week. Steven Jack Butala:I think we did too. Jill K DeWit:So I'm just wondering, this is funny. So let me think of a different question that I can sub in here- Steven Jack Butala:About houses. Jill K DeWit:Real quick, that can solve our little typo. Steven Jack Butala:God, whoever produces this podcast really needs to- Jill K DeWit:Get their act together. Steven Jack Butala:Yeah. Geez. Jill K DeWit:Wonder who that is. Steven Jack Butala:Come on, podcast producer. Jill K DeWit:All right. Here's a house question for you. I'm going to say, Jill asks, "What would be a fair dollar amount that I should expect to get on a house flip. I understand the way you guys do it. You buy houses, you mark it up. You sell it to another investor. What dollar amount makes sense to you? Steven Jack Butala:Between 50 and $100,000, if you're funding it yourself. Here's an example. Buy in a market that, where, it all done, it's $600,000 let's say, five to $600,000. You're buying a house for 200, because it needs a lot of work. You buy it for 200, 250, sell it for 300, 350.
How to Buy Your First Parcel of Land (LA 1679) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Good day.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land, investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about how to buy your first parcel of land, the ever present question.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. People watch, they hear us, they see us. They're like, "I can do this. Okay. What do I do? Ready, I'm here. I showed up. What do I do? Is there a list somewhere? Do I just pick from them?"
Steven Jack Butala: Keep going. This is great.
Jill K DeWit: Do I just, I don't know, go online and pick one that looks good to me and just call the person, just call the agent? Is that the best way? And they just handle it all. I just write a check.
Steven Jack Butala: I'll tell you a hint, and we're going to obviously cover this all in just a few minutes here. The secret to buying your first piece of land is in our ebook. If you haven't downloaded our ebook, even if you're a long time Land Academy member, it's like 10 or 15 pages, I think. It's just blow through a read, but it tells you how to get your first land deal done fast. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Please don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Steven wrote, "Hope the holiday preps are going well for everyone." So this is obviously from a couple weeks ago. "A question I'm curious about. When listing with a flat fee MLS service, do you provide for the buyer's agent commission?" I have lot to say about this.
Steven Jack Butala: I know you do. It's perfect. I'm going to zip it here. You go for it.
Jill K DeWit: "I have had some horrible experiences with unprofessional realtors. The problems have been with the poor quality of the listings they prepare."
Steven Jack Butala: Unprofessional.
Jill K DeWit: I know. And in parentheses he wrote, "Why don't you use the pictures I gave you?"
Steven Jack Butala: Unprofessional realtors is a-
Jill K DeWit: I know, we could talk for a whole nother month.
Steven Jack Butala: That's a redundant sentence, unprofessional realtors. Go ahead.
Jill K DeWit: "Use the pictures I gave you, the ignorance of marketing outside the MLS." I know.
Steven Jack Butala: And out and out laziness.
Jill K DeWit: "And the out and out laziness. If you get an offer on my property, forward it the same day, not the next week. I could go on and on. I like the flat fee"-
Steven Jack Butala: I wish you would.
Jill K DeWit: "I like the flat fee because I can control the listing details. I've been offering buyer's agents the full 3%. No problem paying that if they bring a buyer. Do you guys think it makes any difference on the sales end to give the realtors their cut on the flat fee listing?" Okay. So here's what-
Steven Jack Butala: I like fat fee listing. I like your way better.
Jill K DeWit: Thank you. So Steven's talking about companies like Broker Direct MLS, and we've had other local companies that we've used. So what the heck are we talking about? Well, there are a number of places, brokers that say, "Hey, look for a flat rate fee, I'll put it on the MLS for you. You're doing the work. I'm not getting commission, but you can use my licensure and everything. This is all legal and legit. And through me, by paying me, I don't have to get a commission. I'll just take a flat rate. I'll put it on the MLS for you."
Steven Jack Butala: It's a tech company.
Jill K DeWit: And some of them, they might help you with the work. I'm sure there are people out there that do that. Most of the ones I work with, and this is the way I like it anyway, they just say, "Here's the paperwork. Fill it out how you see fit,
Are You Smart Enough for Land Academy (LA 1678) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today Jill and I talk about are you smart enough for Land Academy? Who came up with this topic?
Jill K DeWit: I know. Did somebody put that in Discord?
Steven Jack Butala: No. And all kidding aside, this comes up every once in a while it comes up about, excuse me, geez. It comes up at the live event. It's come up and it just comes up in general. It's not so much, I decided to be really straight about it in the title.
Jill K DeWit: Which we always are straight. So we'll talk about that. I have some notes here and there's always exceptions, but we want to talk about it with you, because we want for the right, well, how about this? You're all the right people. We want you to know, we either want to calm down your fears and or we want to be really honest with you and let you know what you're getting into.
Steven Jack Butala: I titled this intentionally, but it could be titled, are you interested enough in doing this?
Jill K DeWit: That's a good way of saying it.
Steven Jack Butala: That's really what I think is happening.
Jill K DeWit: That's brilliant.
Steven Jack Butala: But people don't, they don't say it that way about themselves. Before we get into it let's take a question posted by one of our members on the Land Investors.com online community, it's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Andy wrote, "If I have a signed purchase agreement and the owner gets a better offer letter in the mail from another land buyer, do I have any recourse? Just so weird that the week we were going to close, another offer letter would hit. They're wanting to take the higher offer, which is four times my offer price. Has this happened to anyone?" That's really not cool by the way.
Steven Jack Butala: It's not cool at all.
Jill K DeWit: By the seller, that is.
Steven Jack Butala: This sparked a lot of interest in Discord.
Jill K DeWit: I bet. What were the general responses?
Steven Jack Butala: Let's answer the question first. The answer, it's the same how we're going to answer all of it. Your question is, do you have any recourse? Probably not. You might, but it's not worth it. It's generally not worth it to go down that path. My big comment is, do they really have an offer? Do they?
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. Or are they changing their price last minute on you?
Steven Jack Butala: Are they having second thoughts about the price?
Jill K DeWit: Or selling?
Steven Jack Butala: There's a lot of stuff going on.
Jill K DeWit: Maybe they changed their mind and they could say that, that's true. That's a very, very good point.
Steven Jack Butala: I've heard you on the phone many times in this situation and you know what she says, "You should take the offer."
Jill K DeWit: That's what I do. I'm like, "So let's just go through, let's walk through the process. Shall we? You just got this offer in. You and I are going to close on Tuesday and you're going to get $18,000. And you're saying you got an offer for 40. Well, is there really? Let's just see. They haven't done any their due diligence. They haven't vetted this. You haven't even talked to them yet. Do we know that it's legit? Do we know they have the money? Do they know they're standing by? And after they do their due diligence, are they still going to want to pay that money? I'm sitting here right now. We are all done. You're about to get a check, a wire into your bank on Tuesday. Do you want to stop that and take the chance and or do you want a sure thing? We're done." And usually they go, "Oh yeah, hadn't thought about that."
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill Friday - Enthusiasm (LA 1677) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show. Entertaining, land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today Jill and I... Well, it's Jill Friday and she's going to talk about enthusiasm. One of my most favorite attributes about you. I mean it.
Jill K DeWit: Oh, I thought you were going to say one of your most valued attributes, yours. I'm just kidding.
Steven Jack Butala: I don't understand. What do you mean?
Jill K DeWit: Well, you have enthusiasm. How about this, on a scale of one to 10, how do you rank yourself as, enthusiastic about life?
Steven Jack Butala: Probably, six.
Jill K DeWit: Child raising?
Steven Jack Butala: Two, keep going.
Jill K DeWit: Having fun on the weekend?
Steven Jack Butala: 10.
Jill K DeWit: Riding your bike around town?
Steven Jack Butala: Nine.
Jill K DeWit: Taking the RV out?
Steven Jack Butala: 10.
Jill K DeWit: Hiring and training staff?
Steven Jack Butala: One. It's a little impromptu game.
Jill K DeWit: Wait, wait. Taking me to dinner?
Steven Jack Butala: Nine.
Jill K DeWit: Oh, taking me to a Mexican restaurant?
Steven Jack Butala: Seven.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. You get where I'm going here. We're going to talk about that, because I just threw out a bunch of different things. I have three main things I want to talk about, for you to be aware of, your enthusiasm in your life. That's one of them, and we'll talk more.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it. Let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com, online community. It's free, don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy, YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. So Troy wrote... Did you just get questions from the same two people all week? Because all I could see, is the same names.
Steven Jack Butala: No, is it Troy again?
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. There's a Troy, there's Luke twice, Troy.
Steven Jack Butala: Maybe I did the names wrong.
Jill K DeWit: I'm like, okay... Do you just have favorites?
Steven Jack Butala: No, somebody that's just active. There's active people in discord and there's not.
Jill K DeWit: Okay, all right. So-
Steven Jack Butala: Or I did it wrong.
Jill K DeWit: Or, that too. Troy wrote, "My $80,000 dream buck, picture." There's a picture, there?
Steven Jack Butala: A picture of a buck that he got with a bow.
Jill K DeWit: Oh wow. And then he said, "I bought land for $80,000, arrow to buck, three days before closing." Oh wow. "And then sold it for $210,000 cash. Thank you, Land Academy, for making dreams come true." So he bought the land, was without loving and using it while he was selling it, and then gave it up.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. He tripled his money.
Jill K DeWit: Aw. And got his dream buck.
Steven Jack Butala: It's January.
Jill K DeWit: That's pretty cool, actually.
Steven Jack Butala: So, that could be his whole year. He could be done. Completely done.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. I can live off that.
Steven Jack Butala: $150 grand. Absolutely.
Jill K DeWit: Yep. Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala: So could I.
Jill K DeWit: Totally.
Steven Jack Butala: Today is Jill Friday. She's going to talk about enthusiasm. This is the meat of this show.
Jill K DeWit: So I'm trying to remember why this came up. Why did this come up? Do you remember?
Steven Jack Butala: Because I think enthusiasm... Here's why, I think. The message that I think this show is about is, that you send a bunch of mail out and, let's just assume that you do it correctly, which most people do. Especially if you use concierge data, you send the mail out, and then people are calling back. And Jill genuinely, honestly has enthusiasm for answering the phone and talking to these sellers. Even if, they're angry.
Jill K DeWit: Right.
Jack Thursday - Welcome to Your Comeback (LA 1676) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy show, entertaining land, investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting for the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jack Thursday. And I'm going to talk about, welcome to your comeback.
Jill K DeWit: I like this. I love that title.
Steven Jack Butala: This came from two sources. So Jill and I went to a Christmas party recently with some people that we've known for a lot of years. And they're real good personal friends of ours. And the host walked up to me and said, "Amazing comeback." Because when we met, he said that to me personally. He said that to me because we all met each other during the great recession in real estate... The real estate depression in 2010 when Jill and I basically had nothing.
Steven Jack Butala: We had to sell our house. We had to move into a house that we had bought from a bank that was much smaller. And fortunately, we had a bunch of land that was paid for like we do now, like hopefully many Land Academy members there have accumulated land where we pay cash for it, and sold it. And that's what kept us alive through that period before we could start really doing acquisitions and sales again like we were used to.
Steven Jack Butala: So that really brought a lot of memories, like we did come back. We didn't-
Jill K DeWit: Big come back.
Steven Jack Butala: So I know there's a lot of people out there, things change in their lives. That's what this show's going to about. You can come back.
Jill K DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the land-investors.com online community. It's free, and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel, and comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Troy wrote, "Anyone here having experience with RS-10 zoning in mixed commercial slash residential growing cities? I'm looking at 18 acres I can buy for $63,000. And the broker says I could sell it for $150,000 on the low end. And even at a real quick sale of $125,000. My experience is in rural areas and would like another set of eyes on it if possible. Has a few cons, but no real deal breakers that I can see. I can PM more details. Thanks. Would consider partnering as well." So how'd that go?
Steven Jack Butala: Well, it's a smash hit. So my whole point, and it's Jack Thursday so I can do what I want here... My whole point is-
Jill K DeWit: Every day you can do what you want. Why is today different?
Steven Jack Butala: My point in putting this in here is that Discord is an amazing tool, and this is how it was intended to be used. I've got this great deal. It's a little bit out of my comfort zone. Hey, other Land Academy members, if you have a bunch of dough... Love to do the deal with you. Our 10 has means residential 10,000 square feet. So if you take 18 acres and divide that by 10,000 square feet minus 10% for roads and stuff, that's an amazing property from a financial standpoint. Put in the right hands of a person who's going to develop it, which is not us. Buy for 60, sell for 150 is for us.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: So that's what Discord's for. That's what Land Academy's for.
Steven Jack Butala: Today is Jack Thursday. Welcome to your comeback. I don't care where you are in your life. I don't care. I don't care if you're in your 50s, and you lost a dream job that you thought you were going to retire with, which happens to way more people than we know about. You can come back. It's not hard.
Steven Jack Butala: You just have to get your head together and really want it.
Steven Jack Butala: Jill and I professionally, got put to our knees in 2010. We were happily making tons and tons of money. We had a yacht, buying and selling land and selling it on eBay and on the internet.
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Renovation Nightmares (HA 1675) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala:Steve and Jill here. Jill K DeWit:Hi. Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to the House Academy Show today. Entertaining real estate investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala:Today, Jill and I talk about renovation nightmares. Jill K DeWit:Is this not a show? This should be a show. Steven Jack Butala:I think it might be. Jill K DeWit:If not, it should be. Steven Jack Butala:You mean just like a title on HGTV? Jill K DeWit:It should be. That would be cool. Speaking of which, I have one of my notes here is the first thing I was going to share is when we have done renovations, it does give you nightmares. That's a real thing. Steven Jack Butala:I'm going to really press [crosstalk 00:00:40]. Jill K DeWit:Documented. Steven Jack Butala:When we get into the topic here, I'm going to give you a mathematical example of all the things you can do with an asset that really make you money, a real estate asset, and all the things that are setting yourself up to fail. It's basically a roulette situation when you renovate a house. Jill K DeWit:Understood. Steven Jack Butala:Before we get into it, let's take good question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Understood. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Where does that come from? Do you feel like you're in the military when we do this show? Jill K DeWit:Sometimes. Steven Jack Butala:Where do you rank? Jill K DeWit:Yes, sir. Steven Jack Butala:Do you rank higher or lower than me? Jill K DeWit:Oh, I'm way lower. Pretty far down there. Steven Jack Butala:Oh, that's strangely attractive. I don't know why. Something's wrong with me. Jill K DeWit:Yes. Yes, sir. All right. Luke wrote, "Responding to tire kickers on Facebook is exhausting. I've developed a system that works well for selling houses with owner financing on Facebook. It could be used for land as well. So it goes like this. Ad goes up on the marketplace. Regardless of who responds via Messenger or what questions they ask, I respond with a couple paragraphs about the price, address and what the house needs, if work is needed, and then instruct them to drive to the house and call the number on the sign in the yard. When they call me at that number, I know they follow the instructions and are sitting in front of the house. Then I get them inside. Most won't even do this step and they aren't serious buyers anyway. So it doesn't matter if I piss them off." That's good. Steven Jack Butala:This is brilliant. Jill K DeWit:I saw this. Steven Jack Butala:Here's why. There's an old rule in sales. Not that I should really be talking about sales at all, because that's just Jill's thing. But if you want to vet people, ask them to do something. It's a legal thing too. It's customer service more than anything. Jill K DeWit:We do it for hiring. Yeah. Steven Jack Butala:With customer service, if someone just calls livid about whatever you're selling or why they're your customer and why they're upset, your response can be, "I really understand that you're upset. Please do this, this and this, and we will rectify the problem for you." And virtually nobody does any of that stuff. Jill K DeWit:I do. Steven Jack Butala:As a customer? Jill K DeWit:Yeah. Oh, I'll do both. Steven Jack Butala:Well, that's because if you get mad, there's a real reason. Jill K DeWit:That's true. Steven Jack Butala:So I think this is brilliant. Go to the house, sit in front of there, call me on the number and I'll get you inside, and we'll talk about ... So probably that avoids probably 90% of the garbage. So I think this is brilliant, obviously because I put it on the show. Jill K DeWit:That's awesome. Steven Jack Butala:Today's topic, renovation nightmares.
Everyone I know is Killing it in the Land Business (LA 1674) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Howdy.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, Entertaining Land Investment Talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the Valley Of The Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today Jill and I talk about how everyone I know is killing it in the land business. This topic came from-
Jill K DeWit: A quote.
Steven Jack Butala: A talk that Jill attended I think-
Jill K DeWit: I was on.
Steven Jack Butala: Clubhouse.
Jill K DeWit: I jumped. I now and then just have some free time and I'm trolling Clubhouse. If I find a real estate-based or women in business community that sounds interesting, I'll just jump in the room. This was a real estate one and they were talking about getting financing, financing for deals. I'm like, "All right, let's hear how you guys go about it," and it was comical. That's a whole other show.
Jill K DeWit: Anyway, I do not agree with the first hit up all your friends and family. That's not what we do. Anyway, this was a quote. I jumped in and I gave some advice on how we do it. Three people jumped in after me and said, "Hi, Jill. We're so happy to talk to you." They said, "Oh my gosh, everyone that we know that does land is killing it right now." Then, I'm going to go on in the media show here and tell you how the rest of the conversation went.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members. I can't wait by the way.
Jill K DeWit: Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala: I love this kind of stuff. It's so funny to see people in social media spouting off all this stuff that they know nothing about-
Jill K DeWit: It was good though.
Steven Jack Butala: By one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community, it's free and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Steven wrote, "Thank you at." Do you want me to say that?
Steven Jack Butala: No, just thank you investor.
Jill K DeWit: Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala: Thank you investor.
Jill K DeWit: "Thank you other investor for working with me on my first funded deal." That's awesome. "You were very cool and collected and helpful. You really did make this happen. This is a great way to start the year. This was a double lot like an infill lot with a double close. I had assigned a property to this buyer in the past and knew what his criteria was."
Jill K DeWit: "The deal came from my first mailer and I had written off the seller as a tire kicker, but a checked back with them every five weeks to see if they were interested. They wanted a more formal looking purchase agreement. That was all it was. So when you provided me one and told me about the availability on some site," who knows what that is?
Steven Jack Butala: Jill, you're really interested in the site. Let me start it.
Jill K DeWit: I'm not sure what I'm supposed to share and not share.
Steven Jack Butala: Steven says, "Thank you, funder, for working with me on my first funded deal. You were very cool and collected and helpful. You really did make this happen for me. This is a great way to start my year. This was a double lot infill with a double close. I had assigned a property to this buyer in the past and I knew what his criteria was and that he was capable of closing."
Steven Jack Butala: "The deal came from my first mailer and I had written off the seller as a tire kicker, but checked back with them every five weeks," which is something Joe would do, "To see if they were interested. They wanted a more formal looking purchase agreement. So thank you, funder, again for providing me one and it made them obviously feel comfortable to the point where they closed. I followed up with them."
Steven Jack Butala: "I had to followup with them repeatedly every step of the way, signing the purchase agreement,
Truth about Taking on New Employees (LA 1673) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Good day.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about the truth about taking on new employees.
Jill K DeWit: I'm excited.
Steven Jack Butala: This is a requested topic by one of our really active members. And it's very timely because we just took on a new employee and it's actually going really well. That's not always how it goes.
Jill K DeWit: It's true.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. Luke wrote, "Do you pull out any recently bought properties from your list?" So in the mailer I'm about to send, I noticed some I've just sold in the past three years and the buyer paid at least three times what we're offering. And this is good because you have a couple comments that you added in here. So one of them is... Is it just one comment or more than one?
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, just one.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. So another person chimed in and said, "Oh, here's what I think." So Aaron comments, "Results will vary. But a few months ago I bought five acres from a guy who bought only two years ago with his now ex-wife. They just wanted out and to split the proceeds and go separate ways. They got back almost what they paid for it. And that was a buy for 12,000 and sell for $39,000 for me. I wouldn't scrub too hard." I believe that too.
Steven Jack Butala: Don't scrub too hard. Here's the math on scrubbing too hard. You're going to sit down and do a mailer, or you're going to have Concierge Data do it. You're going to spend the money and the time and the energy, you're going to do the red, green, yellow test and all of that. And then at the very end or very close to the end, right before you price it, are you going to go in and take out 25% of the mailer, which is just a tiny little cost when you look at the actual cost and the time. It's hundreds of dollars on a multi thousand unit mailer. Hundreds of dollars that you're trying to save for what? That could be the diamond in the whole mailer, just like just what happened here. So I've been saying this for years, years and years, don't scrub the data too hard. Just send it.
Jill K DeWit: I agree. And you never know what happens. Like we talk about this often. It could have been a transfer. Maybe dad just passed on and the attorney put it in the kid's name. And three months later, your kid gets your letter. And you wouldn't have known what the situation when the kid is so ecstatic, that you reached out to buy it, because he was trying to figure out what to do with it. You can't assume.
Steven Jack Butala: So please... Jill and I have been saying this for years, what you're buying is a situation. In this case, Aaron bought unfortunately a divorce liquidation situation and he bought for 12 and sold for 40. And so you can't tie that, in the data, you can't know what that is. You have to just blanket it out and see.
Jill K DeWit: And it's so funny. It's like the whole back tax thing. If you're not sure about it, try it and watch. We've been doing this now for, golly, decades combined. You decades, me a decade, in this business and by taking stuff out, you never know what you're missing. That's the main thing. And like you said, just let it rip and see what happens.
Steven Jack Butala: This whole business of decades thing makes me think.
Jill K DeWit: Uh oh. Are you feeling old? I'm sorry.
Steven Jack Butala: No, no, not at all. It's not that. I never feel old. That's not it. It depends on where you are in your life.
Jill Friday - Waking Up Tomorrow a Land Investor (LA 1672) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today is Jill Friday. And she's going to talk about waking up tomorrow, a land investor.
Jill K DeWit: So this topic came up, we were talking about how many people... Well, first of all, it's very interesting when you think about all the people that we have in Land Academy and the professions that they come from.
Jill K DeWit: And some are really established careers; pilots, engineers, finance positions. What were you going to add? But for some reason either they wanted to do this to supplement their income or pay for something else, or they just wanted to do something different.
Steven Jack Butala: We've been doing this for how many years? People join Land Academy. It's not that hard to figure out. People join Land Academy primarily because they want to make a change.
Jill K DeWit: True.
Steven Jack Butala: And maybe they're looking at different types of ways to make money on the side, or different types of ways to make money from your desk, that are pretty low risk. But I'll tell you that we have a really good group of people. If you ask these pilots, corporate politics suck. And so I swear corporate politics is our greatest recruiting tool there ever was.
Jill K DeWit: That's true.
Steven Jack Butala: I don't care how smart you are, how great you are or what your job is, ask anyone; the number one thing they hate about it is their boss or the politics in the office, or the craft that they have, the paperwork they have to fill out. So it's really interesting if you have little kids, or even kids that are teenagers, when they're thinking about going to college and doing something as a career.
Steven Jack Butala: It's just heartbreaking to have to break it to them that it's really probably 30 or 40% of what you're actually going to do. And the other 50% or so is dealing with people's crap at work.
Jill K DeWit: I understand.
Steven Jack Butala: On that positive note. All right. This is Jill Friday two, I'm wrecking the show already.
Jill K DeWit: Talk about motivating. God, wait. Everybody right now is in their car going, "Ah, that just hurts." Just kidding.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.commonlinecommunity. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Johannes wrote, "Hi there, I'm looking for a partner, primarily a Jill, i.e, someone who calls back leads, et cetera, but also someone to strategize with. My philosophy; focusing on raw vacant land, but on the higher end, working together with a deal funding partner and on the sell side with agents.
Jill K DeWit: I could invest a couple thousand per month in mailing. Looking forward to hearing from people who might be interested. If you're interested, please contact me at [blah 00:02:56], this is my email address. No day was this in Discord or...
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: Okay, land investors. I wasn't sure where you polled. Sometimes we poll things and there's a lot of communication in landinvestors.com and then there's within, which is the plan A. And then within our Land Academy community, both places, there and Discord. So this is great. I'm sure they got some feedback.
Steven Jack Butala: Oh, yeah, tons.
Jill K DeWit: I'm sure they got [inaudible 00:03:19] that said, 'Yeah, I don't really..." Because there's people that come to us saying... scraping together the mailer parts a little bit right now. And they like to do the talking part and they strategize. So I'm sure [inaudible 00:03:30]-
Steven Jack Butala: It's like,
Jack Thursday - 2022 Land Budgeting and Goals Made Simple (LA 1671) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jack Thursday. And I'm going to talk about 2022 land budgeting and goals made simple.
Jill K DeWit: Did you see my nail polish? Because I put it right around here. I figure this is the perfect opportunity to touch up my nails, and I don't know where I left it. Sorry.
Steven Jack Butala: It really is simple, and it's not as boring as you think.
Jill K DeWit: Oh, good. Oh, good.
Steven Jack Butala: But it's necessary.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: What were you just saying on... We were recording another show, and you said, "People just do this stuff, they put flooring in the garage."
Jill K DeWit: Oh, because it's on sale.
Steven Jack Butala: There's no real plan.
Jill K DeWit: Oh, yeah. No, I'm like, "This is the paint. We should buy extra of this, or extra of that." Hold on, everyone.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Just buy what you're going to use.
Jill K DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel, comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Before I forget, I have to say this little... I didn't want to interrupt you, because you launched into that, which is beautiful. But I wanted to say this one little thing, because you'll love this, why don't you let the stores be your storage area? That's it.
Steven Jack Butala: Well, I think if you do all the math, and I'm sure there's been studies. If you only buy what you're going to use, even if it's more expensive, you end up saving a ton of money.
Jill K DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Love it. Okay. So Jessica wrote, "Happy New Year, everyone. I'm currently thinking about my goals for 2022. I would love to hear what kinds of goals you set, like your deal count, profit for deal, et cetera. And then what specific goals you hope to hit?" That's-
Steven Jack Butala: Excellent.
Jill K DeWit: ... awesome. What did everybody say?
Steven Jack Butala: Well-
Jill K DeWit: Was it all over the place?
Steven Jack Butala: Sure. No, it wasn't all over the place.
Jill K DeWit: Oh.
Steven Jack Butala: There was some really good... [inaudible 00:01:55] got involved. There's some really good, really direct answers to this. And I'm going to try to be real direct today too about it.
Jill K DeWit: That's cool.
Steven Jack Butala: Because I think people get flustered about this, and I don't think that's necessary at all. It really just takes finding some quiet time, a pad of paper and a pen, and giving yourself about a half hour to an hour, and you're going to find out how your 2022 is going to go. I really believe it's that simple. So I'll tell you how I do it.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jack Thursday, 2022 land budgeting and goals made simple. This is why you're listening. For me, it starts with a plan. So a lot of you have decided to join Land Academy because you want to buy and sell land. That's the beginning of your plan. I don't budget anything unless I have a basic plan first.
Steven Jack Butala: And for me, and this is like a truth time deal, I'll take a blank spreadsheet, a blank Excel sheet, and I'll start taking notes. "I want to buy and sell land because I know it's profitable. I'm going to find a group, get some education, get a bunch of free education. And then if I think it's a good idea, maybe try to buy and sell some property myself. Realize that it works." So this is my me jotting down my thoughts, kind of stream of consciousness thoughts in a spreadsheet to see if it works or if it's something viabl...
Learn More About House Academy Here
5 Things That are a Waste of Time Flipping Houses (HA 1670) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala:Steve and Jill here. Jill K DeWit:Hello. Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to the land... I'm sorry. Welcome to the House Academy Show, entertaining real estate investment talk. I'm Stephen Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit:I'm Jill Dewit, broadcasting from The Valley Of The Sun. Steven Jack Butala:Today, Jill and I talk about five things that are a waste of time when flipping houses. Jill K DeWit:I'm excited. Steven Jack Butala:Me too. Jill K DeWit:So we each wrote down our top five, and then I want to do... You want to do yours that way too? I'm doing the order like the Dave Letterman top five lists and countdown. Steven Jack Butala:Sure. Jill K DeWit:Okay, good. This is going to be fun. Steven Jack Butala:Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill K DeWit:I wonder where we are on our YouTube channel, by the way. I kind of stopped looking in the last week. Steven Jack Butala:We hit goal. Jill K DeWit:Oh, yeah. Steven Jack Butala:We hit 10,000 subscribers. Jill K DeWit:That's awesome. Yay. Luke wrote, "One of the counties I'm researching has a large recreational lake and has a lot of gated communities." I'm assuming is in an HOA. "Should I avoid this county or continue the research?" Let me go back. Large recreational lake. Lot of gated communities. I would avoid the county but I would search outside of that area. Steven Jack Butala:This is a popular topic. A lot of people had a lot of things to say. Most of the comments in Discord are the same as mine. Yes, you should avoid it. Jill K DeWit:Hey, if it's 90%, maybe that's it. Doing your research, if it is a lot of HOAs, because that will be hard to uncover and dig out. You're not wrong. When you pull the data, it's not always accurate about HOA or not HOA. So it would be easier just to put one county over. Steven Jack Butala:I included this on the House Academy Show for a reason because it's the same with houses. HOAs [crosstalk 00:01:49]. Jill K DeWit:[inaudible 00:01:49] deals. Steven Jack Butala:It's harder to see a variant. Number one, it's harder to see a variance in HOA community from pricing standpoint. It's real easy to see and get away with a real good price variance on the buy side versus the sell side, in a non-HOA, non master plan community. You can see one house that was built next to another house built at the same time, completely different style, different square footage. So you can justify buying one for 200 and selling the next one for 400. Jill K DeWit:I understand. Steven Jack Butala:So in a master plan, HOA community, the same for land, it's all pretty much cookie cutter. Everything's priced the same. Jill K DeWit:I understand. Steven Jack Butala:Today's topic. Five things that we think are a waste of time when flipping houses. This is the meat of the show. Jill K DeWit:All right. I don't care who goes first. Steven Jack Butala:I would love for you to go first. Jill K DeWit:Okay. Here's my personal top five list of waste of time things, when you're flipping houses. Number five, spending days slash weeks on a home equity line of credit or credit cards calls trying to borrow money. Steven Jack Butala:Yeah. Jill K DeWit:People do that. Steven Jack Butala:Boy that didn't make my list, but that's true. Jill K DeWit:That's a waste of time. Don't start the process by "I need to put some money together. Let's see if we can take out of line of credit." Hold on a moment, everybody. That's not what you should be spending your time on. And I'm glad you like that. Number four, pre-purchasing windows, doors, or carpet or paint since they're on sale in January. Steven Jack Butala:What? This is a Jill joke show. Jill K DeWit:This is kind of funny,
How to Work Smarter in Your Land Business (LA 1669) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land, investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about how to work smarter in your land business.
Jill K DeWit: You would think we'd be doing this every day.
Steven Jack Butala: We have... Yeah, this is a whole string in Discord.
Jill K DeWit: I'll tell you one way we don't work smarter is like right now.
Steven Jack Butala: What do you mean?
Jill K DeWit: Like, it's Tuesday and we're recording for Tuesday. We kind of never do that. Talk about cutting it close. That's not very smart.
Steven Jack Butala: Jill and I were just talking about it. We are still reeling from the holidays and reeling from 2021.
Jill K DeWit: Mm-hmm. It was a good year.
Steven Jack Butala: We moved states. We had a great year, great year financially and socially. We moved. I don't have to file a California tax return this year.
Jill K DeWit: Right.
Steven Jack Butala: So it's all positive. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Zola wrote, "Seeking advice. I have an agreed price to buy a piece of land in Virginia. And I already have a buyer, which is a neighbor. I want to transfer the property directly to the neighbor and not take possession to avoid closing fees. I'm thinking of using a transferable contract. Any advice? Or better yet, a purchase agreement template."
Steven Jack Butala: What would you do?
Jill K DeWit: I hate this.
Steven Jack Butala: So do I.
Jill K DeWit: I don't like this.
Steven Jack Butala: I'm right there with you, Jill.
Jill K DeWit: This just gives me such a bad feeling.
Steven Jack Butala: I totally agree.
Jill K DeWit: It's like a wholesaler's... That's what it's... Not to pick on you, Zola. It's just, I'm not comfortable with it. I always feel like if I believe in the deal, I'm not going to take an assignment or a fee, but that's kind of what you're doing. I would buy it. So I wouldn't even, as far as the purchase agreement template, you could just... There's so many out there you just copy or just add on there or assignees kind of thing, as far as who's going to take ownership. And if you're going to go through title, I mean, you can go through title. Everybody's going to see what it's purchased for. And everybody's going to see your chunk of money in the middle of what you're taking out of it. And then everybody's going to see what the new guy's buying. And it might not leave them with a good feeling.
Steven Jack Butala: One of our jobs here at Land Academy is to undo bad advice that we've all received in real estate and in real estate investment. This is bad. This is not a good idea. There's a... The concept of assigning contracts and wholesaling has become abused and has now a stigma, a negative stigma. So here's what you do. It's going to cost you maybe $1,500 to $2,000 to close this deal and buy it. And that's it. Buy the property and then resell it immediately. Have a hold-open binder with the escrow agent and resell it for whatever the numbers are to the new buyer, the neighbor. If you don't have the money, this is what [crosstalk 00:03:02].
Jill K DeWit: ... deal funding.
Steven Jack Butala: This is what Land Academy is for. Just posted. Thank you, Zola, for putting this in Discord. That's the best thing. I'm glad you did this. Somebody will step up and help you-
Jill K DeWit: They'll fund it.
Steven Jack Butala: ... fund the deal. Take a small percentage, in this case, because you already have it sold. Maybe 10 or 10% ish.
Jill K DeWit: That's easy.
Blast From The Past: What's Possible Land Side Hustle Math (LA 1668) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: And welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala ...
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about what's possible in your land side hustle, specifically the math.
Jill DeWit: Oh.
Steven Butala: Like these shows.
Jill DeWit: You didn't tell him it was going to be math class today. I did not prepare for that.
Steven Butala: There's going to be some math in this. Not going to be math, it's just going to be ... You don't have to do any math, you just have to listen to the-
Jill DeWit: All right. Good thing I have a notepad and a pen.
Steven Butala: Listen to the good and the bed and the ugly about what's possible and what's not possible. I'll tell you, here's a hint though, it all starts with getting a mailer out.
Jill DeWit: You want to know something realistically? I loved math in school.
Steven Butala: I know you did.
Jill DeWit: Did you like math?
Steven Butala: Did I like math?
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Did you know that about me?
Steven Butala: Yes, I did.
Jill DeWit: Okay. How did you know that?
Steven Butala: I'll tell you Jill, you're a pilot and you have that natural ... I don't think we ever sat down and said, "Hey, how'd you feel about math in high school?" How boring would that be if we did that?
Jill DeWit: I did like math. My favorite teachers were my math teachers. Math and physics, I loved those. What was your favorite subject?
Steven Butala: Math, physics. I liked home economics a lot, because-
Jill DeWit: Is that where the girls were?
Steven Butala: Yes
Jill DeWit: Oh.
Steven Butala: You know what? I liked all. There's not a class that I didn't like.
Jill DeWit: I'm trying to think. You know what was one of my least favorite classes? That I did it, and I went through the whole thing and I was even president of the club at the end, it's a French club.
Steven Butala: Oh, you know what? I don't like languages either.
Jill DeWit: There we go. That was hard.
Steven Butala: I can get through Spanish, because it was a requirement. I like it now. I like speaking it or trying to speak it.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, you're good at it.
Steven Butala: I think I'm great at it after two beers, but ...
Jill DeWit: You are.
Steven Butala: But I think I'm great at a lot of things after two beers.
Jill DeWit: Don't ask me to speak French.
Steven Butala: No, I don't even ... I can't count to 10 in French.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free.
Jill DeWit: Herbert S, "Hello all, I'm seeking information/guidance on what I should do with the first deal that I have here. I bought this lot with a very old dilapidated double-wide fixed mobile home on the property that has been there for more than 30 years. According to Steve and Jill, this is normally a good thing, but I've been having troubles trying to sell it because I purchased it without having title to the mobile home and many of the buyers calling in would like to have that, which is understandable. We purchased this lot in an attorney state and did not have any problem buying it without the title. Has anyone dealt with this kind of situation in the past? What would you say are my options?"
Steven Butala: Yes, so let's take two steps back. Herbert, you're in a great situation. There are two components to buying a mobile home on a piece of land. The land real estate deal, like we're all very used to, and then the personal property aspect of buying a mobile home, which is in most of the states, maybe all states, the exact same as buying a car. It has a ... You go to the DMV, it's all ... I think Texas might be different. There's one state, in fact, it might be California.
Jill Friday - New Years Land Investors Resolutions (LA 1667) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy show entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala-
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun on New Year's Eve. Yay!
Steven Jack Butala: I can't believe it.
Jill K DeWit: Yay!
Steven Jack Butala: We've been doing this show, this is show number 1,600-
Jill K DeWit: And 67.
Steven Jack Butala: Amazing.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I, well, it's still Friday. She's going to talk about New Year's land investor's resolutions.
Jill K DeWit: 1667. That sounds like a year. Like, "I wonder what happened in 1667?" You know? It's kind of funny.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: Yep. Cool. I have some good notes. I came up with a cute little... Don't read my notes. All good. Get with a cute little saying that I'm going to share too about this.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on thelandinvestors.com online community, it's free and don't forget to subscribe on The Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Jessica wrote, "How do you find someone to put a for sale sign on the street for you? In my workflow, the photographer is long gone and he lives a long way from the property, anyway. Suggestions on how to find someone local, especially in a little town that doesn't have a Craigslist nearby."
Jill K DeWit: That's funny, that would be my first thought. There are some companies out there though, like WeGoLook, does that still exist?
Steven Jack Butala: There's a lot of people who had a lot of things to say about this. Yeah, WeGoLook said-
Jill K DeWit: Okay, good.
Steven Jack Butala: One other persons said they have, which I know you use all the time is, the Nextdoor app.
Jill K DeWit: Oh, that's true, Nextdoor. Oh, that's a good one, you can put in the zip code and see who's there. You need to have them take a picture. You know what it looks like now as you can ask them to take a picture of it and send it back to you with their sign on there.
Jill K DeWit: I don't know, I would even... You could call a church, offer somebody 50 bucks.
Steven Jack Butala: 20, I was going to say.
Jill K DeWit: Whoever the janitor is at the church or something like that, who you can get on the phone and to say, "Hey, I know this sounds..."
Jill K DeWit: I might even call Home Depot and say, "Hey, you know one of those signs on a stick, I'll pay you 50 bucks if you go buy it for me and put it and send me a picture."
Steven Jack Butala: Any of that.
Jill K DeWit: Be like, "All right-"
Steven Jack Butala: At the student-
Jill K DeWit: "That's kind of weird, but okay."
Steven Jack Butala: And then again, The Drone, the best person to have them is pay a The Drone person who is going to do the drone shots.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: $20 more.
Jill K DeWit: And then, you know here's a nice thing is, was this Jessica, I think?
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: This is the only time that you'll forget this. You only have to do it this one time because from now on you'll remember every time to have the photographer do it ahead of time. So that's the positive thing here.
Steven Jack Butala: But you got to put one on there at all costs.
Jill K DeWit: It does help, especially if there's a traffic area.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: You know, it really does make a difference. Don't put a price on there. Never put a price because A, it changes and B, you want them to call you. So just seems to be a for sale investor special and your phone number. That's really all you need, when the little red sign on a stick doesn't need to be a fancy broker billboard.
Steven Jack Butala: The less fancy it is, the better.
Jill K DeWit: It's true.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jack Thursday - We are Zip Code Lucky (LA 1666) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from The Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jack Thursday and I'm going to talk about how we are all, or nearly all of us are very ZIP code lucky. The way that we send out mailers is very ZIP code-based now and there's tons and tons and tons of information that's broken down by the census and all kinds of other organizations that's free out there about what's going on in any given ZIP code. And the way that it's all organized and orchestrated, you can compare it. There's tons of amazing tools online, especially now because 2020 passed, which is every 10 years they do a census so we got real good, fresh data. Well, I'll get into it in a minute here.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community that It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on The Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the show as you'd like.
Jill K DeWit: Dan wrote, "I am comfortable sending mail with a little higher percentage of listings on LandWatch and Land and Farm, like two to five percent, if the days on market are low and/or I know the area very well. There's one county with 13% listings on LandWatch that I killed it in. It's very rural and I know the area very well. My sales prices are low because I bought super low and now I have a few people that email or call every few weeks to see if I have anything else there. I would not mail a county with a high percent of listings if I didn't that special knowledge of the area or the days of market were not ridiculously low. I also try to diversify a bit, meaning I will stick to the red, yellow, green test on three or four mailers. And then I diverge a slight bit on one of four in a niche area. At least this is what my personal comfort level is for the properties that are 10 to 60 acres of rural land that I target."
Jill K DeWit: I love it. Perfect. I've got nothing.
Steven Jack Butala: This is crossing over the line into being a professional land investor. When you're starting to do things that make sense to you and you're going off of the exact Land Academy education, the way that we orchestrate all these mailers and all that. And you're going off into your own thing.
Steven Jack Butala: But I will tell you personally every mailer I do, I do some wacky stuff like this. And I only send in markets that I really know well and I know what's going to happen. So I think this is fantastic and I put this question or statement on Jack Thursday for a reason, because I think it's really-
Jill K DeWit: Brilliant?
Steven Jack Butala: Yep.
Jill K DeWit: You're doing it right.
Steven Jack Butala: It's approaching brilliance, yep. Today's Jack Thursday and I'm going to talk about how we are all very ZIP code lucky. This is why you're listening.
Jill K DeWit: I'm going to just sit back and chill here.
Steven Jack Butala: So during the red, green, yellow test, which can be ZIP code-based or county-based or really any geography that you delineate, but I always use ZIP codes. I think most people do. I look at what's going on from a days on market standpoint, how many properties are listed for sale versus the universe of properties there. We've got all these matrix or measurement spectrums that either make it red or yellow or green. What's not in there and what I've been staring at for years and done nothing about until recently is all the other stuff that's going on.
Steven Jack Butala: Which led me to even further thinking, "If you spend a lot of time in a really nasty ZIP code and you can find out which ones are nasty because the census data shows it where the incomes are really low and crime is really high.
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At Some Point the Sales Price is Just Too High (HA 1665) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala:Steve and Jill here. Jill K DeWit:Hello. Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining real estate investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala:Today, Jill and I talk about how, at some point, the sales price of a house is just too high. Jill K DeWit:Yeah. Every Wednesday, we shake it up here. We're doing house academy, because we've been looking at numbers, I'm sure you have, too. It's hard not to walk around and just know what's going on in real estate. You go to the grocery store, you see signs, you know there's stuff happening. Steven Jack Butala:This was prompted because there are some communities in the metropolitan area of Phoenix and really all over the country that are experiencing five to 10% purchase price, sale price growth in a community, a month. So at some point, it cannot just continue to go up because the pool of buyers will evaporate. Steven Jack Butala:Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill K DeWit:Kim wrote, "Hi, I'm in the process of purchasing a piece of land, but the seller's deed from 2002 has two properties on the deed. One is their acreage with their house and the other is a parcel I want to purchase. This is a small $1,500 purchase, and I'm hoping to avoid to pay any title agent work outside of the tools we use. Am I safe to purchase this land only and create a deed for the smaller tract? But then the first deed remains in effect for their house. Will my new deed supersede the 2002 deed that remain in effect for the house?" That's kind of a repeat there. Jill K DeWit:You know what? The answer is yes. Here's what's so funny. People don't know that you can buy from somebody five pieces of property on one deed. It has to be the same grantor, grantee, you know what I'm trying to say. Let me back up. It's coming out all jumbled. Let me- Steven Jack Butala:I can answer it. Jill K DeWit:Well, no, I want to answer it. I want to say. The answer is yes. Steven Jack Butala:In a very positive way. Jill K DeWit:You just make a new deed- Steven Jack Butala:You answered- Jill K DeWit:... with only the legal description of the one that you're buying on it, and that's all that you need to do. You don't have to recreate a new deed, too, by the way, for the other one. There's no reason that they have to do two new deeds. The other deed is there for the one property that they still own, so that is correct. Jill K DeWit:When we buy properties, I love it. My favorite scenario is when I buy multiple properties from one person in the same county. I can buy 20, depending on what the county will record at one time. Sometimes they have a limit like 10 or 15 or something. They'll say, all right, we can't have more than this many on one deed. Steven Jack Butala:Really? Jill K DeWit:Yeah. Sometimes they do have limits. Steven Jack Butala:I've never heard of that. Jill K DeWit:Mm-hmm (affirmative). They do. Because it's cheaper and easier, too. So if I have the same seller, everything's all in the same name, I'm buying 10 properties from them, it's one deed, it's one recording fee. And it all happens at the same time. And then when I go to sell them, I just then just sell each one individually just like normal Steven Jack Butala:In a great way, you answered your own question here, the- Jill K DeWit:I did. Steven Jack Butala:Yep. Jill K DeWit:Yeah, you were right. Steven Jack Butala:Yep, you were right. Today's topic, at some point the sales price is just too high on some of these houses. This is the meat of the show. This is all interconnected. There's a lot of things that are at play when somebody buys...
I Have 10 Thousand Dollars What Should I Invest In (LA 1664) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Stephen Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today Jill and I talk about, well, I have $10,000. What should I invest in?
Jill K DeWit: This is so funny. So here's where this came from. We're sitting here thinking about out what's going on at the end of the year. We want this last week to be really valuable, some good information for you to ponder. And there's a lot of people on Facebook that have this exact thing. Like, Hey, I've got some money saved up. It's the end of the year. Going into 2022, what should I do? So I wrote down some real answers and some of them are like, what the heck? It's funny. So I will share those, and we'll talk about what we think you should do if you're in this situation.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into the topic, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: We forgot to look that up. We don't know where we are right now, do we? Okay.
Steven Jack Butala: I can look it up while we're-
Jill K DeWit: Okay, got it. All right. While I'm talking?
Steven Jack Butala: Sure.
Jill K DeWit: You're good. Peter wrote, I got a call back on a piece of property that is largely in a flood zone, and some of it is in a regulated flood zone. The original offer price was $8,000 for three acres. And I was thinking about turning around with a revised offer of $1,000. What are the major considerations you all keep in mind when repricing an offer due to flood issues? Thanks for any thoughts.
Steven Jack Butala: This is very, very, very common and not so specific to the flood issues, but stuff comes up.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: A deal comes back. You look it up. Usually on NeighborScoop. There's some flaws. Hopefully they're not fatal flaws like access.
Jill K DeWit: Right.
Steven Jack Butala: And so you go back to the seller with a revised offer. In my opinion, Jill's the one who does this, so she'll tell you the way she does it, but this is all how it's handled. And so if you just say all this property sucks, and I know we talked about 8,000, but I'm going to you a thousand because there's flood zone issues. That's not going to work. But if you make a little video, a screen video of you rolling through Google Earth, a screenshot video and narrating why and how the property, where it sits and why the flood issues have dramatically reduced the usability of the property when you price it at 8,000, they're going to take you seriously. And here's why, because whoever buys the property's going to have the same issues. So you're just kicking the can down the road.
Jill K DeWit: I'm going to have to disagree.
Steven Jack Butala: No, really? After all that?
Jill K DeWit: I don't need no stinking video.
Steven Jack Butala: Really?
Jill K DeWit: No I don't. You know what? So here's-
Steven Jack Butala: Throw Jack under the bus week actually.
Jill K DeWit: No it's not. There's plenty times, Buddy, when you go, "Nope, this is what you do." This is my turn. Because you know what really, I am dealing. I'm on the front line a little more in this scenario. Not that you're not, and you haven't done this for decades, but.
Jill K DeWit: So here's how it goes now. Number one, do you even really want it? So here's my thing. Is my buyer's pool going to be so darn small, and I'm going to be running around trying to make $3,000 off of my $1,000 when I can just move on. So there's really got to be some other redeeming quality for me to even care. If my 8,000 is now 1,000, now I'm scratching my head going,
Taking Action (LA 1663) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, jill and I talk about taking action.
Jill K DeWit: That's it?
Steven Jack Butala: That's it. So the new year's is coming up and nothing happens on its own. And I got to thinking nothing happens, forget about land for a second, nothing happens unless we take action. We're talk about that in just a minute here. But before we do, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com.
Jill K DeWit: I was going to ask you about your Christmas first. You just jump right in there. Do you know you have a co-host over here? What the heck? Oh, I'm sorry Jill, are you there?
Steven Jack Butala: I had what I call an amazing Jill Christmas.
Jill K DeWit: Oh yeah?
Steven Jack Butala: Yep.
Jill K DeWit: What's a Jill Christmas?
Steven Jack Butala: Jill Christmas is, well, I kind of meld the whole Thanksgiving and Christmas thing all together, so we had amazing food. It's was a Jill Christmas. All decorated. Everything's decorated. We had presents. The fire was on. It's right out of a postcard.
Jill K DeWit: Thank you. All right. So you had a good Christmas.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, I had a great one. How about you?
Jill K DeWit: I had a great Christmas too.
Steven Jack Butala: Was it a six out of 10 or an eight out 10?
Jill K DeWit: Oh, it was an eight out of 10. You know why? Because it's just so nice. Things have calmed down a little bit. Those of you who know us, we've changed states. We've made some changes and I can't tell you what a difference it is. I'm not picking on anybody. I'm going to only share the positive because that's me.
Steven Jack Butala: I'll bring in the negative if it's necessary.
Jill K DeWit: Oh good. No, but I have been every day shocked and amazed at nice people. Even Christmas Eve running in the grocery store because you forgot something. And it was like, "Oh no, no, you only have three things. You go ahead of me in line." Oh we're back. At least we're here back. And it's been very, very nice.
Steven Jack Butala: Since you brought it up, it's just been a crazy year.
Jill K DeWit: It has been another crazy year.
Steven Jack Butala: These last two or three months have been very, very nice.
Jill K DeWit: Crazy, and it better not be the new norm.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Moving across state lines and getting all new stuff again. Getting all new insurance and all new... I don't need to do that ever again.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. And how much did you do and how much did I do? Well, we won't go there on that part, on the insurance part.
Steven Jack Butala: I did a lot of the man stuff.
Jill K DeWit: You did the man stuff. I did the phone call stuff. That's very, very true. Okay. Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala: And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: So I think I'm, I hope I say this right, [Basim 00:02:54] wrote, I have a funding partner for a deal and I have informed him that I intended to sell using a realtor. Since the property will be in the investor's name, they need to sign the agreement with the realtor. Can anyone provide an example of a partnership agreement that covers this scenario?
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. It's in our go to offer... Wait, deal funding. I had to think about that. So in our deal funding stuff, you can find it on Land Academy, also in Land Investors, also on landfunding.com. I think it's all there too.
Steven Jack Butala: Exactly.
Jill K DeWit: And that's exactly how we do it, and that's the right way to do it. So if I'm putting up 100% of the money, which I'm often doing. If I'm not, then we're going to, we're going to,
Jill Friday - Jillifying Year End Land Deals (LA 1662) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today is Jill Friday. She's going to talk about identifying...
Jill DeWit: I'm going to talk about-
Steven Jack Butala: She going to talk about Jillification.
Jill DeWit: Yep, Jillifying it over the holidays. We got this. It may not be written down, but I remembered, because I have that kind of an amazing memory.
Steven Jack Butala: Someone did the script wrong.
Jill DeWit: Like an elephant.
Steven Jack Butala: I wonder. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on The Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill DeWit: Am I remembering that right? What the heck is going on over here?
Steven Jack Butala: I don't know.
Jill DeWit: It's just like, you know what?
Steven Jack Butala: It's right before Christmas is what's going on.
Jill DeWit: It's Christmas Eve. This is airing on Christmas Eve. So am I remembering the elephant right? Does the elephant have a good memory or is that just a saying?
Steven Jack Butala: Well, I don't know if they do or not, but it is a saying.
Jill DeWit: I've never actually sat down and talked to an elephant.
Steven Jack Butala: You know what I learned?
Jill DeWit: Tell me.
Steven Jack Butala: Recently, that elephants can find groundwater. They have a sense, like a sense of smell for finding groundwater.
Jill DeWit: That's flipping cool. I did not know that.
Steven Jack Butala: And so during a drought, they'll dig. Altogether, they'll dig and get down to the water and survive.
Jill DeWit: That is so darn cool. Yeah, so it's Christmas Eve. So yeah, I like that you're sporting your Merry Christmas hat. And I'm wearing my Jillify hat for today. So back to the show. Matt wrote, "Can you still get a deal done at the end of the year?" And then [Lori 00:01:39], one of our cool people in Land Academy answered this. And then I'm going to talk more about it too.
Steven Jack Butala: It's a good little story.
Jill DeWit: So Lori says, "Oh, it happens." That was his question, then we're just reading one of the responses, and then we'll talk about it. She says, "I had a seven day close on my first house I put under contract on Christmas Eve day, and it closed on New Year's Eve. That title company said it couldn't be done. There were too many forms to get filled up by too many people. And yes, it was back then, by the way." She's like, not to tell you the year, or how old my children are, or how old I am. She said, "This was before email, but still exactly the same as New York is today." That's funny. "So I talked them into letting me deliver the forms and purpose. And I told everyone I was a courier for the title company, and I had to-"
Steven Jack Butala: Isn't that great?
Jill DeWit: "I had to wait, and get the form filled out."
Steven Jack Butala: This is something you would do.
Jill DeWit: I would do the same thing.
Steven Jack Butala: Just get it done, man.
Jill DeWit: This is brilliant. I'm a courier. I'll wait [inaudible 00:02:32] in here. That's awesome. And they said it was one of their easiest closings ever. That's it. That's perfect. That's Jillifying it.
Steven Jack Butala: This is perfectly on topic today.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Good one. Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's topic is... Well, it's Jill Friday, Jillifying year-end land deals. This is the meat of the show.
Jill DeWit: So that is one of them. Actually, that's B. So I have three points to make here, and it's going to tie into this question, which is awesome. So end of year, are we even working? Do people buy things?
Jack Thursday - Less Frequent but Bigger Land Deals (LA 1661) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I’m Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today is Jack Thursday. And I'm going to talk about my personal 2022 goals, which are less frequent, but bigger land deals.
Jill DeWit: I want to hear about some of your other goals.
Steven Jack Butala: Like try to be a better husband?
Jill DeWit: No, no, no. Let's see here, find a new hair stylist, because I failed at that one. So you're...
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, if you are watching this, you can see.
Jill DeWit: I got to share this. I walked into a local bar the other day and the sweet, sweet bartender says to me, "Jill, wow. Did you cut your own bangs?" I said, "You know, it might look like that, but no, I did not."
Steven Jack Butala: When someone says, "Do you cut your own hair?" That's not a compliment.
Jill DeWit: That's a bad sign. Did you do that yourself? Oh darn. Nope. No, it sure looks like it, but no, I did not slaughter my own hair. So that's one of our things for next year. You know, that's one of the hardest things I have... I wanted dry cleaning. I got house cleaners. I got land... Well landscapers came to the house, so we got a couple wins there.
Steven Jack Butala: We had a lot of wins.
Jill DeWit: A lot of wins.
Steven Jack Butala: Can't win it all though.
Jill DeWit: We have yet to figure out our trash service, we failed on that one and we failed on the personal hair and all that stuff, we've got to figure that out. I won on a dentist. Don't have a doctor. It's funny, but hey, it's part of moving. It's all right. It's all good.
Steven Jack Butala: We live in a town that doesn't believe in charging taxes for anything. And they also don't believe in providing any services.
Jill DeWit: Street lights, and sidewalks.
Steven Jack Butala: There's no streetlights.
Jill DeWit: No.
Steven Jack Butala: There's no sanitation or anything. You have to hire everything out independently. There's literally no sewer systems.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Jack Butala: Everything's on septic.
Jill DeWit: It's hilarious.
Steven Jack Butala: But it's real cheap to live here.
Jill DeWit: It's great. Yeah. I wouldn't call it cheap, but once you get past the water and the electric and the gas bill.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill DeWit: Ian wrote: If we're looking for infill lots, and there's a lot of lots owned by an HOA, and that HOA looks to be sparsely developed, like maybe 20, 25% of the lots are developed. That's not a good candidate for what we're looking for. Right? In Land Academy 2.0, infill lots, the example Steven shows looks to be lots with houses built all around them.
Steven Jack Butala: Let me cut to the chase.
Jill DeWit: Please do.
Steven Jack Butala: The best case scenario for infill lots. You bought the last lot available in the entire subdivision. Everything else is built on. This country is packed full of failed subdivisions or there's lots of different words for them. Paper subdivisions or where it's 20% developed, and then there're just tons and tons and tons of properties that are for sale, vacant land properties in a sub. When there's an HOA, well, that's just adding fuel to the problem, fire to the... Pouring fuel on a fire.
Jill DeWit: Making fun of my "going down the rabbit trail"? Now you're doing it. "Pouring fuel on the problem." [inaudible 00:03:51] How about fire?
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: So you want to stay out of those HOA driven paper subdivisions,
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SFR vs Multitenant Investments (LA 1660) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala:Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit:Hi. Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land and investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the valley of the sun. Steven Jack Butala:Today Jill and I, we're going to talk about houses versus- Jill DeWit:It's really the House Academy Show. Steven Jack Butala:Oh, yeah. It's the House Academy Show today. Jill DeWit:Yeah. Steven Jack Butala:Houses versus apartment buildings. The name of the show is SFRs versus multi-tenant investments. Jill DeWit:Mm-hmm (affirmative). Before we get into it, I have a question. Do you use all your luggage for hauling things other than clothing? Because that's what seems to happen to all of our luggage. I had to hold on, physically hold back my one good rollaboard because he wanted to fill it up with stuff. Steven Jack Butala:Ammunition's really heavy, and the easiest thing to haul it around in that I found is suitcases. Jill DeWit:The very nice Travelpro luggage that I have. And he tries to take them all. I'm like, "You can have them all, but you got to leave me one." I am not going to travel on a trip and have my clothes, have gun powder on my clothing when I unpack my suitcase. Steven Jack Butala:It turns out men and women are real different. Jill DeWit:Yep, exactly. Steven Jack Butala:Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and don't forget to subscribe on our Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill DeWit:Amy wrote, "Has anyone run into an issue with Redfin not having matches for zip codes in a county? Doing the Red Yellow Green Test. I wasn't sure if there's an alternative. I'm new to this." This is you. Steven Jack Butala:People, especially really young people, believe that the internet sometimes is like a God-given right, like utility companies, like you turn the tap and the water comes out. It's a public service. Jill DeWit:This should work. I just spent $1,200 on the 13 Pro, and I don't have 5G at this moment. Steven Jack Butala:The internet is a collection of independent businesses, like Land Academy or LandStay, and we're here to make money. And so Redfin's no different. Redfin chooses who they do business with based on where a lot of real estate deals go down. Jill DeWit:Like where the money is. Steven Jack Butala:Which are cities. They're in bigger cities. The bigger the city, the bigger the real estate deals. We're in volume of real estate deals. Redfin has made a strategic decision, and I don't disagree with them at all, that they're just not going to have contracts with certain MLSs that are rural because they don't care. And that's fine. Jill DeWit:They can do that. Steven Jack Butala:Realtor.com is run by the National Association of Realtors and they have 100% coverage of the entire country. Zillow, 100% coverage from what I can see. Redfin has just got, I don't know, it's probably 60 or 70%, but it turns out we buy and sell rural vacant land a lot. So Redfin is not... Although they have the greatest data there ever was, they don't have 100% coverage. I don't know how else to say it. Jill DeWit:No, that was fine. That was good. Steven Jack Butala:Today's topic, SFR versus multi-tenant investments. This is the meat of the show. Here's the deal with commercial real estate. Here's how you make money in commercial real estate. Jill DeWit:Okay, I'm going to settle in now. Steven Jack Butala:You buy a piece of property. I don't care if it's an apartment building, a skyscraper, a trailer park. Doesn't matter. It's got tenants, and they pay every month, and you go about your merry way. It's a terrible return on investment if you line it up against any company, like a manufacturing company or a company like Land Academy. It's just not a good...
Only You Know the Meaning of Time Well Spent (LA 1659) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here. Hello. Welcome to Land Academy Show, entertaining land, investment talk. I'm Stephen Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today Jill and I talk about only you, know the meaning of time well spent.
Jill DeWit: By the way, if you don't recognize us. Yes, we did both get haircuts.
Steven Jack Butala: Jill's is better.
Jill DeWit: Yep. Well, no, I didn't mean yep. Sorry. I didn't mean it like that. I didn't know that's what you were going to say. I had yep already coming out. So yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: We just moved back to Arizona from California and we got to find new people to do our stuff and...
Jill DeWit: Oh yeah. That's a process.
Steven Jack Butala: What do you say? You know every guy's gone through this. It's like, "Yep. I can see it in the mirror. It's all going to hell. I'm watching it unfold".
Jill DeWit: I'm in the chair and I'm trapped. It's like you can't...
Steven Jack Butala: Women ever go through this?
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I'm sure. Yeah, that does happen. It does. You're like, "And I'm trapped, it's not like I can get up and walk out right now. I'm wearing a robe", kind of thing. It's just not going to work. Yeah. I've had massages like that where I'm like, "Crap, this person's beating me up. I don't know what to do. I'm afraid to say anything".
Steven Jack Butala: Well, I've had the opposite. I've had the opposite. It's like, this is a 13 year old girl. She couldn't massage a...
Jill DeWit: Raccoon?
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. A raccoon.
Jill DeWit: All right. Again, I'm not drinking.
Steven Jack Butala: You're so dirty.
Jill DeWit: Not drinking. It may sound like it, but I'm not drinking. Go ahead.
Steven Jack Butala: But Jill's hair, I've been saying this for a long time, Jill with age, she gets prettier and more elegant. And I just get fatter and more angry.
Jill DeWit: Hey, before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors online community, it's free. And by the way, don't forget to subscribe on our YouTube channel and comment on the shows that you like. Michael wrote, "I've come across a county where I can't figure out how to filter out parcels with improvements in DataTree. And I thought I'd check with the community". How do you filter out improvements in DataTree? There are a couple different ways, you want to explain this?
Steven Jack Butala: Here's a real deal. Here's the sad, terrible truth about data, all data. There's exceptions, and so the vast majority of it goes great, but there's always exceptions. And DataTree is no different than RealQuest or TitlePro or any other data aggregator. DataTree does not create this data, they just aggregate it. And so the majority of what we use in DataTree comes from the assessor. And the LA County assessor does a darn good job at data, but rural county X, in let's say, Arkansas, it's not that important to them. It's not good or bad. It's just how it is. And so if you can't get the data that you need to send out a mailer in the format that you need it, go to another county. This happens to me all the time. And I've been millions and millions and millions of mail merges and data that we've utilized over the years, Jill and I. And to this day, we just get bad data sometimes.
Jill DeWit: What if you're dead set on the zip code? Could I download a couple lines of the data, follow me on here? I can download it and I can see all the columns all the way across and I can maybe figure out, "Oh, they don't use these use improvement percentage, but I see they fill in doors or some kind of structure". I can figure out something that they use. Is that a possibility?
Steven Jack Butala: This is before I sat down to record this, I looked at a data set that I ordered from Concierge Data. It's 45 units,
Taking Land Acquisition Orders from a Single Buyer (LA 1658) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala:Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit:Hello. Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala:Today, Jill and I talk about taking land acquisition orders from a single buyer. Jill DeWit:Oh my gosh. This is so funny because I think we have different opinions on this. I think, we started to talk about this for just a few seconds before we sat down, and turned everything on and he's like, "Why is this bad?" I'm like, "Where do I start?" So, hold on. I have a lot to say about this. Steven Jack Butala:I made a career out of taking acquisition orders for commercial property when I started out. Jill DeWit:And this is a tad different. So I'm going to share that with you. But before we do that, first I want to say, thank you very much, the gift basket on the shelf behind me is from Alex Peak. Did I say [inaudible 00:00:55] or should I say... [Alex Plow 00:00:56]. Thank you very, very much. We got your gift basket, and we super appreciate it. Haven't really cracked into it yet. I thought I just put it on the shelf for today, and then I'm going to crack into it later. Steven Jack Butala:Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community, it's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill DeWit:Peter wrote, "anybody have experience incorporating their kids into their planned business. I have two girls, age 13 and nine, who both have demonstrated a lot of interest, which is super exciting to me. I know they are young, but they are both motivated and hardworking. They started a couple of side hustles." They're 13 and nine. This is awesome. Steven Jack Butala:I did that at that edge too. Jill DeWit:"Over the last year. And now it looks like they want to edge into the world of land investing. Any thoughts?" I got to say, what was so fun is we had our, our dear Tony in the last career path had his daughter. She's 16, I think? Steven Jack Butala:15. Jill DeWit:15, Yeah. Steven Jack Butala:Probably 16 now. Jill DeWit:Probably 16. Anyway, his daughter in it with him showing up on the calls, the timing worked out great. She was obviously home for school and jumped in this with dad. And by the way, she dug this up for dad. So I believe this to be true. She, and dad were talking about dad was retiring from one career, looking for a different career and something they could do together and teach her. And she found us and found Land and brought this to her dad. And now they were in career path. So I think it's great. Steven Jack Butala:We have three children, Jill and I, and two of them do very well. Jill DeWit:They're in it. Steven Jack Butala:I've always said to all three kids. "I really love two of you." Jill DeWit:Exactly. It changes all the time. You know what's so funny, though? Is that they either they don't get it now, they might get it later. So number one, and number three were in the business. Number two, wasn't so interested. We thought now number three could care less. And number one and number two are in it. So we're hoping that number three will someday like it, maybe not. And that's okay, but if they've got an interest, go for it. I love it. Steven Jack Butala:Here's my real answer to this. Kids need to, all kids, I think, need to have a terrible, terrible job. When they're young, they need to fail and get a boss who's awful and just see the real world and what it's like. And then they'll come back into something like this and really understand that. Maybe appreciate its value. Yeah. Our number three is 18. He's got a terrible restaurant job right now, and they work him to the bone. He gets paid pretty well, but, and it's opening his eyes about what goes on in life,
Jill Friday - Quitting Like Prince Harry (LA 1657) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about... Well, it's Jill Friday, and she's going to talk about quitting like Prince Harry.
Jill K DeWit: It's so funny. So as I started to say, I was reading an article on my phone the other day and I just had this disgusted look on my face. And this one says, "What? What's going on? What's got you so mad." I'm like, "You got to hear this one." And it's Prince Harry promoting quitting. And I'll tell you more because I have the article pulled up here. We went into a long discussion on... And you've heard him say this before, I'm going to quote you, "When is that okay?" So, we're going to talk about when is that okay and then in these situations, it's not okay.
Steven Jack Butala: First, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube Channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Jessica wrote, "I just called a small city hall about a property and the mayor answered the phone." This is awesome. This sounds like our office sometimes. I'm like, "Let me answer the phone. Let me answer the phone." They're like, "Is this Jill?" "Yeah." He had a great conversation about a lot I just got a contract on. It's residential but they really want more business. The four lane road it's on gets 11,000-
Steven Jack Butala: Excellent.
Jill K DeWit: ... traffic cars.
Steven Jack Butala: Traffic count per day.
Jill K DeWit: Per day. It's pretty good, right?
Steven Jack Butala: That's great.
Jill K DeWit: There's a new Dollar General three lots away.
Steven Jack Butala: Oh man.
Jill K DeWit: I know nothing about commercial.
Steven Jack Butala: Geeze.
Jill K DeWit: Does anyone have any insight as to how to go about making the most of such an opportunity?
Steven Jack Butala: Yes.
Jill K DeWit: That's hilarious.
Steven Jack Butala: I have some insight.
Jill K DeWit: I hope you have a [inaudible 00:02:06]. Per the mayor, "This is a great spot." Per Mayor Joe, "This is where you want to be."
Steven Jack Butala: As long as you're buying it right, and I mean really buying it right like we do here at Land Academy then I'll... Call us Jessica, but I'm sure-
Jill K DeWit: You got people.
Steven Jack Butala: ... But I'll tell-
Jill K DeWit: You know-
Steven Jack Butala: I know how this goes in discord.
Jill K DeWit: You got it.
Steven Jack Butala: Somebody's already-
Jill K DeWit: You don't need us.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Call us just if you need us. That's what I mean.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. I'm sure you don't.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jill Friday, quitting like Prince Harry. This is the meat of the show.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. So, it's Jill Friday. And so I promise this is not just British tabloid stuff, you're going to see the value here, but it started with that and just makes me crack up. So the whole article was, it popped up in my thing, and it's it says this was December 6th. It says, "Prince Harry encourages people to quit their job if it doesn't bring joy," what?
Steven Jack Butala: Because he's qualified to do that.
Jill K DeWit: What, what, it's just hilarious that you should work at jobs that you enjoy and that leaving a miserable career is really good for one's mental health. And this is an interview he's doing with Fast Company magazine. So this is all high level stuff. But I'm like, wonder if I was the one doing the interview. I'd be like, are you kidding me? This is hilarious. And, by the way, it talks about him, who he quit his own job as a senior member of the British Royal family. And that job resignations during the pandemic aren't a...
Jack Thursday - Land Academy Word Association Test (LA 1656) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today is Jack Thursday. And I'm going to talk about this little game that I devised called land academy word association test.
Jill K DeWit: Can I ask what the outcome is supposed to be of this?
Steven Jack Butala: Well, okay. I mean, since you brought it up, you should take this question real quick and then I'll get all into it. But here's a little prelude.
Jill K DeWit: Okay.
Steven Jack Butala: If I say customer, and you say no. If I say, not you necessarily, Jill, because you won't. But if I say, I don't know, 10 or 15 of these words, like customer $50,000 a month. Ranch land. Nope, nope, nope, nope .
Jill K DeWit: Is this to help you decide if you're a land person or not?
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: Ah, Change. Okay.
Steven Jack Butala: Ferrari.
Jill K DeWit: Nope.
Steven Jack Butala: Calendar.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: You know? Exactly.
Jill K DeWit: Got it.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the land investors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel, and comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Tony wrote. I have a signed agreement from an individual who bought a property on a Sheriff's Tax resale deed in Texas. What issues could I come across if I buy this?
Steven Jack Butala: All right, this is a very common thing. Full disclosure. I've done thousands and thousands and thousands of transactions like this with almost no incident at all, but like everything, you just need to know the facts. So what happens is people stop paying their taxes or they die or both. This is property taxes now. This is not income tax. These are property taxes, and they're associated with the land, not the person. Income taxes are associated with a person. Debt on property is associated with a person in the form of a personal guarantee. So this gets very misunderstood. If Jill has a piece of property, she's owned it for 10 years. She stopped paying taxes a lot of years ago. I purchase it from her, and she says, great. Here's the deed. Congratulations. Thanks for the check. Good luck.
Steven Jack Butala: And I inherit the taxes that our associated with that property stay with the property. So now she's done, and she wipes her hands on the whole thing. Now it's my job to make good on the property taxes as a new owner. So what happened here is somebody stopped paying the taxes altogether. There was no purchaser sale. It went all the way back to the taxing authority, according to state statutes, sometimes local statutes, but mostly state. And the sheriff in Texas literally stood on the court steps. Maybe the sheriff themselves did it, or maybe they hired a company. Sometime lawyers do it in Texas. And they sold the property. Well, Tony here's buying it from somebody who bought it at that sale. And he's wondering what the problem is. So here's the issue. It all comes down to chain of title. In the eyes of the chain of title, this property has a break in the chain of title. And meaning that it didn't convey over its life with the title insurance policy, a title insurance policy, a title insurance policy.
Jill K DeWit: Because they had to take it back, like forcefully take it back.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Got foreclosed on is what happened for property taxes, tax lien. So now he's buying the property, and he wants to, as much as he can, Tony here wants to, as much as he can.
Jill K DeWit: Protect himself.
Steven Jack Butala: Market the property with marketable title. That's the whole key here.
Learn More About House Academy Here
What to Do When Your Buyer Needs Financing (LA 1655) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala:Steve and Jill here. Jill K DeWit:Hello. Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to the Land and House Academy Show today, Entertaining Real Estate Investment Talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala:Today. Jill and I talk about what to do when your buyer needs financing. Of all time, since we've been doing this, since 2014, '15, this has been, consistently been at least a top 10 question, maybe top five. Jill K DeWit:It comes up often because people fall in love with your property and they go, "Oh, I don't have the money." Steven Jack Butala:What I brought, I wanted to make this an episode today because it's really different for houses and for land. Very, very, very different financing animals for a bunch of reasons. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com Online Community. It's free. And please don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill K DeWit:Greg wrote, "Nobody has any money or credit and everybody wants a land contract." This is why I won't want to do ... I don't want to do land contracts. Number one, I can earn way more money over the course of the contract by buying and selling more properties with cash up front. Jill K DeWit:Two, I have to deal with this person for years and who knows what will happen. Three, I have to deal with the neighbors for years. You're driving down my road. There is a homeless encampment on the property, et cetera. Dream it up. Four, liability? What if someone busts a leg or gets shot in a pistol fight? Where are these properties? Am I liable for that risk for the next three years? In my- Steven Jack Butala:Opinion. Jill K DeWit:... opinion, land contracts are only good when nothing else is possible, like no buyers. Steven Jack Butala:Which never happens. Jill K DeWit:Right. Tell me why you love land contracts and what I'm doing wrong with them. Liability clause, litigation clause. Should we just jump into the show because it all ties in? Steven Jack Butala:Yeah. Jill K DeWit:Okay. Steven Jack Butala:Today's topic, what to do when a buyer needs financing. This is the meat of this show. Jill K DeWit:I have a lot of notes, but do you want to go first or do you want me to? Steven Jack Butala:Oh no. I would love for you to. Jill K DeWit:Okay. So I put a plus. I have a minus and then I have pluses. So your buyer needs financing, whether it's land or a house, the first instinct is, oh, seller financing. They always like, they ask that too. Will you carry back on a house? And sometimes it's a good solution, but most of the time, it's not my first choice. It's never my first choice. Let's just say that. I will be open to it. This is the House Academy Show so I'm going to talk about that first. Jill K DeWit:I would be open to it if it was a 30 day, 60 day, 90 day thing. We can see on paper what's coming down the pike. I am cashing in my retirement. Here's everything. We all know it's coming. Can you carry me just until this happens? And here's how it's going to play out. Those would be really the only situations I'd be open to. Jill K DeWit:But what's interesting, there's a lot of people that like this. They like them because they're note people. They want to buy them and have a note and sell the note and that's their thing. That's not who I am. I'm an investor. I'm not a note person. And I want to get my money and move on and do more properties. So before I talk about other solutions, you want to talk about seller financing? Steven Jack Butala:Here you have two options when you buy a piece of property correctly, the Land Academy way. Let's say you buy a piece of property for $10,000 and you know it's worth $20,000. You can buy the property for $10,000 and then put it on the market,
Career Path Starts Next Month in January (LA 1654) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: And welcome to the Land Academy show, entertaining land investment talk. Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about how career path starts, next month in January. And I've just been told that this has the possibility of being inspirational.
Jill K DeWit: Oh. I hope all our shows are, in some way.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Waiting for it, waiting for the teleprompter. Mitchell says, my second mailer is working. We have three good sellers who reach out to us, I would like to reach out to a local land agent and get his opinion on them. Do I need these tied up prior to speaking with said agent or is it okay to probe them, as I'm working with the seller? Oh, I would have them tied up. I want them to be that good. And you know what? Because things could go wrong. You don't know said agent and they don't know you. And so, I'll tell you what I personally do, Mitchell, I personally say, even though I only have a signed purchase agreement, I'm very vague about it with the agents, as far as how long I am in the process, because they don't know, I could have been in escrow for three weeks and it's still going to take three more weeks to close, kind of thing, they don't know that.
Jill K DeWit: But I do say, I'm getting ready to close on this deal, can you look at it please? And that tells them it's tied up, it leaves them with that impression and they usually don't do anything more than that.
Steven Jack Butala: Those are exactly right. So, it's all about the conversation you have with that agent. And the agent could be, 65 years old or they could be 22 years old, it's not that they... it's the tone and how you handle it. So, there's no real secret way that a real estate agent can call the county clerk or anyone at the county and get inside information. So, when you go on the website, let's say, you actually buy the property, then you call the agent. It's not going to show up anywhere on the website, like realtor.com or Zillow, as an ownership record, for quite some time. Sometimes years, sometimes it's months. I used to really worry about somebody going around the backend, for me, and it's never happened to me, thank God, and I don't really, really expect it. It's not a real concern but Jill's right, if they're good deals, if they're good deals, there's no reason, especially if they're in the same county, just tie them all up with an escrow agent, get an escrow- [crosstalk 00:02:42]
Jill K DeWit: Or you can just have a signed purchase agreement. [crosstalk 00:02:43]
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Oh, yeah. You have to have a- [crosstalk 00:02:44]
Jill K DeWit: And it depends on how it is- [crosstalk 00:02:44].
Steven Jack Butala: You have to have a PA.
Jill K DeWit: Even just a signed purchase agreement, Mitchell, is enough for you to double check your work and not go that far. Because, honestly, I would prefer you do it this way than, you don't want to open escrow on 10 of them and buy one because now this escrow agent is tired of you, because they started the process on 10 and you only do one. So, you want to move forward when you're really feeling good about it.
Steven Jack Butala: Feel great about the price, you go for it. That's why we have, would you do the deal section in Discord, so you can get everybody's opinion. And chances are, somebody in Discord or on the Thursday member call, chances are, somebody will really have a good local knowledge of what the deals looks like and whether or not you're going to make any money. Today's topic,
How One Land Academy Member Nets $75,000 per Month (LA 1653) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Speaker 2: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show: Entertaining Land Investment Talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Speaker 2: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from not so sunny Southern California.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about how one Land Academy member nets 75000 bucks a month.
Speaker 2: You know, I would first like to start with what we just talked about 30 seconds before we rolled. It's a blustery day. You don't like the sweatshirt look?
Steven Butala: Oh, Jill, you don't have to explain. You of all people do not have to explain one thing to like anybody on this planet-
Speaker 2: I like my little-
Steven Butala: Least of all-
Speaker 2: Cozy sweatshirt.
Steven Butala: Me.
Speaker 2: Well, here's the thing [crosstalk 00:00:40]
Steven Butala: I was just asking you about what it's all about.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm wearing a sweatshirt because it's a cold day, and I like to be all comfy in a sweatshirt, however, you could still say I have a butt and a waist because I'm wearing the right jeans, I hope.
Steven Butala: You have a butt and a waist?
Speaker 2: Yes. You can still see it. That's the thing if you wear ... What's really bad is if you wear a long sweatshirt, or a long sweater, and then like no one can see anything. You're like a big ball of fluff, and then like little legs stick out like leggings. That I don't like that look, and I won't do that look.
Steven Butala: Like you just lose all shape?
Speaker 2: Yes.
Steven Butala: These are things that men have ... It's never crossed a man's mind.
Speaker 2: Cinder block on sticks don't want that look. Anyway.
Steven Butala: Oh my gosh. How we veer so far from land so quickly.
Speaker 2: Well, you know.
Steven Butala: Anyway. This topic today, very briefly, this is a real story, we're not going to use any names or locations or any of that stuff, about a member that we have who was actually at the live event, and a pretty lengthy presentation about-
Speaker 2: Oh, great. Now, you're narrowing it down.
Steven Butala: His business model. And the reason that I'm bringing it up today is because no ones forgotten it. It's constantly this undertone of-
Speaker 2: True.
Steven Butala: "Well, I want to be like X. I need to do more like X. Member X has all this figured out." So, I want to kind of get into this, and figure out if it's actually a unicorn, what's real about it, what's unreal about it. I mean, and I'll tell you it's 80% positive, and we'll talk about the positive and negatives, but we still have to do deals. It's not like you're choosing to do ... I'll describe his business model in great detail.
Speaker 2: I'm sure you will.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.
Speaker 2: Aroldo ... I can never pronounce this name, I'm sorry.
Steven Butala: You got it.
Speaker 2: Aroldo asks, "For our first mailer should we keep the letter exactly as the download on Offers2Owners? I think it's all great especially for the sentence that says, 'We are partners with landstay.com who have been in business for 20 plus years, and have successfully completed 10s of thousands of purchases like this one.' I think that would help us with credibility. My gut just tells me to keep it simple and to just send it as it is to make it easy on myself. Any thoughts?"
Speaker 2: Look at that. Well, I see one of our members on here already weighed in. Member and moderator Kevin said, "Aroldo leave it the way it is until you know enough to change for some reason. In three years I've only made a couple of very minor changes."
Speaker 2: There you go. There's something to be said with aligning yourself. Well, A: Transparency. Number one, you never want to say it's you if it's not really you, and if you really are aligned with us,
Jill Friday - Identifying with vs Emulating Rich People (LA 1652) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Happy Friday.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today Jill and ... Well, it's Jill Friday, and Jill's going to talk about identifying with versus emulate rich people.
Jill DeWit: Do you want me tell you where this came from now?
Steven Jack Butala: I would love to.
Jill DeWit: Okay. So here's how this topic came about. I'm laying in bed, on my tablet, like most nights. And I'm just looking and I'm just looking at news articles and I jump into different things, and then I'm in Facebook and I'm like, "Here we go again. Grant Cardone got another airplane." I'm like, "How many times are we going to see this?" I'm like, "He went from the Rolls Royce, now he's kind of off that."
Steven Jack Butala: [crosstalk 00:00:48].
Jill DeWit: It was a lot of that for a little while, the Phantom. And the lights in the ceiling, we all saw that, and driving around and ... Okay, whatever. Now we moved on to ... Apparently I think he got a new airplane, he upped his airplane. And I'm like, "How?" And there's a picture of him and his wife and everything in there. And I'm just like, "Who does that sing to, because it doesn't sing to me."
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, it turns me off too.
Jill DeWit: That's kind of where I am. And if you notice about us, you don't really see us. We're not doing that. And I don't have a Bentley or Rolls Royce. And even if I did, I think I would attract the wrong people.
Steven Jack Butala: Yep.
Jill DeWit: I would not want to do that. There's stuff to have fun and share and things, but then there's times you're just like ... It's just, like I said, it sends the wrong message.
Steven Jack Butala: Let's take a question.
Jill DeWit: We'll talk about it. Okay.
Steven Jack Butala: I agree with everything you're saying, times 80.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill DeWit: Okay. Daniel wrote, "Thanks so kindly for your expertise and especially the call I had with you last year, Kevin Farrell." Oh, this is for Kevin. "The confidence I have gained with you as a mentor has led to a profit of around $90,000 in one month." Oh my gosh. This must be Kevin's reply.
Steven Jack Butala: No, no, this is all one thing.
Jill DeWit: Oh, the same thing. And he put, "Thanks so kindly. As you can imagine, it was a Thanksgiving for the record books, a 2225% return. God bless you and your family, my friend." Aww.
Steven Jack Butala: That was a good little Friday motivational ad for you.
Jill DeWit: Holy moly.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Wow.
Steven Jack Butala: Every time I make a bunch of money in one month, I multiply times 12 and see if it's going to be a good year. And honestly-
Jill DeWit: It sets the stage.
Steven Jack Butala: ... that next month becomes my thing.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Now I got to keep doing that.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: I know I can do it. I got to do it again. Aww, that's so ... And Kevin's awesome, that's wow.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jill Friday. She's going to talk about identifying with versus emulating rich people. This is the meat of the show.
Jill DeWit: Even with our friends, we don't walk around talking about it. "You know how much money I made last month?"
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: "Do you know how much money I made on this deal? Do you know how much money this did or that did," or something like that? I don't do that. We don't do that.
Jill DeWit: And he's dropping a number,
Jack Thursday - Breaking My Own Rules Equals Personal Growth (LA 1651) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Good day.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today is Jack Thursday, and I'm going to talk about how I break my own rules constantly, but it actually equals personal growth.
Jill DeWit: It's okay when you do it. It's not okay when I break your rules.
Steven Jack Butala: You know how when you're watching, yeah. If anybody's going to break my rules, it's me.
Jill DeWit: That's right. That's the only one.
Steven Jack Butala: The same thing happens if I try to break your rules.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Number three and I know that. Don't do that to dad.
Steven Jack Butala: You know how you, absolutely. You fast forward through whatever you're watching on Netflix, or Amazon, or Hulu, no matter how short it is-
Jill DeWit: Like people do to this show.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. I wonder if they listen to it at times four.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: Then they can detect when we say land.
Jill DeWit: And then tune in.
Steven Jack Butala: Like, not yet.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: This is all being fast-forwarded through.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala: Here's the trigger, if you're fast forwarding. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by [crosstalk 00:01:09].
Jill DeWit: Oh, that's a trigger? Oh, got it. Slow down now. Oh, my gosh. All right.
Steven Jack Butala: I had somebody email me two years ago and they said, "Look, I know what you're trying to do here, and the only real value to any of this is the question that you answer. So, can you please edit all that down, and the whole show can just be-"
Jill DeWit: The question.
Steven Jack Butala: "100 questions in a row, and save me a lot of time?" And I said, "Sure, absolutely. I'm happy to do that. I'll let you know on Thursday."
Jill DeWit: That was not visible on iTunes, so we could still keep our rating.
Steven Jack Butala: It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel, and comment on the shows you like. People say, people want stuff free. Did you ever notice since the internet kicked in, because we're old enough to know a time before the internet-
Jill DeWit: Uh-oh.
Steven Jack Butala: Where nobody expected stuff for free?
Jill DeWit: True.
Steven Jack Butala: Everybody expects everything to just be free.
Jill DeWit: I know. You're not wrong. Charlie wrote, "Does my bookkeeper need knowledge of the land business to be a good fit for us? I'm just looking for something that's cost effective for my relatively small number of transactions. I talked to Anderson Business Advisors, but I don't think my one to two properties per month warrants $170 minimum per month in bookkeeping. Maybe I'm wrong." Such a great question.
Steven Jack Butala: It's a great question, Charlie.
Jill DeWit: Especially, end of year here.
Steven Jack Butala: Actually, you're 100% right on everything you said. I actually have some experience in this. Here's what you want to do. And this is a whole module in Land Academy 3.0, which is coming out in January, about your business, setting up your business correctly. I realized that we never really-
Jill DeWit: Talked about it.
Steven Jack Butala: In the formal education.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Jack Butala: This is what I want you to do. I want you to make sure you have another bank account that's separate, and I want you to put some money in there from your personal bank account. Let's say $30,000, $40,000, or whatever number you're comfortable with. And all the revenue and expenses that you incur in your business, I don't care if it's building a website, or getting a phone number, or all the other things that are necessary to send a mailer out,
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We Now Use Real Estate Agents or Fixed Price MLS on Every Deal (HA 1650) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala:Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit:Hello. Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to the Land Academy Show. I'm sorry, the House Academy Show today. Entertaining real estate investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit. And we're putting up with his allergies again. Broadcasting from the valley of sun. Steven Jack Butala:Today Jill and I talk about how we now use real estate agents or fixed price MLS on every deal. Jill DeWit:I'm going to do that every time. There's something oh, sorry. Allergies. Steven Jack Butala:Nobody knows what you mean now though. Jill DeWit:Well, if you listened Monday and Tuesday, you do. Steven Jack Butala:Yeah. Jill DeWit:Okay. So you have to go back and listen. It's funny. Steven Jack Butala:Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill DeWit:Amy T wrote, "Just starting out in Land Academy and in the process of watching all the wonderful videos. Would the more experienced members suggest starting out with an inexpensive land and make some mistakes before moving to infill lots?" What did they say? Steven Jack Butala:Oh, I want you to answer please. Jill DeWit:Oh, what do I think? Steven Jack Butala:Yeah. What would you do? If you're brand new? You're into it, she's into it. What do you do? You buy little properties and just see what happens or do you buy bigger properties and kind of go for it? Jill DeWit:Comfort zone. I think it's your comfort zone. Because some people walk into, this is how I roll, I'm going to walk in saying, "Oh, I got this. Good, bad or otherwise, I'm going to make it happen." My head might be a little too big in some situations but I walk in with a lot of confidence in a lot of situations, most and say, "All right, what's the fastest way for me to take what I know right now and make some real money?" So if that's my attitude, I'm going to go right away, start following the steps and I'm going to mail out and go for some bigger properties, knowing that doesn't matter how much money I have, because there's plenty of people on this group that is going to fund it. I'm going to find a rocking deal. I'm going to use somebody else's money. I'm going to make 50 grand on my first deal and split it with the guy and now I got 25, then I'm going to do it again and again. Now I got a hundred thousand. I'm going to go, "All right. Now, what do I want to do? How do I want to do this? Do I want to fund somebody else?" That's how I want to go. Jill DeWit:But not everyone has that confidence. They're like, "I don't know. I'm nervous. I do want to make sure I like it. I do want to make sure that this is for me, because there's a lot of moving parts. I like your idea, the way you guys did it. I've got $10,000 set aside. I'm going to buy 10 $1,000 properties. I'm going to double those and then I'm going to get all the kinks out and now I'm going to go do what that guy did or what Jill did kind of thing, whatever." So I don't think there's a wrong way, it's just whatever you're comfortable with. Steven Jack Butala:I've never in my life accomplished anything worthwhile within my comfort zone. I'm going through this right now, because I'm recording Land Academy 3.0 for release in January and I'm breezing through it, quite honestly. And here's why, because when we did the first one, the Cashflow from Land Program in 2015, we had a very, very low budget. If you watch it, you can see that. And I had to- Jill DeWit:I'm sorry. Steven Jack Butala:I had to at my age. Jill DeWit:I'm so sorry. No, it was not recorded on our cell phones. Steven Jack Butala:Not that this is real high budget, but. Jill DeWit:This is true. Yeah. What's changed?
We Now Price above 60 percent (LA 1649) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about how we now price a lot of our mailers above 60%.
Jill DeWit: I was going to say, I noticed the other day you were showing me our podcast numbers and how well they're doing and how many people were gaining. And I took a step back and I thought, I wonder why? And it made me think about all the children that are using this at night to fall asleep.
Steven Jack Butala: I almost spit my coffee all over your face.
Jill DeWit: All the parents of those children who are turning us on to lull their children to sleep. You're welcome.
Steven Jack Butala: There's a conversation that Jill and I had right before we just threw the microphones on. We had a house full of people for Thanksgiving for several days. And so we watched them work and all the stuff we did.
Jill DeWit: One of them worked.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Let's be honest.
Steven Jack Butala: And so he's watching this regular biweekly webinar that this guy holds about investing in stocks. I wish I knew his name, and I was so impressed. I'm like, God, this guy really knows his stuff. He's a former CPA for a big three accounting firm. He's got gray hair, he's got allergies, and he wasn't really [crosstalk 00:01:24] no sidekick. And his allergies, he's just, hold on. He's like, hold on a second. Then he would go off the screen and come back. And it was clear he just blew his brains out.
Jill DeWit: Totally serious?
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: He muted and then you had to wait there for a minute.
Steven Jack Butala: Oh, yeah.
Jill DeWit: Oh, that's hilarious.
Steven Jack Butala: And I asked the guy that was staying with him, so I'm like, what's that? He's like, oh, yeah, he has allergies regularly. So whatever, and it was all business. It was all about the stock market. I think the stock market's going to do this. I think this sector, and this is why with graphs and the screenshots. And I'm like, you know what? People that want to buy and sell land are not getting that from this show.
Jill DeWit: I know. I'm like, we've mellowed so far this week. He's like, well, then, maybe we should be. I'm like, oh.
Steven Jack Butala: That's why this show works, because if I did a show, it would be like that guy's show and six people would watch it. If Jill did a show, it would be like the Bugs Bunny show.
Jill DeWit: That's true. It would be like that.
Steven Jack Butala: So there's something in between. And I don't know if that's good. I don't know if ... I don't know [crosstalk 00:02:29] Yeah. Let us know. Based on the people that join Land Academy, I think we're attracting the right people.
Jill DeWit: Right. They are very smart. They suffer through me.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. They listen to a whole 20 in show and get three sentences of valuable information.
Jill DeWit: There you go.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on our landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill DeWit: If you need to say excuse me and clear your throat or anything, go right ahead.
Steven Jack Butala: I know.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: It really angers you, doesn't it?
Jill DeWit: No, no. Apparently, it's okay because that guy does it. That's what I think is so funny. All right. Tony wrote, "Looking to get estimated selling price per acre in Blank County, Texas. They do not have many properties for sale and have a few signed purchase agreements. Most of the properties are between six and 12 acres. Any support or experience for selling in this county ...
We Now Site Visit on Our Own Properties (LA 1648) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about, we now visit all of our properties.
Jill DeWit: The ones we can get to. Wait, wait, I want to call this AK... What'd you call this week?
Steven Jack Butala: I called it breaking our own rules.
Jill DeWit: I call it eating our words week.
Steven Jack Butala: This week we're going to talk all about how really, what we're talking about is how our business model has evolved.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven Jack Butala: But yeah, I mean, stuff that we talked about on the show like a thousand episodes ago. Yeah.
Jill DeWit: I know.
Steven Jack Butala: Don't listen to that. This is better.
Jill DeWit: It's funny. We started land academy seven years ago now. I don't even... Going on seven years, I think, ago. But you started this business model in the nineties.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: So, there's been several changes over the decades-
Steven Jack Butala: Lot of changes last week.
Jill DeWit: ... that we've been in this business. Exactly. Just like parenting, I got used to saying, "Not my kid," and then of course, it's my kid. I'm now saying that to you. "Oh, we don't do that," and I'm saying, "Yeah, now we do."
Steven Jack Butala: Yep.
Steven Jack Butala: Our staff is famous for saying, "Three weeks of ago you guys said we were supposed to do this, this, this and this."
Jill DeWit: Yes.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, that was three weeks ago.
Jill DeWit: That's true. That changed.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on The Land Academy YouTube channel, and comment on the shows you like.
Jill DeWit: [Yuri 00:01:42] wrote, "Got an accepted offer for a really weird parcel. It's 4.5 acres. It's a 4.5 acre island in the middle of a river. I was wondering if anyone had any experience dealing with properties like this." These are great. I have. Yeah. We have. Go for it.
Steven Jack Butala: A lot of people, including me, had a lot to say on discord about this. And I said, "I love these types of properties," but here's the thing. They're almost never buildable.
Jill DeWit: Sure.
Steven Jack Butala: They have no access. All the things that we say... Again, this falls under all the stuff we... We say, "Never buy property that doesn't have access," and all of that. Yeah. This is never buildable. It's not going to be buildable, that it doesn't have access, but it's so unique that people love these types of-
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: I love to fish, and for five grand, I'd pick up a property like this just to say, "I own it." As long as the taxes aren't too small.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: Maybe I use it two or three times-
Jill DeWit: A year.
Steven Jack Butala: ... a year. And maybe I print the plat map up, frame it, put it in my office, and say, "I own an island."
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala: Here's the thing with these properties. They have to be crazy cheap, and you need to really disclose that, as my research shows, no access, super cool property, no access or boat access only, you're never going to develop on it.
Jill DeWit: And half of it floods-
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: ... twice a year.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: You know, something like that.
Steven Jack Butala: Completely. All the way over. Right?
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: This case, this property was in Missouri, and it freezes.
Jill DeWit: Oh. There you go.
Steven Jack Butala: Honestly, if the river freezes over, it's one of those situations,
Jill Friday - Doing Deals During the Holidays (LA 1647) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Stephen and Jill here.
Jill Dewitt: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Stephen Jack Butala.
Jill Dewitt: I'm Jill Dewitt, broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today is Jill Friday. She's going to talk about doing deals during the holidays.
Jill Dewitt: My favorite time of year and I will tell you why. I have four things for you to know, and number four is the best, and that's all I'm going to say.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question.
Jill Dewitt: I'm not going to tell you now.
Steven Jack Butala: Posted by one of our members on landinvestors.com, online community. It's free, and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel, and comment on the shows you like.
Jill Dewitt: Yu rewrote. Does anyone have a good system in place for handling people who want to be taken off the mailing list in quotes. Between multiple people emailing me and calling me asking me to be removed, without even telling me who they are most of the time, it's difficult to keep track of them at all. I was thinking about digging my offer there with more clear instructions. Thoughts?
Steven Jack Butala: May I?
Jill Dewitt: I'm sure we're going to say the same thing. Go for it.
Steven Jack Butala: Well, number one, it's great that they don't leave a message about who they are and here's why; we haven't talked about this in a really long time and it's something that's very important. The way that this mail merge is done or the way how we do mail merge and how I teach doing this mail merge, which is the mailer itself, is the culmination of me failing at it for 20 years. This is the one thing that works now. I failed and failed and failed and honed in and changed things and did stuff and made changes over here and the result is what we use now, which is why one of the reasons it's successful.
Steven Jack Butala: It's one of the reasons it's so successful is because most people think you sent out one letter, it doesn't look like it's a chain letter or a form letter, or any of that, the way that it's all put together, most people. They say, "Hey, I got your letter...
Jill Dewitt: "I got your letter".
Steven Jack Butala: Go pound sand take me off your list", because they think you just sent it to them, because everybody thinks that they have the greatest property there ever was. The people that are providing the hate here. The fact is they don't and the fact is we don't care. It's just a numbers game for us.
Jill Dewitt: Correct. Do you need to keep track of them? No.
Steven Jack Butala: No.
Jill Dewitt: Do you need to really go through your thing and put a line out through there?
Steven Jack Butala: No.
Jill Dewitt: No. Are you going to mail him again?
Steven Jack Butala: Yep.
Jill Dewitt: Probably not. Or even if you do, who cares? I'm not going to, by the way, if I do mail them again, it's going to be a ways down the road because I'm not going to immediately six months or six weeks hit him again. I'm moving on to a different area. I'm moving on to a different size. I'm moving on to something else. I'm not going to keep track. I don't care about that.
Steven Jack Butala: Of all the things you to do in this business, there's a lot of moving parts to it and it can and is extremely profitable once you get all the parts moving together. This is not something you ever need to worry about ever again.
Jill Dewitt: Totally. You know what? And here's what you do, Yuri on the phone, You don't even say, "whatever", with these people, you do let them think that you are when you talk to them and they say, "I need to be off your list". "I am so sorry. Got it. What's your name? Okay. You know what? I just took care of it. You won't get anything else from me". And then you hang up and then they feel good.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jack Thursday - Your Land Investing Niche Chooses You Not the Other Way Around (LA 1646) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: ... Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining, land, investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today is Jack Thursday, and I'm going to talk about your land investing niche that actually chooses you, not the other way around. This is not the first time we've discussed this on the show, I guess as is with most things, since we're on episode 1,646.
Jill DeWit: There might be some duplicates in here.
Steven Jack Butala: There's some overlap.
Jill DeWit: But you know what, though? I would argue there's a reason they come up, because we've figure out something new. I'm sure on show 646 we had different things to say about niche than we do 1,646, and know that's not a typo.
Steven Jack Butala: This is a very common theme that you hear in business all the time, about how the business that you ultimately are involved in, or choose... You think we make all these choices, and honestly, there's a lot of things that just chooses us-
Jill DeWit: Like women?
Steven Jack Butala: Like Jill chose me.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. I was just going to say that. Let's see, let's think about, what are a few things that you don't get to choose? You don't get to choose your children.
Steven Jack Butala: Boy, that's for sure.
Jill DeWit: And you don't get to choose your parents. And you don't get to choose your siblings, I wish I did.
Steven Jack Butala: But you can choose your friends, which is why you spend the most time with them.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. You can choose where you live. What you drive. You can choose how you look. You can choose your hair color. Wait, what do you have?
Steven Jack Butala: I don't know, we'll figure it out as we go here.
Jill DeWit: Oh, good. That's [inaudible 00:01:54].
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question post about one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel, and comments on the shows you liked.
Jill DeWit: Anthony wrote, one topic I would like to hear about is what people get... Oh, please. We're having a little, what's the word I'm talking about?
Steven Jack Butala: [inaudible 00:02:20].
Jill DeWit: Technical error. Okay. One topic I'd like to hear about is how people get wrecked in the land business. Oh, this is hilarious. Especially if you could add a cautionary tale. My take is that staying away from too much leverage is probably the key to not getting wrecked. I like the term wrecked.
Steven Jack Butala: [inaudible 00:02:41].
Jill DeWit: I never use that. It's tempting to finance a purchase or two with credit when your acquisition budget is maxed out. Property values go up and down, most of the time they go up, but if you are over leveraged during a downturn, that debt could be working against you on a leveraged basis. Not saying that we will see a downturn soon, in fact, I see the opposite, with inflation as a dominant narrative ATM, but it's prudent to know where the risks lie.
Steven Jack Butala: So I've been communicating with Anthony about this, and other things in Discord.
Jill DeWit: Wrecked?
Steven Jack Butala: I have a lot to say about this.
Jill DeWit: This is good, go ahead.
Steven Jack Butala: Because Jill and I were just about flat broke in 2009-ish.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: Which is about the time we met-ish. Prior to that, I had a yacht, and so we really, really, got wrecked by that downturn, and the only reason that we made it out of it, and I say this in every time we do a live event, multiple friends who were in the same business, not necessarily land, but somehow in real estate, in Phoenix at the time, either ended up dead, or filing bankruptcy, or both. And so,
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Affordable Housing vs. Affordable Cadillac Escalades (HA 1645) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala:Steven and Jill here. Jill DeWit:Hi. Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to the Land Academy Show, House Academy Show today. Entertaining real estate investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala:Today, Jill and I talk about affordable housing versus affordable Cadillac Escalades. Jill DeWit:Do you know before we start, I would like to follow up with something from yesterday, because I'm sure you are dying to know. I checked on Milli Vanilli, and let me tell you what happened here. In case you weren't sure, they were German-French R&B band from Munich founded in 1988. So what all happened everyone? Well, here it is. In July of 1989, they were doing fantastic by the way. I liked them, who didn't like them? Steven Jack Butala:Me. Jill DeWit:Okay well. But it was fun, easy to dance to, good music, right? Well, what happened was, they were on stage during an MTV concert and there was something wrong during the audio course. And they found out that they were lip syncing is how it all went down. And I will have to say too, one of them is still with us. One passed on and they actually performed in July of 2021 at some kind of a festival. And if you really want to know how it all panned out, the one, I will tell you, the net worth of the one who is still with us. I don't know his name here. But anyway, the one that's still with us. Oh, Fab Morvan. His net worth is, ready for this, everyone? And you decide if this worked out. $250,000. Not a million. $250,000. Steven Jack Butala:Oh my gosh. Jill DeWit:I know, bless his heart. Steven Jack Butala:I don't know how they know that, but. Jill DeWit:I know. He lives in France. Well, it's expensive in France. So anyway. Steven Jack Butala:I don't usually say stuff like this, but we have cars worth more than that. Jill DeWit:Yeah. Anyway, that's the update from yesterday. I thought that was funny. Steven Jack Butala:Oh, before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy, YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill DeWit:Charlie wrote, "I was told today the buyer and seller can use different title companies for the same transaction. Is this right? It came up because I want to use a title company that I bought the property with. But the seller requested a different one." Excuse me. "Anyone ever done this? I guess they're saying, do the title work with their escrow company and use mine for escrow slash closing." I wouldn't do this. Okay. So here's the scoop. Can I cover this? Steven Jack Butala:Yeah. Jill DeWit:Alright. Steven Jack Butala:Because, in all my years- Jill DeWit:[crosstalk 00:03:00]. Steven Jack Butala:All my years I've never heard of this. It's not like real estate agency. Jill DeWit:No, you don't. This is not how it goes. You're going to be paying double. If you're hiring. Because if you think you're using their title company for all the work and then your title company's doing something else. They're just acting as your transaction coordinator or doing double. Usually they're just going to go, "What?". They're going to go, "Why are you talking to me?". Steven Jack Butala:I think the answer to this is no. Jill DeWit:Right. [crosstalk 00:03:24] Steven Jack Butala:So everything else that Jill says after this is just information. In a good way. Not in a bad way. She's explaining why. But let's answer the question. Jill DeWit:No. Steven Jack Butala:No you don't ever really have two escrow and title companies. Jill DeWit:No, but let me clarify something, because I think this is where this gets confusing. What I do is I'm going to buy a property with tile insurance. And if I can get a hold open clause or carryover policy,
Rational Growth and Cash Flow in the Land Business (LA 1644) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Good day.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about rational growth and cashflow in your land business.
Jill DeWit: What if I don't want rational? I think I want through the roof growth.
Steven Jack Butala: Well, that's one of the reasons you're the girl for me.
Jill DeWit: There's nothing rational about anything that I do, is there?Actually, that's a whole nother show.
Steven Jack Butala: Yesterday, we answered a question from a person who said, "I just sent out a thousand mailers. I got five calls back after about two weeks." And you can go back and listen to the question, and the first 10, five calls or whatever were from people that-
Jill DeWit: Not interested.
Steven Jack Butala: ... We call it the hate. Just get me off the list. So this person, for whatever reason, that is within their comfort zone to send out a thousand mailers.
Jill DeWit: Our comfort zone is 20,000.
Steven Jack Butala: 20 to 80.
Jill DeWit: I know. At a time. He just lets them rip, by the way. I don't even know they're coming.
Steven Jack Butala: Would I do that my first week in the business? No.
Jill DeWit: Nope.
Steven Jack Butala: So, that's what we're going to talk about here. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy Channel on YouTube and comment on the shows you like.
Jill DeWit: Luke wrote, "I think it's going to be interesting to start a poll for everyone's average deal timeline from start to finish, meaning from the seller's signature to the end of the buyer's wire hitting the bank. Seems it's been longer with the corona backing up everyone, combined with forbearance ending, to jumpstart more investors buying homes." Is this home related or land related or anything related?
Steven Jack Butala: It's land. And I know ... This is Luke, right?
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Which Luke is it?
Steven Jack Butala: It's not the Luke you know.
Jill DeWit: Okay. Got it. All right. So, it's funny because I still have it all over the place. I have deals still where I put a sign in the ground and you go out and take pictures, and you have your photographer. If you're not doing this, please do this. You're in the process of buying the property. So while you're buying the property, you're already getting the photographer out there. So A, you get eyes on it by the way. Get your drone stuff done and you have everything ready to go. So when you own it, man, you can start marketing it right away. So one of the things that we also do too is put a stupid sign in the ground, as silly as this is. And I get calls and I'll sell property with a sign on the ground. I never even get to post a property for sale. So it's kind of all over the map.
Steven Jack Butala: So let's apply some deconstructive logic here. Jill covered the sales part, as she always does.
Jill DeWit: Thank you. That's all I know. I'm sorry. This is all I know.
Steven Jack Butala: In every deal, there's constants and variables. So let's very quickly take a look at the variables. Variables are all about you. Well, I'm going to assume you bought it for a great price, because that's what we do here, in a great area that has been vetted through the red, green, yellow test and the whole darn thing. So, you know it's going to sell quickly, and it is. So now you've taken out all the stress of 100% of it. Here's the constants.
Jill DeWit: Constant. That's a tough word.
Steven Jack Butala: The constants, S-T-A-N-T-S, I think. The issue is freaking title agent. That's the problem. Because we've had title agents ...
Career Path and Mobile Homes (LA 1643) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steven and Jill here.
Jill DeWitt: Good day.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWitt: And I'm Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I are going to talk about Career Path, a new product that we launched last year, or I guess in 2021.
Jill DeWitt: This year.
Steven Jack Butala: That we're going to pretty dramatically expand in 2022 in mobile homes.
Jill DeWitt: Yep.
Jill DeWitt: I would like to note, we are committed with a capital C. If you are picking up on a little like, oh, I don't know a hoarseness or raspiness to my voice. No, I have not taken up smoking. I've never smoked and I won't go there, but we're coming off the holiday weekend and I'll tell you right now, it's early for us. We are here recording way off our normal schedule because of the holiday.
Steven Jack Butala: Still people in our house actually.
Jill DeWitt: Are sleeping and they're sleeping. We're not, and here we are.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And if you are already a member, please join us on Discord.
Jill DeWitt: Scott wrote just a question of curiosity. I have sent out almost a thousand mailers so far and received five calls all from people who want to be taken off my list, LOL. How many times on average does your phone ring from about a thousand mailers? Just curious about the averages since it seems to be right at the edge of my first mailer being received.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWitt: I don't want to be overwhelmed in the calls while I'm still working through, during the day, or leave too many to go to voicemail. Just curious, what kind of average on phone calls I may get and have to deal with. Thanks.
Steven Jack Butala: So a lot of people commented on this and it's a very popular question. It's not one of my favorite questions because it's on Jill's side of the whole thing, but everybody.
Jill DeWitt: Because you don't like the phone.
Steven Jack Butala: Everybody kind of agreed, that it's about 2% is what you can expect. You're going to get a 2% response and for every 1500 mailers that you send out, if you do it correctly. Choose county correctly and do it all the way that it's all in the content of the education program, you should get anywhere between and five transactions for every 1500. You might just get one great one.
Jill DeWitt: Meaning buy it.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, buy it.
Jill DeWitt: Pull the trigger, buy it. So I'll take, so what is 2%? I'll take, I don't know, 40 calls, I'm going to say maybe calls, letters, things like that. People reaching back out and maybe even more with the hate, to be honest with you.
Steven Jack Butala: Two percent is 20 per thousand.
Jill DeWitt: Okay. So I almost say I get a little bit better average than that by the time we ripped it out.
Steven Jack Butala: Because you're chill.
Jill DeWitt: Well I know, but I'm answering the phone too. So like my team we make sure we get those calls. That's pretty good. The first wave too Scott, don't worry about it. The first wave is always people that are kind of mad at you, take me off your list, I'm not interested. Because the next batch is the ones that they've been thinking about it. They get at it, they put it on the fridge, it's on the counter, it's on their desk. They're like, okay, they open up your letter. They take it seriously. They're like, I need to look at this and I need to talk to my wife or whatever it is before I make a decision.
Jill DeWitt: And then a couple days, or maybe a week or even a month, they're going to either sign it and send it back or they're going to call you, and you're going to go from there. I do like you to send out a little bit more. I want,
Jill Friday - What Jill Learns from Her CEO Club (LA 1642) Transcript: Steven Butala:Steven and Jill here. Jill DeWit:Hello. Steven Butala:Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Butala:Today, Jill and I... Well, it's Jill Friday. And Jill talks about what she's learns, learns in a future tense, in her CEO club. Jill DeWit:Okay. We're going to talk about our November meeting, basically. Steven Butala:I hope you're stuffed full of turkey. Jill DeWit:I know, that's it. I hope you're shopping. I hope you are enjoying- Steven Butala:Not shopping. Jill DeWit:Well, hold on a moment. I hope you're enjoying Black Friday deals from the comfort of your couch. And watching football, and eating leftovers, and shopping on your computer. And it all arrives on time. Steven Butala:You know the Detroit Lions play on Thanksgiving? Jill DeWit:Thanksgiving. As do the Cowboys. Steven Butala:And the Lions lose. The Cowboys are so dope. Jill DeWit:And not lose to the Cowboys. Steven Butala:Before we get into it. Let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And please don't forget to subscribe on the land Academy YouTube channel, and comment on the shows you like. Jill DeWit:Erin wrote, "Short update on my first deal. Sure seems like it will be a success story. Closing on Friday at $13,800. I paid no attention to the legal description until I got my [inaudible 00:01:28] commitment back. Found out it's five lots on one PID." What's a PID? Steven Butala:The five lots on... it's his- Jill DeWit:Parcel ID or something? Steven Butala:Yeah, yeah. It's the [crosstalk 00:01:41] Jill DeWit:Okay. Just for tax purposes? Okay go it. "Can be split back into five lots for $175 bucks. And no wetlands or site evaluations needed. This is phenomenal. Neighboring lots sold for $19,900 last March. Thinking I'll make as much gross on selling the five lots as I do with my two in one year. And this is my first deal on my second neighbor." Steven Butala:It's outstanding. Jill DeWit:I love it. So you didn't... How sweet is this? Your seller didn't know. They would've told you, "You didn't know." [inaudible 00:02:18]. I'm closing. I'm like, holy moly. I'm actually buying five, I'm not buying one. This is great. Steven Butala:I had a similar story. I don't want to take the wind out of anybody's sail and I'm not trying to up the story here. Jill DeWit:Yeah. Don't take it away from Erin. Just kidding. Steven Butala:No, I'm telling you when these things happen. And you're starting to really exceed your regular job. And I'm not telling you to quit your job at all. But I'm saying- Jill DeWit:Talk about breathing. Steven Butala:Wait a year. And make sure you like it, and you can and continue it. But when you're starting to do single deals that exceed your whole salary for the year, it's time to think about leaving. Jill DeWit:Isn't that amazing? I just think about how well you're going to sleep now. Going, I just put, okay, great... No, it's so hard though because I've been in this situation. You realize your land business is now doing better than your day job. It's really hard to walk into the office with a smile on your face. Especially, when you're like every conversation, "oh, I want to tell them to shove it right now." You think I'm kidding? Steven Butala:No I'm too. Jill DeWit:Because I can afford to. Steven Butala:I lived it. Really. Jill DeWit:Yeah, I know. You know, what's so funny. So this is my truth time too. When I did leave, it was like I hung in there. Right. And everybody knew there was something going on. So when I finally sat my boss down and said, "I got to go." They're like, "I knew it." And then three people on the way out the door, are like, "Can I come with you? Can I work for you?" It was the sweetest thing. I'm like, "Sit tight. If I have a place for you,
Jack Thursday - Challenges of the Times We Live In (LA 1641) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steven, Jill.
Jill DeWit: Happy Thanksgiving.
Steven Butala: Oh my gosh. I hadn't thought about that.
Jill DeWit: Yep.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show and welcome to Thanksgiving. If you're listening to this, shouldn't you be doing something else right now?
Jill DeWit: You are sick of your family. Aren't you?
Steven Butala: You're obtaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the valley of the sun and hosting a big meal.
Steven Butala: Today is Jack Thursday. I'm going to talk about the challenges of the times we live in, Thanksgiving style.
Jill DeWit: This is the biggest one I've ever done.
Steven Butala: Shouldn't you guys have something better to do than recording a show and talking to us on Thanksgiving. Ah, we recorded that way weeks earlier.
Jill DeWit: I know.
Steven Butala: Right Jill?
Jill DeWit: But I'll post something. I'll do some stuff on social media today. So you can see our little bash in our event. This is the biggest bird we have almost 26 pound bird. It's awesome.
Steven Butala: That's one of two.
Jill DeWit: That's true.
Steven Butala: She's got a, Jill's a pilot. So she's got -
Jill DeWit: Backup.
Steven Butala: Redundancy.
Jill DeWit: Oh, I do. Yeah. There are backups.
Steven Butala: There's two of everything in case one fails.
Jill DeWit: That's true.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel. Comment on the shows you like.
Jill DeWit: Greg wrote. So listing on eBay question here, when I'm listing land for sale on eBay, what is the best day of the week and time of day for the auction to end? This is awesome.
Steven Butala: Here's my actual response. This is a question in discord. I'm going to, this is what I typed in. I'm going to read it to you and then Jill's going to make fun of it.
Jill DeWit: You have decades of, you have a lot of, years of experience.
Steven Butala: It said, hello, eBayers. Yeah. If you post or schedule a $1, no reserve 30 day auction on any Friday, any given Friday, it'll close on 30 days later on a Sunday. For a point of reference, we posted about at about 6:00 PM Eastern time or scheduled it. So it would close at that same time on a Sunday, 30 days later. With a decade long strategy, we sold about $20 million of property at an overall 60% gross margin. It took a staff of about eight people working full time and all that's associated with that, the expense and the drama. You can imagine. As a simple reference point now, and I'm going to make the, this is the point of the show. Fast forward to this year as a simple reference point, we'll generate about $2 million net, that's net, not gross this year, buying and selling land with a part-time staff of two, 10 and 90 nines, happily working at home.
Steven Butala: I'm not bragging here at all, but all of us in this land academy environment have all the tools, including all the money you would ever need and all the relationships to make millions of dollars a year with very little effort and risk and commitment.
Jill DeWit: I hope Justice you saw that post and read that, because that ties into what we were talking about last week on clubhouse.
Steven Butala: I spent decade -
Jill DeWit: That's really cool.
Steven Butala: We always had food on the table, Jill and I. I've always had food on the table, but we spent collectively and individually a lot of time failing at real estate and other stuff in life, so you don't have to. It's Thanksgiving, so that's what I want. I want to send that, convey that I hope you're as thankful whether you're Land Academy member or not, for everything, how this works. Today's Jack's Thursday. I'm going to talk about the challenges of the times that ...
Failed Anatomy of a Spec Home Deal (HA 1640) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining real estate investment talk. I guess this is the house academy show. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about the failed anatomy of a spec home deal.
Jill DeWit: So this is interesting, because now where we are with housing, right? People are talking about housing shortages. People are talking about getting things rezoned, so you could have more homes, like LA county, have more homes on a lot to make it for, so there's more places where people to live, right, and affordable. And it's interesting. And there's a lot of building going on. Not just renovating now since COVID and people are home, but a lot of people are moving and choosing to buy land. Yay! Happy for us. And put houses on there. And it's just mind boggling to me, some of these, I think very risky decisions that they're making. Especially, it's one thing to buy your own piece of dirt and hire your own architect. And it's your own money. You're not going to sell it. You're buying it to build for you and you're going to move in. That makes sense to me.
Steven Butala: Jill's emotional about this topic. Let's take a question first. And then we'll get into the show.
Jill DeWit: Save it. [crosstalk 00:01:25]
Steven Butala: Let's take it. Question posted by, members on LandInvestors.com. Online community is free, and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill DeWit: Host wrote, how would you price a mailer if the sold comps are 50% low than the for sale comps? So, sold is $40,000, for sale right now is $80,000. And each data set consists of approximately 200 comps. Well, first of all, I'd be high fiving myself because this is going up. It's becoming more expensive area. Is there more to it or is at the end?
Steven Butala: That's it?
Jill DeWit: Okay, got it. So, what do you want to say?
Steven Butala: There is brilliance and simplicity. And this is an absolute brilliant question from somebody in Discord that I have never heard of. I think they're new, and they're clearly smart. What they're saying is, I pull the data set and what we teach is you got to look at everything that's for sale, you got to look at thing that's sold, and this person's saying, there's 50% variance in this stuff. All the sold comps say they're 40,000. All for sales comps say they're 80,000. One of the moderators came in Kevin and said, first thing I check for is an error in data. Meaning, you might be the error Host, but I don't think that. It's what Jill said. Jill's initial thought was, hey, the market's going up so fast.
Jill DeWit: It could be.
Steven Butala: So that's one... No matter what, we can all agree this is a data exception. This is not usually what happens. So it fascinates me innately. Data exceptions fascinate me, not the normal stuff. We all know the normal stuff. So, maybe it's a hotness, market hotness thing like Joe says. Maybe it's a data exception like Kevin, our moderator says. Or maybe, you just do what I say all the time and follow the program. You take the $40,000, you take the $80,000, you average them out. That's 60,000, and you offer 10 or 20% of 60, 10% of 60,000 is six. So if you offer between six and $12,000 and you're right or wrong, at between 40 and $80,000 on the sale side, you win
Jill DeWit: That's easy. I would make sure too, that they sold $40,000 comps, one thing I forgot to add. I go in and toggle and back and forth and play with the... When was that? Because if all your sold comps and it's going back to the beginning of time, that's not good. But it's the last 12 months, now I'm feeling good. And everything for sale, because it really could be going up. Some areas it is this nuts.
Steven Butala:
Land Academy Shifts into Third Gear for 2022 (LA 1639) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Good day.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show. Entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit. Broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about how Land Academy is shifting into third gear for 2022.
Jill DeWit: You just brought this up on Clubhouse last week.
Steven Butala: I have. I have this thing about there are stages in everything. Usually four stages. Three or four stages in everything. So Land Academy is getting into stage three. Which, stage three of everything is the most exciting for me. It's like, "Yeah, we know what works!" I'll explain it all, but stage four is where it all works and you're just eating bonbons and hanging out. It's not that fun.
Jill DeWit: By the way, I was going to thank everyone who suffered through yesterday's show. It was kind of a hodge podge of topics. I think it was funny though. I just wanted to get that out of there.
Steven Butala: Oh yesterday's podcast?
Jill DeWit: We were all over the place. It's kind of like, "Who are these people?"
Steven Butala: You know, if your girl's like mine, the holiday season is here. So everything is a distraction from that. See, Jill's whole life right now is about Thanksgiving. By the time this airs, Thanksgiving might even be on.
Jill DeWit: It will be Tuesday.
Steven Butala: And then it's about Christmas after that. And then it's about New Year's. We have a tremendous amount of decorations for all of these holidays. It really starts with Halloween. So working for Jill is no fun.
Jill DeWit: What?
Steven Butala: Because it gets in the way of decorating and getting turkeys and stuff.
Jill DeWit: You don't work for me. You don't work for me.
Steven Butala: I didn't say that.
Jill DeWit: Oh, okay.
Steven Butala: I said, working for Jill is a real distraction against what she wants to spend time on, which is the holidays.
Jill DeWit: I didn't understand the way you worded that, but I think I know where you're going.
Steven Butala: It's a backwards compliment. So really Jill sitting here just doing the show is getting in the way of what she wants to do for Thanksgiving.
Jill DeWit: Oh! I'm like, where are you going with this.
Steven Butala: Mm-hmm.
Jill DeWit: I understand.
Steven Butala: That started yesterday with the podcast. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the show as you like.
Jill DeWit: Nick wrote, "I got a 50 acre ... Are we going to use this word?
Steven Butala: Fifty acre access list.
Jill DeWit: Thank you. Parcel for 42,000. He used the word that started with an L for those of you who are listening and I just hate that word. We both do. Before acquiring, we spoke with property owners around it until we came across a nice lady who was willing to give us an easement for next to nothing. Now we're under contract to sell. What did we buy for again?
Steven Butala: Fifty.
Jill DeWit: Fifty thousand.
Steven Butala: Forty two.
Jill DeWit: Now we're under contract to sell for $210,000.
Steven Butala: Buy for 42, sell for 210.
Jill DeWit: Because he made a call and found a nice lady who would give access.
Steven Butala: Because they got on the phone, ran down Joe's checklist for when you buy a property. Talk to the neighbors. And they made $158,000. More than that.
Jill DeWit: Ding ding.
Steven Butala: One-hundred and seventy.
Jill DeWit: Beautiful. Is there any more to it?
Steven Butala: Nope.
Jill DeWit: Okay. That was awesome. So there was really no question.
Steven Butala: No.
Jill DeWit: That was just a statement.
Steven Butala: This whole week is really a celebration of, because it's Thanksgiving.
Jill DeWit: Good.
Steven Butala:
What to Do When you Can't Stay on Your Own Schedule (LA 1638) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy Show entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about what to do when you can't stay on your own schedule.
Jill DeWit: Hey, for a minute. I was like, "I'm going to be just like the listeners right now. I don't know what this topic is about." And then I remember what we were talking about earlier. I'm like, "Okay, I got it." This came out of your intensive, right?
Steven Butala: Came out of a discussion that you and I had earlier-
Jill DeWit: Oh shit.
Steven Butala: ...about writing topics for the podcast this week.
Jill DeWit: Well, there is that.
Steven Butala: And it was your idea.
Jill DeWit: Thank you. Which came out of the intensive which wrapped up last week and I got to be a guest, if you will, on your last session, and that was very fun.
Steven Butala: Yup.
Jill DeWit: It was really cool.
Steven Butala: Totally.
Jill DeWit: Different groups. It was really interesting, I got to jump in on yours and you jumped in at the end of mine and we all talked about very different things. So it was cool. Awesome.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on thelandinvestors.com online community it's free, and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill DeWit: Greg wrote, "Bought this 1.29 acre lot up in the mountains of Eastern blank for $2,259 back in February. Last week, we're going to a nearby city from Pennsylvania and after ignoring this property for most of a year-
Steven Butala: Been there.
Jill DeWit: We just, right?
Steven Butala: Ignoring this, because he bought it, but-
Jill DeWit: You forget.
Steven Butala: He just didn't get around to sell it.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: Story in my life.
Jill DeWit: Now you're know, Greg, you see how easy it is to forget, what, "Oh yeah. I still own that. Oh yeah." Okay. So anyway, we decided to stop by and take some pictures, do a drone video, dash cam video, and then put up a sign. It was a beautiful sunny day and I got some great colorful shots from both the ground and from the drone.
Steven Butala: And so it's cool. He put all this in there.
Jill DeWit: This is it.
Steven Butala: He put the content in there, like the shot, you know-
Jill DeWit: The pictures?
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: That's cool.
Steven Butala: It was really cool.
Jill DeWit: After four hours or about four hours after we left, we got a call from a neighbor who had seen our sign and wanted to know our price. We hadn't quite settled on a price. So I told him somewhere around $16,000. He said, "I'm just curious" and local Tennessee folks wouldn't pay that much. But if you could get people from Florida to pay that, if not more. This seemed like an unusual but interesting opinion of the market value of the land in this area. So then, the next morning, this is so good. I get, "What did you pay?" You paid 2259, or something like that, right?
Steven Butala: Let's see.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Wow, I have good memory 2259 and he said it's only around 16. So then the next morning I got a call from another neighbor who was out for her morning walk and saw our sign. She said she lived very close by and was looking for land for her daughter and daughter's husband, both of who live in Florida and want to move to this state.
Jill DeWit: Given the opinion that I got from the local guy, I said that the price is $20,000. She thought about it for a minute and then said, "Yes." We now have signed purchase agreement and title company working on this. When all is said and done, we will make about $16,000 profit off our 2259 purchase. Although I was really looking forward to working on the listin...
Jill Friday - How to Sound Like a Professional Investor (LA 1637) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steven and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk... Well, it's Jill Friday, and she's going to tell us how to sound like a professional investor. I'm as excited and interested as this as you are.
Jill DeWit: Thanks.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it. Let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community, is free, and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill DeWit: Okay. Erin wrote, "What are some good ways to recover from a mailer that was priced too high?"
Steven Butala: I figure this is right up your alley.
Jill DeWit: Totally. This is hard. I know it, it's hard to get used to. It's so much easier to come in low and add money than it is to come in high and take away money. But I've done it. And so I was just taught. This is part... I believe is into the topic today. This is all because of the intensive training that I'm doing. We're week two of three right now. By the time this airs it will be over. And it's just how I get deals done. Whether it's the buy side, the sell side, all of that. And what do you do with you come too high with these people. First of all, I want you to take a step back and, and double check your math because maybe there's something to it that you're missing because it could be zone something special.
Jill DeWit: It could be in a very unique area. There could be some special attribute. So I never assume when people call in and say, "I like everything, but the price." When they say exactly like that. I will never assume that I'm wrong. I got to get some more information first. So I nicely say, "I may have goofed. Tell me what's going on." And then I ask a lot of questions. So say you've done that they came in... This is the opposite though. You price it too high. They love you by the way. Re roll back again. What's the exact question?
Steven Butala: How do you recover from a mailer that's priced too high?
Jill DeWit: Priced too high. Okay. So, and by the way, this is the funniest situation, because... Can you do that for me for a second? It's funny for me because everybody calls you back and they love you. That's usually how you know you did it. Like, "Oh no, I sent out a thousand offers and I got a thousand phone calls. Oops. I may have offered too much." All right. So, but anyway, you need to take all the information in and do it just like you would normally take all the calls down, take all the inbound information, go back, do your due diligence, pick the 10 best ones. Right? And then you got to re figure, what is the right price. And then you need to go back to them and tell them, "I goofed and here's why."
Jill DeWit: And it's not hard to come up... I mean, I will point out something that would make the property worth more and say, "I thought it was closer to town." I give them some reasons why not that I meant to buy it cheaper. I will never say that, but I will give them some reasons that shocks. "I hate to say this. I know I priced it at 10,000. I meant two. Here's the reason why I did not realize this was this far from X. I did not realize that the access needed a Y. I did not realize that you owed that much on back taxes." So you can come up with other things to do that... Don't do it on all of them. Still pick your best ones and then go back in and give them some reasons. And then let them respond.
Steven Butala: Every property's got flaws. Every property's got attributes. Great stuff about it. No two properties are exactly the same.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Butala: Point out the flaws, whatever they are and say, "Yeah, I offer you 10,000 bucks, but here's the deal,
Jack Thursday - Fishing for Land (LA 1636) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show entertaining land, investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWitt broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Butala: Today is Jack Thursday. I'm going to talk about fishing for land.
Jill DeWit: I like this.
Steven Butala: There's a lot of things about fishing.
Jill DeWit: There's a lot of talk about fishing right now with you.
Steven Butala: Well, I'm getting older and you know, this is what I told my bartender recently, I need a hobby.
Jill DeWit: Like you have one bartender.
Steven Butala: Yeah. One of the bartenders. I know, I know who's familiar with all my flaws.
Jill DeWit: Got it.
Steven Butala: And well, anyway.
Jill DeWit: Oh, well finish the sentence.
Steven Butala: Oh, I just need a hobby and I've always loved fishing. I grew up doing it. I grew up in Michigan, sometimes in Northern Michigan, and there's just nothing but fishing there. And we had a blast, lot of memories about that. And when you have children and jobs and things start things like Land Academy, there's just, you're pressed for time. And I'm getting to be the age where I need to start enjoying things a little bit more. There's enough money coming, buying and selling land all the time. We've got some good staff, Jill slowing down a little bit and you know I think bout fishing.
Jill DeWit: That's good.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the land academy, YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill DeWit: Buckley wrote: "My first mailer was 1900 units. I received over 10 responses with solid interest in selling. However, not a single one has a solid state or county maintained road access." That's okay. Hold on a moment. "Is it common to have so few replies with road access in a mailer this size, not sure if it's simply due the county I mailed or what plugging away, making the most of what I can though. Any thoughts are helpful." Well, what if it's a dirt road and it's still public and it's not like it's paved, but there's access.
Steven Butala: Sometimes you can read my mind.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, it doesn't have to be paved and plowed. It's not going to be that great. And depending on the area, this is rural. Let me back up here. This is rural vacant land everyone. Most of the time it is a dirt road. I'm happy with that.
Steven Butala: Sorry Jill, get in there. Go. I mean it.
Jill DeWit: Seriously, do you want an exit? Do you want your own exit sign with an arrow and a turnout or would you prefer a signal?
Steven Butala: How about cut in sewers and roads. No here's the thing..
Jill DeWit: Exactly. A big sign that says power right here. There's a blow thing sticking up out of the ground. Just kidding.
Steven Butala: We're not in the business of alienating Land Academy members.
Jill DeWit: No, no, I'm teasing you.
Steven Butala: But and I want to point out too, there's a lot of questions and comments and successes. I can choose from hundreds and hundreds of entries in discord when we do the show. I'm here to tell you, I'm not always picking the peaches and cream. Oh my God I made a million dollars on this deal kind of comments. So this is a valid comment. It's a valid concern from somebody who sent out a mailer, got a positive response and got a bunch of people that wanted to sell at his price. 10.
Jill DeWit: This is all good news.
Steven Butala: So that's good, good, good and good.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. [crosstalk 00:03:19].
Steven Butala: Actually it's great, right?
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: What your question is that is this well, one of the five A's is access and it doesn't appear to me that this rural vacant land has access. So I'm going to tell you little story,
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Why We Have Not Missed the Housing Boom (LA 1635) Transcript: Steven:Steve and Jill here. Jill:Hello. Steven:Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill:There was a long pause there. I'm Jill DeWit and we are broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven:Today, Jill and I talk about why we've not missed the housing boom at all. Jill:Personally or all of us? Steven:All of us. Jill:Good. Steven:This all comes from... Jill and I have children between the ages of, let's say 26, 27 and 18, and all of them and all of their friends have all throughout their entire... Let's call it late teens, early twenties have said, "Well, you guys are the generation or two generations before us. And thanks for wrecking everything." Jill:"You guys are the last homeowners," like, "Hold on a moment." Steven:To which I say, "I said the same thing to my parents," to which my parents have said, "That's what I said to my parents." Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community. It's free. And if you... Oh, please don't forget to subscribe, I should say, on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill:David wrote, "Could someone give me some insight? I'm closing on my first deal. It's a 9.37 acre parcel. And in 20 days, there's not a ton of comps in the immediate area, and I was originally thinking about trying to sell it for around 30 to $40,000. But I've been doing a deep dive on research and looking at active listings. I noticed two neighboring parcels at 1.4 and 1.3 acres sold at 10,000 an acre, but it took four to six months. I'm very tempted to list it for $79,900. Even 70% of 10,000 acre at 65,000 and some change I would be thrilled with. I don't want to get crazy and list"... Oh, "I don't want to get crazy and list too high"- Steven:That was my fault. Jill:"And have to sit and/or not sell. Am I getting too excited with the neighboring properties? I'm licensed. I'm probably going to list it myself. So, if I can get the buyers and save some money... But I'm tempted to consider using a local realtor. The MLS might be different than the local one, and I might assume a local realtor who's any good would have a better handle on the prices." Is that the end of it? Steven:Yeah. Jill:So, do you want to go first? Steven:Congratulations. This is working for you. I'm really, really glad. I mean it, you're going to get through this first deal. It's going to be a lot easier. You're going to look back on it and say, "Wow, I learned a lot and I can't wait for the second one." Just like your first marriage. So... Jill:Why do you do...? Steven:I do it to annoy you. Jill:Just poking me all day long. Does this happen to you? Poke, poke, poke. Steven:It didn't bother you. If you just sailed right through it and didn't listen to anything I said, I'd never do it again. Jill:Because clearly you don't want to get a rise out of me. Steven:Here's a couple technical things, and a lot of people in our group in Discord commented the same way. Price per acre on small properties... We take a one acre property and it's priced at $10,000. So, it sells for 10,000 and apply that to even an adjoining property that's 10 acres or 40 acres... You can't use that same number. [crosstalk 00:03:27] The higher the acreage number... If it's 40 acres versus one acre, the price per acre's going to be lower. It's called the bottle case theory. When you buy a single bottle of Coca-Cola and then look at the case price, it's always cheaper to buy it by the case. It's just a pure economics thing. That's why people who subdivide property for a living make hoards and hoards of money. If you take a 40 acre property and buy it for four grand and, theoretically, divide it into 40 properties and sell it for a thousand dollars each, now you... Jill:Buy four, sold it for 40. Steven:I'm grossly oversimplifying it.
Introducing Land Academy Garage Sale (LA 1634) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hey.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about what we're going to introduce: the Land Academy garage sale.
Jill DeWit: I love it.
Steven Butala: So do I and it was a smash hit. A lot of stuff we do, a lot of these [sub 00:00:20] and products that we do just don't catch on. We are in beta right here on this thing, and it really, really works. It's our way of internally auctioning off property that... Every land investor has a bunch of stuff, a bunch of [pieces 00:00:37] of property laying around that, for whatever reason, are accumulating taxes, they haven't gotten sold. They just fell through the cracks. I have properties since 25 years ago that we still have. And so, it's a $1 no-reserve of auction. We're just auctioning it off internally within the land academy group [crosstalk 00:00:56]
Jill DeWit: We have long written it off, and our loss is your gain.
Steven Butala: Yeah. And it's a blast. People are stealing property, and we're happy with it.
Jill DeWit: We'll explain more in a minute.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel, and comment on the shows you like.
Jill DeWit: Jake wrote, "This might be a fairly obvious 'do not do this', but does anybody know about the legality of using pictures of another lot that is essentially the same in every aspect as yours, from the internet to help market your own property online?" Well, I have a lot to say about this.
Steven Butala: Go ahead.
Jill DeWit: Well-
Steven Butala: So do I.
Jill DeWit: Because we have personally taken for... As Land Academy member, you may or may not know this, you have access to a library of photos in several areas that we took, and made available to you when we launched the original cashflow from land program. We gave these photos, we took them. You took them. And back then, you or our engineering people, took these photos. And so they're ours. It's not like it's proprietary, we stole them or anything. No. They're ours, and we have given permission freely to use them.
Jill DeWit: So the point, though, is we want to make sure you say... you have to properly say that these are of the area because it doesn't happen so much anymore. But sometimes you have properties in a, say a subdivision or certain area, maybe you own four or five 10. I don't know. You don't need to send the same guy out there 10 times. But you can, especially now with Google maps and Google earth and things, people can really look in and see that property really with detail. And back then we couldn't. So I have no trouble with this as long as you're not stealing it, A. Don't do that. Like you're not getting it off Canva or something like that. And then B, you let them know that maybe you took the... "This is a lot next door I visited last week. You can see it over here." You may or may not... You don't agree with me?
Steven Butala: No. I just waiting, actually.
Jill DeWit: I can't tell you're if agreeing or not. So anyway, you just properly say it's of area.
Steven Butala: I would say I agree with you Jill, and now and forever.
Jill DeWit: Okay. Yeah, I'm sure you would. I said, "Don't worry about that. You know what toes you're stepping on. If you think there's any legal issue, then definitely don't do it." But if someone says, "Sure, use this. It's fine" in the email or whatever, yeah. Go.
Steven Butala: I have one word for you. And if you're a note taker or you're actually listening to the show, or if you're cooking dinner and you're listening to it, please listen to this.
When is it Time to Seek Professional Help (LA 1633) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about when is it time to seek professional help?
Jill DeWit: No, we don't mean marriage counseling, or whatever issues that you're having.
Steven Butala: Are you sure? I disagree. There's no way we can do this episode without addressing this stuff.
Jill DeWit: Oh, okay. Got it. That's not where I was going, though.
Steven Butala: Every week Jill and I sit down, usually pretty briefly and say, "All right. Let's come up with five topics," and so first thing I do is I go into Discord and see what's on everybody's mind and try to make this some semblance of intelligent. That's not what Jill does. She goes off and she's like, "This is what people need. We need to-"
Jill DeWit: And this is my topic. You can [crosstalk 00:00:53].
Steven Butala: I know. This is Jill's topic. That's my point.
Jill DeWit: It's clearly mine.
Steven Butala: It started out, what she really meant was this.
Jill DeWit: We'll get to it.
Steven Butala: Okay.
Jill DeWit: Okay. It's-
Steven Butala: I can-
Jill DeWit: We'll get to you in a minute.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, maybe we need help. Let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill DeWit: James wrote, "Kevin, I appreciate you simplifying problems such as pricing and picking the county and help me get past analysis paralysis. I'm finally closing on three deals and will continue to seek your safe consult to get me past stock points."
Jill DeWit: Kevin wrote, "I've been watching your discussions here and you are looking good. Keep up the good work." I like this little blip, because it does tie into today and what I'm talking about. Pro help means someone beyond you.
Steven Butala: Kevin Farrell is one of our moderators. He is the Discord moderator. He's presented at our live events. He's truly doing this to give back and help everybody and do deals with everybody. He's coming at this from his heart.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: He's just a great guy. I can't say enough good stuff, and his advice is correct.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: Today's topic?
Jill DeWit: I'm waiting for the topic [crosstalk 00:02:17]
Steven Butala: When is it time to seek professional help? This is the meat of the show.
Jill DeWit: Okay. So here's what I'm talking about. And it's not necessarily someone that's beyond you, so that's not really correct. Maybe it's someone who's doing something totally different that you want to learn from.
Steven Butala: Maybe it's Kevin.
Jill DeWit: I happened to, just the other day, I jumped on somebody else's Clubhouse chat. It was the funniest thing. Halfway into this guy's chat, it was on mobile homes and mobile home parks. So I'm like, "Okay, I want to hear what this guy's saying," so I jumped in the room and there was nobody else on stage. It was just kind of him talking. I think he answered some questions early on in the call. But at that point it was just him. He said something to me that, of course, struck a chord, so I raised my hand.
Jill DeWit: If you're in Clubhouse, you know what I mean. You raise your hand and you get invited on stage. So for the second half hour, it was just this guy and I talking, and everybody else is listening.
Steven Butala: Darn, Jill.
Jill DeWit: It was so funny because we had a great conversation. I think what it was, I [inaudible 00:03:16].
Steven Butala: You co-hosted his show. There's a little bit of cheating going on here.
Jill DeWit: I kind of did, and he really thanked me. It was so funny. He's like,
Jill Friday - It's about Connecting with People, Not What You Know (LA 1632) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Howdy.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today is Jill Friday, and she's going to talk about how it's all about connecting with people and not really as much about what you know.
Jill K DeWit: Yep. So you've heard Jack this week talk about these intensive trainings, and his is Get Your Mailer Out. I'm doing one too. And mine, it's really called, How Jill Gets Deals Done. And I'm really trying to have everyone take a step back and think about ways and how, and techniques and words and listening to connect with people, because you're going to get more deals out of it. You mentioned that, I don't remember what day it was, we were talking. It was a data heavy day and you were mentioning, "This is all great. You want to improve your mailer yield? Do what Jill does." And that's what this is about today. Thank You.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Buckley wrote, "Evening all, hope everyone is well. I'm reviewing emails from a mailer or the PATLive recorded calls. If the seller states they're not interested in selling, is it still worthwhile in following up and asking why or just leaving it be and moving on? The sales part of me moves towards ..." This is good, by the way. "The sale is in the follow up, but being my first mailer, I'm trying to put good energy into what is deserving and worth the time. Day job consumes a lot of my time, so I'm trying to put focus on where it's needed. Thanks guys."
Jill K DeWit: So this is good, because this is actually stuff that we talked about. I've already, at the time of recording, I've got through week one of the session. And week one was a lot of theory and concepts and all that. And my first goal is you answer your own phones, because you can form that connection right away, find out what you need to find out, Buckley, and you'll know yourself. But you're just getting a message from a service. So what I'm talking to everyone about is, you got to, based on the feedback that you get, you need to see. Maybe you could tweak your questions with PATLive or whatever service you're using to find out, is it a price reason. Is the reason you're not wanting to sell because of price? That's easy. And then you know you need to call them back.
Jill K DeWit: So, whether or not you are able to answer the phone, that's okay, but you still need to connect with them the first time that you do talk to them, and it probably is going to be in the follow up. So I tell people whether it's a voicemail ... My goal is not to have these scenarios, but sometimes life happens. You get a voicemail maybe, you get an email maybe, you get something in the mail back maybe. Any indication that there might be something there, I do reach out, just to find out for myself. It's too easy to bust out those phone calls, set up some time, "Thursday afternoon when I get home from work, that's the time I bust out these calls," just to see if there's some juice there, and then you'll know.
Steven Jack Butala: Can I ask questions?
Jill K DeWit: Absolutely.
Steven Jack Butala: What if you don't like talking on the phone? You loathe it.
Jill K DeWit: You need to get over that, and that's what this is about too. I'm really trying to help people. I think people who think that they're loathe it's because I think that they're not good at it.
Steven Jack Butala: No, I don't think so at all. I think people loathe it because they loathe it, because I'm one of those people.
Jill K DeWit:
Jack Thursday - Get to Know Your Zip Code (LA 1631) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today is Jack Thursday. I'm going to talk about getting to know your zip code. And I can promise you this, this has nothing to do with the real estate, mailers, data. It has to do with your zip code and your life.
Jill K DeWit: I'm thinking of all the times you use that phrase. "Jill, get to know your equipment. Jill, get to know your staff. Jill, get to know your job description."
Steven Jack Butala: Get to know your life partner.
Jill K DeWit: Get to know your life partner.
Steven Jack Butala: Your job description?
Jill K DeWit: I don't know. "Jill, get to know how an oven works."
Steven Jack Butala: What?
Jill K DeWit: No, I know how that is. They were like ... You use that phrase, that's one of-
Steven Jack Butala: Okay.
Jill K DeWit: Your phrases.
Steven Jack Butala: Hold on. Let's put the breaks on this. Between the two of us, trust me on this, between the two of us, one of us is a pilot, one of us isn't. One of us is extremely technical and applies a checklist to everything. So when I say, "Get to know," fill in the blank, it's a joke.
Jill K DeWit: Okay.
Steven Jack Butala: Because really it's like, I need to get to know the oven, not you.
Jill K DeWit: Okay, thank you. I appreciate that.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Aaron wrote, "Do you ever look at demographics when choosing a place to send mail?"
Steven Jack Butala: The answer is very directly, I used to and I don't anymore. And because the red, green, yellow test and the tests that I run smoke all that stuff out. What Aaron's really asking is, is it better to buy properties in affluent areas or-
Jill K DeWit: I was going to say.
Steven Jack Butala: ... better to buy properties in Rust Belt, deteriorated inner cities. And the answer is, I don't care about any of that at all. What I care about is a red, green, yellow test, and whether or not days on market fit in my parameters. Whether or not how many properties are listed this month versus sold are in my favor. As an investor, I care about just the statistics that will lead to a real successful mailer.
Steven Jack Butala: But invariably, there are innate problems with buying properties on both ends of the bell curve. In really affluent areas and in really rundown areas, both of those markets have undesirable characteristics for an investor. I want to be in the middle of everything when it comes to buying and selling land, or slightly to the ... It doesn't matter which way, the numbers all come out to show us where to send mail.
Jill K DeWit: Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala: Today is Jack Thursday. Get to know-
Jill K DeWit: I concur. Jack, correct.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jack Thursday, get to know your zip code. This is why you're listening.
Jill K DeWit: Isn't that's funny, people ... Hold, please. People just dream up stuff. It comes back to some other days that we talked about this this week, people are dreaming up writing the algorithm and all this stuff. There's some secret. I'm sure.
Steven Jack Butala: That's it, Jill.
Jill K DeWit: I'm sure-
Steven Jack Butala: There's some secret.
Jill K DeWit: ... that if I spend a month on this and do nothing, but try every little thing, maybe demographic, maybe it's money, maybe it's age, maybe it's education, maybe it's the weather in the area. How many snowbirds come in, I don't know. Maybe there's some secret sauce that no one else has got and I'm going to be the one to find ...
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Zillow's Buying Spree Gone Wrong (LA 1630) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala:Steve and Jill here. Jill K DeWit:Hello. Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to the House Academy show, entertaining real estate investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun. Steven Jack Butala:Today, Jill and I talk about Zillow's buying spree and how it's gone wrong. Jill K DeWit:I feel bad. Steven Jack Butala:I don't. Jill K DeWit:I know. Steven Jack Butala:I feel great. Jill K DeWit:I know. It's true, but somebody's head's going to roll. Steven Jack Butala:Zillow is pretty much a household word. It's a place to go look at what's for sale for all real estate types. It's a place to go get data. It's a place to post properties. If you buy, like us, buy and sell land. And it's been around for a while. I'll give all the stats here in the regular show, but they started in 2005. And as a tech company, are a huge example of success. And recently they decided to go buy a bunch of houses under the guise of, well, we have all the data, we're going to make better decisions and it totally backfired. And I've been on record saying that they're what's called an iBuyer, which is a... It accounts for 1% of all the acquisitions for SFRs in the country, which sounds like a lot, but it's not. I'll get into the numbers in a minute here. Jill K DeWit:I have numbers too. Steven Jack Butala:Oh, good. Jill K DeWit:Just don't think that I can't come up with numbers. Steven Jack Butala:Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill K DeWit:David wrote, hi, Jack. After Career Path, I've done six land deals that I probably would've walked away from if I didn't go through Career Path. So I want to say, thanks for that. I still haven't sent mail for land yet because my house flipping business has essentially doubled in volume. I range about 13 deals per month over the last four months. It's a lot. Steven Jack Butala:So, I remember David during Career Path. Jill K DeWit:That's a lot, that's great. Steven Jack Butala:He's a franchisee of a very popular home company that advertises on 800 Number, where if you want to sell your house you can get an offer. And so what he's saying here is, Career Path really helped him with being a franchisee for this company. Just gets me thinking. Jill K DeWit:So, just hadn't had the capacity to add another asset class yet. I actually went through the process of putting together and pricing mailer with concierge data and offers to owner. But my team's a bit overwhelmed right now. So, I'm holding off until they catch their breath. I've heard through the podcast that you and Jill have started doing a little more with House Academy. Right now, we're aiming to start that in the first quarter, after I'm completely out of X company. Jill K DeWit:I actually think it would be a little easier to lift to add the land/house [inaudible 00:02:46] process to what we're doing in the flipping business. Now in a perfect world, my business would never rehab a house again, kudos to that. With that being said, are you still doing consulting calls? And where could we cover some of that? Or are you planning any additional training, like the intensives that you're doing or Career Path, that focus on houses? If some definitely interested, hope Paul as well. Thanks, David. Steven Jack Butala:Next year, we're doing all that. We're releasing multiple Career Path scenarios because everybody wants it. And we will focus on houses with one of them. For sure. Jill K DeWit:I agree. Steven Jack Butala:Today's topic, Zillow's buying spree and how it's gone wrong. This is the meat of the show. Around 2005, Zillow was created by private investors. They raised up a bunch of capital through a company call...
Improving Mailer Yield is Fiction (LA 1629) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about improving your mailer yield and how it's fiction.
Jill K DeWit: Sounds very technical.
Steven Jack Butala: It's not.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. It sounds technical.
Steven Jack Butala: Actually, this is more of a chill topic than anything else. And at the end of this, there's just a massive compliment for you. And I'm not trying to get anything from you, but it's true.
Jill K DeWit: Are you sure?
Steven Jack Butala: We'll see what happens. There might be-
Jill K DeWit: If you were trying to get some ... Let's just talk for just a moment here. Let's pause. Time out. If you were trying to get something from me, what would it be?
Steven Jack Butala: Smiles.
Jill K DeWit: Oh. That's not what-
Steven Jack Butala: I work for smiles.
Jill K DeWit: What the heck? That's hilarious.
Steven Jack Butala: Do you ever see people like walking around Manhattan with the sign that says-
Jill K DeWit: You're kidding me.
Steven Jack Butala: ... "Hug me," or, "I work for smile"?
Jill K DeWit: I've never seen that.
Steven Jack Butala: That's the fastest way to get murdered.
Jill K DeWit: Are you serious? People do that?
Steven Jack Butala: Oh, yeah.
Jill K DeWit: Not anymore, probably.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, probably not. They're probably in a hazmat suit.
Jill K DeWit: Wow. Not for hugs. Oh my goodness. I'm trying to think, what would I be working for? You know what? Hey, truth time. Okay. I smile all the time. This is a fact.
Steven Jack Butala: Yes, you do.
Jill K DeWit: That's easy. So, you're not being totally upfront here, but-
Steven Jack Butala: Didn't take long to get off topic, but here we go. This is the conversation Jill and I had in the car on the way back in the RV, looking at some real estate recently. What's your love language? what are the five love languages? Do you have this memorized?
Jill K DeWit: Touch, acts of service.
Steven Jack Butala: Acts of service.
Jill K DeWit: You think I'm kidding? Words of affirmation. You guys know what I'm talking about. Affirmation. And then God, I can't remember the other ones.
Steven Jack Butala: There's five.
Jill K DeWit: Right.
Steven Jack Butala: Touching, compliments.
Jill K DeWit: But that's affirmation.
Steven Jack Butala: Doing stuff.
Jill K DeWit: Acts of service. That's acts of service.
Steven Jack Butala: Which is doing stuff.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. I can't remember-
Steven Jack Butala: There's other ones, two other ones. It doesn't matter.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah, I don't remember.
Steven Jack Butala: We both very quickly realized it's all acts of service for us.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah, but they're different acts of service. I can't believe we're doing this. This is really truths time. My acts of service is like thank you for clearing the table. I didn't have to say anything, and I just turned to around and you took care of the table and the dishes. I'm like, that's awesome. Or even just lining up dinner and I don't have to think about it. Thanks. Your version of acts of service, or doing something as you call it, is showing up to this podcast on time.
Steven Jack Butala: Or starting a company without me knowing, and then it turn around and makes all kinds of money. That's a great act. You're the girl for me.
Jill K DeWit: Thanks.
Steven Jack Butala: Or buying a piece of real estate that generates a ridiculous return and a whole thing, I didn't even know about it.
Jill K DeWit: Right. It's funny.
Steven Jack Butala: So, yeah. But it's not touch or anything like that. I mean, all those things happen, but for both of us.
Jill K DeWit: Affection, like I like it,
Who Exactly are You Doing Business With (LA 1628) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steven and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWitt broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today Jill and I talk about who exactly are you doing business with?
Jill K DeWit: I know who I'm doing business with. Do you?
Steven Jack Butala: I know who my partners are.
Jill K DeWit: Okay, got it.
Steven Jack Butala: Very much who my partner, singular, is.
Jill K DeWit: Got it.
Steven Jack Butala: I honestly ... After this whole incident went down in Discord, which I'll explain in a second here.
Jill K DeWit: Okay.
Steven Jack Butala: Got me thinking, you know what? I actually, we have all these members, I have no idea.
Jill K DeWit: Uh-oh. I'm a little worried.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: James wrote, okay. This in quotes [crosstalk 00:00:55]
Steven Jack Butala: This is in the rant section of discord.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. "I was on the phone today for over an hour and a half trying to cancel contract with an agent for two parcels of land that I have listed with him. The longest periods of silence was over 12 minutes." Are you kidding me? I've never had these...
Steven Jack Butala: This sparked a...
Jill K DeWit: This is hilarious.
Steven Jack Butala: ... Very valuable discussion, I think, in discord, obviously worth an episode.
Jill K DeWit: This is hilarious. Okay.
Jill K DeWit: "As I waited for him to be the first to respond at the end of it, he wouldn't agree to cancel the contract. We will try again tomorrow night. The total commission to him for both parcels would be $9,000 when he is actually able to sell them. There is a large perspective gap between us. I want to take less time and I'm happy with less profit. And he wants to take as much time as needed and maximize his end. Very, very frustrating. And one of hours of my life spent on something I didn't want to. However, I learned a lot. So it may ultimately be worth it and learning the lesson of who not to list with is priceless. Thank you for reading really just needed a sympathetic and understanding audience. Now to go meditate." This is funny.
Steven Jack Butala: Since when does a freaking real estate agent have anything to say about how much you list your property for? This goes on.
Jill K DeWit: Wow.
Steven Jack Butala: In this scope of this episode. And believe me, I got involved and told stories and I'm going to tell my story here in a minute.
Jill K DeWit: Okay.
Steven Jack Butala: This is a non-exclusive agreement. So it's not an exclusive contract. Okay? So if, if the meaning, which is very unusual, meaning the agent has to bring the buyer, so to get paid, to get paid, right? So if he goes, if land academy member goes up and sells a property by somebody, he generates, he doesn't have to get paid.
Jill K DeWit: That's amazing.
Steven Jack Butala: This is just an example of there's just a lot of people you need to know who you're doing business with before you start signing stuff and he didn't do anything wrong. I've been in this situation before too. Again, I'm going to tell a story.
Jill K DeWit: Sometimes you don't know, people can, don't say I had a whole marriage like this...
Steven Jack Butala: That didn't cross my mind until now.
Jill K DeWit: I've been waiting for you to say...
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah get to know who you're married to.
Jill K DeWit: But some people go into it and lead you to believe that there's something that they're not. And when there's a ring on the finger or the paper signed, maybe then the truth comes out.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill Friday - Land Academy is a Support Group (LA 1626) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Happy Friday.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today is Jill Friday. She's going to talk about our Land Academy and how it's a support group.
Jill DeWit: It's funny.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, do you want to give a little prelude on what you're going to talk about?
Jill DeWit: Nah.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill DeWit: Steven wrote, "Results of the first mailer. Now that the recension date has passed ... Now that I paid for all the mail, the education, the data, subscriptions, and a good chunk of change on top of that." So let me back up and just, I want to explain this real quick here. So Steven said, okay, I joined Land Academy. I paid for the education, data, however many months of subscription for the data, all the mail I just sent. I sent out all these offers. And then we have a date, usually it's like 90 days that, it's either 60 or 90 days, that we suggest to have on there as an expiration date that the offer is valid for. Is it ready?
Steven Jack Butala: On the actual offer that we send out to each person, there's a date that says-
Jill DeWit: Right, that's valid for.
Steven Jack Butala: ... it's valid for X date, and it all expires after that date.
Jill DeWit: Right. So Steven is saying, the reason is he's saying it like this too, it's hard to track how well your mailer does because there's so many things that come in after that date. Even though we say it's expired, someone calls me up, I'm still going to talk to them. I still might buy it, even for years past that. It's just a call to action. So Steven said, all right, no matter what, in this first time period, 60, 90 days, whatever he used. Oh my gosh, it already paid for all the mail, all the education, all the data, everything, and I've got money leftover. So this is like, congratulations, it's perfect.
Jill DeWit: He goes on to say, "I had someone call after the offer expired, and that is currently in escrow, as well as another property, which was offered by a seller after I closed on a different property of his. He has a third property for me after this one. This is already a life-changing experience. Thank you, Steven and Jill." Oh, congratulations, and thank you for sharing that.
Steven Jack Butala: It's endless. It's endless, the number of ... We've sent millions of offers out and it's just endless what goes on.
Jill DeWit: I'm so happy.
Steven Jack Butala: Today is Jill Friday. She's going to talk about how Land Academy is a support group. This is the meat of the show.
Jill DeWit: So, it's interesting how this all came to be. So we, way back when, starting Land Academy, it was just us in an education program, answering as many questions as we could pretty much via email or maybe in social media posts and things like that. We quickly realized it's better to help more than one at one time, and we created an online community. It was landinvestors.com, which is still there, and alive and well. Still online stuff. We're still in social media things. And then it morphed into our weekly calls, morphed into Discord. And it's just so much interaction. And where we are right now today, is everybody's helping each other, and I love it. It's so wonderful to me. The beauty of having a community is you don't feel like you're on an island. It's so nice.
Jill DeWit: I wish we had started with a weekly member call from day one because it would have been like right there. It's just a calming thing. When you join Land Academy,
Jack Thursday - Distractions from Success (LA 1625) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steven and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today is Jack Thursday and I'm going to talk about distractions from your success.
Jill DeWit: Oh, I bet you have a whole lot to say.
Steven Jack Butala: What's the biggest distraction that you experience? What's the thing standing in your way? Besides me, standing in your way of being the successful woman I know is inside of you.
Jill DeWit: Wasting time on deals that are too small.
Steven Jack Butala: Beautiful answer. Wow, that didn't take long for you to answer.
Jill DeWit: No, it didn't, because it was perfect timing. I just came in from my desk and I'm looking at-
Steven Jack Butala: Tell us the story.
Jill DeWit: I'm looking at deals... Here's the good news, some of these are coming in and I have... My transaction coordinator has been with me long enough now she knows what my answers are going to be. I just wrote her back saying, "Hey, you know what, you're right, this, this, this and this. You know what I'm going to say no to. Please take ownership of that and only loop me in now when we're at this level." Because I'm wasting time going what the heck, I shouldn't even be looking at this. And some of them is like, it's too small a deal and we're not even sure about the access. Why am I even looking at that?
Steven Jack Butala: My answer is, it's just working on stuff that doesn't yield a dollar.
Jill DeWit: That too.
Steven Jack Butala: And so that's, we'll talk about it in a minute, but it's hard to... This show doesn't make any money. It doesn't make a dollar. In fact, it's a total time suck and it's a money suck, but it really works. It really helps people and it converts the right people to becoming Land Academy members where they can make a ton of money for themselves and contribute to the group, so that makes money. It makes everyone money. So there's this balance between, in Jill's case, and I don't want to put words in your mouth, but it's like, should I do this deal that's really small and kind of risky, but I know this person that's submitting it is going to be a superstar. That's what this show's about. Are they distractions or not? We don't know. You just don't want to go down a rabbit hole, that's my point. Right?
Jill DeWit: Well, I'll tell you another truth time thing. As a matter of fact, I have one deal that I fund. I just got an email from an agent today saying, you might lose money on this one. I'm like, yeah, I'm prepared for that. It's a deal in a county, in California, that I funded for somebody else who realized later on they paid too much for it, and they kind of threw me the keys and ran away and said, oops, sorry, here you go. I made a mistake. It was your money, not mine and then they backed. I'm like, thanks a lot.
Steven Jack Butala: Threw the keys at you. It's a great visual.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala: I hope our post production guys can do a little-
Jill DeWit: I throw some keys in there.
Steven Jack Butala: A little cartoon of throwing keys.
Jill DeWit: Me with keys bouncing off me.
Steven Jack Butala: [inaudible 00:02:50], throw some keys in Jill's face. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on thelandinvestors.com online community, it's free. Don't forget to subscribe to the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. That's correct.
Jill DeWit: Okay. I'm going to take a guess at how to pronounce this.
Steven Jack Butala: It's first initial, last name.
Jill DeWit: Oh, thank you. Okay. So G Corley wrote, I was going to call it Guh Corley, "Hey everybody. I just joined Land Academy two weeks ago and I'm very grateful to be part of this group.
Learn More About House Academy Here
Housing Market Predictions for 2022 (HA 1624) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala:Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit:Hi. Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to the Land Academy Show. Really the House Academy Show today. Entertaining real estate investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit. And, we are broadcasting from the valley of the sun. Steven Jack Butala:Today, Jill and I are talking about housing predictions for 2022. Jill DeWit:I like to say I was asking this question too, to you earlier. I'm like, "I know you read up on all this stuff. You're really current on all this stuff. What the heck is everybody saying?" I'm personally dying to know. I have my thoughts, but I want to know what your thoughts are and what the general opinion is. Steven Jack Butala:So, it's the fourth quarter, it's October 2021. It's a fourth quarter where everyone who's got any type of involvement in any market, whether it's a stock market or commodities or anything else or weather or anything, makes predictions for next year. And housing is no different. So, Core Logic piped in Fannie Mae, of course, which is the mortgage insurance backed federal government scenario, which allows a lot of mortgages to happen. So, they all have predictions and I'll talk about them in a minute here. Jill DeWit:Cool. Steven Jack Butala:Before we get into it, Hey, by the way, it's all good. In my opinion, it's not hockey stick straight up. It's good. Slow growth. Jill DeWit:Spoiler alert. Steven Jack Butala:Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community it's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the YouTube Land Academy channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill DeWit:Jason wrote, you guys talk all about houses a lot lately. If we buy and sell land, what is the point of this? I've renovated houses in a past life with success, but decide it's not worth it in the end. Steven Jack Butala:Amen to that. Jill DeWit:Yeah. Steven Jack Butala:So you're in the same boat as almost all of us, probably it's a logical conclusion to look at the things that I think suck. We talked about this a couple days ago. Jill DeWit:Like Monday. Steven Jack Butala:Yeah. What sucks about renovating houses is that... Pick window treatments. I always come back to that. If I hear the word window treatment, I'm not going to get involved in it financially. And so, I'm sorry that you had to go through that welcome to the land investment business. Jill DeWit:I'm sorry. you had to go through this. Okay. Steven Jack Butala:The housing market is very closely tied to the land market for a few reasons. The biggest reason is that when house values go up, people have extra money. When housing values go up and I'm going to get all kinds of comments on this wages generally go up. Compensation or equity generally goes up. Wages in themselves are so untied. So tragically disassociated with house values. It's staggering. Jill DeWit:It's weird. Steven Jack Butala:But in general, from an economic standpoint, not an accounting or reality standpoint, economic, that's not reality. That's just economics equity values go up when housing values go up. Which means there's more access to more disposable income on a macro level, which means people have access to more money so they can buy and sell land. Number one, this is a good question. Jill DeWit:I like the pen on your finger. I'm like, I could just see... you know what's going to happen. Our post production guys are going to poke arrows that what's with the pen? Steven Jack Butala:They will now for sure. Jill DeWit:Yeah, they will because I just said it. Steven Jack Butala:Number two when housing, it was funny for a while. Jill. Jill DeWit:Okay. Steven Jack Butala:When housing goes up like this, there's a need for more housing, people sell their house, they got to move somewhere else. So land, it gets utilized for new housing and we're in a re...
The Truth about Mailer Haight (LA 1623) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Howdy.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I am Jill DeWit broadcasting from this sweet valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about the truth about mailer hate.
Jill DeWit: Why do you say with that much [inaudible 00:00:18]?
Steven Jack Butala: Because I don't want to be misconstrued of mispronouncing it. Does it bug you?
Jill DeWit: No, I just was wondering.
Steven Jack Butala: You know, why? Because this has been a topic since I've been buying, selling property through sending out mailers. I want to say it with emphasis. There's a lot of hate involved in this business. Jill's about to dispel that theory that I have here. She's long dispelled this because she has experience as a customer service person many, many years ago.
Jill DeWit: There's always going to be hate.
Steven Jack Butala: Her theory is there's hate everywhere.
Jill DeWit: Oh yeah. Come on, there's no business that you're going to 100% make every single person happy. They're all going to love you. They're all going to think that they spent way too little for whatever they got back. I don't think that's possible.
Steven Jack Butala: She's really much more set up, honestly, to manage all this than I think I ever was and some new Land Academy members are set up to do so. It's something you got to get through. This is a total truth time episode. It's something you need to get over it or you're not. Some people are set up for it and some people aren't. I was not at all set up for sending out my first mailer and the deluge of anger that came back on it. Then I went and bought a bunch of property and made a ton of money.
Jill DeWit: There's ways that you can remove yourself too. We can talk about that.
Steven Jack Butala: Jill's going to tell us. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill DeWit: Among the Lord wrote "On the receiving hate side of things, that's a different battle altogether with your state of mind. I once wondered if I had the thick skin also, and my first incoming hate sat with me for years before I figured out how to shake it. My secret is a little woo woo. But, I did a lot of personal development during COVID and out how to alter my thoughts around it and many other things so it doesn't affect me anymore in the slightest. I can receive the hate directly or by mail, send out as much mail as I want anywhere I want, and the only reaction get from me even doing the worst hate and threats is a small smile on my face. And then, I forget about it. Sorry for the long reply, but it's definitely a mental game. The good news is that it's a game you play with yourself, and you can set your own rules." That's great.
Steven Jack Butala: Here's my response to this because I respond. This was in Discord. It's a long time, not long time, but a couple year member who's this is all worked out for them. I really, I responded by saying this set of reaction, this templated reaction when something like this happens, is so important in life. I have a mechanism like this that I use when there's any kind of confrontation to diffuse it and try to get everybody to laugh at the end. I don't care if it's the checkout clerk at the grocery store. My whole point to putting this question in, really it's a statement, is you have complete control over this, just like everything else. Total and complete control over what you allow someone to say to you on the phone about a offer you sent as insignificant as that is in life and the offer amount that you sent for a piece of real estate. That's obviously clearly worth way less than what they think it's worth.
Psychology of Choosing Land Investment as a Career (LA 1622) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, Entertaining Land Investment talk. I'm Stephen Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about the psychology of choosing land investment as a career. It seems simple, but it's not.
Jill DeWit: I love this.
Steven Jack Butala: So do I.
Jill DeWit: It's really good. I have two, I think, really good points that I see as, for me personally, why we do this and why it makes sense to me and I'm happy to share. Because I know a lot of people think like I do, and I want to share this.
Steven Jack Butala: Over the course of the years, I've had people way more successful and wealthy than me and way less successful and wealthy than I am make comments on this, and none of it's wrong. So this show is about the perception, those perceptions.
Jill DeWit: I think maybe some of it might be wrong, but that's okay.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill DeWit: Steven wrote, "I feel like Land Academy is a cheap code to the game of life in terms of financial precarity. Once you prove the concept to yourself, it's hard not to evangelize this to all the people you care about, but it's strange because they look at you like you have two heads."
Jill DeWit: I love this. This is why I stopped a long time ago. When people say, "What do you do?" I never really tell them what I do, because they don't get it. They do look at me like I have two heads. And then it opens up the whole can of worms of me explaining it, and then half hour goes by and they're still looking at me sideways and I'm like, "I just wasted a half hour. I could have been talking about something more fun or just be doing nothing."
Steven Jack Butala: And this falls into the heading of you either get it or you don't.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala: And you're not going to tell anybody or sell anybody about the fact ... if somebody's on the fence about whether or not this works ...
Jill DeWit: Let them sit on the fence.
Steven Jack Butala: They'll be there forever. They're not ...
Jill DeWit: Don't push them on the other side.
Steven Jack Butala: People come to their own conclusion about whatever they see on the internet or talk to people. They come to their own conclusion about whether or not it works. You can see it in their eyes. Jill and I used to go ... this is a long time ago. Before we started Land Academy, just to see what other people are doing, like in 2013 and 14, we would go to these meetups.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, and sit in the back.
Steven Jack Butala: And stand in the lobby, and not necessarily even go to the event, just go to the ... stand in the lobby, have a cup of coffee and talk to people and listen to people. And of course they were all real estate events about buy and selling houses just like today. Buying and selling houses is ridiculously ... and renovating them ... inefficient. And we know that. We've renovated houses and learned that the hard way. But it consumes ... people are just ... it has this designer component to it, which fascinates certain people. So when you say to somebody who either wants to or has bought and sold a house and renovated it and made $22,000 that buying and selling land is easier and better, they're either going to ... the light bulbs either are going to immediately go off, or they're going to say, "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."
Jill DeWit: And that's sad. It's like, "Well, what do you mean? You don't get to pick the carpet and the wall?" That's really what they're doing. They must be fulfilling a love of just shopping...
Jill Friday - How You Know You are Good at Something (LA 1621) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Happy Friday.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today Jill and I talk... Well, it's Jill Friday, and she's going to talk about how you know you're good at something.
Jill DeWit: Do you know what you're good at?
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, I'm probably a unhealthy level of confidence in about two or three things in life. And then everything else is just like, "Wow. I need to improve on that."
Jill DeWit: Oh, come on. You're good at more than you think, and I actually have a couple of things here. This is not going to be all like, "Oh, this is great. We're going to hear them tell each other how great they are." No, but I'm going to give some good examples of some things so you can figure out what you are good at.
Steven Jack Butala: I have several questions. Please don't answer now, but my biggest question on this is, do you think that... It's nature/nurture, you know? How much actually can you change?
Jill DeWit: We can talk about that.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel, and comment on the shows you like.
Jill DeWit: Buckley wrote. "Hi, all. Question on utilizing a checkout card processing feature on your land sell website. At what point should this be set up? My first mailer is just now getting out the door, so I don't actually have any property to sell, but I'm trying to get ahead of the stumbling blocks later. I know Land Academy has the Heartland payment systems set up for Land Academy members. Thought someone implement this, and the ease of use. I'm totally new at it all and trying to learn. Thanks."
Jill DeWit: I love this. This is so funny. Do you want me to just jump right into one of our answers? So one of our members, he goes by Old Steve, put a comment in here. We're going to read his answer to this question.
Steven Jack Butala: To which my response is, I'm Older Steve.
Jill DeWit: That's right. Old, not Older, Steve wrote, "Specialization is key. We buy 100 plus installment contracts a month in another vertical. Since we're first and last a lending business, we have those issues managed. Because it's what we do, I don't sell land or buy land and take pictures of land to post for sale. I take payments and collect or repossess on past due accounts. I agree that there is only one way to do this, hold title..." Does this really apply to this? I'm confused.
Steven Jack Butala: Can I read it?
Jill DeWit: Yes, please. Go ahead. Because I'm not getting it.
Steven Jack Butala: Old Steve says this, "Specialization is the key. We buy 100 plus installment contracts a month in another vertical. Since we're first and last a lending business, we have those issues licked because it's what we do. I don't sell and buy land. I don't take pictures, I don't post land. I don't mess with that. I take payments and collect or repossess on past due accounts.
Steven Jack Butala: "I agree that there's only one way do this. Hold title until paid in full, collect a decent down payment, so the buyer has something to lose. 40 years in the credit and collection business. All the noise is under the $5,000 deals. How about actually underwriting? Nobody seems to do that. Proof of sufficient income through bank verification.
Steven Jack Butala: "We have a full online scoring model. 500 applications a month go through the machine. So sell on terms. I'll buy all the risk that's associated with that and discount it. Be a great land investor." This is his advice. "Let somebody else be the collector." Namely him. "Maybe a group Zoom on how to put these terms deals t...
Jack Thursday - Money Management (LA 1620) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today is Jack Thursday. I'm going to talk about money management.
Jill DeWit: And I'm going to take a nap.
Steven Jack Butala: You know how I manage money? By buying land and selling it.
Jill DeWit: You know how I manage money? By asking for your help.
Steven Jack Butala: What?
Jill DeWit: Just kidding. I don't know. Not really [inaudible 00:00:26]. You're the money. No, no, this is perfect, because look, you're the money guy in our whole relationship, meaning our personal finances and hey, we can do this or not do this. And I don't question you. I hope you appreciate that. I'm sure you do.
Steven Jack Butala: I really appreciate that. I'll lay all the stuff out in a second here and then we'll talk about our personal situation, because it's worked. And it wouldn't work for everybody.
Jill DeWit: It's true.
Steven Jack Butala: There's some stuff that Jill and I do that most people that are partners like this, wouldn't put up with. Number one, we don't have any joint money.
Jill DeWit: We have company money.
Steven Jack Butala: We have companies together.
Jill DeWit: That's true.
Steven Jack Butala: She and I do not share, and never have, and never will, share a personal bank account. So I don't talk about, ever, I mean, I never have, how she spends money. It's her money. I don't care. And vice versa. I think, look, here's a prelude to the whole thing and we will take a question first. The number one way to succeed at managing money is to have a plan. Otherwise, the money will manage you. And we've all had friends like this, friends, or maybe parents, or siblings, or cousins, or people that are just always down in the dumps about money. And it's because they never had a plan.
Jill DeWit: It's true.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill DeWit: [Zach 00:02:00] wrote, "Howdy, y'all. New member from Austin, Texas. My name is Zach K. I'm a seasoned entrepreneur, but totally new to land investing." This is great! "And fairly new to real estate investing, in general." Welcome Zach. This is cool.
Steven Jack Butala: Fit the profile perfectly on [crosstalk 00:02:17].
Jill DeWit: Yeah. "Having built several companies, the latest of which is a line of educational toys sold through big-box retail carrying Disney licensing, I'm experienced with building teams, setting up processes, outsourcing, et cetera, et cetera. The entire international supply chain has been wrecked these past years to say the least."
Steven Jack Butala: Decimated is what I call it.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. "And I felt it's time to a new business started in an entirely different and more stable industry."
Steven Jack Butala: Amen.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. This is so cool.
Steven Jack Butala: We are so lucky we're in this business. We talk about it on the Thursday call all the time.
Jill DeWit: Yep. And let's see here. "I started land investing two months ago after hearing great things from a friend who got into the business last year. I sent out 50,000 mailers to start and closed 10 sweet deals for info lots here in Texas, purchased for 8 to $20,000 and sold between 30 and $90,000."
Steven Jack Butala: That's the textbook Land Academy deal.
Jill DeWit: Totally. "By sending 50,000 letters right out of the gate, I was able to learn a ton, fast. Some of my letters were spot on and others were atrociously mispriced." That happens.
Steven Jack Butala: It still happens us.
Jill DeWit: That's right.
Learn More About House Academy Here
The Psychology of Affordable Housing (HA 1619) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala:Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit:Hi. Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to the House Academy Show, entertaining real estate investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala:Today, Jill and I talk about the psychology of affordable housing. Every Thursday, Jill and I have a call, we call it the Thursday call. It's a webinar, closed webinar with all Land Academy and House Academy members. And one of my jobs that I've assigned to myself is to kind of give everybody a... Let's call it a 10 minute overview on what's happening in the news with real estate, because it's really we didn't use to do it, but this whole COVID thing twisted this housing market all around. In the beginning of COVID, we thought it was going to crash like it did in 2010. So I was trying to prepare everybody, and help everybody with that. And by informing everybody of all these sources... I belong to all these sources of news feeds on real estate. Steven Jack Butala:And so that didn't happen fortunately, in fact it went the other way and we're all a lot more successful for it. I hope you are too. Steven Jack Butala:What I see now predominantly, and as a result of that what I continually go do this research for real estate for the Thursday call is this affordable housing topic. Steven Jack Butala:Over, and over, and over again everyone loves to report on affordable housing, except for the core data tree itself, First American title data tree. The core and ADaM data, which I have tons of respect for, they're real estate data companies. They seem to stay out of it. They seem to know enough to just say, "You know what? The market's going to set itself, and that's it." Steven Jack Butala:And it could end right there, but that's not what happens. This day and age it's just a current event, affordable housing is a cool thing to talk about. Steven Jack Butala:Why? Because people have this perception that they can't afford houses, but that's just not the case at all. They absolutely can afford a house, and in fact I'll get into it in a minute. Steven Jack Butala:Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel, and comment on the shows you like. Jill DeWit:Charlie wrote, "I have some questions about a title close versus a real estate attorney close. Number one, what does it mean when somebody says it's an attorney closed state? Are there no title companies in those states, or is that an extra step on top of what the title company's already doing?" Jill DeWit:Should we answer them in order, or just go through them all? Steven Jack Butala:Yeah, sure. Steven Jack Butala:Go ahead, Jill. Jill DeWit:So number one is yes, there are states, really only one that I can think of in particular. Steven Jack Butala:New York. [crosstalk 00:02:34] Jill DeWit:Yeah. Jill DeWit:That require an attorney basically to oversee the transaction. And, usually there's an attorney at the title company that's overseeing it all. And I've had some transactions like this, where in other states they still have an attorney overlook their transactions, even though it's not required. It's just kind of an extra layer of insurance for them. So that's what that means. Jill DeWit:"Number two, I've also heard it's faster with a real estate attorney" And I'm partially the problem myself here for this one, because I really promote this. "Can I ditch my title company in Texas and do everything with an attorney?" Steven Jack Butala:Hell yes. Jill DeWit:Yeah. Steven Jack Butala:And I would encourage you to do that. Jill DeWit:That's it. Jill DeWit:So for number two, that's my now new way of getting deals done. First I'm going to try to find attorney nearby,
Confidence in Your Success AND Failure (LA 1618) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Well, hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show. It's entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today Jill and I talk about confidence and your success and your failure. I think this came from Jill's binge watching PBS biographies.
Jill DeWit: Specials. Might have been. Exactly. Are we going to hear a football coach story?
Steven Jack Butala: Oh, I don't know. It's only so many times I can tell these football coach stories.
Jill DeWit: I was just going to say, we've kind of all heard it.
Steven Jack Butala: I think we'll leave it alone.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Okay. Thank you. I was saying that to save you, listener.
Steven Jack Butala: If you're brand new, the whole gist of it is-
Jill DeWit: Uh oh.
Steven Jack Butala: Celebrate your failure.
Jill DeWit: There we go. Okay.
Steven Jack Butala: Make the best of it.
Jill DeWit: We'll get into that.
Steven Jack Butala: Because you're on your way to success. Before we get into this though, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill DeWit: [Erin 00:01:07] wrote, "Has anyone mailed Hawaii? Wondering if there is anything weird, different, or just anything to know or avoid? For example, lava zones. I don't want to buy a [foreign language 00:01:23]-"
Steven Jack Butala: I think it's [foreign language 00:01:25], yeah.
Jill DeWit: "Or something and find out that the locals don't approve. I see there is a HARPTA withholding for non-residents of 7.5%."
Steven Jack Butala: Same thing in California.
Jill DeWit: But it looks like you can apply to get that back. Sounds like Canadian stuff too. Also, that seems to be two land systems will require some reading up on.
Steven Jack Butala: That's all true.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Jack Butala: We have another member who piped in here who's got a lot of experience in Hawaii and I included this question in here because this is the kind of typical thing that happens in Discord.
Jill DeWit: I love it.
Steven Jack Butala: They all help each other.
Jill DeWit: Help each other out. So, Steven, a different Steven wrote, "Hey Erin. There are unique things to Hawaii like other states. I've done a number of deals there in the lower price points on the Big Island, and I'm now working on a larger deal so it's possible. Avoid lava zones one and two, lower Puna. Demand is generally not high for most areas on the Big Island as supply is high and the weather is poor. The land court system isn't a big deal if you close through title companies. Title companies in general are more expensive and slower. Hit me up if you get stuck." That's so cool.
Steven Jack Butala: There's several subdivisions that are very much non developed on the Big Island where I purchased property in the past. I actually took a trip there a lot of years ago and met in Honolulu, met with everybody, met with the state people about tax properties and back tax properties and I was met with nothing except roadblocks for a lot of reasons, so...
Jill DeWit: Is it because you're from the mainland?
Steven Jack Butala: Probably.
Jill DeWit: Ah, okay.
Steven Jack Butala: That was definitely part of it. There's no doubt about it, so... I'm used to a system here out in the Southwest, in Southern California, in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, where tax sales are part of life and they happen in some cases, in Texas's case, weekly. So, that's just not the case there. In fact, every time I read about Hawaii and real estate, they're off out in the Pacific Ocean on their own. They make their own rules. Everything's slower. The state is forever caught up in this, "Yeah,
When is it Okay to Buy Land From Another Investor (LA 1617) Transcript:
Transcribing in progress.
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Land Academy Deal Funding Explained (LA 1616) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about land, the Land Academy Deal Funding Explained.
Jill DeWit: Yup. I gotta ask, too, by the way. I did a little adjusting my hair here before. Did you keep that in the video? Did you keep that rolling?
Steven Butala: No.
Jill DeWit: Okay, God. I was making sure that wasn't gonna make final cut here or not.
Steven Butala: No. I should have though.
Jill DeWit: Sorry about that. I had to take a moment and, to have a hair moment.
Steven Butala: It seems like we're talking about Deal Funding a lot lately. And we are. And because it's just been a smash hit.
Jill DeWit: It is.
Steven Butala: If people are using it the way it's intended to be used, I think people are making a ton of money. If you submit a deal to us and for whatever reason, it doesn't fit our criteria, we're developing now a network of people, other people, that are funding deals in our community, that will get it done.
Jill DeWit: Exactly, yup.
Steven Butala: So [inaudible 00:01:03] on, I'm excited as heck about when stuff works.
Jill DeWit: Me too. I have more to say, but I'll save it.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWit: Okay. Abby asked, "Hi guys, I received a couple of signed offers for properties that have no access. Even though I priced them right and they're pretty cheap, I'm still hesitant to buy them. Does anyone have success at selling landlocked property? How do you market them? Obviously, I don't intend to hide anything in my property listing. Thanks."
Steven Butala: Yeah. I mean, we have a whole long history of success selling those types of property, and you'd be shocked at how many people love to buy property that doesn't have physical and/or legal access for a bunch of reasons.
Jill DeWit: And a lot of them are legal.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Legit, not just running from the law.
Steven Butala: One of the reasons, and I think one of the best reasons, is to buy property because it's so cheap. But then they don't get access.
Jill DeWit: That's true.
Steven Butala: Maybe a neighboring property owner has the means to give access to this landlocked property. They're rezoned property already. So it's a huge bargain for him. And then he gets it accessed, so. There's a whole business model in getting access to properties that don't already have it. And a lot of our members do that.
Steven Butala: Number two, you'd be shocked and amazed at how many people use the property, and they don't want it to have access.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, they don't want to drive up road. They like to be out there bidding a little bit. They want the privacy.
Steven Butala: But you nailed it. Actually, if you know their property doesn't have any access, you don't want to pretend that it just doesn't exist. You want to disclose that.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Butala: The way that we disclose it, we don't personally buy property without access any longer. We work on very large, much larger dollar-wise deals. But there's, again, you just want to make sure that you're clear about it. And the way that we would deal with it in a posting on the internet is, "Please confirm access. Here's a phone number to the county." Have a talk about it.
Jill DeWit: Well, and you're gonna have accurate photos of it, showing where it is. Everyone can see that. And the accurate GPS coordinates so they can look it up, and they see, and they know it. And if they ask, you're just gonna say, "Yeah, that's right. And that's why it's priced this way."
Steven Butala: Yup, exactly.
Jill DeWit: And that's it.
Property Data Quality Then and Now (LA 1615) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Steven Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about property data quality, then and now. It's Data Week this week.
Jill DeWit: It is.
Steven Butala: In case you haven't noticed. Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Do you know what's funny? Is it just me, or do we have six Data Weeks a year? Maybe it's 10. I can't remember, but it's a pretty high number.
Steven Butala: I wonder ... I haven't checked our ... You know, I used to obsess-
Jill DeWit: It's Data Week again.
Steven Butala: We get feedback on how many people listen to the show daily, and a number. I haven't checked, because it keeps going up really well.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: I stopped checking, and if I wonder if it just dramatically drops during Data Week.
Jill DeWit: Oh, we shouldn't advertise that. Just slide it in there.
Steven Butala: Here's the truth, Jill and I constantly go back and forth just like should we be a teacher or should be we be an entertainer? And you decide.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, because we're probably good at one, and we probably stink at the other one, and you know. We'd love to know. You should-
Steven Butala: In fact-
Jill DeWit: Tell us-
Steven Butala: We're probably saying-
Jill DeWit: Please tell us.
Steven Butala: We're saying to people who don't listen to the show any longer.
Jill DeWit: No.
Steven Butala: They don't even know that-
Jill DeWit: They're not here.
Steven Butala: They're not hearing that sentence.
Jill DeWit: There we go.
Steven Butala: When you guys figure it out, let me know.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: Today's topic ... Well, no before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWit: Okay. Steven asks, "For those of you regularly using Zillow, do you put all of the normal listing information like you would on your website, or is it beneficial to leave some information off, like the cash purchase price, if you can post a low per month terms payment instead? I know some like to put minimal information in a Craigslist post, so I'm wondering if any benefit when doing Zillow ads." This is clearly a part ... I'm about to-
Steven Butala: Oh, an online sneeze.
Jill DeWit: Excuse me. I sneezed.
Steven Butala: How's that for reality of telling the truth? I will not edit that out.
Jill DeWit: Sorry about that.
Steven Butala: By the way, is it healthy to just not let ... to let that out?
Jill DeWit: Here we go. I'm not-
Steven Butala: Since the day I met Jill-
Jill DeWit: We don't agree on sneezes.
Steven Butala: This little internal sneeze really concerns me. I say let it out of there.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, I know. That's why I walk around with wipes, and I wipe things down where you've been.
Steven Butala: I'm not criticizing you.
Jill DeWit: Kidding.
Steven Butala: I just don't want you to hurt yourself.
Jill DeWit: It's not going to do any damage.
Steven Butala: Okay.
Jill DeWit: I'm positive.
Steven Butala: I bet it is.
Jill DeWit: No, I think it's better than spraying your sneeze.
Steven Butala: I'm not saying ... okay.
Jill DeWit: You're supposed to [crosstalk 00:02:38]-
Steven Butala: I'm not saying spray.
Jill DeWit: You're supposed to put it in your arm, but I wasn't going to do that on the show.
Steven Butala: Is that right?
Jill DeWit: There we go. I could have gone like this. It would've been funny.
Steven Butala: You know what you can do next time, is just ...
Jill DeWit: I could have done-
Steven Butala: I'm your man for a reason. You can sneeze right into me.
Jill DeWit: You know what? That's what I should have done. I should have ... people who are listening and not watching, I should turned to my right,
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House Wholesaling Explained (HA 1279) Transcript: Steven Butala:Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit:Hi. Steven Butala:Welcome to The House Academy Show, entertaining real estate investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala- Jill DeWit:That's a mouthful, and I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny Southern California. Steven Butala:Today, Jill and I talk about wholesaling houses explained. Jill DeWit:That's a lot [crosstalk 00:00:20]- Steven Butala:Wow. Jill DeWit:That was a lot. Steven Butala:This seems like such a basic topic. Like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, you wholesale a house. You buy it for cheap, you sell it for more. Get out of there. Go do it again." Jill DeWit:Do you think you use this term when you describe yourself anymore because I thought- Steven Butala:No, heck no! Jill DeWit:Yeah, isn't it funny? I used to say it, it used to mean something. And it used to mean something good. And you know what, there's always one bad one that ruins it for the rest of us! Jill DeWit:I'm just kidding. But people have got confused by what wholesaling is, and then some people are, I think, not doing it right and now we have to describe what we do a different way and let them run with that. Steven Butala:There's a lot of meat in these deals and because of that, there's a lot of people who have no shame and no real respect for real estate or money and the process and have come in and really- Steven Butala:They haven't even put a dent in the industry, but they just get a lot of notary because they're not doing it responsibly, so- Steven Butala:Here's a prelude to the rest of the show. What we really are, are acquisition experts for people who own a lot of property. Whether they're landlords or house flippers or whatever. So if you walk into an big company that's real estate driven, like a McDonald's or a banks with bank branches, they have buildings. Or a home-builder, they have buildings full of an acquisitions staff that help them buy an expense property that fits their acquisition criteria. And I cut my teeth in that corporate environment and now we do it for ourselves. Steven Butala:So what the show really should be called is "How to Set Up an Outsourced Acquisition Department for Landlords." But if we call it that, you will be the only person who's listening to this show. Jill DeWit:Could you imagine! That would be awesome! "Hey you gotta check out this show!" "What's it called?" "It's great! Little hard to find, because if you misspell one of the words, and there's a lot of them, you'll never find it." Steven Butala:So then I went to a podcast national event onetime, and we had a show like that. And everybody's like looking cross-eyed at us. Jill DeWit:Like what Steven Butala:Why are you, why do you call it that? What the heck are you talking about! You lost me at the third word. You lost me at acquisitions. Jill DeWit:That's my favorite! Steven Butala:Before we get into the topic, lets take a question posted by one of our members on the houseacademy.com online community...it's free. Jill DeWit:Jeff asks, "I just flipped a property in Kansas City and I made twelve thousand dollars. I know I left a bunch of money on the table. How do you deal with this?" Jill DeWit:Move on. Steven Butala:You know...I'll tell you what. Jill DeWit:Well you surely can't call back and say "Hey, oops, by the way..." Steven Butala:Well I think what he's saying is "You guys", meaning Jill and I, "what you teach or what you explain on how you do it is to make 10 or 15 or 20 grand on the thing and just keep moving." Jill DeWit:Yeah. Steven Butala:And that's right. So how do I deal with leaving money on the table? Because Jill and I leave money on the table on every single deal. And land deals too. That's part of the business model. Jill DeWit:Yeah. Steven Butala:You need your buyers to just beat your door down Jill DeWit:And now they will. Steven Butala:And yeah! Jill DeWit:Congratulations! That fire won't-
Why Land Resellers Buy from Us (LA 1614) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Steven Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala-
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about why land resellers buy from us. We have a whole website called LandStay.com and the slogan is, "Land acquisitions for resellers", and it's been this way for years and years and years and this was not intentional.
Jill DeWit: Let's just cut to the chase. It's me.
Steven Butala: It's The Jill Show.
Jill DeWit: Come on. No, no, I'm just saying, why do they buy from us? Because they get to talk to me.
Steven Butala: Oh my gosh, Jill.
Jill DeWit: I'm just kidding.
Steven Butala: That's hilarious.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Steven Butala: You know it's probably not completely not true.
Jill DeWit: It doesn't hurt.
Steven Butala: There's probably some truth to that.
Jill DeWit: I got to tell you, people call and there's a woman on the other line it's like, "oh okay." Sometimes it's hard to get them off the phone.
Steven Butala: Here's a one reason, it's cheap.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Isn't that funny?
Steven Butala: It's cheap.
Jill DeWit: It's hilarious. That's one thing that I'll never get tired of that question, "What's wrong with it?" I'm like, "Nope, nothing wrong with it."
Steven Butala: Yeah. Just nope?
Jill DeWit: Yeah. No, I seriously, it's like it's nothing wrong with it. If you would like me to add more to the price so it really is more in line with all the competition, I am happy to.
Steven Butala: We have a-
Jill DeWit: And then they're like, "oh no, no, no. Caught it."
Steven Butala: Over the last lot of years, Jill and I have developed a lot of one liners about the top six or seven questions that we get...
Jill DeWit: From the buyers
Steven Butala: ... from people. And we only get them once because that put it's all to rest and you know what, we'll answer them in just a minute here.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question, posted by one of our members. On the LandInvestors.com online community, it's free.
Jill DeWit: Jason asks, "I'm very frustrated. Is there a simple video tutorial that someone has made that will walk you through the simple formulas and steps it takes to work with data that we are using in the business. I've edited my data down by going through and looking for government owned properties, Indian land, non-taxable land etc. I've done this manually. I know there's a better way. I've tried to watch the video to keep up with Jack. As he goes through adding a column, I can do that and then adding a reference number and a column for each row of data, but it bounces back and forth between him and the slides. I'm having a hard time following. OMG. Is there a better way? I've never had to use Excel and I can "guaran-dang-tee" you that my kids will learn to use this. I'd scream and kick the dog if I thought it'd help."
Jill DeWit: Oh my gosh, that's hilarious.
Steven Butala: Okay. Well this takes me right back to 2014.
Jill DeWit: This is here, Steven. Everyone breathe, breathe, breathe.
Steven Butala: And, I'm not picking on this writer at all. There's two red flags here for me. "I've never had to use Excel" and these are direct quotes. "and my kids will learn to use this." So, the very, very nucleus of how we buy and sell real estate is data driven and there's only really, in my experience, two ways to manipulate data to your benefit to get offers to owners. Whether you're doing direct mail, [inaudible 00:03:19], there's a million ways to get offers to owners.
Steven Butala: Not a million, there's about four really good ones.
Jill DeWit: That's awesome.
Steven Butala: I really believe that you have to have and be comfortable with and I mean born-with comfort at manipulating data either using Excel or through the ma...
Real Deal on Land Education Courses (LA 1613) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here. Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill Dewitt: And Jill Dewitt broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about the real deal on land education courses.
Jill Dewitt: Okay, this is a direct response. You know who you are, Anthony.
Steven Butala: That’s the question there.
Jill Dewitt: Oh is it really? Oh you put, oh-
Steven Butala: Yeah. I put the actual question here.
Jill Dewitt: Oh, so it’s all going to be one big molded, melded together thing.
Steven Butala: Yeah. Yeah.
Jill Dewitt: All right, so, all right, so let me just explain this real quick. So this is from a soon to be member, if he’s not already a member, because he’s asking everywhere this question, which I’ll read in a moment. I answered it. It was so funny. He put it in Facebook. I just happened to be trolling the Land Academy Facebook. And I was like, “Oh, there’s a message there.” And he was asked this question. I’m like, “All right, so I’ll write this message. My team’s really busy. I’ll write a message.” So I’m sitting here crafting my response, and then before I could hit the little send button, my team put a message. I’m like, “Oh, all right. Well now I got to go back and say okay, PS it looks like my team beat me to it, but I’m still going to give you my answer here.” So I put it in there. And now I’ve seen him ask this in our online community, which I’m really, really glad because I’m dying to see what our members, well actually I know what they’re going to say, but I’m glad you’re asking the community. Yeah.
Steven Butala: We encourage people in our group and not in our group. Our listeners go into landinvestors.com or these, our team just to put together these Facebook groups, are very specific to all the lines that we have, companies, and ask questions like, “What the heck? Is this real?” “This doesn’t make sense to me. Are you having success with it?” “Are these guys a fluke?” “Is it temporary or is this really actually work?” “These guys say a lot of stuff on the podcast. I wonder if any of it’s true at all.”
Jill Dewitt: Right.
Steven Butala: And so that’s what we encourage and that’s what this question is.
Jill Dewitt: And we encourage openness, and you know what we have never ever, ever, and if you’re in bigger pockets, you know this is the opposite, we have never filtered anything.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill Dewitt: What goes in there, stays in there, short of spam and junk. We kick that, kind of like buy these sunglasses, that thing, you know what I mean. But we don’t filter any of the responses. We really encourage, and that’s just who we are anyway, we encourage openness and transparency. And if it’s great, share it. If it’s not great, share it. We still need to know.
Steven Butala: That’s what this episode is about. It’s our, because this is a real source of humor, off the camera for Jill and I. What, how other Land Academy members, and other people in the land business, handle education, where they get education, and probably 80% of it’s wrong. Probably 90%, now that I’m thinking about it. That’s what we’re going to talk about.
Jill Dewitt: Okay. Cool.
Steven Butala: Before we get in to it though, let’s take a question posted by one of our members. The question we just talked about on thelandinvestors.com online community, it’s free.
Jill Dewitt: Okay, so Anthony, I knew your name already.
Jill Friday - 3 Relationships You Need in Your Land Business (LA 1612) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today is Jill Friday. And she's going to talk about the three relationships that you really should have, or that you need in your land business.
Jill DeWit: They're not husbands, it's not children, it's not boss, it's not accountant.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free. And please don't forget to subscribe to the land academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill DeWit: Ian wrote, hey everyone, I have a property owner I'm talking to who owns a piece of property that has a dilapidated trailer on it. The property is pretty far back from a highway, but there appears to be a lengthy dirt road that goes through several pieces of property. Looks like there are a few other homes back down this road. Does anyone have any recommendations for determining legal access to the property? The sellers don't know much about it as they inherited it. There's nothing in writing that they know of. They told me they use the road to get to the property, but like I said, the trailer needs to be torn down and they really go back there. Is this an implied easement situation? Any input is appreciated.
Steven Jack Butala: It's a very good question and just like yesterday, it's a question that I directly got involved in on discord. All these things start with a plat map. A plat map is one of those... It's black and white. It's some type of a surveyor or way back in the day before even surveyors, there are people that would hand write maps based on the stuff that they found from the measurements that they took. And it's the most basic map you can get. We don't use them a lot anymore because of Google earth and things like that and data tree, but a plat map will have in when it was subdivided the legal roads. Nine times out of 10, way more than that actually probably. And they're identified by dotted lines, not straight lines. Straight lines are property lines, dotted lines are roads or easements if they're involved in other properties.
Steven Jack Butala: So you'll start with that and you'll see it. If it goes along people's property lines and there are no properties between it, that's just a driveway and you won't see that on a plat map. Think about your own driveway or a driveway in a subdivision or even a parking lot in an apartment building. You won't see that in a plat map, you'll just see the property line and that's it and here's the dirt. And so this is going to take some digging into and it's worth it because I love these kinds of deals, by the way. If there's an old mobile home and it's way back somewhere off the road and it... You started to tell the story about the sales story here.
Jill DeWit: Right?
Steven Jack Butala: So I'd definitely get to the end of it. In a rare case if they find out, there's no easement at all. It sounds like the property is being used that way, or it has been used that way. So if you just talk to the neighbors and say, "Hey, do you mind if we make this official? I'm going to call my lawyer and we'll just redraft this stuff. The guys can sign some stuff so I can use it. That'd be great."
Jill DeWit: Right?
Steven Jack Butala: That happens a lot with us because she's on the phone doing it and she's talking nice to these neighbors. Flies with honey kind of thing.
Jill DeWit: Thank you, sweetheart.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jill Friday. She's going to talk about the three relationships you need in your land business. This is the meat of the show.
Jill DeWit: So there aren't three individual people because every transaction is differ...
Jack Thursday - We Now Control Most Aspects of Our Own Lives (LA 1611) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hey.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt. And we are broadcasting from the Valley of The Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today is Jack Thursday, and I'm going to talk about how we now control and I mean, all of us, all, almost all aspects of our own lives. And I'll tell what, when we were kids, Jill and I wasn't like that at all.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. I'm excited to talk about this.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And please don't forget to subscribe on the land academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill DeWit: Jessica wrote, "What points of failure do you think new land investors should be looking out for? As a one person show, I don't want to use my limited energy to create redundancy for the sake of redundancy, but there's bound to be ways we can mitigate the typical points of failure experienced by those at this stage of our careers."
Steven Jack Butala: So Jessica and I in Discord, went back and forth on this. And then a lot of people came back in. I'm not in there every day or constantly or anything, but this is a topic that... A single point of failure is a topic that really sings to me because I was on the Brent end of that concept between around 2009 and 2011.
Steven Jack Butala: Really until Jill and I had joined forces to get back in it, really get land investing back on track, or there was a recession then. And a lot of it was because of the single point of failure. We had a single point of failure sales channel. All we were doing was buying some property and selling them on eBay. It was great. I made millions and tens of millions of dollars doing it actually.
Jill DeWit: It was great until it wasn't.
Steven Jack Butala: Yep. Until it turned off. And I looked around and said, "Well, it's off like the electricity. And what can I do about it? Pretty much nothing." And so I never want that to happen again. So Jessica and I were going back and forth on Discord. I said, you can't have a single point of failure in your sales channel. This came up because Facebook and Instagram were down for two days this week.
Jill DeWit: Oh yeah, that's true.
Steven Jack Butala: That's why she was asking this.
Jill DeWit: Oh.
Steven Jack Butala: She's, "I don't want to get caught up in this."
Jill DeWit: Whatif Facebook marketplace is the only place I seem to sell property?
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. That's where she [crosstalk 00:02:21].
Jill DeWit: Well, then don't let that happen.
Steven Jack Butala: Really what she asked.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: Here's another place that I've been burned on a single point of failure, recently, very, very recently. When you rely too heavily on a single important employee, it's going to bite you at some point. Now, Jill and I cross-train everybody. We don't go in there and say, "Hey, we're cross-training you." What ends up happening is somebody makes some time off, another person steps in. They learn how to run some stuff or whatever division it is. They work at 020 for a couple of weeks, they go over to data, the neighbor scoop for a week or whatever. So it ends up being a inadvertent cross-training.
Steven Jack Butala: Everybody's in it together kind of thing. You can't do that with everybody. There's a lot of perfect personalities, you just want to do one thing and that's it. And I get that, and that's fine. To some degree, I'm like that. I just want to do one thing. And so you can't put too much stock in one employee, in one area. If you start to do mailers and you concentrate and you only use one way and you never do any type of review. And you bring your head back up from your desk three years...
Learn More About House Academy Here
Housing Market is Back and so is House Academy (HA XYZ) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala:Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit:Hello. Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to the Land Academy Show. Entertaining land investment talk. Well, it's really the House Academy Show today. Jill DeWit:Yeah. Steven Jack Butala:I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit:Hi, I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala:Today, Jill and I talk about how the housing market is back or is coming back. And then, so is House Academy. In the background for years and years and years before I met Jill, she was buying and selling houses and so was I. We met and we really focused on land because that's always been my primary focus and I think I kind of introduced it to her, but she always knew about buying, selling houses and we never stopped until COVID. We stopped because I thought initially it was going to crash like it did in 2010, the exact opposite happened to every economists and the planets dismay or amazement. Including us. Some of these markets got so hot, we just decided, you know what? We're not going to- Jill DeWit:Plan up. Steven Jack Butala:We're no... I don't want to swim with sharks. I want to swim with goldfish and have not a lot of competition. So we've been watching patiently. If you're in the group, you know we talk about this on that Thursday call all the time, in the Land Academy group. And it's statistics now, and I'll talk about this in a minute, are showing serious signs of, yep, let's get back in here and do it. Jill DeWit:Agreed, I'm excited. Steven Jack Butala:Before we get into it. Let's take a question meets you posted on the one by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community it's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill DeWit:I think we're going to have a house channel on the Land Academy Channel. I don't know, look around. We're going to come up with some more good house stuff for you. I'm just tying back to how- Steven Jack Butala:On the Land Academy YouTube Channel. Jill DeWit:Yeah. Steven Jack Butala:We will have a House Academy playlist very, very soon. If not, by the time that you listened to this. In the past, forget about the past. We had its own separate House Academy Channel. So we're moving all that content over. Jill DeWit:It's going to be cool. Steven Jack Butala:So it's going to roll it all up into one kind of thing. Jill DeWit:Totally. Jill DeWit:Charlie wrote, "What tricks do you have to help buyers get a survey completed in a timely manner? I'm going on three weeks since we opened escrow. Title could have closed last week and we're still waiting on the survey with no estimated date of completion. At this point, I'm willing to do anything before my buyer decides to walk." I hate the situation. It's happening. You're not alone. Charlie. It's frustrating. There's a lot of things that are behind, your Amazon deliveries behind not kidding. I mean, I've like not so much Amazon, but they've moved things around a little bit, but I'll tell you FedEx and UPS and other services are behind. My bigger point is, I think people are having a hard time finding workers and there's a transportation issue and just people to show up. So, that could be going on. Maybe this poor guy went out and did his stuff and it's waiting on the office staff to finally put the paperwork together to get you his survey. Steven Jack Butala:Why are we doing a survey? Jill DeWit:That too. Well, there are very, very infrequent. Let me go back to this. You're right, overall, don't do a survey. Steven Jack Butala:Like 99.999% of the deals you will do in your career will not require survey. Jill DeWit:Correct. Jill DeWit:1% of the time you have something like a, what did I need it for? Steven Jack Butala:I think it's way less than it was- Jill DeWit:It was like a forest station plan.
Beginners Guide to Doing Land Deals (LA 1610) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Howdy.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Stephen Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I, we're going to talk about a beginner's guide to doing land deals.
Jill DeWit: I broke it down in a couple of steps from zero to 30, I should say.
Steven Jack Butala: Jill and I often have different takes on what these shows should be about. And today is no exception.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. We often have different takes on everything from parenting to where we're going to dinner tonight.
Steven Jack Butala: We do not have different takes on the following: getting rich together.
Jill DeWit: Yes.Getting in An RV.
Steven Jack Butala: When that should happen.
Jill DeWit: True.
Steven Jack Butala: How to run our staff, for the most part.
Jill DeWit: Right. Leaving town.
Steven Jack Butala: I think we're almost on, well, we're not on the same page about parenting, right? But I don't think you should be. I think you need two of them going at it.
Jill DeWit: We're on the same page about vehicles in the garage and toys. We're pretty good about that because no one will say no. It's pretty much a,"Yeah, we should get one of those."
Steven Jack Butala: We're on the same page about how much real estate we should own and not own and where.
Jill DeWit: That's true.
Steven Jack Butala: That's a pretty big deal.
Jill DeWit: I can agree with that.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on thelandinvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel, and comment on the shows you like.
Jill DeWit: Victor wrote: What does it mean when a property's co-owned with an "or" instead of an "and"? And I'm putting in quotes here, "Jane Smith and John Smith," instead of, "Jane Smith or John Smith." Both are deceased and the daughter wants to sell.
Jill DeWit: It means absolutely nothing.
Steven Jack Butala: This is incorrect. And it's a great question. Whoever did this vesting deed before you, or before them, didn't do it right. Here's how you do it. Jane Smith and John Smith own this property as joint tenants with rights of survivorship. One of them dies, the other one owns it all, at the moment that that person passes, without any paperwork. It's a beautiful thing, actually. But eventually, John's going to die too. And that's what goes on here.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Any deed you come up with, you might even find still some tenants in common. Whatever it is "or" doesn't mean anything "Or" doesn't count. What counts are the words after it.
Steven Jack Butala: Yes, well said.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala: What also accounts is that they're both dead. And so to answer that, depending on the state, that's really easy to undo, or really hard. Arizona's very hard. California's very easy. So, [crosstalk 00:02:52]. And it always changes, or else I would directly answer it.
Steven Jack Butala: California requires an affidavit of death, and Arizona requires a whole new... In a lot of cases it's just not worth it, a new estate settlement. Or it means nothing. That's the takeaway from there.
Jill DeWit: That's it.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's topic: this is a beginner's guide to doing land deals. This is why you're listening.
Jill DeWit: Do you want to start?
Steven Jack Butala: Sure. If you want me to.
Jill DeWit: I'll start. You want me to start? I thought you would have something to say. Usually you dive right in.
Steven Jack Butala: At the risk of sounding like your father, your mind, your head's got to be into this. I told somebody at recently, Jill and I were lucky enough to have dinner with some people that organized a live event near our house. They're all members.
Working From Home on Your Land Business (LA 1609) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala .
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about working from home on your land business.
Jill DeWit: Pretty hot topic.
Steven Jack Butala: It is. I saw that actually, I saw it, it ranked high... It falls under something I thought we all would've known and how this works but I get it though.
Jill DeWit: Do you know what's so funny? It used to be, working from home on X, right? Meaning, you would have a second job, whatever gig, and now everybody's working from home. So, it's like, what do you happen to be working from home on? Does that make sense? Are you're working from home? No kidding. Is it your day job? You know what I mean? I'm just curious, so is the planet.
Steven Jack Butala: It wasn't that long ago when someone said, she's working from home today?
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Jack Butala: And everybody would say, oh, she's getting nothing done and took the day off.
Jill DeWit: Totally.
Steven Jack Butala: It's just not the case at all- [crosstalk 00:00:59]
Jill DeWit: She's doing laundry and she's watching movies- [crosstalk 00:01:01].
Steven Jack Butala: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jill DeWit: And everything. Now, it has a whole new different meaning now, it's true.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com, online community is free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill DeWit: I've got to add one little thing here too, by the way, home schooling has a whole new meaning now too.
Steven Jack Butala: It's going to be interesting how this episode goes.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. I know.
Steven Jack Butala: Two cynical people talk about working from home.
Jill DeWit: I know. Okay. All right. Back to the topic. Jeff wrote, I've been an instructor since 2008.
Steven Jack Butala: Flight instructor.
Jill DeWit: Okay. I thought of making flying an expense and probably would have been viable in the years before drones existed. I think you could do as an expense but be very costly compared to the low cost of getting the same photos from a drone. If you could expense the travel but it would be more expensive than the airlines. I think you could expense the travel but it'd be more expensive than the airlines, got it. So, Kevin, our moderator wrote, you can make anything an expense.
Steven Jack Butala: Yep.
Jill DeWit: Get the right CPA. That's true. When he interviewed my CPA he asked an important question, how far do you want me to push the tax laws? I tell him I'm going to push it right up to the limit of the law.
Steven Jack Butala: Me too.
Jill DeWit: I don't care if I'm audited, as long as we document everything. He said, no problem, I know what to do. I think that flying over land that you have an interest in, you can define what an interest means, will be deductible. You will probably get audited but make sure it's documented and handled correctly on the tax returns. I have done this with a trip in the car to another state, I drove by some parcels while I was the and noted the APNs. Totally, totally on the same page.
Steven Jack Butala: So, I agree with just about everything that Kevin said but he left a couple of really important key phrases out. Is it ordinary and necessary for you to get your pilot license to fly over an airplane and get good footage? That depends on what type of business you have. If you are a pilot that specializes in land, in fact, we actually have a person in our group who buys vacant land in these airplane communities. Where you land on your own airstrip, taxi into the hangar that is attached to your house and you live there. So,
Jill Friday - I'm Going to Have a Good Day Damn It (LA 1608) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Happy Friday.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show entertaining land, investment talk. I'm Steven Jack.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Butala: Today is Jill Friday. And she's going to do a show called I'm going to have a good day damn it.
Jill DeWit: So this, I started mentioning it yesterday. This is when we sat down. This topic came up as we sat down and in the morning. And we're thinking about a couple of days ago, what our topics are going to be for this week. And Steven very lovingly said, well, how's your day going to which I said, it's going to be a great day because I'm going to make it a great day. That was the whole point. So the title morphed into I'm going to have a good day damn it. So, because there's a lot in your control and that's what we're going to talk about.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it. Let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com, online community it's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy, YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill DeWit: Shannon wrote as a newbie, I'm getting a little overwhelmed by the amount of response we are receiving. This method works. If you work it, not sure if it's because tax time is coming or what, but as a newbie, it feels we have dove into the deep end. LOL. I don't know who else says the mail is dead. It's alive and well, and people are opening up their letters. The hate calls are comical are also LOL what's the... Yeah go ahead.
Steven Butala: All right. So here's the thing. This happened to me the first time I sent mail out. So I didn't know what I was doing. This is a lot of years ago, and this is long after I had a very successful tax deed tax auction business. I just tried to just send out a [mailer 00:02:00] Just to see what was going to happen. I sent a mailer out to very specific number of properties in a specific county, Mojave county, Arizona for a straight $500. Just trying to get to see if people didn't want the property anymore.
Steven Butala: We got a massive response, as you can imagine. No one's ever... There's tens of probably 45,000 properties in that county. No one ever received a letter or an offer ever. And so we had a massive response and I screwed up everything, everything. If I could go back and do that, now we would probably do a thousand deals. But the whole time I did it with a smile on my face because I knew now it's possible. I knew, all right, on the next mail we'll solve this. And this is without Jill. This is with somebody like me answering the phone, which is not the best choice or answering the phone at all.
Jill DeWit: Well, you did what you had to do with what you have to work with. That was it.
Steven Butala: This person, what I love about this and why I put this in here, Shannon doesn't care what she's not saying, "Well, they're not doing this. And the salary's not doing this. And everyone hates. There's all this hate and everywhere. I can't believe. I never knew that these words existed." Let alone, has anyone ever said that. She's not saying any of that, what's she saying is, "Oh my God, can you imagine what's going to happen after I land three of these?" That's all she's focusing on Shannon you're going to be amazing at this. I'm sure of it. It requires that attitude.
Jill DeWit: It's perfect for today.
Steven Butala: Today's Jill Friday. I'm going to have a good day damn it. This is the meat of the show.
Jill DeWit: So I was thinking about I've talked to people that are new to land investing, and they're like, "How do I start? How do I, what do I do?" And everything. And they feel there's at some point to get the education, there's, going to be a ceremony. And now I can put investor on my business card. I'm like, "No, there's not. It's right up here."
Jack Thursday - What's Possible What's Fair (LA 1607) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Butala: Today's Jack Thursday, and today I'm going to talk about what's possible and what's fair.
Jill DeWit: I'm excited.
Steven Butala: I'm fascinated with what's possible. And after doing this for years now, which I thoroughly enjoy, by the way, I like teaching. I had no idea. If somebody told me you would like teaching 10, 15 years ago, I would've said, "Why would I ever teach anything? Everything's fine."
Jill DeWit: Because it involves people.
Steven Butala: I'm sitting here doing these real estate deals. Jill and I are doing great. We don't have any debt. kids are doing fine.
Jill DeWit: She takes care of all the people now. I don't have to talk to anybody.
Steven Butala: And then we go ahead and do this.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: Complicate our lives.
Jill DeWit: And now you love it. Oh, come on. You softy, you love people.
Steven Butala: I actually, truth is I like teaching.
Jill DeWit: You like smart people.
Steven Butala: But there's a lot of different sides to teaching, and some of them are good, some are bad, like everything. And there's a lot of different types of people that you can attract who want to be taught or don't want to be taught. So what's possible is the portion of what I love to talk about. And we'll talk about it in a minute. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe to the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill DeWit: Steven wrote, "I was having a conversation about what I'm doing in this business with an old timer who made a lot of money flipping land early in his career. He asked what if it has toxic waste on it? I said we do a full title report and lots of due diligence and that if we can't find it and don't know about it, it isn't our fiduciary to convey that info. He said it wouldn't come up in the title report and that you would need a phase one environmental report to find out. Thoughts?" Sheesh. Go ahead.
Steven Butala: The old timer's exactly right. The title report does only this. Bring it back to the eighth grade level here for a minute, and then I'll answer the question. The reason that you go to an escrow agent who requests a title report or title plan, depending on the state that you're in, to request that to get it done and then you take a look at it, is to get an insurance policy against the following, whatever they find.
Jill DeWit: This is my favorite.
Steven Butala: So all kidding aside for a second, the title report allows property basically to be finance-able in the future. It's kind of a insurance scam.
Jill DeWit: It is.
Steven Butala: So nothing's going to come up in that title report, except this. And you won't read it like this. I often think to myself, it would be great to have a graphic in a title report of a timeline. So 1830 happened and Joe Smith and Sally Smith, his wife, and their 18 children who never went to school because they were all farm hands, homesteaded the property in 1830. In 1840, the first child was old enough so we split off the property, some of it to him. In 1850, the second kid. And on and on. So you see that figuratively seeing this timeline up to when you buy it. That's all the title report's going to theoretically do. And it's only going to go back 30 years anyway, right?
Jill DeWit: Traditionally.
Steven Butala: Is it 30 or 20?
Jill DeWit: 30. Traditionally, it's around 30 years.
Steven Butala: A titled agent, they're just putting all the paperwork together. The escrow agent is putting the paperwork together, including the title report,
Land Funding with Integrity (LA 1606) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Howdy.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about land funding with integrity.
Jill DeWit: Why is that funny?
Steven Butala: I'm just looking at you, waiting.
Jill DeWit: Oh.
Steven Butala: I'll start.
Jill DeWit: Well, do we really need to talk about this? But I guess we do. There's a lot ... It's in everything.
Steven Butala: We created what I think ... And I've been thinking about this lately, because I'm trying to figure out, like everybody, what to do with the rest of my life, and this is a good thing. This land thing is a good thing. We've created an environment, a total full-blown, pure supply and demand, laissez-faire environment, called Land Academy. And one of the unintended consequences of that, which is really what laissez-faire is, is just let the market solve itself, is personal land funding. And so new people come in, they don't have a lot of money. They're starting out. It's totally normal and ordinary, and there's older people in the group that have less energy and a lot more money because they've had success. They want to fund and help the young people, which I think is amazing consequence.
Jill DeWit: I love it.
Steven Butala: But like everything, it comes with a little bit of responsibility and ultimately integrity. And it's starting to show signs of, oh, there's not such fair play going on. Look, we all want the unfair advantage, all of us. This is kind of the show now, but we do have some responsibility to do it correctly, so we'll talk about that. Before that's-
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill DeWit: Okay, let me just pause for just a moment here. Sometimes you're like, "Can't you be a little more agreeable? Can't you just kind of say 'Okay'? Do you have to comment on everything?" This is actually in our personal life, not really on this environment.
Steven Butala: Well, it's not personal anymore.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, I know. I'm sharing this. So, maybe, I don't know, 10 minutes ago ... So anyway, so then I sit down and I do it and he's like, "What's wrong?" Like, "Hold on a moment."
Steven Butala: I just wonder if you're still breathing if you don't have any snide comments about stuff that I'm saying even on or off the camera.
Jill DeWit: Oh. Oh yeah. I'll save them for off. Just kidding. Oh.
Steven Butala: You know, if you've ever lived with somebody for a number of years consecutively, that's a show. That's a call-in show.
Jill DeWit: Ah, ha, that's really funny. Okay.
Jill DeWit: Ty wrote, "First potential deal. Just how risky is doing a notary close on a larger deal? I have a seller who needs their money faster or it's a deal breaker." He says, like, "three or four days. It's a 10-acre buy at $28,000 deal to sell for $80,000ish. Very confident on the numbers, county-verified ownership and no tax issues, legal access via gravel road to the property. I guess I'm asking how bad can it be? Anybody ever just roll the dice? Thinking a warranty deed would cover me, and I'm sure he would have no issues with this. Seller owns his main residence and is not giving any signs of being sketchy. By the way, the $28,000 wouldn't kill me to lose, but I'd prefer to avoid it if possible. Basically if the consensus is there's less than 10% chance of this going sideways, I think I would risk it."
Jill DeWit: I know what I would do.
Steven Butala: I do too. I bet it's the same thing.
Jill DeWit: Okay. Wait. We're going to give our answer and it's going to be either, "Buy it," or "Not.
When to Do Your Own Work (LA 1605) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy show entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And, I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the sweet valley of the sun.
Steven Butala: Today. Jill and I talk about.
Jill DeWit: When to do your own work.
Steven Butala: Thank you.
Jill DeWit: You're welcome.
Steven Butala: Script is wrong.
Jill DeWit: It's okay. I got you. I got your back. We're all good.
Steven Butala: Guess who did the script?
Jill DeWit: It's okay.
Steven Butala: It's perfect for this topic. I do all the pre-production.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: I do the scripts. I do the questions and all of that.
Jill DeWit: This is good.
Steven Butala: And I didn't do it right.
Jill DeWit: When to do you your own work and when not to do your own work?
Steven Butala: Maybe not do your own work when you're getting so old that he's not doing the right work correctly.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, or you can't see.
Steven Butala: The name of the show is When to do Your Own Work.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. There we go. All right, we're going to talk about this. So I have made some notes here. I've just, my first note is "sheesh" everyone. There's a lot of people that aren't doing their own work, and we will explain.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our land investors or land members on our land investors online community it's free. And don't forget to subscribe to the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill DeWit: Aaron wrote, "After watching a title company struggle for weeks now to get a very senior citizen seller to sign, notarize a deed themselves, and then mail it back, I'm starting to think mobile notary services can be worth the money."
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Hello? Hilarious. So, this sounds to me like, because I've had some of these folks that.
Steven Butala: I know you have.
Jill DeWit: They're not that mobile or they just don't like to go out. So, this notary that couldn't even send a mobile notary out to them. I've had this too where they... We sent a notary out and they needed to sign on the back on the trunk of a car. They wanted to be outside and had the fresh air. And, they're just little, probably still concerned health-wise and so I get it. I get it. And you know, so you work with them. So, I guess this person is saying, "Why am I having them do that?" Because, which is true. "So, I'm paying the title company, how much money to do this work. I could have done that."
Steven Butala: And, they're not getting it done. And, who knows what's going on here? Maybe the town of the company or the town that where they live is so small, that they're very used to going into town and signing everything.
Jill DeWit: True.
Steven Butala: And, so maybe this person's elderly and that's just not an option, or we don't really know what's going on, but the fact is this, and I'm very sure of this. You, as an investor, Aaron have a better shot of getting people to do what you want them to do over the title agent.
Jill DeWit: True. You have that relationship with them. They're selling to you because of you.
Steven Butala: Here's the thing and this is my opinion now. This world that we live in is becoming more increasingly the lines of everybody's responsibility and the hierarchy of things, I'm going to get a ton of emails for this. All right, is getting blurred. Ever since this COVID thing started and is now we're in it like it or not, we're post COVID or we're in it in some stage. People's responsibilities and I got my first experience with it was going to Home Depot, buying some stuff. This is in California, in Los Angeles and being standing there with somebody and they might as well have had a swastika on their arm.
Steven Butala: Telling everybody where to stand, what to do, how it's going to go.
Real Estate Business Niches Inside of Land Niches (LA 1604) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land, investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the sweet valley of the sun.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about the real estate business niches that are inside land niches.
Jill DeWit: Niches inside of niches.
Steven Butala: Niches inside of niches.
Jill DeWit: That's cool.
Steven Butala: That is the most popular question in Discord right now among-
Jill DeWit: Is it really?
Steven Butala: Well, it's not phrased like this, but...
Jill DeWit: They don't know they're asking it?
Steven Butala: Yeah. Everybody wants a secret path for some reason.
Jill DeWit: That's interesting. I-
Steven Butala: And so... Go ahead.
Jill DeWit: I didn't know we were talking about this. I just know that we talk about this and we naturally fall into this, which is a good... This is all good, positive stuff. Why are you laughing at you?
Steven Butala: I'm not laughing.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Butala: I'm just smiling in the camera because this is a good topic.
Jill DeWit: It is. Hey, you know what's kind of funny?
Steven Butala: Why are you laughing at me?
Jill DeWit: Totally.
Steven Butala: Why are you having a good time?
Jill DeWit: Well, you're laughing at me, not that you don't laugh at me, and that's okay. I laugh at me. That's totally fine. Speaking of laughing at each other, do you know what's so great? I woke up today thinking about... I think the next time we go out in the RV in a couple of weeks, we might start running into some colder weather and maybe snow, and I'm like, "That makes me happy." I love when we're outdoors, camping, and we're around a fire because we need a fire.
Steven Butala: I love that too and Jill's referring to cold weather in California where she's from.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, like 60.
Steven Butala: I'm from Michigan and being out in an RV in snow? That's a sleepless night for me. Sorry.
Jill DeWit: I kind of love it. I remember one time whatever day we had to come back-
Steven Butala: Sleepless because of my responsibility as a man, not-
Jill DeWit: I know. It was April. It was April this year we had to come home and I was like, "Man, we missed the snow. Darn it." It was like one day. If we'd stayed one more day in wherever we were, we would've got snow, and I was very sad, and you're like, "Thank God."
Steven Butala: Once in a while it's fine, if it's a light California kind of thing, but 10 degrees below in an RV, no one's happy.
Jill DeWit: No, I'm not doing that. No, no. We're talking a comfy 40 with snow on the ground.
Steven Butala: Oh yeah, just over freezing.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, yeah.
Steven Butala: 40 for the night and 70 during the day.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, something like that.
Steven Butala: That's California winter.
Jill DeWit: There we go. Yeah, in the mountains. That's true.
Steven Butala: As if we even remember what the topic is. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy, YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill DeWit: Jen wrote, "Have..." Oh, this is good. "Have any of you ever been asked to sign a termination of restrictions for an area you own land in? Evidently this is for a city subdivision. It's not an HOA or POA that had restrictions put in place about 50 years ago to prevent new construction. If they get enough site insurers, they can terminate those restrictions and build new housing. I don't see a downside since it's to help with growth, but maybe there's something I'm missing."
Steven Butala: I don't see a downside either, as long as you read the fine print, and Jen's been with us for a while and she's very active in Discord and thank you for that.
Jill Friday - What She Really Does in Her Office All Day (LA 1603) Transcript:
Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven J Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven, Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven J Butala: Today is Jill Friday, and we're going to find out what she really does in her office all day.
Jill K DeWit: All right, let me back this up. As you know yesterday, Thursday, was Jack's work-life-money balance talk. And earlier this week we talked about the September third quarter, wrapping up the year financial review. So he's obviously looking at life, looking at big picture, looking at everything.
Jill K DeWit: And he was getting concerned because he's thinking I'm overworked. He's like, he gets frustrated by me being in my office. Especially one night this week I was in my office until six or seven o'clock at night, whatever it was. And he was really thinking, "What the um?" You're looking at all this big picture life stuff and thinking I'm over there, doing it all wrong. And I had to say, "Hold on a moment."
Steven J Butala: You're not doing it all wrong.
Jill K DeWit: Okay.
Steven J Butala: I think she's spending too much time doing real estate deals.
Jill K DeWit: Word. Right. And I said-
Steven J Butala: Specifically that.
Jill K DeWit: Right. He's thinking that that's it. This ties into so much this week. We talked about the 80/20, and one of the things I brought up was I thought he was coming after me about 80% of your work is on 20% of the stuff that makes money. And so the whole point of this is, and this whole week is for me, you actually think I'm working in there?
Steven J Butala: I guess we're [crosstalk 00:01:39] together, listener, going to find out. What Jill does at work all day.
Jill K DeWit: Let me explain what really goes on in my office all day, then no one will ever be concerned about me again. Go ahead.
Steven J Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Aaron wrote, "I've had a few local land barons call to tell me how stupid I am, but then they end up on my buyers list by the end of the call."
Jill K DeWit: I've totally had this. I've even had people write me back about that and call me specifically to say, "Okay, you guys are nuts, but if you can really make this happen, I want to buy from you." I'm like, "And yes I can."
Steven J Butala: Those are real land people.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah, uh-huh (affirmative).
Steven J Butala: Today's Jill Friday. We're going to find out what she really does in her office all day. This is the meat of the show.
Jill K DeWit: Let me tell you what goes on in my office and let me first paint the picture. I love my office. You may have seen some of my videos. It's white, it's bright, it's pretty. And this is my home office by the way, this is my primary office, period. It's off on my own wing. I have my own door. It's all windows.
Steven J Butala: Multiple doors with locks I've noticed.
Jill K DeWit: Yes, I've tried multiple door with locks, that's very true. I can lock people out, I can let people in. I have a courtyard off my office. I have a fountain going off my office. And just this morning, as a matter of fact, I was sitting there mesmerized by all the quail.
Steven J Butala: I saw that too.
Jill K DeWit: There are fat quail running around here right now.
Steven J Butala: All over the yard.
Jill K DeWit: There was, I swear, 20 of them in my courtyard.
Steven J Butala: I noticed that today too.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah, I'm like, "This is-"
Steven J Butala: And they're healthy.
Jill K DeWit: They're [inaudible 00:03:35], they're fat and healthy. And I saw a couple of them getting into it,
Jack Thursday - Work Life Money Balance (LA 1602) Transcript:
Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven J Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven J Butala: Today's Jack Thursday, and I'm going to talk about work, life and money balance.
Jill K DeWit: That is so celebrate your life of you.
Steven J Butala: Is it?
Jill K DeWit: Yes. I noticed you have one of my [Deepak 00:00:27] books on your bookshelf.
Steven J Butala: I'm sure that was collected from you.
Jill K DeWit: That makes me happy. Yes, it is. And if you look inside, it might be signed because I think it was Metahuman. That's right.
Steven J Butala: Actually, that's a recent one.
Jill K DeWit: I went to the, yeah, I went to the ... It was in Manhattan Beach. I went to the, no, it was [inaudible 00:00:47]. I don't remember what it was, but a bunch of us went to hear him speak at a high school campus. And it was, yeah, it was [inaudible 00:00:55]. It was really cool. And I got the book there and got to see him. It was neat.
Steven J Butala: Did you meet him?
Jill K DeWit: Well not, I mean, didn't like shake his hand, but I mean, I guess.
Steven J Butala: I'm a big Deepak fan. I think a lot of that, well, over the years it changes genes. Sometimes it's new age. Sometimes it's self-help. But I think he's the real deal.
Jill K DeWit: Oh, yeah. He's awesome.
Steven J Butala: I think there's three or four people in that space that are really worth listening to and write well and are very smart.
Jill K DeWit: He's awesome. Someday I'm going to go to one of his retreats. I've been thinking about it. So, yeah.
Steven J Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows that you like.
Jill K DeWit: Ty wrote, "Does anyone use the last sold dollar amount or praised dollar amount versus offer when scrubbing, when available, of course." I just did an analysis on my last mailer and found some as crazy as 3%. These, of course, were anomalies, but I found that more than 20% of my offers were below the 10% range of offer to last sold. Sending an offer for $20,000 on a property that lasts over $500,000, no matter how long ago, minus 2009, seems a bit ridiculous and something I should just scrub or adjust. Thoughts?"
Steven J Butala: This is a very, very intelligent question. Here's what happens. You download it, you do everything that you're supposed to do according to the education and you download a dataset and you're staring at this dataset, you manipulate it and you're getting ready to price. You go away far over to the right of the data set and you see how much this person on this one line item paid for the property and when they paid. So if they bought a property for $30,000 in 1995, and you go back over to the left where your pricing column and you price everything out, and they paid $30,000, plus all this appreciation of how many years, and you're actually offering them $8,000, you start to question yourself. This is a very, very intelligent question.
Jill K DeWit: This is true.
Steven J Butala: Does it matter? Should you look at that? Should you do a mailer based on what people have, not just casting a wide net, but based on and offer that person a little bit more than what they paid and just see. Absolutely not. I've done this and I've tried it. We had a person in our most recent career path that built a company based on individually pricing very expensive properties. And at the end of career path, he messaged me and said, "I realize now we've been doing this wrong."
Steven J Butala: You can't, you can try this, but what you're doing by using this methodology is removing the possibility of hitting a home run.
Occupations that are Going Away (LA 1601) Transcript:
Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven J Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit. And we are broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven J Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about occupations that we think are going away.
Jill K DeWit: I want to even add just, not just, the big picture concerns about what's coming. It's so interesting. So I've read some interesting articles this morning. I'm going to, I have some notes to share.
Steven J Butala: Before we get into it. Let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free, and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel, comment on the shows you liked.
Jill K DeWit: Anthony wrote, a couple of topic suggestions, using the 80/20 rule, which is the Pareto principle in the land business. "I read this book a few years ago, and I applied the advice in it to a business I was running at the time. The results were shocking improvements in profitability. I moved on and forgot about this until last week when I heard it mentioned in a video, and I remembered how it helped. Identifying those 20% of things that produce 80% of the results. And then..." Is this for me?
Steven J Butala: No.
Jill K DeWit: Oh, okay.
Steven J Butala: No. It's for our listeners. If you get something out of it, then that's up to you.
Jill K DeWit: All right, thank you. "And then putting your focus on those things can result in big improvements. It's hard sometimes though, to be ruthless about applying the rule, an example, what characteristics do the people who accept your most profitable offers, like the 20% that make the 80% of the profit have in common?" Oh, this is a little out there, but yeah. "Are they out of state owners? Are they behind on taxes? Are they married age? How many homes do they have? Income? The idea would be to build a profile and find ways to target those people in that data." I took this as something else. I just took this as 80/20, like what am I doing every day that takes up 80% of my time.
Steven J Butala: Yeah, this is, I mean, we can talk about that in a minute too, but really if you're just buying and selling land full time, every one of us has one or two deals every year, where we say, "Oh my gosh, this is the greatest deal ever. If I could do just 10 of these, instead of all these other 50 deals, where I only made five, $10,000 or $15,000. But this one I made $150,000 on. All I need to do is 10 of these, where I make a million bucks a year." And so that's the 80/20, there're all kinds of, it's a tremendous number of examples. So the idea is to sit yourself down, and think about it. In my case, I'll take a piece of paper or, a tablet, or whatever with a pen. And I'm just brainstorming about why that deal was so good.
Steven J Butala: And the flip side is, why some deals just didn't work out. And so it's not so much, like he says here in the question, the profile of the person that you're buying from, because I don't believe in that. I believe in sending everybody an offer and just, well, they'll find you.
Jill K DeWit: I agree.
Steven J Butala: You send out 25,000 offers, that five people or 10 people in there that are just dying to sell that day are going to find you. They're going to respond to your offer and say, "Yes, I want to do the deal." The question is, if I send out 25,000 offers, and I do it for only the property profile, and the pricing profile, where I made that $150,000 net, I'm going to do, it's not going to be 80/20 anymore.
Jill K DeWit: That's the key.
Steven J Butala: It's going to be, it's going to be 50/50, or 60/40 in your favor.
Jill K DeWit: Right, I'm going to find more properties, priced this way, in this area, and with this attribute, because those fly off the shelves.
Steven J Butala: Yep.
Your September Financial Review (LA 1600) Transcript:
Steven J Butala: Steven Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven J Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I am Jill D... or Jill dimwit, apparently.
Steven J Butala: Oh my gosh. That's awful.
Jill K DeWit: I know. I got all kinds of good... It's funny. Who cares? I say this because I want people to know it's, who cares?
Steven J Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: Some people get these letters back and they're like, "Oh no." Like, so what? Throw it away.
Steven J Butala: It's part of it.
Jill K DeWit: And the person who wrote the letter, they've already forgotten about it too, so it doesn't really matter. Anyway, I am Jill DeWit and I am broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven J Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about your September financial review. I'll tell you, it's based off of my September financial review. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows that you like.
Jill K DeWit: Tony wrote, "I have a property that is an escrow for an attorney close. They are doing the title insurance and handling all the closing details. Can I assume it's safe to say I could officially, and legally begin marketing this property for sale?" Hold on Tony. You don't own it yet. I want you to get all ready to do this. You may or may not agree with me. We'll see what you say.
Steven J Butala: I'm not going to agree.
Jill K DeWit: Oh.
Steven J Butala: I'm not just being difficult. I'm not going to agree, but go ahead. I'll tell you why, because there are probably six people that piped in on this real hard.
Jill K DeWit: Some do.
Steven J Butala: And they said, "No, no, absolutely not. Don't do it. Don't do it. And don't do it."
Jill K DeWit: And you say, "Yes."
Steven J Butala: And I say, "Yes."
Jill K DeWit: Okay. What's the... I mean, you could cover your butt and ask for permission.
Steven J Butala: Ask who?
Jill K DeWit: The seller. And then no one will ever get mad if the seller's on board with it.
Steven J Butala: When you have a property that is in escrow, lawyers closing it, and lawyer's telling you... Usually lawyer closes are way faster than title insurance.
Jill K DeWit: This is true.
Steven J Butala: So you're going to be, let's say, it's safe to say, inside of two weeks. It's going to take you several days to get the property prepped anyway, pictures of it.
Jill K DeWit: So you are agreeing with me.
Steven J Butala: Start with all that. And I would start. I'd put it on Craigslist, Zillow, everywhere. I would not execute a listing agreement with a... If you're going that route, with a real estate agent until you have a book and page number, it's stamped on the deed.
Jill K DeWit: So we are kind of on the same page.
Steven J Butala: But I would ease into it. I wouldn't just not do it.
Jill K DeWit: Right. So my thing, have it all ready, ready to push the button. I mean, you could start making some calls to neighbors and things like that.
Steven J Butala: I would do all that.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. See, we're on the same page more than you think.
Steven J Butala: I just wouldn't list it. That's all.
Jill K DeWit: There you go. I had one too where they were like ahead of the game, like, "I can't sign this yet you guys."
Steven J Butala: Yeah. I've had that too.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. I'm like, "I love that you're that ready." But I'm like, "I can't sign the listing-" [crosstalk 00:03:12]
Steven J Butala: You guys don't own it yet.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. I can't...
Steven J Butala: I've had that happen multiple times.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah, I don't want to get anybody in trouble. I don't want to get the agent in trouble, because then they're going to get pissed at me.
Steven J Butala: Zillow doesn't care.
Top Performing Members are Outsourcing to Concierge Mailer (LA 1599) Transcript:
Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven J Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven J Butala: Today Jill and I talk about how our top performing members are outsourcing to Concierge Mailer.
Jill K DeWit: And we'll explain all of this. Don't worry. Okay with that. I got the top performing member part, I know what outsourcing is. So who's this Concierge thing that you guys are doing? What is this thing? And we'll fill you all in. We are talking about this today because I found this out from our staff last week and I'm like, "What do you mean they're using it?" They're like, "Yeah, they got some people that you know in the advanced group that are seeing this as a time-saving thing too and a very valuable product."
Steven J Butala: Just like every product we've introduced, including Land Academy, I've been using it for years. I've been using this product for years to outsource my data mailer, and I check it at the end, and it turns out everybody else wants to use it too.
Jill K DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative). You know what this is too? It's all in the name of being more efficient.
Steven J Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: And taking-
Steven J Butala: Faster, better, cheaper.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. There you go. We'll talk more.
Steven J Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Todd wrote, "Is anyone scrubbing out owners that purchased their properties in the last year?" This is good, and I have another comment that continues this discussion. Aaron answered, "Wondering how often deals come from owners that just purchased though. I have done only handful of deals, but for these owners, mostly purchased decades ago," or the owner inherited it a decade-plus ago and has no idea why they are still paying the taxes.
Jill K DeWit: I could see a more recent inheritance turning into a deal, but would that show up as a recent sale? Not that it matters, but some of the most pissed off people seem to have purchase recently and maybe just built a home. Oh, that happens. We have that going on with one of our mailers right now, too as a matter of fact. We sent out a very specific zoning type mailer, and this particular area is moving so quickly that people did build a bunch of homes. And so they're getting offers for land, and it's not just land anymore. And they think that it's us. And I'm like, "Eh, no, it's actually the data is not caught up with what you just did." And it's comical. I don't know if you saw me open the mail the other day, but that was a lot of the love mail that I got.
Steven J Butala: Are you being satirical?
Jill K DeWit: Totally being satirical. So I made a video of me opening the mail and it was funny. I have some new names. It's great.
Steven J Butala: Four-letter names.
Jill K DeWit: I do. I do. No, they made a great play on words on my last name, and our names combined, the BuWit name, and it's just wonderful.
Steven J Butala: That was new for me.
Jill K DeWit: In warms my heart. I don't care.
Steven J Butala: So it turns out that BuWit rhymes with dimwit.
Jill K DeWit: Oh, yeah, and dumb wit. I didn't know that. Yeah, I did. And it's so funny because the people that... I find it comical when people take the time to write a mean letter back, spend more postage than I did, and then even one of them was typed up. They had their poor secretary do this and make this label to mail it back to me. I'm like, "Okay, how much did that cost you? You could have just thrown it away." Okay, so back to the question, do you want to talk about scrubbing out recent stuff?
Jill Friday - Jack Reeled Me In on a Few Land Deals (LA 1598) Transcript:
Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Happy Friday.
Steven J Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy show. Entertaining land investment talk, I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven J Butala: Today is Jill Friday, and she talks about how Jack reeled her in on a few land deals. I can't wait to hear what this topic is about because I honestly don't know. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Let me pause for just a second here about this topic today. It will come back to you because you got frustrated and you were correct. And I'm going to explain a little bit about what goes on. Okay. Back to the question. Chip wrote, "Does anyone have any tools or applications to decipher old deeds and retrieve the legal descriptions? I'm looking for actual meets and bounds legal, not the abstract. I'm using the deed check slash Subdivide 21 software application to map large properties and subdivide them, but finding legible legal descriptions for many of these properties has been challenging. Thanks in advance for any suggestions."
Steven J Butala: This is a very intelligent question, a very advanced question. I'll try to put it in terms that everybody can describe. When you do a deed or when a title agent does a deed, there is what's called the legal description, or the deed legal description, and then elsewhere in our title abstract, this is especially for agricultural property and larger properties, there's a meets and bounds description that's a lot longer and a lot more complicated. And it's used for subdividing and a lot of other things. So vast majority of us aren't going to need to know this, but I've included this question in this episode because I want you to know that there are two.
Jill K DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven J Butala: And Jill's famous for saying, and she's right, when you go to do a deed, copy the vesting deed, the deed right before it and the chain of title, verbatim, even if there's errors. That's what you need to know. And so Chip's going to do some subdividing here, and I'm going to follow up with him eventually and see how this went, because it's very difficult.
Jill K DeWit: Hmm. Well, here's an easy example. So what are you guys talking about? Well, you know what, like a legal description might say Anderson Acres block three lot two. Well, that's great. How am I going to find that? I can't just Google Anderson Acres kind of thing and find it. So there's a real description somewhere else that tells you.
Steven J Butala: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jill K DeWit: And it might be a section, town, [inaudible 00:02:52] ship, township range, and then the Northwest 10 of the Southeast whatever, you have to read it all. There's that kind of descriptions, these are meets and bounds, and then also there's other, well, what they are, they're real ways for you to actually stand somewhere and find the property.
Steven J Butala: That's correct.
Jill K DeWit: You can go somewhere. For example, we just came back on a vacation. If you saw us on my Facebook stuff on Land Academy Facebook. You saw we were standing at Four Corners, right? Where Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and-
Steven J Butala: Utah.
Jill K DeWit: ... Utah meet. There's actually a spot. People don't realize there's a marker on the ground. So when you're in these sections of property, there's a place to go. There is baseline Meridian. This is back to YouTube if you really want to get into it. This stuff's not arbitrary, and there are places that you can really go and stand and be there. And like in Arizona, there's a place down on baseline where you can find where it start.
Steven J Butala:
Jack Thursday - Concept of Capital (LA 1597) Transcript:
Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven J Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I am Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven J Butala: Today is Jack Thursday and I'm going to talk about the concept of capital.
Jill K DeWit: You know what I know? I love capital.
Steven J Butala: You do?
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. The concept of capital by Jill, more is better.
Steven J Butala: I don't mean the big city in a state. That's the capital of the state. I don't mean capital letters. I mean the economic concept of capital. Everybody thinks it's money, but it's not. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Chuck wrote, "I just read the thread about useless, useless college degrees." I love this. "I have a slightly different take. I graduated with a degree in English literature and a minor in chemistry, really just because I liked those subjects. After graduation, I entered the Navy Pilot Training Program and spent six years as a Naval carrier pilot followed by a career as an airline pilot. My degree got me in the door for the Navy flight training. It didn't matter what it was, as long as I passed the entry exams and extensive physical. Now, I buy and sell land. So my point is, unless one is going into a highly-specialized field, such as medicine or engineering, the degree can serve as a door opener to other worlds, but it isn't necessary to be successful in life." I like [crosstalk 00:01:42]. I love that.
Steven J Butala: Well said. Chuck was in our last Career Path, I think. I think that that's exactly right. I think that the more resources we have, which is really in my talk about capital today, I can't imagine a life without YouTube. I just can't.
Jill K DeWit: Like a YouTube college degree?
Steven J Butala: No, I just mean, like when I have a question about something there's a YouTube video on how to do it. I don't care if it's to change a light bulb or economic theories, there's going to be somebody who's going to explain it all. We just never had that. Formal education hasn't really improved at all. It hasn't changed, materially changed, at all since the 1700s. Why is that, when all these other resources in the last 20 years have completely changed? I'm pretty vocally critical about formal education and why it's becoming obsolete. If they would just improve it and improve the experience, then I think it would be great.
Jill K DeWit: Well, here's what it does. It does tell you that people can stick through something and follow through, because there's a lot of obstacles to getting a college degree. So I get that. That's good. It does, I like to think, give you a broad, I hope, a broad experience nowadays to a lot of different possibilities, opportunities, different careers and really figure out what you're good at, not good at. What you like. What you don't like. There's nothing wrong with going and picking a major and changing your major. I think that's the greatest thing on the planet, by the way. If you realize, ooh, now I got into it, I don't like this and I'm not good at it. I realize my forte is over here kind of thing. I think that's great. But I do wish they would do a little more... I wish they could meld a little more of, like technical schools, that kind of a thing, with a college degree, if that makes sense.
Steven J Butala: It makes great sense, actually.
Jill K DeWit: And I don't like just sitting in a classroom. I want some real-world experience and not hearing someone talk about their real-world experience, you out there doing it.
Steven J Butala: Whenever this topic comes up, the question it becomes, is it worth it?
When Its Too Late to Change Your Career (LA 1596) Transcript:
Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven J Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven J Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about when is it too late to change your career?
Jill K DeWit: So I put some thought into this. We've been talking about this for a while because people come to us at all different ages. We have people in their sixties, we have people in their twenties and even teens, even middle school, Caitlin, high school. Caitlin's in high school and was in career path. So what's interesting is ... it's not necessarily, I think, the age, obviously. I don't think it's a number, especially because I'm a woman. I don't believe in numbers.
Steven J Butala: You don't believe in numbers?
Jill K DeWit: But it comes with age.
Steven J Butala: I believe in numbers.
Jill K DeWit: Age or the scale, I don't believe in numbers, but I do believe that there are things about a person that will make a difference and I'll share. I have two concerns for people of all ages that are starting another career.
Steven J Butala: So this is largely circumstantial for me, so we're going to come at this a little bit differently, [crosstalk 00:01:18] which is good.
Jill K DeWit: I like that.
Steven J Butala: Before we get into it though, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. Luke wrote, "So at what point should or would you consider entitlements? I was watching a recent interview with Seth Williams and Mike Marshall about this topic. Mike did a good job breaking down the idea and, for example, how it's different from rezoning. But at what point would a land investor decide to go further into development into entitlements for a particular parcel? Seems like a great topic of discussion."
Steven J Butala: Mike Marshall and Seth Williams are both former Land Academy members, and [inaudible 00:02:05] have a ton of respect for those guys.
Jill K DeWit: Yes.
Steven J Butala: Mike's just an expert in this specific topic, both in [crosstalk 00:02:12] California and Texas, so he's got both perspectives. When should I or Jill or let's say [crosstalk 00:02:23] yeah, you, or a land academy member could start down or go down the path of entitling real estate? And the answer is never.
Jill K DeWit: Please explain [crosstalk 00:02:32] what it is, if you don't mind.
Steven J Butala: Entitlements are when a large company, let's say like Shea Homes or Toll Brothers or any developer, could be even just a regular person like us, wants to take a piece of property, let's say a five acre property, or in a larger case, maybe a 40 acre property, and create a subdivision. Or entitle the property so that it can be developed into separate APNs. On the east coast, it's called creating a subdivision. On the west coast, it's called entitling real estate. There's tons and tons of different ways to do this. It is extremely time consuming and expensive and frustrating as hell, and our whole Land Academy model. And rightfully so, we've been proving this over and over, and now hundreds of members are proving it with us and for us. Buy a piece of property as is, sell it as is for more. That's the model.
Steven J Butala: Entitlements, it's real easy to get into a spreadsheet and say, I'm going to pay $25,000 for this 40 acre property. And for sake of argument, if I had 41 acre properties, I could sell them all for $5,000 each, I don't need to do the math on that. It's incredibly profitable. It's also frustrating as heck if you don't know what you're doing. And can you hire consultants to do it? Yeah, but it's going to take you a year to two years later.
How Much Work Really Goes into Our Land Deals (LA 1595) Transcript:
Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven J Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven J Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about how much work really goes into these land deals. This is a very timely topic for me personally, because as I get older, I get more frustrated, and my patience in general for a lot of stuff just gets shorter. I don't think it's specific to me. I just think it's something that happens.
Jill K DeWit: Oh, you're glossing right over that.
Steven J Butala: It might be gender specific too. I'm not sure.
Jill K DeWit: Maybe. As I get older, my patience grows thinner. Yeah. So here's what I did. I gave you-
Steven J Butala: Well, hold ... Oh my gosh.
Jill K DeWit: I made notes.
Steven J Butala: Okay, yeah. Go ahead.
Jill K DeWit: Let tell you. I'm just going to give you a little snippet of what we're going to talk about. I listed things that you spend time on, things that you don't spend time on, and things you outsource.
Steven J Butala: Oh, great.
Jill K DeWit: Thank you. I did some homework.
Steven J Butala: I can't wait to hear this because-
Jill K DeWit: I came prepared.
Steven J Butala: ... there are times that I really believe that the efficiency in which Jill and I do land deals together lacks a dramatic. It's not efficient. I don't know how else to say this.
Jill K DeWit: You know what happens? I'll tell you right now, because we each go down different rabbit holes. You go down a rabbit hole. I go down a rabbit hole, as soon as I'm like, "Okay, yeah." It just happens. We'll get to it.
Steven J Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question. We might get into it today, I can tell. Let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe to the Land Academy YouTube channel.
Jill K DeWit: And comment on the shows you love.
Jill K DeWit: We got this. Shannon wrote, "So it happened. Boy, did I attract this to myself, LOL. We have a great buyer, but she went to the county website and she saw that our records haven't been updated to our name yet. So I got the email of why it says it's owned in someone else's name. I told her they're slow to record. But still what happens if we sold it before the county records and reflects the new owners?" This happens all the time. Especially now with COVID, they're not working on a regular schedule, they're behind. Some counties on purpose do them all at one time, like the end of the year. And it just often happens. Think about getting even a new plate at the DMV. How long does it take to get the plate to you in the mail? You can explain it to them just like that. It's not immediate, and by the way, XYZ county is behind, but if you really want to see it, here's the deed in showing it recorded. Here's the book and page showing that I have it, so you know. And that should be like game over.
Steven J Butala: Let's take a step back. What she's talking about is that she bought a property and she did everything that we do here at Land Academy. She immediately posted it for sale and sold it. Everything went great. Well, the county recorder, especially in these rural counties, and the assessor, they're in different buildings and in different departments. They're completely different functions. So when she bought it, she sent in the deed and typically there's some type of affidavit that goes with the deed. The affidavit goes to the assessor when it gets sent, and the deed goes to the recorder. The recorder records it immediately and it goes into the system. Well, the system doesn't automatically get updated, especially in these rural counties. So in some cases it could take a year. It can take a whole year for Shannon's deed to,
Our Land Business on the Road (LA 1594) Transcript:
Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here-
Jill K DeWit: Hi.
Steven J Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land, investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven J Butala: Today Jill and I talk about our land business, on the road.
Jill K DeWit: I would like to start by saying, here's what happened. We are doing our show, our land business on the road goes great, but our podcast recording on the show, not so great. So we were supposed to record these on the road last week, but from the campsite, which was a beautiful lofty goal for us, but totally, totally failed. So it didn't, it just didn't work. It's like you can't. So we're going to talk about that. What the, my point I want to make today is, and I'll just to give you insight and we'll explain more, is your land business can just be seamless on the road, I promise.and I'll fill you in how, but if you have a podcast or you do weekly zoom calls or some big webinars or things like that, no, that, no, you can't be seamless from a campground or a boondocking.
Steven J Butala: Well I'm working on that-
Jill K DeWit: Okay well-
Steven J Butala: Star Lynx coming, and it's not available.
Jill K DeWit: It's not there yet. That's my point. So...
Steven J Butala: What she's specifically referring to is the internet connection-
Jill K DeWit: Right.
Steven J Butala: Everything else with the equipment from the, oh, that's great.
Jill K DeWit: Well, and I can get in enough to do the land business-
Steven J Butala: Yeah-
Jill K DeWit: So I'm going to, I'll fill you in.
Steven J Butala: Yep.
Jill K DeWit: Thanks.
Steven J Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe to the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit: Shannon wrote: Is it common when people are buying a mobile /manufactured home, to put the land that the mobile home company offers, to pay off the loan and then roll it into the balance of the manufactured home they're buying? [inaudible 00:02:06] Put it, put on the land that they're doing. Okay. Got it.
Steven J Butala: So I think what you're getting at is, well, let me kind of rephrase the question as I understand it. There's a mobile homes that are installed on land that you own, and we're in a land business. So we love that. Let's say it's an acre, acre and a half somewhere. And there's mobile homes in a mobile home park that somebody else owns. A mobile home park. And so in that case, you owe the person who lives there, owns the mobile home itself, but not the land under it, and they usually pay land rep. Lenders love the first type and so to we.
Jill K DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven J Butala: Where you actually own the land, and it really, really helps to get a loan successfully done, especially on our newer mobile homes. So, there's two different types of mobile home scenarios. It's a lot harder, although it's very possible and plausible to get a mobile home loan just on the mobile itself, the way you would get a car loan, it's personal property, but our way is way better. In fact, in my experience in doing land and mobile home scenarios, they've been, the way that we have it priced, no one's ever been turned down for a loan under, when it's combined land and mobile home.
Jill K DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative). It's amazing to me now, by the way, what people are getting loans on. We just have it, we have an offer right now, that's going through, it was a buy for 25, sell for 65. The guy is borrowing $52,000 and he's paying the rest cash and he's already pre-qualified-
Steven J Butala: Wow.
Jill K DeWit: And it's just rural vacant land, not mobile, but so, it's just getting easier and easier by the way, for these people to get financing and all kinds of t...
Jill Friday - Stop Walking Away from Good Deals (LA 1593) Transcript:
Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Happy Friday.
Steven J Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy show entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven J Butala: Today Jill and I talk about, well, it's Jill Friday, and she's going to talk about stop walking away from good deals.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven J Butala: Not even I know what she means.
Jill DeWit: Oh. That's funny.
Steven J Butala: Can you give us a little peak?
Jill DeWit: No.
Steven J Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the online community. It's free, and don't forget to subscribe to the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like, and maybe on the shows you don't like so we actually can gauge future topics.
Jill DeWit: The backgrounds you like you don't like, the outfits, the hairstyles, please let us know. Just kidding. All right. James wrote "The recommendation for number of letters to send seems to be greater than or equal to 1,500. Does this mean to send at least 1,500 letters for one acreage, like two to five, a mix of acre, just like two to five, six to 10 or multiple counties. Assume that the minimum of 1,500 is meant to maximize your chance of getting a deal and should be sent to one acreage and one county. For example, if I were mailing to counties then I would set 3,000 units." All right this is all you.
Steven J Butala: This is a very technical question.
Jill DeWit: It's a good question.
Steven J Butala: And I can tell James, you're reasonably new. And I also can tell you're going to be very, very good at this because you're breaking it down. You're deconstructing what we're saying to do, asking a couple further questions and it's yeah, I can tell you're on the edge of the seat to let it out. Let the mail out. The rules of diversification and investment here apply in full force. It's better to take $100, split it into $50 each and buy two shares of stock instead of one. Well, the same thing applies here. If you're going to sign 1,500 units, split it up into two counties, or split it up into two zip codes and price it differently. This is what we teach in land academy 3.0. It's better to send variances in acreage than it is just all one acre property, 1,500 units in one zip code.
Steven J Butala: So break it up as much as you can. And here's my final way to answer this question. Unlike a lot of laws in the universe, physics or not, more is better here. More is always better. It's always better to send more mail. It's also more expensive. So you've got to gauge that for yourself.
Jill DeWit: What if he can afford 3,000?
Steven J Butala: Oh, then send it.
Jill DeWit: Okay. So the answer to the question is how much can you afford? What's your budget? You should have a budget for mail. Then whether it's 1,500 or 3,000, put a couple different things in there.
Steven J Butala: Here's what I don't-
Jill DeWit: Maybe it's 10,000 units.
Steven J Butala: Yes, Jill. Exactly.
Jill DeWit: Have four counties in there.
Steven J Butala: Now you're-
Jill DeWit: And have two different sizes.
Steven J Butala: Now you're really setting yourself up to succeed.
Jill DeWit: There you go.
Steven J Butala: What I don't want to do, and I haven't seen this in discord lately at all. And I mean, within the last several months, is air quotes, test a mailer. Test a location.
Jill DeWit: I hate that.
Steven J Butala: I'm going to send out 300 units.
Jill DeWit: Or 30.
Steven J Butala: And I'm going to see if this actually works. It is absolutely the fastest way besides not sending anything at all, that's the fastest way to fail at this.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven J Butala: Think of gambling. It's all percentages. The more hands of Blackjack you play and stick to the actual rules of the book,
Jack Thursday - How to Calculate your Cash Return on a Land Deal (LA 1592) Transcript:
Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven J Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven J Butala: Today is Jack Thursday and I'm going to talk to you about how to calculate your cash-on-cash return on a given land deal.
Jill DeWit: Isn't it just like, you buy it for 10, you sell it for 30? Or, is there more to it than that?
Steven J Butala: There is a little more to it than that, but that's the basic.
Jill DeWit: Okay, cool.
Steven J Butala: And so, well, let's use your example. You buy for 10. You sell for 20. What's your cash return?
Jill DeWit: Hundred percent.
Steven J Butala: Right. You've been hanging around me too long. Buy for 10. Sell for 30. What's your return?
Jill DeWit: Even better.
Steven J Butala: It's 200%.
Jill DeWit: Jill numbers.
Steven J Butala: If you buy for 10, and this is a-
Jill DeWit: Keep going.
Steven J Butala: This is a giveaway. You buy for 10. You use deal funding. You sell for 20. You get $5,000 back. What's your cash-on-cash return?
Jill DeWit: 50%.
Steven J Butala: You can't calculate it.
Jill DeWit: Why?
Steven J Butala: Because you didn't put any money in.
Jill DeWit: Oh.
Steven J Butala: So if you want an infinite cash-on-cash return just use [crosstalk 00:01:14]-
Jill DeWit: Okay. Well, there's the show, everyone!
Steven J Butala: That's not all. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. It's very interesting that whenever these shows are about numbers and technical stuff, Jill jokes around.
Jill DeWit: Hmm. Victor wrote, "Maybe-"
Steven J Butala: Just, hmm!
Jill DeWit: I know, I know. "Good morning, everybody. I have spent many days researching individual counties, days on market and price by zip code. And I've sent two mailers for the first time yesterday. I have three other counties that I want to send to that are going to average $2,500 an acre on the buy side. But I'm worried that if I don't get accepted offers back, I won't have money. Meaning, that since I'm new-"
Steven J Butala: I'm worried that I do get accepted offers back.
Jill DeWit: [crosstalk 00:02:11] do. Sorry. I won't have the money.
Steven J Butala: I won't have the cash.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. "Meaning that since I'm new, I feel like funding partners would not be interested. Any thoughts?" Well, that's not true. I just had a conversation with somebody about this. We have someone that we have done a handful of deals with. She wrote me a book of questions the other day, which I'm still responding to, but I hope by the time this airs, I've hit the reply button. But anyway, she's like, "Do you have a bottom? Is there a bottom here that you're willing to work with?" And I'm like, "The deal stands for itself. The deal should stand for itself. So I guess the answer is, yes and no. So don't be afraid."
Steven J Butala: I can answer that. In some capacity, I've been involved in acquisitions since the minute I got out of college. I don't know why, it's just that career chose me. I will tell you, throughout my career, it has shocked me that every single person has a different acquisition criteria. Everybody wants to make money, let's start there. Some people love cashflow. They love to buy property and sell notes. So that type of acquisition is different for them. It's drive right up to it. Potentially use it right away. And because they know they can sell it really quickly, they'll pay a little bit more for it to have those amenities or attributes.
Steven J Butala: In the long-term care business, there was a certain bed number for each facility that we love to buy,
Glamping and How Some Members Cash Flow with it (LA 1591) Transcript:
Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Howdy.
Steven J Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the Valley Of The Sun.
Steven J Butala: Today Jill and I talk about glamping and how some of our members are cash flowing with it. This is a huge mile long topic, and rightfully so in Discord, and everybody chimed in. I can tell when it's a good topic in Discord, because people that are just lurking, they start piping in like, oh yeah, this is there's people in there. And so this is why I joined Land Academy. And then they're giving us as an example that five miles down the road this is what this person is doing in their unused cow pasture.
Jill DeWit: Do you think what we do is a version of glamping?
Steven J Butala: No, not at all. Oh yeah. I think it can be, but I'll explain it.
Jill DeWit: Okay, good.
Steven J Butala: Before we get into it. Let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows that you like.
Jill DeWit: Erin wrote, "Airbnb, VRBO, glamping. Anyone here ever released their land to Airbnb campsite operators getting $135 a night for a tent with a composting toilet and an outdoor shower? I've been watching some YouTube videos about people buying or leasing lands near natural attractions for these style campsites. I have some lots that could be used for this. Any thoughts?"
Jill DeWit: Oh, sorry. Nelly wrote, "I've been looking at these for a while. $40,000 canvas tents. Yikes. You can rent out campsites on your property with Hip Camp. Also, been thinking about doing that on a three acre lot that I live on, cleaning up an area near the pond to run out to campers. Maybe do a Deliverance experience for Halloween." That's kind of funny.
Steven J Butala: I have to tell you, Nelly, if you've ever seen Deliverance, nobody's going to pay for a Deliverance experience. Most of you who are my age know exactly what I'm talking about and you're laughing in your cereal right now.
Jill DeWit: I don't.
Steven J Butala: I know.
Jill DeWit: I have not seen Deliverance deliberately.
Steven J Butala: Yeah. Deliverance is not for you.
Jill DeWit: That's what I [crosstalk 00:02:13].
Steven J Butala: There's no singing and dancing or anything like that.
Jill DeWit: No happy ending. Like who's still alive, basically, at the end.
Steven J Butala: So I put this question in here. It's not really not even a question. I mean, I think the real question is, has anybody thought about this? And everybody responded and said, not only have I thought about it, it's happening down the street and all of that. So because it is a topic, we'll just get right into it.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven J Butala: Today's topic glamping how some of our members are cash flowing with it. This is the meat of the show.
Steven J Butala: Glamping is the combination of two words, glamor and camping. So, it really depends on who you talk to and where they're coming from in life. But there are some people in, I used to be one of these people, I think Jill did too, were look, I just want to stay in a five-star hotel and order some room service and jump in the pool. [crosstalk 00:03:01] any part of camping.
Jill DeWit: I still have those days. Like today.
Steven J Butala: And so I've slept, probably, unless there's grandchildren in my distant future, this way distant future, I've spent my last night in a tent. You know, this is not what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about pitching a tent, like a soldier and an eating an MRE and downing a half pint of whiskey and go to sleep. That's not what I mean. I'm talking about glamping, which is these... I mean, picture of a fully produced movie from the eighties or nineties where the...
Public Records and Your Next Land Deal (LA 1590) Transcript:
Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven J Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven J Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about public records and your next land deal. So Jill, I had described it yesterday at the end of the show, but I'll describe it again. Jill and I are famous for driving around wherever we go. Not intentionally, but every single time we get in a car, I'm usually sitting shotgun, calling off real estate values around town or wherever we happen to be. And as I'm pulling these up, saying this property is for sale for $4 million or $2 million, Jill's first question is, what did they pay for it and when? And it's usually like, well, they bought it five years ago for a lot less than they're selling it for now. And Jill, I realized recently, usually on a Thursday call, this is important for her for some reason, when she makes a decision about negotiating when we go to buy the property.
Jill DeWit: And value. It helps me determine the value, like, is it going up? How drastically is it going up? What do they think's going on? That kind of a thing.
Steven J Butala: So the question is, how lucky are we that we have all this public record information that we can make these decisions? Well, this show is not so much about the fact that we have it because we all know that it's out there. How much does it matter when we're sending out these offer campaigns? Do people look at this stuff? And the answer is hell no, because they're not in the real estate business like we are. But we'll get into that in a second here. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com, online community. It's free. And don't forget please to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you liked.
Jill DeWit: Shannon wrote, "How do you handle the public record of what you purchased the land for versus how much you're listing it? We are set to close on our first five acres, and I'm wondering how people will view it when they see what we bought it for versus what we're asking. Any input is appreciated. Just wondering what has been your experience in this type of scenario. Thanks in advance." This I know ties into all of this. I'm going to say most people don't look and they don't know.
Steven J Butala: The truth is, and this is the question that was the inspiration for this entire-
Jill DeWit: Very rare.
Steven J Butala: ... was the inspiration for this entire show. So first of all, you need to know that public record is what this whole information system in our country from a real estate data standpoint is built on. For whatever reason, who set up this real estate system, and I'm actually researching that pretty heavily right now about how this all came about very heavily, so I can put it in the Land Academy 3.0. I'm researching how this all came about that whoever put the system together, and it goes back to our founding fathers of this country, really, who sat around and said, "Everyone needs to know who owns everyone else's land," because it's the exact opposite in our entire world. No one wants anyone to know what they own.
Jill DeWit: You know what's funny about that? We know a lot of what we did came from England, correct, when England is especially the exact opposite. That is private information. It is not public, who owns a house.
Steven J Butala: I'll tell you, if I was setting the system up, I would lean toward the England way. Wouldn't you?
Jill DeWit: Yeah, I would.
Steven J Butala: I wouldn't want everybody to know everything.
Jill DeWit: I know. So we'll talk about that too.
Steven J Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: So the answer to your question is I don't worry about it. It very rarely comes up. I've had it like, oh my gosh,
Land Business Can Be Your Legacy (LA 1589) Transcript:
Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven J Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land and investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWitt broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven J Butala: Today Jill and I talk about how your land business can be your legacy. This is Jill's idea, and I think it's actually pretty brilliant. It's something that she and I talk about all the time personally, but I think it's worth it's episode worthy.
Jill DeWit: It is. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. I have to pause and just share. Is this what goes on in your world? Here's what my partner just told me: "You sound like crap."
Steven J Butala: And I'm trying to help her though.
Jill DeWit: I know.
Steven J Butala: I'm trying to find some DayQuil. [crosstalk 00:00:39]
Jill DeWit: "Do you know you sound like crap?". Yeah, I do know I sound like crap. Cause I feel like crap, but that's okay.
Steven J Butala: Jill's not feeling well.
Jill DeWit: I'm Professional.
Steven J Butala: She's showing up for it though.
Jill DeWit: I am.
Steven J Butala: I'll carry you if I need to.
Jill DeWit: Thanks.
Steven J Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy, YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill DeWit: Victor wrote "not sure this would fall under general or resource sharing, but does anyone, anybody recommend a credit card? That'd be great for our business type. It seems like the most expensive operating costs would be mail and online subscriptions. I have checked most business credit cards and none offer more than 1% of cash back for shipping or online services. This is something I never go there."
Steven J Butala: This is a very, very long discord.
Jill DeWit: I don't have any advice.
Steven J Butala: Very long discord. There are a lot of comments. I refrain from commenting but somebody.
Jill DeWit: Until now.
Steven J Butala: Well yeah, that's exactly right. Somebody did quote Dave Ramsey and I agree with this and pretty much everything he says, nobody ever got rich on credit card rewards. I can tell you from personal experience, Jill and I have an American Express Platinum business card, and it gives you a tremendous number of points back and for a lot of years, not a lot of years, for a couple of years, until we wised up, we would travel all around and use the points and stay in hotels for free and on and on and on until we realized... until we talked to a main vendor. We have a bunch of other companies that are non land related, where we have to buy cost to consult.
Steven J Butala: And we were using the American express card to the tune of maybe a $100,000 - $150,000 a month. And we added all the numbers up and so I went to two vendors specifically and said, "Hey, if we stop using this American express card and we actually start wiring you money for all, for this material-
Jill DeWit: how much will it save?"
Steven J Butala: He said, "Oh yeah, well, we can knock off, you know,
Jill DeWit: X percent.
Steven J Butala: 2% in one case in 3% in the other." and we fell out of our chairs, that's $3,000 to $5,000 a month per vendor. So if we add that up, it's real money. So, and then everybody went in Discord and talked about this. So here's my advice: forget about all that stuff. Just get a debit card. Or if you actually need a credit card, forget about the cash back and the points and all that. It's just a distraction.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven J Butala: And in the end, you're, you're getting charged for it somewhere. It's not free.
Jill DeWit: Good point.
Steven J Butala: Sarah. You're not feeling well.
Jill DeWit: No, it's okay. No, you have, I'm going to let you run with that. Cause like I don't want to.
Steven J Butala: I mean,
Jill Friday - Nowhere in the World (LA 1588) Transcript:
Jill DeWit: Not me.
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill, here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I am Jill Dewit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Butala: Today is Jill Friday. She's going to talk about nowhere in the world is it possible to do what we do. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill DeWit: Charlie wrote a response to this sentence. I'm going to mix in a failure and success just to keep things in perspective. This is cute. So here we go, hashtag fail. "I was going through Irritable and saw a call from a mailer that had kept getting pushed down and pushed down on my list. So I was going through the deal again. I offered $30,000. He accepted. And the comps were around $90,000, which is a great deal if I hadn't seen it. But life happened and I checked out the land business while we had a kid and stuff." Oh, I checked out of the land business. Got it. "While looking into the property on Redfin, I see that after this guy got my letter and called, the property was listed and sold twice, once for $39,000 and then for $95,000. It made me sick to know that there were $60,000 sitting in my computer that I didn't act on. Shucks!"
Steven Butala: Darn.
Jill DeWit: You know what? That happens.
Steven Butala: This is a great life experience.
Jill DeWit: Totally. What was happening is the offer came in. He didn't act on it. Life got in the way. He went back and said, "Oh, maybe I'll do this deal," and found out somebody else did the deal.
Steven Butala: They had a baby. That happens.
Jill DeWit: It's okay. But hashtag win. He's got something. "But also during that time, I bought a lot for a hundred dollars in a subdivision with a terrible dirt road and no utilities. I started to list it on eBay multiple times. Never got all the way through it. I finally, decided Saturday," excuse me, "I finally decided it sat in my inventory long enough. So I called a realtor I've worked with before in the area and got it listed. He went and looked at it and told me what I already know, dirt road, no utilities, hard to sell, et cetera, and asked what I wanted to get out of it. There's only one for sale in that subdivision and it's at $6,000. So I told him I just wanted it gone. But 3,000 looks right to me."
Jill DeWit: "What I didn't take into account was that the subdivision, once you read over, has blown up in the last year. So he suggested we list it for $15,000. Normally, I would dial him back a bit, but we worked together and he knows that I'm shooting for speed here, not top dollar. And by the way, I have a hundred dollars into this property, so I don't really care if it sits for a month before a buyer comes along. This business is great and can forever change your family's lives if you put in the work." That's great. Oh, I wonder what he did sell it for.
Steven Butala: What's the moral of the story here? I have a takeaway. What do you think you should really take away from this?
Jill DeWit: Well, there's a couple of things. If you can keep from stopping and keep going, that's my first choice. But pick up where you left off and just move on. That's the moral of my story, because we all make mistakes. We start diets. We don't follow through. We join gyms. We don't follow through. It doesn't mean you never go back. You say, "Well, I tried that workout thing to me once when I was 20, and again when I was 30, and one more time when I was 50. It's not my thing. I am never doing it. Ship has sailed." That's not true. You can always start it and just pick up where you left off. That's my moral.
Steven Butala: This person's kicking themselves a little bit,
Jack Thursday - Land Investor Dictionary 101 - Equity (LA 1587) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala ...
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about ... Well, it's Jack Thursday, and it's Land Investor Dictionary 101. This is going to be a thing now. Every Thursday I'm going to talk about helping new people understand the terminology, the basic terminology of land investing. Today is equity.
Jill DeWit: Did I hear you say we're making an online version of this, too?
Steven Butala: Yeah. So, our team is actually putting together a separate landing page or website with all the terminologies that we talk about here. It's underway. It's not going to happen overnight, certainly, but when we get the dot-com I'll report it.
Jill DeWit: Cool. I have to tell you, when I heard about this the other day, I had a few things that I wanted to throw in the dictionary.
Steven Butala: Oh, good.
Jill DeWit: So I have some of our own terminology that we have created-
Steven Butala: Like Jillify it?
Jill DeWit: Exactly. I'll tell you right now, I have Jillify that's going to go in there, BaJillian, that's going to go in there. I also told Aaron lickety-split should go in there. Lickety-split, the definition is going to be something like how fast your property should sell.
Steven Butala: These are good things.
Jill DeWit: Right, you like this? So when you see it, I'm going to put side-hustle in there, and a way overused term, wholesale.
Steven Butala: Yeah. What are some good, silly terms that are silly?
Jill DeWit: That's a bunch that I just have. Yeah, lickety-
Steven Butala: W-2 job, things like that.
Jill DeWit: Oh yeah.
Steven Butala: 1099 job.
Jill DeWit: W-2 job ... How about the 4:00 AM club?
Steven Butala: Yeah, like Land Academy stuff.
Jill DeWit: So yeah, they're all legitimate definitions. Some we have just made up. Some words and terms we have just made up that you need to know about and we throw around. Like in my world ... I confused you the other day. In our world, you're like, "What does that mean?"
Steven Butala: Shotgun closing.
Jill DeWit: Oh yeah.
Steven Butala: Like shotgun wedding, but shotgun closing.
Jill DeWit: We could come up with some good ones that you need to know. We'll give you a chance that you could submit some, too. Like, "I heard you talking about X. What the hell is ... "
Steven Butala: Like the haight.
Jill DeWit: Oh, the haight.
Steven Butala: H-A-I-G-H-T.
Jill DeWit: Oh, I've got a whole list here.
Steven Butala: There's a whole Land Academy of vocabulary we can cover.
Jill DeWit: This is good. This is going to be funny.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com community. It's free, and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows that you like.
Jill DeWit: Is it first initial, Burton?
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Okay, E. Burton wrote, "Besides the LandTank and Facebook, what are other ways to get deals funded? I'm trying to keep my options open, and be open-minded and creative." Is there more to that? No. Okay, cool.
Steven Butala: I'm not aware of Facebook, and LandTank honestly is coming down soon. Here's why: It's never been easier to get a deal funded, ever. I've never seen an environment in my entire career where people are throwing money out ... In a positive way, throwing money in, I should say, to get a good deal done. So if you're brand new and you're good at finding good deals, forget about the money. You're going to find so much money being dumped in your lap, it's silly.
Steven Butala: Go to landfunding.com. It's a website we just started. There's all kinds of products for you. If it's really,
Creating an Easement by Being Nice to your Neighbors (LA 1586) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the land academy show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt broadcasting from the valley of the sun today.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about creating an easement by simply being nice to your neighbors.
Jill DeWit: Okay. This is confusing. An easement means I have access, preferably legal and physical, to go somewhere. An easement means it's the legal paperwork, as necessary, to access a property.
Steven Butala: So I'll give a full-blown examples in the mid of the show, but this solves a landlocked property.
Jill DeWit: I just have to ask. I'm so confused. I'm not confused. I'm just saying that-
Steven Butala: Oh, you're asking for everybody-
Jill DeWit: No. Yeah.
Steven Butala: If you have a landlocked piece of property and there's a neighbor's property on the road, on a county road, let's say, and some of your [inaudible 00:01:00] sends it back to you and says, "Heck yes, I will sell you my incredibly valuable property for a tiny small amount of money, because I know there's no access."
Steven Butala: And I'll explain how you can get access by baking a cake and showing up at somebody's store. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free. Don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill DeWit: Aaron wrote, "Has anyone figured out how to integrate their website with an e-signature service to automate purchase agreement signing? Use case looks like receive letter. He puts like the little terminology in there without-
Steven Butala: This is a code-
Jill DeWit: Website URL.
Steven Butala: His case looks like receive letter. Go to website URL in letter, enter reference number, digitally sign their PA, just trying to think about how to reduce the friction of signing and sending back a purchase agreement.
Jill DeWit: This is kind of cool. This is a really good idea.
Steven Butala: Well, I think it's a brilliant idea. It'll never work.
Jill DeWit: Why?
Steven Butala: So let's talk about this for a second. I want to make a kind of a big deal about this. There's a lot of technical people in our group, me included. I'm a very technical person and I'm hugely interested in making things easier and faster and more profitable. And one of the ways that you do that now, maybe the way, is through tech and technology improvements in databases and all this. And so Aaron obviously has a tech background or just knows about it. And so there's a lot of ways you can automate this and make this easy. And there's a lot of people who have come and gone in our group from a tech background, there's a lot of people in our group right now that have a core tech background in their W2 jobs, very successful, walking into this environment saying, "Oh no, we're going to make this whole thing an app. We're going to automate the entire system and we're going to take control over US land."
Steven Butala: And so that's the extreme and Aaron, I'm not picking on you at all. I think this is a brilliant idea. I'm serious. But what you're missing here and what I think a lot of tech people miss, again, it's not a criticism at all. It's not like I'm talking about California right now. This is not a criticism. It's a backwards compliment. I'm not sure that you understand this customer. Do you think that most of the people that you sell property to, or buy property from, I'm sorry, are going to go onto a website, click on some stuff and sign it that way?
Jill DeWit: No, that's true.
Steven Butala: So Jill's right. They're not tech savvy. They're not set up for that. They want you to do it for them. They're asking you-
Jill DeWit: kind of the point-
Steven Butala:
Income Taxes and Your Land Business (LA 1585) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Howdy.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about income taxes and your land business.
Jill DeWit: Yay. I tell you I was losing sleep over this. I am so excited, it's one of my favorite topics.
Steven Butala: Kidding aside, you don't have to lose sleep over it, because I do. And it turns out a lot of Land Academy members do, too. And so this is a big topic. We just completed the most recent Land Academy career path program, this was a big topic at the end. And so I did a whole presentation. So I figured I'd do a five, ten minute synopsis here. And really, my whole point being, and we'll get into it in detail here in a minute, you can't just let this happen. You can't let taxes happen to you, like I did when I had a W2 position forever. It's a completely different scenario. You just let taxes happen to you when you have a job.
Jill DeWit: I know, because someone else dictates how it's going to go, kind of thing. You get to say what percentage you want withheld, but that's about it.
Steven Butala: Now that you have your own entity, however it's structured, you have a lot of choices and a lot of control.
Jill DeWit: I understand. It's a funny progression with our members like, "Oh my gosh, holy cow, I made so much money." And then at the end of the year you're like, "Holy cow, I made so much money."
Steven Butala: I made a ton of money and I got to give 50% of it away.
Jill DeWit: Shoot. What do I do? How do I plan for this? Uh-oh.
Steven Butala: That's what we'll talk about. This is prompted by Jill sitting on the floor, Indian style-
Jill DeWit: Crying.
Steven Butala: ... in a puddle, writing checks a couple of years ago. We didn't have to do that last year, fortunately, because of good planning. But two years ago there were crocodile tears.
Jill DeWit: There were some tears.
Steven Butala: And I hate that.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Steven Butala: I don't want to see you cry ever. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel, and comment on the shows that you like.
Jill DeWit: Eburton wrote, "Newbs. How do you know you have a good deal? Like, how?"
Steven Butala: I love this question.
Jill DeWit: I do too. You want to go first?
Steven Butala: Nope.
Jill DeWit: Oh.
Steven Butala: I have a lot to say.
Jill DeWit: How do I know I have a good deal? It comes in, I hang up the phone, I pull up the map and I glance at my five A's on the sticky note that's on my monitor. Access. Yep, it has that. Acreage. Yeah, wow. It's exactly what I wanted. Attribute. Oh my gosh, look how close it is to the water. Alive. Yeah. I just talked to the guy, now I'm confirming it's him. This is his name. And here he is, he's the only one on here. And then affordability. He's signing this thing and sending it back. Oh. And then, I take it one step further, because I'm assuming I did all my work going into it right on my pricing. I'm going to keep going with this here.
Steven Butala: Yeah, you should.
Jill DeWit: And then, now I'm going to go, "I'm going to go double check. Okay. This is all going too well right now." Now I'm starting to, like, I can feel the butterflies. I'm sweating, my pulse is racing a little bit. Did I screw something up? Now I'm going to jump into some land selling sites, even just Zillow, and look around on the MLS postings and see, all right, what are the other five acres selling for? And then I pull it up and I see, and I'm like, "Okay, don't get excited yet. Let's see what's sold. Holy cow. I can't find anything wrong with this. I need to get this in.
Why Satellite Internet Providers Tell us Where to Send Mail (LA 1584) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt, broadcasting from The Valley of the Sun. You like that?
Steven Butala: I like it. Today, Jill and I talk about why satellite internet providers are continuously telling us where to send mail. This is a good thing.
Jill DeWit: I wrote down a different reason as to why we care about this. And I'll share that when we get into the meat of the show, but I got to tell you, I was struggling, "Do I say Scottsdale? Do I say Phoenix? Where do I say we are?" And I forgot that this was always called The Valley of the Sun. Isn't that interesting?
Steven Butala: I think there's more than one Valley of the Sun. Everybody thinks they're The Valley of the Sun.
Jill DeWit: When you Google Valley of the Sun, though, Phoenix comes up.
Steven Butala: Really?
Jill DeWit: I made sure. I'm like, seriously.
Steven Butala: Do you Google stuff, Jill?
Jill DeWit: All the time. I Google you. I Google... I'm just kidding. Of course.
Steven Butala: I read recently that Google, as a product, it is the single most used product for a consumer in the history of all products.
Jill DeWit: Really? What did you say Google was supposed to be? Remember you said that-
Steven Butala: It's misspelled. It's supposed to be G-O-O G-E-L. And it's some type of cipher God. It's some type of scientific something.
Jill DeWit: Really G-E-L and then-
Steven Butala: Scientific measurement or something.
Jill DeWit: But it didn't look right. Somebody just like-
Steven Butala: They misspelled it right from the beginning and it just stuck, which is probably kind of cool because now it's obviously an incredible brand.
Jill DeWit: It's a verb. It's a noun. It's all kinds of things. Okay.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, though, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the Land Investors.com online community. It's free and don't forget to subscribe on The Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows that you like. You don't have to comment on the shows that you hate. If you comment on the shows that you like, then we do more content about stuff you like.
Jill DeWit: That's really good. The shows you love, please just go for it.
Steven Butala: All kidding aside, it really does help us develop an algorithm to create content that people want to hear about. Like, maybe you're not interested in hearing me rant about California.
Jill DeWit: Or this show at all. That's so funny. I couldn't tell you the day... Since now we're off topic... We're on Clubhouse [crosstalk 00:02:32]. So, we're on Clubhouse the other day and there was that guy... I can't tell if he was trying to break into our show.
Steven Butala: Yeah. He totally was.
Jill DeWit: Oh, was he? Okay. Or if he was like yelling at somebody on the street.
Steven Butala: No, no. I think he was breaking in. He broke into our show.
Jill DeWit: And just was cussing.
Steven Butala: This is the world now.
Jill DeWit: That was funny. So, my team got him off there, to quote you, "Lickedy split."
Steven Butala: I just read a thing about this whole thing about the internet culture, how it's developing. I'm old enough to know when there was no internet at all. And so...
Jill DeWit: You're older than me.
Steven Butala: Right. And my parents would say stuff like, "Keep your opinions to yourself." That was just the world that I grew up in. And that's just not the way it is now. Everybody's really encouraged to have an opinion and be real loud about it with filthy language and everything. That's just like a norm. That's a normal state of the internet.
Jill DeWit: I don't get it.
Steven Butala: I don't either.
Jill DeWit: Anyway, let's get back to the show. Ty wrote, "Anyone else getting first mailer jitters?" Oh,
Jill Friday - Showing up for Work (LA 1583) Transcript:
Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Happy Friday.
Steven J Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show. Entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I am Jill Dewitt broadcasting from sunny Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven J Butala: Today is Jill Friday, and she talks about showing up for work, no matter where you work. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on landinvestors.com online community. It's free. If you're already a member, join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: Land Academy member that is. Yep. Kevin responds to this post, which says called do neighbor letters work? So I guess this is the post?
Steven J Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Okay. Is this Kevin's thing or this the post and then comes Kevin's thing?
Steven J Butala: This is Kevin.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven J Butala: Kevin our awesome moderator in Discord.
Jill DeWit: Okay. So Kevin's saying, "Look, I have used neighbor letters with good success. I don't always use it, a neighbor letter, but I have sold several properties using neighbor letters. I don't call them the neighbors. I send letters. My letter's very brief. I offer the property at a good price and let the recipient know that I will be putting it on the market at a higher price. I include a large aerial view showing the parcel so that they know where it is in relationship to their land. I have sold landlocked parcels and other vacant land this way." Good stuff. Just like a little tip. Is that what the point was here?
Steven J Butala: I have an entire business operation where I only sell property to the neighbors. Neighbors letters are awesome. And they're really, really inexpensive. What do you send out? Maybe 600 letters, sometimes. Maybe 300 letters.
Jill DeWit: God, maybe-
Steven J Butala: When you buy a piece of property-
Jill DeWit: ... maybe a hundred.
Steven J Butala: You buy a piece of property, you send out 100, 200, 300, maybe 500 letters to all the people who own property around there, that quite simply says, "Hey, I know you have property here and I just, I've got an off-market property. It's probably a lot less than you spent to buy the one that you have, and if you're interested, give me a call. I'll sell it to you off market. We can get the deal done really easy. No financing, no real estate agents. None of that stuff. I just closed on it with escrow, so we can use the same agent. It's only going to take a few days."
Jill DeWit: Cool.
Steven J Butala: What's going on?
Jill DeWit: I don't know. You're just running. I'm just letting you go. It's easier.
Steven J Butala: Let's let Jill talk.
Jill DeWit: This is my goal in life. Just going to pick the easiest path, especially today.
Steven J Butala: Today is Jill Friday, and she's going to talk about showing up for work. This is the meat of the show.
Jill DeWit: Yes. Whatever you do, this kind of ties into what you talked about this week, which I thought was really interesting, the millionaire thing. Because you talked about having a plan. And I think for a lot of people having a plan might involve a job. It might involve a W2. It might involve a paycheck. And one of the things about... And I hope that you realize if that's your life and you have that job, you're getting a paycheck, that it can and should fit into your plan. You are still in control. You should be there because you want to be there. You picked it. You're not trapped. Trust me. I know this. It's really interesting, too, that whole mindset. You brought that up earlier. I worked at a job. I kind of, I started to fall into that. You can get a little brainwashed thinking that you're trapped somewhere and it's oh, good and you'll never find anything better.
Jill DeWit: Because people tell you that. And it's really your coworkers around you that are just in a little trap and little hamster wheel.
Jack Thursday - Rather be Dead in Arizona than Alive in California (LA 1582) Transcript:
Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven J Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven J Butala: Today is Jack Thursday and I'd rather be dead in Arizona than alive in California.
Jill DeWit: That was from the banana stand, Arrested Development.
Steven J Butala: Yep.
Jill DeWit: I love that show. Such a good show.
Steven J Butala: Before we get into it, actually it was in reverse though, on the show.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven J Butala: Before-
Jill DeWit: Rather be dead in California than alive in Arizona?
Steven J Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Okay, got it.
Steven J Butala: Like a lot of states, where we're adjacent and we're not big fans of each other.
Steven J Butala: Before we get into it though, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And if you're already a member, a Land Academy member, join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: Actually, I have something funny to share about that real quick. I talked to our insurance guy today, our former insurance guy in California. He informed me that he recently got ... He got his certification or license or whatever, for all the states. All his people are moving too out of California. He says, "I've gotten Nevada, I've got Arizona."
Steven J Butala: Texas.
Jill DeWit: "I've got Texas."
Steven J Butala: Florida.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. He's rolling them off. He's like, "So I can help you in Arizona now." And I'm like, "Oh, this is funny, I didn't know that." He's like, "Yeah, because all my clients were leaving." So anyway.
Jill DeWit: Ty wrote, "I am new and working through the steps so take this with a grain of salt. I hired a full-time customer service specialist off Online Jobs. I made-"
Steven J Butala: Onlinejobs.ph, for the Philippines.
Jill DeWit: Okay, interesting. "I made sure to include data specialist in the post and I got about 20 resumes. In my post I requested a video introduction, which I understand can limit replies, but [inaudible 00:01:50] that important to find someone outgoing and personable."
Steven J Butala: Outstanding.
Jill DeWit: "Took the best five and did one-on-one interviews. Hired the best of those for a one-week working interview. Made Jason team member number one," ah, "an offer today and he accepted."
Jill DeWit: I am stoked at the level of communication, knowledge of data systems, ability to handle tasks without hand-holding, overall professionalism, zero accent by the way. I can not be happier, but it's only been a week. He'll be working my time zone too, by the way, important since I want him to answer all incoming calls and data collection." This is huge.
Steven J Butala: This is the best news ever.
Jill DeWit: Wow.
Steven J Butala: And I can tell, Ty, how you're writing this, and I can just tell how it's successful you're going to be at this.
Jill DeWit: Wow. That's so good.
Steven J Butala: I'm really happy for you. And I think we've had nothing but positive experiences with the Philippines in general.
Jill DeWit: That's really good.
Steven J Butala: We have a lot of people working for us in the Philippines.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven J Butala: And they all report to our department heads here in the States.
Jill DeWit: It's really cool.
Steven J Butala: Today's topic, it's Jack Thursday and I'd rather be dead in Arizona than alive in California. This is why you're listening.
Jill DeWit: All right. So you turned that all around, why?
Steven J Butala: What's the problem with California? Really, I ask myself this all the time. And I'll start off by saying this very positively, it's a shame what's happened to California. It's a shame what's happened to Detroit. So I grew up in Detroit and I watched it deteri...
LandFunding.com is Live (LA 1581) Transcript:
Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Howdy.
Steven J Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny, Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven J Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about landfunding.com and how it's now live.
Jill DeWit: I'm excited. This is so cool.
Steven J Butala: You do not need money to be a successful land investor.
Jill DeWit: What? Isn't that amazing. So many people, that's it. Getting into real estate of any kind, the barrier to entry for some people is like, I just don't have the money. I guess, I can't do it. I can't be like those cool HGTV people. Are you cool Land Academy people.
Steven J Butala: People ask me, why would you ever start something like Land Academy and share all these secrets, when you had this perfectly awesome scenario going, and you guys are just traveling down, making millions of dollars a month? Here's why, limitless capital. And that's what Land Academy has provided, not only for us, now for everyone.
Steven J Butala: Money people come out of the woodwork, including us and fund our stuff, and so we are those people. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free. And if you're already a Land Academy member, please join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: James wrote, "I have a dilemma that I'd like to get feedback on. Try to be brief and concise. I listed a small value property with an agent about a month ago. He expects it to sell in three to six months at a net profit that I'm happy with. Much longer timeframe than I like now, but he's an old school cowboy, who has worked vacant land in this area for decades. Ultimately, I bring him volume, then move on to the next deal, wait for the money to return, and it frees up a lot of my time since he takes on the sales and the marketing."
Jill DeWit: "Communications so far has been, meh, but looking over his track record, I'm inclined to believe him. Received an offer today that I'm happy to take, but was from a pre-agent listing. And I would have to get the agent to cancel the contract." I don't know what that is. So someone today or long-term relationship to sell more at a slower pace. Oh, I see what it was. He listed it with somebody else and now he has this guy.
Steven J Butala: Now, he's got the cowboy.
Jill DeWit: So then the old guy found one. Oh, okay. Okay. "I'm not sure if I'm being patient or practical. Thank you for advance. Need to get this out of my head and get different perspectives."
Steven J Butala: You go first.
Jill DeWit: Okay. Wait. So I'm trying to understand this.
Steven J Butala: He had it listed with somebody with a beehive hairdo from the 50s and little cat eyeglasses.
Jill DeWit: And that expired.
Steven J Butala: That expired.
Jill DeWit: And now he found a new guy.
Steven J Butala: They dropped the ball. He got the right guy, the cowboy. Okay. And the beehive hairdo person produced an offer.
Jill DeWit: Oh, well, the right thing to do is, shoot. The right thing to do is, the guy that he has a contract with now. The beehive doesn't really have a leg to stand on. You got to do the right thing.
Steven J Butala: I know what I would do.
Jill DeWit: And I wouldn't want to risk.
Steven J Butala: I would never cut this cowboy out.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I don't want to risk that guy, losing him.
Steven J Butala: Yep, me too. Long-term, I choose B, long-term relationship.
Jill DeWit: You need to talk to him and come and say, what do you guys usually do in this situation? That's what I would say. You knew that I had it with somebody else. That contract expired. Here we are. What's the protocol?
Steven J Butala: I'm pretty sure if he'd just contractually read it, everyone needs to get paid.
Jill DeWit: And then they'd probably have to split it.
Top 5 Habits of Successful Millionaires (LA 1580) Transcript:
Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven J Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from sunny Scottsdale Arizona.
Steven J Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about the top five habits of successful millionaires. Recently Credit Suisse, not recently last year in 2020 did a pretty extensive survey. We were not included.
Jill DeWit: Who did this?
Steven J Butala: Credit Suisse.
Jill DeWit: Oh, thank you.
Steven J Butala: Of 10,000 voluntary millionaires.
Jill DeWit: Sounds like you're so adamant. Credit Suisse. Okay.
Steven J Butala: And...
Jill DeWit: Are they a bank?
Steven J Butala: Yeah. It's a-
Jill DeWit: Isn't it a bank?
Steven J Butala: They're a full bank, an investment bank and all of that.
Jill DeWit: Okay, all right.
Steven J Butala: Before we get into-
Jill DeWit: Are they American millionaires or they're just European millionaires?
Steven J Butala: They're all American.
Jill DeWit: Oh, okay. I just have some questions. I'm curious. Thank you.
Steven J Butala: Before we get in, there's 20 million millionaires in the country.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven J Butala: In this country and there's a lot less multi-millionaires. And I don't know the exact number, but it's dramatically less.
Jill DeWit: So it's just, if you have one million, you're a million.
Steven J Butala: Yeah. And it's a net worth thing.
Jill DeWit: There's a lot of people.
Steven J Butala: It's a net worth. So it could be stock, it could... most houses are worth-
Jill DeWit: Your retirement.
Steven J Butala: Equity, and your house is more than a million, so.
Jill DeWit: That's true. That's all of Southern California.
Steven J Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: They didn't start out that way, but they are there now.
Steven J Butala: Before we get into it, there's a show coming up later this Jack Thursday where I'm going to talk all about California.
Jill DeWit: Oh, goodie. I can't wait for that one. I will have a helmet on. no kidding.
Steven J Butala: Thursays become a rant.
Jill DeWit: I think I'm going to go put my helmet on.
Steven J Butala: Thursday just become, we should just call it Jack rant Thursday.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, pretty much.
Steven J Butala: You know what the problem is? People are emailing me saying this is my favorite-
Jill DeWit: Sweetie.
Steven J Butala: My favorite podcast is Thursday when you go off on all this stuff.
Jill DeWit: Because they're poking the bear.
Steven J Butala: You think?
Jill DeWit: Yeah. It doesn't take much.
Steven J Butala: I never went to my parents and said, "I really love when you yell at me."
Jill DeWit: Say renovation, renovation. Watch what happens.
Steven J Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And if you're already a member, please join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: Danielle wrote, "Do we need to build a buyers list if we're going after bigger deals that will be handled by an agent? I'm spending all this money doing Facebook ads. And although they're going to my website and submitting their email, I feel like majority of these leads are tire kickers. The general inquiry about my marketplace ads is about the ability to camp or put a mobile on the property. So far, it feels like a waste." What was the beginning of the question? I'm sorry. I would mail the buyers list. Yeah, no, I don't think anything of this is bad at all. Why are you looking at me like I'm nuts?
Steven J Butala: Well, because I don't think that.
Jill DeWit: I think it's great.
Steven J Butala: I don't necessarily... We have a five buyers in a very specific area where I buy and sell a ton of property. I have my stuff and Jill has her stuff.
Jill DeWit: But you never know.
Steven J Butala:
The Basics of the Land Business (LA 1579) Transcript:
Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill, here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Steven J Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sweet Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven J Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about the basics of the land business. This whole topic came from a discussion on Discord, which I just thought was brilliant and so we'll talk all about ... Every business comes down to a few simple things.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven J Butala: Like when you think about Amazon or Walmart, there's one or two sentences you can describe the whole thing.
Jill DeWit: Cheap.
Steven J Butala: Cheap, fast.
Jill DeWit: Fast.
Steven J Butala: Easy.
Jill DeWit: Let's see. Costco ...
Steven J Butala: Abundant.
Jill DeWit: ... is quality.
Steven J Butala: Quality. Yep.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Nordstrom is customer service.
Steven J Butala: Is it?
Jill DeWit: I think so. It is for me.
Steven J Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on TheLandInvestors.com online community. It's free and if you're already a Land Academy member, please join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: I like to add ... We're going to rewrite our things here, too. Even though I'm interrupting all this to insert one more thing, I'm going to insert one more thing because our team asked me to and I need to fix this. We mentioned the Discord. Have I mentioned Clubhouse lately? Every Thursday at one o'clock Pacific Time you can find us on Clubhouse. Check it out. Go to the group or the club called Land ... Shoot, I think it's called Land Investors. How funny is that? Get to know your own stuff. I don't know. And by the way, too, don't forget you can also find us all over the heck on YouTube on Land Academy. Thank you.
Jill DeWit: So, Chuck wrote, "I'm finding huge differences for properties on the market between LandWatch, Redfin, Zillow and Realtor. For example, in one county I'm looking at LandWatch and it shows 1,883 properties. Redfin shows 334 properties." These are all for sale, I'm assuming. "Realtor shows 959 and Zillow 346. Zillow's six months old shows 651. Redfin shows 389. The Zillow for sale/sold ratio is good but the others not so much. This makes it weird trying to evaluate what's really going on. Using the largest for sale, which is LandWatch and the most six month sales, which is Zillow, results in an undesirable ratio. This contradicts the fair ratio in Zillow for sale/sold. I'm coming to the conclusion that I should find another county." This is hilarious. "But ..."
Steven J Butala: I'm coming to that conclusion, too.
Jill DeWit: "... I want to see if anyone else has this issue and how it's dealt with. Thank you."
Steven J Butala: Here's ...
Jill DeWit: That's a tough one. You got to do apples to apples, not apples to oranges and oranges to pineapple, which is, it sounds like, what's going on.
Steven J Butala: Jill's exactly right. Whatever you do for the red, green, yellow test you need to do it if you're going to look at Zillow active versus sold ... You need to look Zillow/Zillow.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven J Butala: Redfin/Redfin. Here's the deal. Realtor.com only lists properties that are listed with an active real estate agent. Period. It's the national MLS. Redfin has a very vested interest in listing properties that are with their agents or agents that comply with their business model, and so if you need to learn more about Redfin, which I'm pretty impressed with ... Redfin's kind of taking an ... This is an off-shoot comment/opinion of mine. Redfin has taken a terrible ...
Jill DeWit: Alert, alert.
Steven J Butala: ... A terrible situation, which is this damn MLS, and made something good out of it. And so, they're only in certain places, in urban areas, not rural. But we're in the business of rural land so Redfin, we don't use it that much.
Jill Friday - When is the Right Time to Leave Your Job (LA 1578) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt, broadcasting from pretty Phoenix, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk, well, it's Jill Friday. And Jill talks about when is the right time to leave your job. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And if you're already a Land Academy member, please join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: Stephen wrote.
Steven Butala: I really think it's Stephan. With an A here.
Jill DeWit: Okay. Excuse me. Did you just correct me on that?
Steven Butala: It's an offshoot.
Jill DeWit: What if it is Stephen?
Steven Butala: It's an offshoot of-
Jill DeWit: What the heck was that?
Steven Butala: The name Jill. Jill says.
Jill DeWit: What the heck?
Steven Butala: I'm just horsing around.
Jill DeWit: Stefan. There's no-
Steven Butala: It might be Stephan.
Jill DeWit: There's no dots or anything above the A. Should we clarify this? What the heck is that?
Steven Butala: The root of all this is that I have one of the most silly common name there ever was, so when there's just a slight off shoot on it, I'm happy. Anyway.
Jill DeWit: All right.
Steven Butala: Whatever.
Jill DeWit: You know who you are wrote, and please, as I read this question, and you identify that it's you, would you please be so kind as to send him an email, or please put it in Discord, or somewhere.
Steven Butala: Yeah. Please don't [crosstalk 00:01:41].
Jill DeWit: The correct pronunciation of your name.
Steven Butala: Please don't send me emails.
Jill DeWit: Okay. Because this one apparently would like to know and make sure we get it right. Because okay, are we done now?
Steven Butala: Yep.
Jill DeWit: Okay. It reads, "Pro tip. If you use the first search function on Land Academy, it will also search podcast transcripts. I recently found a great paralegal for handling a probate issue by searching the word heirship. Come to think of it, jill says the words, 'neighbor letters,' at the end of every podcast, since Neighbor Scoop was released, so it might not work for this." That's funny. That's cool. So, on our website, you can just search, and then all that stuff comes up. That's good.
Steven Butala: There's some amazing search tools on Discord, and all kinds of places for all kinds of information, to get really, I mean, it's one of the, that's why I put this in here. We should talk about it more. There's thousands and thousands and thousands-
Jill DeWit: Of hours.
Steven Butala: Of pages of content.
Jill DeWit: Of content.
Steven Butala: And there's transcripts for, beginning from Episode 0. And we were on, this is Episode 1578. And the transcripts are all in there, every single one. So, if you do have a specific question about, I mean, I'm betting, we probably talked about it just about everything.
Jill DeWit: So, someone right now is listening going, "You mean I don't have to listen to this? I can just read it?"
Steven Butala: Yes.
Jill DeWit: "Oh, my life just improved. I can skim the cliff notes and not have to go through this torture?" Yes, that's true.
Steven Butala: Because I'd rather be listening to Led Zeppelin anyway.
Jill DeWit: Oh, my goodness. All right. Moving on. Today is Jill Friday. When is the right time to leave your job? This is the meat of the show. Okay. One of the things that I do is, still do, not very often. It's really a part of Career Path. We've gotten busy, in case you didn't know. So, us and our normal consulting is not readily available, but it is inside of Career Path. So, I did a consulting recently for a person inside of Career Path, and this was the gist of the conversation. This person is in a wonderful position. I mean, great job, W-2,
Jack Thursday - Constant Change Personally and Professionally (LA 1577) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from pretty Phoenix, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Hey, it's Jack Thursday. I'm going to talk about constant change, personally and professionally. Should be no surprises here, yet we get constant questions.
Jill DeWit: We're not talking about changing your marital status or the number of children or things like that. That's not what we mean by constant change. Correct?
Steven Butala: This is all because on Discord, somebody who's brand new, rightfully so, requested that we add a channel called new stupid questions.
Jill DeWit: Oh.
Steven Butala: And I didn't realize this, but people were kind of intimidated about asking brand new questions, and that should never happen in an environment like this. And so-
Jill DeWit: Put stupid questions.
Steven Butala: Just brand new questions like, is 40 acres of better than 20? And I'm in there actively saying there's no such thing... there isn't, no such thing as a silly question or a wrong question-
Jill DeWit: Exactly. It's okay.
Steven Butala: ... in that channel. There's a lot of places where that's a ridiculous question, including some places in Land Academy, but-
Jill DeWit: Got it. I understand.
Steven Butala: That's what this is about.
Jill DeWit: So, as a disclaimer, if you open this thread, be ready. That's good.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and if you're already a Land Academy member, join us on Discord, like I just said.
Jill DeWit: Danielle wrote "When sending out neighbor letters, do you just send a certain radius around a property? How far out do you go? Thanks."
Steven Butala: Okay. I specifically chose this question because of this topic. What do you think the answer is?
Jill DeWit: Till you get a certain number because you... I don't want like three. I want a lot. Okay, let me back up. Are you getting mad? You look like you had like a "huhh."
Steven Butala: No, I'm not mad at you.
Jill DeWit: Oh, thought-
Steven Butala: And I'm not, certainly not mad at Danielle. Just go ahead. [crosstalk 00:02:12]
Jill DeWit: Well, you know what? Now I'm afraid to answer. Oh, I'm not going to answer now. You go.
Steven Butala: What do you think the answer is to this question?
Jill DeWit: Do you get-
Steven Butala: And why are we trying to put this in a box? It has nothing to do with Danielle. Please don't take this personally.
Jill DeWit: No. I personally go out far enough-
Steven Butala: The answer is it constantly changes.
Jill DeWit: Oh God. Okay, I can't win.
Steven Butala: I don't know. There's a constant theme that goes on in Land Academy, and I think in life, where everyone's trying to get a straight answer, a straight hard answer-
Jill DeWit: I understand. It's not 1.2 miles.
Steven Butala: Yes, thank you, Jill.
Jill DeWit: That's fair. Okay. Now I understand where you're trying to go with this. Yeah, because 1.2 miles, depending on... Here's why. 1.2 miles, depending on how big all the properties are around there, might give you 10, and that's really not enough.
Steven Butala: How many is enough?
Jill DeWit: Maybe you go so enough that-
Steven Butala: You can't answer that.
Jill DeWit: All right.
Steven Butala: There's no answer to this.
Jill DeWit: Well, enough that you're going to yield a bunch [crosstalk 00:03:10] of feedback.
Steven Butala: It constantly changes, and you have to get... This is what's beautiful about real estate and what is awful about, let's say day trading.
Jill DeWit: It is Jack Thursday.
Steven Butala: Because there is an answer. There is an answer about day trading to everything. If you do this,
What Would You Do with Limitless Capital (LA 1576) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Howdy.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show. Entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt broadcasting from pretty Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about what would you do with limitless capital? I love this topic. I love talking about money.
Jill DeWit: Oh, man the shopping I could do.
Steven Butala: See? That's where it starts.
Jill DeWit: Oh, oh, that's not what you meant? Oh, shoot.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community. It's free, and if you're already a Land Academy member, please join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: That's an honest mistake. I just kidding. Marianne wrote sometimes it's a blessing to have a full-time job that's a bit of a game delay in getting back to sellers. I was slammed at work and three callbacks stacked up from the same area. The pattern was a flag, and I was able to do some digging.
Steven Butala: Red flag.
Jill DeWit: Red flag. Okay. The subdivision originally sold 5 and 10 acre parcels that the county only allowed buildable at 20 acres. Interesting. It left a bunch of people unable to build their retirement homes and stuck with desert land in this state. My offers were based too high. My offers were too high based on this for purely recreational land, and I didn't even want them at all. I think if I had called the first seller back right away, I would have taken the deal. If anyone is into this sort of thing, please direct message me, perhaps one woman's trash, dot, dot, dot. That's good. So how do we learn to get better at finding and understanding legal descriptions and zoning codes? That's a part of this question, too?
Steven Butala: Yeah. And so what she's getting at here is-
Jill DeWit: Because she missed something and she might not have, I think.
Steven Butala: What she's getting at here, this is my opinion, is chill out. Just chill out. Let your mailer do the work. These mailers do a ton of work for you. They don't just find sellers for you, which is amazing in its own right. They also tell you, hey, if there's 25 people responding to you immediately and signing your offers in one little area, that-
Jill DeWit: There could be a problem.
Steven Butala: It might be priced too high. And that's okay because you can go in and reduce prices and review it and whatnot. You have complete control over what properties you buy, entirely and completely. So let the mail do its job and chill out a little bit. Let them come back and choose the best one. It's like dating. Choose the best one.
Jill DeWit: I was waiting. I'm like let him go. Let it go. He'll hang himself. It's fine. I don't need to get it on this.
Steven Butala: And she says, how do we-
Jill DeWit: Well, can I comment on this?
Steven Butala: Oh, sure of course. Of course.
Jill DeWit: I want to comment, too, that I love it. She quickly figured out on her own... People, this happens often. The first one comes back. We're scrambling to try to make it because it might be my only one. No, it won't. Hold on everyone. And the best thing I could say, too, is I'm glad you let hours and/or a day go by. I like to let a bunch of them come in. I want to review 10 deals at once, and I want you to review 10 deals at once. So then I know you're going to pick the best one. Don't try to make every deal, especially the first two or three, work because as she uncovered, there could be some problems. And I don't want you to try to see something that's not there. That happens. Now, on to the second part.
Steven Butala: How do we learn to get better at finding and understanding legal descriptions and zoning codes? Google, YouTube, and Land Academy Discord. This was off of Discord, and this is a perfect place to start. And I didn't put it in this context,
Land Academy 4 AM Club (LA 1575) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from pretty Phoenix, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about the Land Academy 4:00 AM club. Something that our members came up with because they have... Our newer members usually have regular W2 jobs and they're obviously not happy with that. So they still have their W2 jobs, as they should.
Jill DeWit: We'll talk about it.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. I want to share more because I want to say where... I think it's just a really cool thing that they created. I want to share that.
Steven Butala: First, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And if you're already a Land Academy member, please join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: This is an exchange on Discord in the Success Stories channel. You hung out there. This is cool.
Steven Butala: I love this channel.
Jill DeWit: That was yesterday's question and today's question. So, all right. So this is written by a guy named Scott on August 11th, and it says, Jill mentioned she follows someone on Facebook in the group who travels full-time. That is our dream, RV life and international. If that is you, or you know who it is, DM me. Wink. I'd love to follow their page and be inspired.
Jill DeWit: So this is another guy that also wrote, followed up on this. His name is Dan and he wrote, I don't travel full time at all, but was traveling for six weeks or so and was doing deals from my campsite next to the lake, with the weak little wifi signal I was getting. That was pretty awesome. So then Scott wrote back and replied, that's awesome. My wife is an immigrant and I like her to see more of the USA and get to go home more often. But it's impossible when you get two to three weeks off a year.
Steven Butala: That's for sure.
Jill DeWit: You put a lot in here. Okay. So then Steven, one of our members, Stephen A wrote, how about Land Academy members pool money and buy an RV park? And we can just do IRL Discord there with tall cans. What's IRL?
Steven Butala: I don't know, but I love where this is going.
Jill DeWit: That's funny. International, rural land. Maybe that's it. Something, I don't know. Scott wrote back, take my money. And then Steven A put, a grueling business weekend like that would have to be tax deductible. This is cute. That's really good.
Steven Butala: This is the kind of stuff I put this in here because this is the kind of stuff that goes on, on Discord in this. Land Academy has become a culture. It's not just, "Hey, this is how you buy and sell land. And this is how you get wealthy." There's friendships happening for life. That's what the show is about. This 4:00 AM Club. These people will probably do deals with each other forever.
Jill DeWit: That's really good. Yeah. It's a community. We help each other with all kinds of motivational and inspirational and getting through tough times and, you're right, it leads right into this show.
Steven Butala: Today's topic. The Land Academy 4:00AM Club as described by Jill. This is going to be the meat of the show.
Jill DeWit: So as we're saying, people are finding each other and finding similarities in each other. And it was funny cause we were on something. We were all chatting as a group and somebody said, well, I get up at 4:00 AM. This is when I do my best work because I've got a little kids.
Steven Butala: Children, yeah.
Jill DeWit: I've got a day job. Sleep will come later. It's paying off. This is the time that I can get up and the house is quiet and no one bugs me. I can review my deals, get things in the works. And then I do my day job. And then somebody else said, I do the same thing. And then more and more people were joining and going, I do that too.
Land Questions 101 From Our Nephew (LA 1574) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Steven Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from beautiful Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about land questions 101, directly from our nephew last night at dinner.
Jill DeWit: It's funny.
Steven Butala: Knows nothing about land. And Jill said, "Hey. How about you ask us some questions about land? You know a lot about construction." He's involved in commercial construction, pretty successful for his age. He's in his early 20s and he's-
Jill DeWit: About to graduate college.
Steven Butala: In his own language, he asked us several questions.
Jill DeWit: They were good questions.
Steven Butala: Honestly, cracked me up.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, it was kind of [inaudible 00:00:45].
Steven Butala: I think about it now, I didn't even answer the questions. I just collected the questions for the show and that's it.
Jill DeWit: That's true.
Steven Butala: And he's never going to watch this or listen to it.
Jill DeWit: That's true. He won't get the answers.
Steven Butala: Before we get to the questions though, let's take a question, actually, from a Land Academy member from our online community at landinvestors.com, or if you're already a member, join us on Discord, Land Academy Discord.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Butala: I got a new teleprompter, and I don't know how to you use yet.
Jill DeWit: I know I like to know where the camera is. So here's the scoop, by the way. Even if you are a member, whether you're a member or not, we created an online community over five years ago, and it's packed with information, so that's landinvestors.com. So go in there, type in questions, get an account. It's free. Have fun.
Steven Butala: Thank you for saving me, here.
Jill DeWit: You're welcome. I'm just explaining it. Then Jack's extra little PS is, by the way, if you're a member, get in both environments because there's a back area on the online community, Land Investors. And then we have a separate little thing with the Discord app that we have constant, banter, chats running too for members. We want to make sure that our members know about that. I think by now, they do, but just saying.
Steven Butala: Before we get into the actual show.
Jill DeWit: Here's our question. Okay, here we go. So that was an explanation, so here's the question. Spencer wrote, "Success story for a Friday. I bought this property before joining Land Academy. I made some mistakes, but I learned a lot along the way. I paid $45,000 for a 20 and a half acre, 20.5 acre property in the Southeast on April 5th, excuse me, March 5th. I interviewed a few local realtors. I went with one that my title company recommended." That's a good way to find them.
Steven Butala: This is smart, I can tell already.
Jill DeWit: He explained that I needed to get a survey done on the property to correctly identify the driveway easement going into the neighbor's property. I listened and paid about $2000 for the survey. We listed on March 30th. So that was March 5th, now we're March 30th, at 79,900 and had a full price offer in less than 24 hours. Woo hoo.
Steven Butala: That's how it works.
Jill DeWit: Yep. The buyer was getting a bank loan on the property, red flag number one, oops. And then requested that I pay for a perc test, red flag number two. Yeah, everything was great up until here. My broker said the perc test-
Steven Butala: This is how you learn.
Jill DeWit: Would cost $500 and shouldn't be a problem. I listened again.
Steven Butala: Broker, broker, broker, broker. Spend money, spend money.
Jill DeWit: Well, there's that.
Steven Butala: Spend it on a survey, spend it on a perc test. Spend your money. Give me your money.
Jill DeWit: Are you done?
Steven Butala: Not yet.
Jill DeWit: Okay. Do you want to finish this,
Jill Friday - Don't be that Guy (LA 1573) Transcript:
Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Happy Friday.
Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land, investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt. Broadcasting from sweet Scottsdale Arizona.
Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I... Well, it's Jill Friday. And she's going to talk about, don't be that guy.
Jill DeWit: Yes. This comes up now and then. It's so interesting. You'd be surprised how many people call us and they track us down at Land Academy because they're trying to find out if this person's legit? Is this a good deal? Is this person real? Are they a good person to do business with?
Jack Butala: I don't know how they trace us, Jill's right, but I don't know how they trace it back to us, but they find out. So a member sends a bunch of mail out and they call Land Academy for some reason. And they want to check to see if they're legit.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Jack Butala: And so I don't know how that the train of that, that trail happens on the internet.
Jill DeWit: We used to have a little tag, little icon graphics that we would share that you could put Land Academy certified or something. I wonder if people are still using that. If you are, go for it. I love it. I think it's cool.
Jack Butala: I don't know. It's kind of hokey.
Jill DeWit: It's fine. If they want to do that, I think that's fine. It's like saying I'm a member of whatever association and people look at that and go, that must mean something.
Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And if you're already a Land Academy member, please join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: I like it when you say, join us on the Discord. I was waiting for that. Oh, this is Janet. Janet wrote, everyone keeps sending mail and working your deals. She's very vocal in my Land Academy ladies group too, by the way. Our big win today is a property we acquired for $11,500, all in, with title, photos, et cetera. We're closing on today for $52,000. Keep at it. We can all do this. Thanks Jill, Steven and Aaron. Oh, that's sweet. She's awesome. Janet has been with us for a couple of years now.
Jack Butala: Really successful and vocal. We're proud of you.
Jill DeWit: Congratulations. And thank you for sharing that, I love those.
Jack Butala: Today's Jill Friday. And it's the name of the show is called, don't be that guy. I have a feeling this is going to be a Jack roast today.
Jill DeWit: No, it's not you.
Jack Butala: This is the meat of the show.
Jill DeWit: No, it's not you, it's just, now and then, even we run into this. We are really good at trusting. You and I both will go in with good... Assuming everyone has good intentions, right? And then I find out later, shoot they didn't. And maybe it's on a deal or maybe something unrelated to this, maybe it's renovations on a house and they didn't follow through, like they said they were going to follow through, the time commitment, the communication, whatever it is. And all it does is just make it bad for everybody. It makes me never want to work with them. Never want to do business with them. And gosh, it's hard to even write the check at the end and then I'm having to do more work and they're not even happy. They're not happy. Nobody's happy. You know?
Jill DeWit: So I just wanted to remind everyone. You don't want to be that guy. What I want you to do is think about this. You're starting your business, whatever it is. I want you to sit down and think of your own company motto and how you're going to roll. Because the foundation you lay is going to continue through you, your partners, your employees, all of it. And you want to be consistent. And the best thing I can say is do the right thing. And that's our motto, our motto, which you, I think you probably said it in passing a long time ago, but boy, it stuck with me.
Jack Thursday - Ordinary and Necessary (LA 1572) Transcript:
Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Howdy.
Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from cool, incredible Scottsdale, Arizona.
Jack Butala: Today is Jack Thursday, and I'm going to talk about ordinary and necessary as it applies to business expenses and Jill's going to fall asleep.
Jill DeWit: That's exactly right.
Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on Landinvestors.com online community, it's free. If you're already a land academy member, please join us on discord.
Jill DeWit: Aaron wrote, "I stopped telling my friends, outside of this group, I used to try and motivate friends to get into the land game with these crazy profit stories, but they're all like, "What's the catch? Are you dealing drugs? Are you on drugs, et cetera?" That's funny. "We can give someone a winning lottery ticket, but they're too skeptical to even check the damn numbers." This is what you guys call rich guy problems? This is hilarious.
Jack Butala: If that's your question? Yes.
Jill DeWit: Oh my gosh.
Jack Butala: This is Aaron and Liz, Aaron.
Jill DeWit: Oh, good. That's so funny.
Jack Butala: Not using their last name.
Jill DeWit: Okay, thank you.
Jack Butala: Long, long time members. I had him on the show a couple of times. They're a lot of fun.
Jill DeWit: Isn't that true though? We had this discussion the other day in Career Path. We were talking about things that people just don't get. It was along these lines too. We were talking about investing. We were talking about if you need money, you get going, you're starting to do great, you're doing some deals, you start to share with your family members, "You're not going to believe what I did. I asked made $20,000 last week." Next thing you know, they're saying, "Can I give you $5,000 and you do that for me?" You have to be careful, because it just always, in our situation, backfires. We don't do that anymore. It's better to say, "If you want to do this, just go do it." Then, like Aaron shared, most people don't get it.
Jack Butala: I have couple of things to say. I stopped telling people what we do for a living a lot of years ago. It's not possible. For a while, my answer was that we buy real estate, we buy land, and then we sell it for more. They look at you cross-eyed. The super smart ones will say, "How do you do that?" I send a bunch of offers out. Thousands and thousands of blind offers to everybody who owns land in the area for a price that I'm willing to buy it, then I see who calls me back. It ends there for the smart people.
Jack Butala: Here's my second point. I learned the hard way that when people get to know you, whether it's online like this, or whether it's in person, and they see that you're successful, you can put a couple of sentences together, speak in full sentences and your grammar's reasonably okay, they want to be a part of it. They don't want to send out letters. They don't care about real estate. That's all just noise to them. The real work is noise and difficult. They just want the fun stuff. I just want to live in a house on a beach, have a fast car or a hot girl like Jill. They don't care. Here's what I learned. Ultimately, they have to find us. We can't find them. They have to find us, because they're interested. Members who are successful find us because they're interested in real estate, money, land, data, and the whole process of all this. Not-
Jill DeWit: Perfect.
Jack Butala: "Wow, I love your car! How'd you get it?"
Jill DeWit: That's the wrong approach.
Jack Butala: It won't work.
Jill DeWit: That's, often, how it is. They're like, "I can learn this too. My cousin's a real estate agent. Is that all it is?"
Jack Butala: Jill, you're nailing it on the head. Nailing it.
Jill DeWit: I'm like, "That's not it at all.
What Name to Use on Your Mailer (LA 1571) Transcript:
Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I am Jill DeWit, broadcasting from cool southern Arizona. Not cool at all, though. It's hot. Sorry.
Jack Butala: It's been kind of cool the last few days actually.
Jill DeWit: This is true.
Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about what name to use on your mailer. This all came about because we had a huge discussion in Career Path, which is kind of our advanced Land Academy group. Should I put my name on there, or should I use a different last name? Should I put my assistant's name on there? Should I create a name? Should I be anonymous?
Jill DeWit: You know, I have a question. You have a pretty solid name.
Jack Butala: I think I have a confusing as heck name.
Jill DeWit: This leads into my question. What name do you wish you had? If you were born with a different name or you could change your name, what ... Have you ever ... This is a girl thing because we think about this stuff.
Jack Butala: Jill and I have ... Our tip-top holding company is called BuWit, B-U-W-I-T. It's a combination of my last name and Jill's last name, Butala and DeWit, and I think that would be a great name, Buwit, two syllables. Or Dewit's fine, but Butala is all confusing. I have to spell it every time. Everybody spells it wrong. Spellcheck-
Jill DeWit: I can't say it. I say Butala because it's looks like that.
Jack Butala: And you know what? You're probably right. Spellcheck thinks it's Brutal every time I type my name in.
Jill DeWit: That's a cool name, Steven Brutal.
Jack Butala: I think that's a great name for a 70s punk singer.
Jill DeWit: Or WWF. Oh, there we go.
Jack Butala: Jack Brutal.
Jill DeWit: That's awesome. That's cool. I like that.
Jack Butala: I don't have any complaints about my name. It's fine. The real positive to my name is that there's only two out there that I know of in the entire country that have the same name, and we know each other. We get each other's stuff. This is a funny anecdote. The Steven Butala that I know has a PhD in chemistry, I think, or maybe physics, and he is a professor. Last I heard was at University of Utah, totally respected in his field, and I'm not respected in my field at all. It's very ... We get each other's stuff, and we laugh about it. I get somebody's dissertation in the email, and I have to send it to him, and we really laugh about it. He gets all kinds of weird stuff that are supposed to go to me.
Jill DeWit: That's hilarious.
Jack Butala: Are you happy with your name?
Jill DeWit: I always wanted to be the name ... It was a Charlie's Angel thing for me. I wanted to be Chris, but fortunately, that's kind of in my middle name, so I would kind of do that for a while. My other thing I used to do ... This is kind of silly, but every babysitter I had, I would adopt their name. I always thought that was a cool name. I don't know why. My mom would come home, and I'd say now my name is this.
Jack Butala: That makes sense because they're older, right?
Jill DeWit: Yeah. That's true.
Jack Butala: Jill, I'll call you anything you want, for the record.
Jill DeWit: Really? Princess? Is Princess on there?
Jack Butala: I call you that all the time.
Jill DeWit: I know. It's usually not out of love. It's like, listen princess. That's not how it should be used in a sentence. Okay.
Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. If you're already a Land Academy member, join us on the Discord.
Jill DeWit: P wrote, I have a signed purchase agreement for a lot, with an interesting situation. The current owner is an attorney who acquired the property via quitclaim deed from a client as payment for certain legal fees. It seems the property was divided in 2015 from a larger ...
On Site Land Improvements Never Pencil (LA 1570) Transcript:
Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt broadcasting from pretty Phoenix, Arizona.
Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about how on-site land improvements never pencil.
Jill DeWit: Okay, explain this again. Please.
Jack Butala: Land improvements are stuff that you buy a piece of land, and there's always this question, especially with our super new Land Academy members, "Well, I should probably clear it, and make sure you can see it, and then maybe I should put a well in." Yet, there's all kinds of stuff, and we'll talk about all the possible things that you can do. And I'll tell you the vast majority of the time it doesn't pencil. It doesn't make sense financially.
Jill DeWit: Who came up with that? Who came up with the whole pencil thing?
Jack Butala: I have an accounting background and I'm from the '80s.
Jill DeWit: I know, but who came up with it? I was ready to say I have a kind of background from the '80s, and I still don't know who came up with that saying.
Jack Butala: Well, you're from California too, so that there's a lot probably involved in that too. Penciling is just a way of saying, "Hey, let's make it-"
Jill DeWit: You heard that.
Jack Butala: "... Let's pencil this thing out before we actually go do it."
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Jack Butala: "Before we spend any money on it."
Jill DeWit: Thank you, got it. Listen, soup to nuts, I'll give you soup to nuts.
Jack Butala: Jill's constantly making fun of the sayings that I think are normal and everybody understands.
Jill DeWit: No one in the planet says soup to nuts, or bajillion.
Jack Butala: Before we get into it let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free, and if you're already a Land Academy member, please join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: Michael wrote, "Hi, I've a signed purchase agreement from a recent mailer for a 10 acre parcel in Northern Arizona. Initially I felt that I over offered in the price, but then I talked to the seller who stated there's a shared well on the property. I reviewed the docs and feel comfortable with this being a great deal, that was until I visited the property and saw two derelict abandoned trailers with no wheels and a vehicle on the property, as well as two generators, and a heap of put trash and debris. Apparently this belongs to the uncle who willed the property to the current owners before he died. Otherwise this could be a great deal, which I think I could sell for three times our purchase price. Just not sure how to deal with the abandoned trailers and vehicles, any ideas would be greatly appreciated." Ready? Go.
Jack Butala: If there's stuff on the property already 99% of the time it's better than just having big vacant land, unless, and there's only really one exception that I can think of, where the EPA might have an opinion about it, like an old storage tank, fuel tank, or tanks underground.
Jill DeWit: Or, Refrigerator.
Jack Butala: Or, 500 refrigerators leaking Freon. Doesn't sound like that's the case here at all. Sounds like you've got a couple of generators, which might be great. You know, the vast majority of the people that are going to want really rural property are really interested in all the things you described. They don't want... It's not like buying a house where it's you want to walk in and there's music playing and you move your stuff in, and it's beautiful. It's just not, it's a completely different mindset.
Jill DeWit: This is...
Jack Butala: People, they want a rural piece of land to get away from everybody and put their own trailer, and fix a trailer up. There's generators out there, I'm telling you, if there's two generators out there...
Jill DeWit: That's worth something.
Jack Butala:
Bank Financing on Land 101 (LA 1569) Transcript:
Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sweet Scottsdale, Arizona.
Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about bank financing on land 101. You have a great deal, you don't have enough money. Or you already bought a piece of property with your own money or any way else, and you're going to want to sell it to somebody who's going to go to a bank and get financing. We're seeing that a lot now.
Jill DeWit: I would like to pause for a moment and just talk about, for those of you who are not watching, I just got stopped with the funniest comment which was, Jill, where's the bottom of your blouse? You can't tell, it looks like it goes way down on the screen. It's there, it exists.
Jack Butala: Then I said, is that okay? And then I corrected myself and said-
Jill DeWit: Might improve our numbers.
Jack Butala: Yeah, that's where [inaudible 00:01:01].
Jill DeWit: Let's see what Jill's wearing today.
Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And if you're already a Land Academy member, please join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: Vic wrote, "I have a closing next week and there is physical access, but it's via a private road. The title company [inaudible 00:01:27] the following in the exception sections, that would be called schedule B, and I wanted to see if that clause is normal and if it would be a problem for me when I'm selling the property."
Jack Butala: Like always-
Jill DeWit: I was looking for the comment.
Jack Butala: Like I said, there's a lot of comments on this.
Jack Butala: Here's my take on it. The vast majority of schedule B exceptions on title policies say we don't ensure the fact that this property has access.
Jill DeWit: Good, bad, or otherwise.
Jack Butala: Yeah. That's just-
Jill DeWit: We're not going to promise anything.
Jack Butala: They don't even check it. It's just a sentence that they include in there among several other things that the title policy doesn't-
Jill DeWit: Cover.
Jack Butala: Yeah, it doesn't cover. So, no, I wouldn't. This doesn't concern me at all. I would check out the physical details of the private road. Is there a gate? That might cause some problems. That may change your mind. If the private road is maintained by a neighbor and the access to your property is through that private road, if this is actually the truth and it's not just template language in the schedule B title exception for the title policy, that could pretty dramatically affect how people get there to see the property to see if they want to buy it. And/or if they do buy it and somebody puts up a gate because it is their private road, that's a problem.
Jill DeWit: I think there's two kinds of private. There's your neighbor's private road, and then there's the public utility. There's APS, the power service private road. So you have to do some digging.
Jill DeWit: I was going to add, I had this come up yesterday, and people say things, too. You have to really do your own homework. Don't believe everything that one person says. Someone said, "Oh, that's a private road," and now you're believing it. It might not be true.
Jill DeWit: An agent came up, we have a property that we're selling ourselves, and we got a phone call from an agent in the area who said, "I'd love to help you guys sell this property." We put a sign in the ground and she obviously saw it and called the sign. She told my transaction coordinator, "By the way, because it's only a half acre, you need an acre to build in this area." But she's all excited to list and sell the property. I'm like, I'm not sure I believe her. And so my transaction coordinator passed that on and I said, that's nice.
Jill DeWit:
How to Choose a Market to Send Blind Offers (LA 1568) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here,
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about how to choose a market to send blind offers. Oh my God. Both of you.
Jill DeWit: Haven't we talked about this before?
Steven Butala: How many times can you talk about the same topic in five years of a daily show? Well it turns out, I agree with you,
Jill DeWit: But it comes up.
Steven Butala: That's why we're responding to demand.
Jill DeWit: It still comes up, people are like wait, can we run through that again?
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Has anything changed? What am I missing?
Steven Butala: And you know what? It turns out some stuff has changed.
Jill DeWit: How do I do this? I got a good one. We can help.
Steven Butala: Technology has changed. There's a lot of new available tools out there and we'll talk all about it. What hasn't changed is there's no easy button, which is why there's a few of us getting crazy wealthy at this, and then the rest of the people don't even know about Land Academy in the world. That's why you're listening. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free.
Jill DeWit: Charlie asked, so I had a buyer pay the down payment on our website, fill out a form for the deed info, and then they disappeared. We talked through texts one time and I sent the contract and the deed because it was sold over [inaudible 00:01:26] with contract for deed, excuse me, it was sold on terms. And now I can't get ahold of them. She never signed, never returned the contract back to me. What do I do now? The contract lays out default clearly, but technically she never signed it. I think I'm going to keep trying until Friday to reach them and make sure I have everything documented and then re-list the property with the expectation that I'll just refund them if they ever return my calls. Any thoughts? That's kind of what I would do.
Steven Butala: Well, I'll tell you, you're kind of stumping me here because this has never happened to us, not. This happens all the time. Jill and I over the last year, maybe two years actually now, maybe two and a half or three, have gone a hundred percent to cash sales. So, selling property on terms, we buy a piece of property for cash and you sell it on terms, $500 sound, $200 a month for five years and then you own it. Like a car. It's very popular among other groups in the land education environment out there. Or maybe it's not, I don't know. I don't keep up with them.
Steven Butala: But it takes a whole different skillset than what I believe, Jill and I are really good at. We're good at data. We're good at sending out blind offers, buying property real cheap and reselling it very quickly for cash for more. This business of the customer service and the maintenance of servicing alone and the stuff that goes on with it, we learned pretty early in our operation together that we don't want to do that.
Jill DeWit: It's a lot of work. Lot of people package this up like, oh, it's passive income, is what they. Because you set it up once-
Steven Butala: There's nothing passive about it.
Jill DeWit: You get them on auto pay, and it's all beautiful and sunny and everybody pays and they don't have to do anything. And that's the whole point. It's not passive. It's just like the situation, there's a little bit of work sometimes. And this person managing, this situation is actually easy. So let me cover real quick. What you're doing Charlie's exactly what I would do. They went dark. I leave them voicemails. I text mail. I email. I cover all the bases. I tried. And then I put the money aside knowing if they come back, I'm going to say you went dark,
How to use Free Data to Price Your Mailer (LA 1567) Transcript:
Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Cheers.
Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining real estate investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWitt. No, I'm not drinking. And we are broadcasting from sunny, Southern California.
Jack Butala: Today Jill and I talk about how to use free data to price your mailer.
Jill DeWit: Can't get you to laugh.
Jack Butala: I can try.
Jill DeWit: Oh, none of this makes you happy?
Jack Butala: I love free data.
Jill DeWit: Okay. Thank you. There we go.
Jack Butala: Yeah, I love free data.
Jill DeWit: I'm trying to get some good response or just happy fun.
Jack Butala: Here it is.
Jill DeWit: What?
Jack Butala: This is a serious time.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Jack Butala: I mean, this is like, there are people that are out of work and I think that they need some help.
Jill DeWit: Okay. Let me back up. Let me just say one thing, for everyone here. People grieve in different ways. Some people are serious. Some people cry. Some people tell funny stories. Some people go silent. Maybe we're grieving in different ways. No way is right or wrong.
Jack Butala: Yeah. I couldn't agree more.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Jack Butala: Jill, I'm not criticizing you at all. I'm just saying, "Yeah, can I laugh yet?" I can laugh, not right now.
Jill DeWit: You don't have to. Okay, then you are allowed ... Well, obviously, you want to be very serious, I still choose not to be serious. That's how I prefer things.
Jack Butala: There's a great way to price mailers. I'm digging deeply, deeply digging into how to more accurately price mailers faster.
Jill DeWit: Yah.
Jack Butala: And we're going to share it, and probably have a couple of laughs at the same time. But this is not ... I don't think that the vast majority, maybe few months ago, I think everybody was laughing and saying, "Yeah, this is a great. Those guys are entertaining." And I would love someone to email me and say, "Oh no, you're, you're totally wronged, Jack, we just want to laugh. That's why we listen to your show."
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Jack Butala: We can do two shows.
Jill DeWit: Would you call it entertaining real estate investment talk?
Jack Butala: Right. I actually think this is entertaining, watching us bicker. For some people.
Jill DeWit: That's hilarious.
Jack Butala: When I've watch other couples bicker, I'm like, "Wow, finally, somebody else too."
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Jack Butala: I'm want to tell you my Vince Vaughn story along those lines. Joe and I are sitting in Manhattan Beach, right outside of Los Angeles, a couple of years ago at this Mexican place, having the greatest street Mexican food there ever was. And Vince Vaughn's three tables down and his kids are crawling on his head, and it's just ... And so he and I make contact, eye contact, and he's, he just looks at me dad to dad, not ... And I'm like, "Yeah, I got it." And his wife's yelling in his ear about something and, you know.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jack Butala: And I felt great about myself.
Jill DeWit: It's your turn.
Jack Butala: I felt completely entertained.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: If a guy like Vince Vaughn could have the same family stuff that goes on, I might be okay.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Jack Butala: So there's a lot of guys listening to this going, "You know what? Those guys are talking to each other like I talk to my wife sometimes." I might be okay.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Jack Butala: How's that for entertainment? It's not that funny, is it?
Jill DeWit: No, it's not that funny.
Jack Butala: You want ha-ha slapstick, silly.
Jill DeWit: It's okay. It's okay. It's all right. Thank you.
Jack Butala: Before we get into it, of course, Jill and I already have, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landacademy.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWit: Blake wrote, "Hi, this is an Excel question.
Member Andy Barnhart Shares Land Academy Success Stories (LA 1566) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny southern California.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk with member Andy Barnhart, who shares his Land Academy success stories. But, before we get into it I have a simple question. Andy, you're sitting right there in that seat. How did you get there? Tell us your story and tell us how you chose Land Academy, and if it's working for you.
Andy Barnhart: Yeah, hello. I'll go way back to when I was a child and my dad was a farmer, a dairy farmer. He would try to grow his operation and buy more land, so he would show me plat maps when I was... So, I was looking at plat maps when I was eight years old. He's like, "Oh, we own this 80 acres, and I'm going to buy this 80, and I'd love to have-" he always wanted a section of land. That was his goal. I knew what a section was, and a quarter and a half section at a young age. After college, I got a job-
Steven Butala: I have to explain to everybody what a section is. A section is a square mile, and it's 640 acres. A half section is 320, and a quarter section is half of that.
Jill DeWit: 160.
Steven Butala: 160, and on, and on, and on.
Andy Barnhart: Yep.
Steven Butala: Anyway, go ahead. So, you're in college.
Andy Barnhart: So yeah, I got through college and I got my first job as an Auditor with the US Department of Agriculture with the Dairy Division. I went right in on my first day, and I had learned Excel and everything in college, and thought I was a whiz kid. Then I get into the government organization that I was hired with, and literally some older guys didn't even have a computer on their desk. They refused to work with a computer. All the programs were written in Lotus 123. So, it was like stepping back in time 30 years.
Andy Barnhart: I was there 10 years, and we converted everything to Excel and all the reports and everything. So, I was very comfortable with... I had the agriculture background, I have Excel background, I have an auditing background. Then yeah, I bought the realtor courses and took all of the courses to become a realtor. I thought that's something I'm interested in, and then got to the end. I did all of the education and got to the end, and I think at that time is when I found your podcast. You guys were, as you are today, dealing with realtors and [inaudible 00:03:22].
Andy Barnhart: You guys have never shied away from talking trash on realtors, so it made me think, "Well, do I really want to be a realtor?" So, I never went to take the test, and then that's when I bought the programs in 2016. Yeah, that's how I got here. I'm in my third year, and yeah still-
Steven Butala: Is it working? Have you done a bunch of deals? I guess, you're on the show so hopefully some of it's working.
Andy Barnhart: Yeah, yeah I didn't start out of the gate with a bang. I was skeptical, and I took it really slow. I wrote down my numbers. The first year, 2017, I did 19 deals, and I still had some other jobs going on, some part-time things. The revenue that year was $62,000.00-
Steven Butala: Awesome.
Andy Barnhart: And then so last year- and I was still doing this all on my own. I did last year 184 deals completed, and then the revenue was $343,000.00. Yeah, I was like, "Yeah, this is-"
Jill DeWit: I'm in.
Andy Barnhart: I'm in. I'm not a skeptic anymore.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, I think that was your testing it.
Andy Barnhart: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: After $400,000.00, I said, all right. I guess this works.
Steven Butala: He's an auditor. You know, I have an auditing background too and I just [crosstalk 00:04:59] naturally un-trusting of everything. Unless you're an auditor, you can't explain that. People don't understand that.
Andy Barnhart: Right.
Steven Butala:
Why a Small Percentage of People Accomplish Their Goals (LA 1565) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Happy new year.
Steven Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land, investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewit, broadcasting from sunny, Southern California.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about why a small percentage of people accomplish their goals. And I thought this was appropriate because it's January, well, it's the first real show in January.
Jill DeWit: Well, it's the fourth. This is one of those rare occasions where we're recording on the actual day.
Steven Butala: The same day. Why? Because we just got off of, like everybody, having some fun during the holiday season.
Jill DeWit: Well, here's what's funny too. Last week was supposed to be with my ladies, Land Academy ladies group on Tuesday, which is the 29th or something. We were going to talk about work-life balance. And because I respect work-life balance, I needed some more life balance and not work balance. So I canceled our thing. So tomorrow we're going to pick up where we left on work-life balance. So this is partially why we're recording today too. We needed that work-life balance.
Steven Butala: Awesome. Today's topic. Oh no... Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWit: You're out of your mojo, out of your groove. Aren't you?
Steven Butala: We haven't recorded in quite some time.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. It's a week and a half. It's nice. James wrote, "Hello and happy new year. Transitioning military member signing up and excited to get started. The member guide appears to focus on the tools first, but I assume we should review the videos, which are the same thing as reference, the YouTube courses also references DVDs."
Steven Butala: Yes. That's how long we've been doing this.
Jill DeWit: Yes. You're right.
Steven Butala: Used to be in DVD form.
Jill DeWit: We did. And they provide the basics. "I have some of my family working with me and my initial thoughts about how to organize to take care of the most important responsibilities would be useful. Like step one, build a list, tutorial, step two, sort the list, et cetera. Noted we need a name and a website but we didn't understand the purpose of the website upfront. Is the purpose of the website to list on the mailer so sellers have a website with all your information and documents? Question. Thank you."
Steven Butala: So this is a very, very popular question that usually Jill and I don't answer it, but I think everybody can benefit from it. We have a pretty substantial number of new members that signed up over the last 90 days. So it's really important to watch the programs, Land Academy One and Land Academy Two. And the Cash Flow From Land, the original program from 2015. And if you follow it step by step, all this stuff will get answered. And you will, at the end of it, have a comprehensive plan and a calendar, or you should anyway, from which to start at that point. So you don't want to build lists or whatever you mentioned in this, I'm not even sure what that means. Because we use database driven data, not lists. So the best thing you can absolutely do is follow the programming in order.
Jill DeWit: Well, that's great. That's great, Jack. Let me answer your question, James.
Steven Butala: Really?
Jill DeWit: Yes. What's the fucking point to the website? Yes. I do want you to go out and spend a couple hundred bucks. Even if you need to do it on... Pay $200 and get something on Fiverr to get your website, pick a name. And you could spend, don't spend a week on this, but spend a day on it and make sure you find a name you like.
Steven Butala: Yeah, but it's [crosstalk 00:03:32]
Jill DeWit: Short as possible-
Steven Butala: It's addressed in the program.
Jill DeWit: I know, but I'm helping the planet right now.
Filling in the Land Acquisition Education Gaps with Land Academy (LA 1564) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Good day.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the LandAcademy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about filling in the land acquisition education gaps with LandAcademy. This is all about understanding that you can buy and sell land. A lot of it's unwanted land for a pretty substantial profit with not a tremendous of cash outlay.
Steven Butala: But what are the tiny little nuances, or the things that tell us exactly how to do it? What's the trick? What are the key things that I missed in all this other education that I see out there? Great. I know you can make money. What's the real deal?
Jill DeWit: You know what's funny? I didn't know this until it happened that so many people over the years, since LandAcademy, have said, "Oh, my gosh, you guys. I didn't know this. You filled in this piece. This was all of the questions that I had, that the little things, you covered them all." I think a lot of them... What's interesting, too? A lot of those people have said, "I did it with the podcast." They have said that they've learned a lot and filled in a lot of missing information free right here on the podcast.
Steven Butala: And here's a great real-world example. There are other people that are pretty loud out on the internet about... First of all, all the people that are in this teaching land space, every single one, without exception, except Jack Bosch, were LandAcademy members at one point. So, they've taken our concept and made it into some funky little niche. In a lot of cases, they copied exactly what we're doing and put their own face on it.
Steven Butala: But there's several things that I think everybody's missing, and they are tiny little nuances. For example, the vast majority of people still don't send out offers. They send out letters of interest.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: Or they just send letters to people who are in a back tech situation.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Or I think they're not effectively pricing as well as they could.
Steven Butala: Or they don't have the integrity that you should have as a acquisition or an investor and the compassion when you're talking to a seller and finding out why they're doing this, and what's going on.
Jill DeWit: This is good stuff to talk about.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, though, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWit: Chris wrote, "I'm new to the land business and looking for others to join an accountability group. Whether you just joined LandAcademy as I did a few days ago, or are otherwise somewhat new to the business, it's all good. I anticipate we'll be running into a lot of the same questions and hurdles around the same time as we do our research, get out our first mailers. Mine will go out next week, field our first phone calls, et cetera. More answers and knowledge than we could ever ask for are here in the forums, education, podcasts, weekly calls, et cetera." Right, it's a lot.
Jill DeWit: "So, we are covered there, but what we can provide each other some accountability and encouragement as we rack up our first success stories. Not to mention learning from whatever unique talents/experience we each bring to the table, and that landed us in this business. I, myself," it says, "experienced software developer/business owner. Perhaps a biweekly networking call over Zoom, and a free Slack channel to stay in touch in the meantime? Anyone interested, please reply to this thread or send me a private message. Thanks."
Steven Butala: This is all you.
Jill DeWit: This is something that we are actually working on. I'm so happy.
Steven Butala: Me, too.
Jill DeWit:
Jill Friday - How to Turn a Dead Deal into a Successfully Completed One (LA 1563) Transcript:
Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Howdy.
Steven J Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from amazing Phoenix, Arizona.
Steven J Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about how it's Jill Friday. Well, she's going to talk and she's going to let us know how to turn a deal, a dead deal, into a successfully completed one.
Jill DeWit: That'd be funny. We should each ... Share how you would do it and how I would do it.
Steven J Butala: Perfect. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free and join us on Discord if you're already a Land Academy member,
Jill DeWit: Sandy wrote, "I've listened to the podcast this morning about how Jill talks to sellers in order to find common ground. I loved her examples. Does anyone know where I can get more info like this? I would love to have a number of things to practice that would help me connect with the seller." Oh. I have a few things right now. Number one, out of the gate ask how they are? People don't do that. How are you today? Every time I'm calling somewhere whether it's a title company, a bank, internet provider, I'm totally serious on this, I try to get them right on my team by being nice to them, by offering up a little something like, "How are you? How's your day going? Wow, that was a long hold time." And I'm not being sarcastic.
Jill DeWit: I'm saying, "You guys are slammed, how are you hanging in there?" And I'll even say, "Take a second, catch a breath. Do you have coffee there? Take a drink." They'll be like, "Thank you." No one cares enough to even say that. So automatically I'm being nice and helpful, and I have them on my team, and now we can ... And then they're ready to go, "Well, how can I help you?" And then I say, "My cable doesn't work," or whatever it is. There you go.
Steven J Butala: Some of the best advice I've ever gotten ever was from a bartender many years ago, 20 plus years ago. And he said, "Meet people from where they're coming." That's it. And he said, "Specifically, children. You're not going to meet a two-year-old ... You're not going to treat a two-year-old the way that you're going to treat a six-year-old or a 16-year-old. They're completely different people. And you need to meet everybody from where they're coming and it's going to go a lot better."
Jill DeWit: You have to take a step back and think about where they ... Exactly where they're coming from. People in New York just live differently, talk differently, communicate differently, different speeds, different volumes than somebody from the Deep South. And you have to do your best to mirror them without not belittling and not condescending. But if you're talking to a sweet little lady from somewhere in a dreamy part of Georgia, I don't know. You need to ... You're going to take a step back, and calm down, and think she's sitting right now drinking her tea, opening her mail, and calling me. I need to be that person she wants to talk to, and answer all her questions, and get this deal done, and make it easy and understandable for her.
Steven J Butala: You're trying to get a deal done here. This is the topic. Let's get into the topic.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven J Butala: Today is Jill Friday. How to turn a deal, a dead deal, into a successfully completed one. This is the meat of the show.
Jill DeWit: So by dead deal, we don't necessarily mean that you kicked it to the curb or they told you whatever and you're calling them back talking them into anything, which you could do some ... I mean, it does happens but-
Steven J Butala: A lot of scenarios here.
Jill DeWit: You're not talking anybody into anything.
Steven J Butala: Back to what the question was today. People ...
Jack Thursday - Life Math (LA 1562) Transcript:
Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Steven J Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I am Jill DeWit, broadcasting from amazing Phoenix Arizona.
Steven J Butala: Today is Jack Thursday. And I'm going to talk about life math, which completely confuses Jill.
Jill DeWit: Yes. Hold on a moment.
Steven J Butala: Not life math the topic, just what the hell is he going to talk about now?
Jill DeWit: Oh, that does. Yeah. I don't know where you're going with that, but I was going to pause and say, I'm actually good at math.
Steven J Butala: Oh, I know.
Jill DeWit: I did really well in school at math.
Steven J Butala: And physics.
Jill DeWit: And physics, that was one of my favorite subjects. I liked physics. That was really fun for me. So flying and old school when you're learning to fly and you have to map out where you're going and how many minutes to get somewhere and degrees and that kind of thing, oh, I love that stuff. I kill it on all that. So don't think I can't do math. But that's not what this is about today.
Steven J Butala: Right. Before we get into it though, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. If you're already a member of Land Academy.
Jill DeWit: Of Land Academy.
Steven J Butala: Join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: Thanks. Leah wrote, "Hello. I have a property under contract and the owner's relative has a neighboring parcel. The relative has agreed to give the owner an easement so her property can be accessed by the road. This is in" should I say the state or no?
Steven J Butala: Sure.
Jill DeWit: Okay, "This is in California. Where do I find the paperwork to get this done? What is the process?"
Steven J Butala: This is not something you can do yourself. It's not something I could do myself after how many years of doing this. You need to call a lawyer, preferably a real estate lawyer that understands easements and preferably in that county, potentially even in that city. And that's really the only way that it's going to get done. Here's the great news, this almost never happens. The fact that these people are related and that they're cooperating and that-.
Jill DeWit: That's true.
Steven J Butala: What's you're now doing is every land person's dream. You're taking a property that until you do this, its use is very limited. If anything, it's only limited to the people that actually have access around it.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven J Butala: And fortunately, one of this is a relative. And you're creating equity. And that's what this is all about. We create equity here. We buy property cheap and we sell it for more, and create some equity for ourselves and the persons we sell it to. And so this is good. I put this in here for a reason. This is a dream situation. So anybody who's looking at property that doesn't have physical or legal access, and that's a lot of us all the time. The remedy is to talk to the neighbors and see, "Hey, can I get some access to this property over here? It's on the edge of your property. It doesn't look like you live there anyway. It looks like you live in Nevada, the properties in Texas. What do you say, I blade a road in, get some physical and legal access. I'll pay for it all, I just need you to sign some stuff." It doesn't happen enough.
Jill DeWit: Beautiful. Thank you.
Steven J Butala: Today's topic, its Jack Thursday. This is why you're listening.
Jill DeWit: Life math.
Steven J Butala: It's Jack Thursday about life math.
Jill DeWit: What is life math?
Steven J Butala: When I was a kid, I was confused like every kid.
Jill DeWit: And now you've got it all down. Especially, understanding women.
Steven J Butala: Like everything, not only was I confused, I wanted to grow up really fast. I was tired of being a kid. I was tired of being a kid.
How Career Path Members are Aligning themselves with Each Other (LA 1561) Transcript:
Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven J Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from amazing Phoenix, Arizona.
Steven J Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about how Career Path members are aligning themselves with each other.
Steven J Butala: This is a fascinating for me.
Jill DeWit: I love this. This makes me so happy. This is why we're here. I'm not here to have a million members and just sit back and roll out a program and just go up and say, "Here you go. Have a nice day."
Steven J Butala: "Figure it out."
Jill DeWit: Could you imagine, it's like I'm at a cash register dishing out ice cream cones. That's not what I'm doing. We're here creating businesses and helping putting people together, not just with us, but with themselves. I really mean it when we say there's nothing better than hearing that you're making more money than me this month. It's really cool because all I think of is, "Hey, please remember me someday when you need cash. I'll fund your deal." It's awesome. It's great. We're doing just fine and I'm happy you're doing better.
Jill DeWit: So, how does this happen? People in our group find each other and we'll talk more about that.
Steven J Butala: Why wouldn't you?
Jill DeWit: Right?
Steven J Butala: That's one of the huge benefits of being a serious Land Academy member. You're doing deals with other people in the group.
Jill DeWit: I remember our first, very first live event. People were like, "I was just so happy to be in a room. I thought I was on an island somewhere because you guys are here. I'm six states over. So, I was so happy to be able to get with like-minded people." And now with all of the ways that we have to communicate, our weekly calls, the accountability groups and Career Path and other meetings and venues and Discord and everything. The community can really communicate. You really find that you're not alone and that is huge.
Steven J Butala: Yeah. When a group of like-minded people... Well, let's get into the show.
Jill DeWit: Okay, cool.
Steven J Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free and if you're already a member, please join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: A Land Academy member, that is. James wrote, "I'm buying from a seller who bought the property in 1985 and they want to close quickly and get cash with a local attorney and via warranty deed." Perfect. "I think I should close with title and pay the additional $700 plus two weeks, so I don't have any issues on the sales end. Do you normally take title on the buy and sales and pay twice? Thank you." Close quickly, local attorney. There's no difference here.
Steven J Butala: Let me clarify something and this is a very, very good question. And I think a lot of people can benefit from it. When you buy a property through a title company, a title escrow company just like when you buy a house, you get a title policy and everything's good and it's recorded correctly. You dot your I's and cross your T's and it's done. It is the exact same thing with the lawyer. Exactly. There's no difference at all. In fact, they usually do it faster and I would argue cheaper and I would argue more accurately because they usually have more experience.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven J Butala: So, please, the take away from this is there's no difference between closing a deal through a lawyer and through a title escrow company except speed, money and quality.
Jill DeWit: And James, you just spelled it out perfectly. If I go with the attorney, I save two weeks and $700. So, my argument is that's the right thing to do, James.
Steven J Butala: So, I think, James, you're assuming and it's totally okay. I'm not knocking you here at all.
Jill's Confused about Our Accountants Email (LA 1560) Transcript:
Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Steven J Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land and investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: I'm the patient one sitting next to the impatient one. My name is Jill Dewit and we're broadcasting from awesome Arizona.
Steven J Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about why is Jill confused about our accountant's email?
Jill DeWit: Good. Don't say anything. I'm going to read you what we wrote in a few minutes, and then I'm going to read you what his response was. I went, "What the heck is this all about? It's interesting. We'll talk all about it.
Steven J Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. If you're already a Land Academy member, please join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: John wrote, I'm curious how others may approach pricing this situation, small county with only two zip codes. Good, not great market. Has a lake, but the lake doesn't appear to influence home values. Only doing less than one acre lots. Here's what I'm trying to square up. Medium home values are between 200,000 and 250,000 and Zillow searches reinforced that pricing.
Jill DeWit: The Kelly treats most of the lots, like they're worth a couple of beers and not much more, except for a handful of properties that they think are worth between 60 and $70,000. Nothing vacant is currently for sale. Taxes seemed to have no relation to valuation of properties. One lot sold in the past year for $10,000. Would you price off of the homes and risk over pricing? Price off of the county and offer people wide range of prices and negotiate your way to deals or price off that one sold comp and then negotiate each deal?
Steven J Butala: This is a brilliant question. How should I price something when I have no real data? How can I make a business decision without any real data? Not just for land, but anything, because all decisions should be made on ...
Jill DeWit: Real information.
Steven J Butala: Empirical data and not emotion. That's exactly what John is doing here. By the way, there's lots of Johns in our group. This one really knows what he's doing. You know who you are. I love testing new markets like this. If nothing's been purchased or sold or recorded, nobody's there doing anything.
Steven J Butala: This is what I want you to do, I want you to go in there and just crush the price so low it's silly. There's going to be a bunch of low hanging fruit. Just get it all on that first run. There's a chance that you price it way too low and it'll bust. I haven't experienced that, neither has Jill, and most people ... I'd bet John, you haven't either. I don't think anyone has had it just completely failed.
Jill DeWit: I argue.
Steven J Butala: Mailer.
Jill DeWit: I'm going to argue off failed mailers. It's usually not the mailer, it's something wrong with an area or something.
Steven J Butala: You got $200,000 houses on smaller lots, less than an acre. I would go in and just start offering five to $8,000 just across the board for both zip codes and see what happens. It probably bites. This is what usually happens when I do this, we buy two or three, four properties, maybe. Hopefully the data set's big. If it's a thousand unit dataset, now, that's a little scary. But, if you've got eight or 8,000, let's say, vacant properties, I'd go in across the board. Forget about the lake. Go in across the board, in at $10,000, maybe 8,000, maybe seven or whatever pricing scheme you come up with. You're going to buy a few most likely, hopefully a few more. Then, you're going to find out where that magic ... by the way, you're operating all by yourself here. Nobody's doing anything else.
Steven J Butala: You're going to find out where that threshold is. There's a threshold in every single market. I think it'd make a lot of sense, then,
Truth About Taxes as a Real Estate Investor (LA 1559) Transcript:
Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven J Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven J Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from pretty Phoenix, Arizona.
Steven J Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about the truth about taxes as a real estate investor.
Jill DeWit: This is a hot topic often, not just tax time, but that's when it really hurts, but this is a big deal. People come into this, and it's kind of funny, I never thought about this going into this business. I never thought about if I make a lot of money, how am I going to do my taxes? I always let those things work themselves out at the end, but it turns out we have a lot of people, probably smarter than me, that are thinking about this now, so we wanted to talk about it to put everybody at ease and give you some insight and some ways to tackle taxes.
Steven J Butala: If you love paying taxes-
Jill DeWit: This is not the show for you.
Steven J Butala: No, if you love paying taxes, then after these next three or four sentences, you can just turn the episode off, because the rest is for people who don't want to pay taxes or like to legally minimize tax. That's what this is about. If you love to pay taxes, this is what you do. You form an LLC.
Jill DeWit: We'll save it for the show.
Steven J Butala: No, this is just for people who love to pay taxes.
Jill DeWit: So they can get it out of the way now.
Steven J Butala: Form an LLC, set your W2 paycheck, you and your partner, pay the highest salary as you can, and then you pay a withholding, and then there's nothing left over, because pay yourself so much in all those taxes, so you're all set there.
Jill DeWit: Oh, thanks.
Steven J Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. If you're already a member, please join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: All right. Hello. I know these two. Erica and Abby wrote, "Hi, Jack and Jill. Just want to give you guys a quick update. My wife and I joined Land Academy a year or so ago, and we just completed 100 deals, 74 cash, 26 on terms." They were at our last live event. I remember. "We feel grateful and want to thank you so much for sharing this business with us. Please keep up the good work. Best Erica and Abby. That's so great. I also see them on social media traveling the world.
Steven J Butala: Really?
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven J Butala: That's great.
Jill DeWit: So, it's obviously working out just wonderful for them. That's so good. Congratulations. Thanks for sharing that.
Steven J Butala: Today's topic, the truth about taxes as a real estate investor. This is the meat of the show.
Jill DeWit: Okay. I wanted to bring this topic up because it's important, number one, and it's often on people's minds, as it should be. We're making all this money. Where's it going to go? How do I account for it? Do I file taxes in every state? Do I get an LLC for every property? Do I get an LLC for every state? Oh my goodness. There's so many ways to do this. Here's my answer. Yes, there are so many ways to do this. This is the point for me, if you don't mind.
Steven J Butala: Of course.
Jill DeWit: Then I'm going to let the person with the accounting background give you their professional advice. But my advice is mainly this. People always ask us exactly how we do it, who's our accountant, can we call our guy? Can we copy you? You know what? We've been doing it for so long, and we have certain tax, you'll talk about this too, designations that may not apply to everybody. We're all different ages. We're all in different states. We've been doing things differently. Guess what? It's okay. My main point here today is there are different ways to do this. There's no perfect cookie cutter Land Academy approved roadmap to taxes that says,
Jill Friday - How to be an Effective Entrepreneur (LA 1558) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land, investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from pretty Phoenix, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today is Jill Friday. How to be an effective Entrepreneur. I was going to say infectious, because you're like an infectious entrepreneur. And that's a compliment. Huge compliment.
Jill DeWit: That's Great. But do you know with COVID [inaudible 00:00:26], you can't throw infectious around.
Steven Butala: Yeah, that's probably not [inaudible 00:00:31].
Jill DeWit: Exactly. Two years ago. We all get it. Now, not so much.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it. Let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. If you're already a member, please join us on discord.
Jill DeWit: All right. So Laurie wrote, "Success stories." I like this, I saw this the other day. Okay. Laurie wrote, "Success stories are too few and I'm posting this one on request. Bought 20 acres with a falling down house and a ton of trash for $70,000, sold in less than a week for $165,000 to the neighbor. I funded this for a partner who's negotiating and set a selling wizard and made it possible. We had to work through an attorney for several months to finalize probate and to get the property redated. Seller knew nothing about probate. Didn't even know she had to go through probate or to facilitate with two attorneys involved.
Jill DeWit: Was a headache of a deal. But at the end, the seller was so incredibly grateful to have the money and the neighbors were thrilled to get the property cheap. My deal partner, and I were both delighted to make that much and sell so fast. And he wasn't even a bit upset to get a wire for $53,000. And the attorney was happy with the flowers we sent her and she sent a picture of them in her conference room. And a love you guys email. That's five people that were very happy from one deal made possible by Land Academy."
Steven Butala: So I put this in the script on this episode because Jill's going to ... This is happy Jill. And because yesterday ...
Jill DeWit: It was crappy Jack. Happy Jill, crappy Jack.
Steven Butala: This experience, I believe represents the vast majority of what goes on Land Academy.
Jill DeWit: Today's topic Jill Friday. How to be an effective entrepreneur. This is the meat of the show. For helping each other out this week. Sometimes we fall a little behind. Sometimes we lose our train of thought. Sometimes we're just, who knows what is going on.
Steven Butala: Broadcasting to you from our personal job site.
Jill DeWit: Here we go.
Steven Butala: Construction site.
Jill DeWit: There is that too. Yes, we are recording around different projects. So it's okay. So here's the deal. I find there's a lot of people that hit a certain level in their company, and it's usually deal flow and money combined. And they're like, "I know how to make 50, 75, a hundred thousand dollars a month seriously, but I can't get past that level of right now. I'm doing bigger deals. I'm answering the phone as best I can. I love my job. I'm not sleeping. I don't know what to do now. I'm trying to get past this hump. And so I want to help you be an effective entrepreneur. Guess what the problem is. It's you.
Steven Butala: Maybe this is a rant today. Jill's rant. [crosstalk 00:03:42] maybe it's narcissistic view.
Jill DeWit: You saw that coming right?
Steven Butala: No.
Jill DeWit: [inaudible 00:03:54]. I thought you would agree with me, but that's really it. It's you, okay. You've got-
Steven Butala: I want to get in on this now.
Jill DeWit: Why is it you? Because you are holding yourself back. You need to step aside. You need to hire, you need to let some self ... You need to let some things go. You've got to force the growth and I get it.
Jack Thursday - Land Academy Members with Personality Disorders (LA 1557) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt broadcasting from pretty Phoenix, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today's Jack Thursday. And I'm going to talk about Land Academy members with personality disorders.
Jill DeWit: Put your helmet on.
Steven Butala: Why would you ever talk about Land Academy members with disorders when 99.8% of all Land Academy members past and present are awesome. Because it's Jack Thursday, that's why.
Jill DeWit: Because he wants to.
Steven Butala: And some people need to be discussed and disgusted.
Jill DeWit: Oh no.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it let's take a question posted by one of our members on a landinvestors.com online community, it's free. And if you're already a member and you don't have a personality disorder, join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: Here we go. It's already starting.
Jill DeWit: All right, Kevin wrote, this might be a rant on open contracts.
Steven Butala: Options.
Jill DeWit: Ops. Excuse me. Let me start over. "This might be a rant on option contracts. I talked to a man about five acres in a county in the Midwest. My offer was $10,681. And he said he received a higher offer from someone who wanted a 90 day close. I told him that the person making an offer sounds like they want to do an option contract. He said that sounds about right. He did not want to deal with this person and is willing to take my offer that is $3,000 less. This option contract person is pushing deals our way. I just talked to the seller yesterday and he had another deal with the same scenario." His offer was, a member, excuse me.
Jill DeWit: "He talked to a member yesterday and he had to deal with the same scenario. His offer was less, but the seller did not understand the need for 90 day close and was put off. The seller would rather deal with the member, this other member, even though his offer is lower, same situation again. There's a time and a place for an option contract."
Steven Butala: Is there?
Jill DeWit: "But it's probably a poor choice for the initial offer, whoever's doing this is pushing deals my way, so thank you." That's totally true. So can I say real quick, here's an option. We would use to suggest this in the past and use this in the past when I was flat out out of money, when all these great deals are coming my way, I spent all my acquisition funds, I didn't have more money to take it down another deal. And I'd say, "Look, here's the story, I can't afford to buy it right now, but can I have 90 days?" And I'll kind of pull it together and what I might do and I would be honest with this too, is just go out and try to market it and sell it on my own, or sell it on your behalf kind of thing. And I'll give you the money that we agree upon. And they're like, "Sure, that's fine. As long as I get my eight grand, I don't really care how you do it. And 90 days is fine for you to try to go get me my eight grand."
Jill DeWit: Okay. So I'd have them sign this option contract, which gives me a skin in the game, equitable title so I can go out and kind of market it as my own. And here it is, this is my new property on Land Stay and try to sell it. And if I, maybe I sold it for 12, maybe I sold it for 14, whatever it was, I could then go afford to buy it from him for eight and do it all really fast. That's the thing.
Jill DeWit: Some people, and this is before, this is what I really would run out of money. And, or I would also suggest is like, maybe it was a really good deal, but I wasn't a hundred percent sure on the price. So I'd say, "Maybe I'll do an option. See if I can get what I think I'm going to get, then I'll pull the trigger and make it happen kind of thing."
Jill DeWit: So what it has sadly turned into,
Number 1 Reason You May Not Be Doing as Many Deals as Possible (LA 1556) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt.
Steven Butala: [inaudible 00:00:10]
Jill DeWit: Full fit. Broadcasting from perfect Phoenix, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about the number one reason you may not be doing as many deals as possible.
Jill DeWit: And no, it's not answering the phone. That starts it, but that's not the only reason.
Steven Butala: And no, it's not because your pricing sucks.
Jill DeWit: That's right.
Steven Butala: It's not those two.
Jill DeWit: And no, it's because your pricing was just too good and they don't realize it. It's so perfect. These guys are idiots. That's not it.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. If you're already a member, you can use Land Investors if you want, but join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: Use both. Use both. Okay. Because there's good information in both. I have to say, if you're a brand new member, if you're not using the search function and utilizing landinvestors.com you're missing it because there's so much information. There's-
Steven Butala: There's 3,000-
Jill DeWit: Six and a half years of information ... Of comments, and people, and-
Steven Butala: 3,000-
Jill DeWit: Situations.
Steven Butala: Pages of questions.
Jill DeWit: That.
Steven Butala: To answer.
Jill DeWit: There's a lot of things that have already been addressed that can really help you that are in landinvestors.com and it's a great resource. And it's free to the planet so go get an account. Shannon and James wrote, "I spoke with a lady today who has two and a half acres on a road with access and another pair of 1.25 acres behind it with no road access. She responded to my mailer from the 1.25-acre offer. She'd liked to sell all five acres." So two and half acre the payer and then the parent the 1.25, we got it, at one time. "And she's made it known that she just doesn't want to sell the two and a half acres with the access." Totally agree. "Should I make an offer on all five acres?" Yes. "However, break up the pricing for the non-access pair on the 1.25 acre lots."
Steven Butala: Nope.
Jill DeWit: I see where they're going that whole place.
Steven Butala: So do I.
Jill DeWit: Or should I move on because she doesn't want to sell me the two and a half acres that has the access, which is what I'd really like to purchase? Thank you, Shannon and James."
Steven Butala: Sell it yourself.
Jill DeWit: You want the five acres? So if you need to say ... If you need to ... I don't really need you to be this guy or this couple. Look. Or, I can't ... I'm not paying as much for the back acres as I am for the front acres because the access is here. So here's my offer. You could do that but I don't condone that. Just give her an offer for the all five acres. Love it. This is great. And down the road, if somebody else wants to do something with them, that's on them. They want to create access to the back half that's great they can do that too. I would just buy all five.
Steven Butala: Or nothing. You'll see if they're a seller pretty quickly. You need access ... Property needs to have access this day and age. There's a ... If you go back to last week, there's a question in the topic about access that explains it. Why it's so important? So there was a time in my career when I bought a lot accessless property very inexpensively and resold it, disclosing that it has no access. So there's a whole business model there. But the time in our career right now is to buy property with access.
Jill DeWit: Right. I look at it this way. She happens to have five acres on a road with three APNs.
Steven Butala: That's exactly how I would look at this deal,
Real Math Behind the Number of Needed Offers Sent to Succeed (LA 1555) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from pretty Phoenix, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I explore the real math behind the number of offers needed to be sent out to succeed. Should I send 100? Should I send 1000? I'm brand new, I don't know what to do. What's the real math behind it? I really want to buy a few properties. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. If you're already a Land Academy member, please join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: Austin wrote, "Hey, y'all, I'm doing research in an area that is heavy on lakes. The comp data is all over the place, likely due to the variants in attributes. Do you guys sort out and price specifically for waterfront property or mix them up and use one pricing methodology?" Good question.
Steven Butala: Well, you have two choices here, and you kind of identified both of them. Depending on who you talk to in the Land Academy group or really anyone, they're going to give you a different answer. But you're saying, hey, what do I do? What do I do? I look at the data. I look at the mailer I'm about to send out. California's like this. There's a lot of waterfront property that's incredibly expensive. And then if you go one block back, it's a different price. Two blocks back, it's a different price. And then three blocks back all the way to Michigan, it's the same price.
Steven Butala: So if you're super concerned about pricing and accuracy, which you shouldn't be, and I'll explain why in a second, you're going to take a microscopic or what I call a rifle approach versus a shotgun approach to pricing all this data. So, dream with me for a second. If you had the time and the patience to look up every property, and we have people in our group who do this-
Jill DeWit: That's the problem, yeah.
Steven Butala: ... and price it, every single property, you will fail.
Jill DeWit: It's just too much. It's too much.
Steven Butala: It's too time consuming, and you're removing the possibility of hitting a home run.
Jill DeWit: It's personal preference, I think, was really what it is. You can't line by line this stuff. We're going to talk here in a minute about the number of mail you should be sending out. You don't have time to sit and go through 15,000 of them line by line. You'll be here until December.
Steven Butala: And it's not that important anyway. Jill's going to talk about that in a second. Pricing is not why people sign an offer, and she'll explain that in a second. So what do you do? You got all this, let's say Florida canal property, and then inland property. The Florida canal property is twice as expensive as the inland property on the MLS. You follow the methodology of zip code pricing, and you come to an average or a mean of all the data in that data set, and you send everybody an offer at a price that you think is appropriate below retail. So maybe it's 20% or 30% or 40% or some number like that.
Steven Butala: What's going to happen is that the people who own the waterfront property and the people who own the inland property are going to get an offer roughly the same, and they're going to sign it. Some of them are going to sign it and some of them aren't. The ones who sign it on the waterfront, you're going to make a ton of money. The ones who sign it on inland, you're going to make-
Jill DeWit: Still good money.
Steven Butala: ... not quite a ton of money, but very good money on the deal as an investment. So pricing is not why people sign offers. People sign offers because you just hit them at the right time and they were having a life event and they want to sell it.
Jill DeWit: You could also have this.
How We Test for Reason 3 Times During the Acquisition Process (LA 1554) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWitt broadcasting from awesome Phoenix, Arizona. I'll get my new little spiel down.
Steven Butala: If I were you, I would've fast-forwarded through that too. Today, Jill and I talk about-
Jill DeWit: What?
Steven Butala: ... how we test for reason three times during the acquisition process.
Jill DeWit: How much do you fast-forward in life?
Steven Butala: I fast-forward everything.
Jill DeWit: I know.
Steven Butala: I mean, it's just the way the world is. Like the greatest thing in the world is that 10-second button on Netflix and Amazon.
Jill DeWit: I don't use that unless I miss some dialogue because somebody else is talking.
Steven Butala: Or like [crosstalk 00:00:37]-
Jill DeWit: I go backwards.
Steven Butala: Really? You wait [crosstalk 00:00:41] for all the stuff in the beginning, like which production company did what and who did the-
Jill DeWit: No, I don't do that but-
Steven Butala: So that's what that 10-second button's for.
Jill DeWit: Okay. I thought you meant just my comments.
Steven Butala: That's why half the people that are listening or watching this, they already know what the intro is. They're [crosstalk 00:00:53] going to fast forward to it.
Jill DeWit: They didn't hear any of this anyway.
Steven Butala: This is where they probably started.
Jill DeWit: Yep.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and if you're already a land academy member, please join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: Hello. Eve wrote, "Hello all, I'm working on my first mailer and came across the data that I did not have a situs address or zip code. Do you all have any advice on how I can price these properties, since I did zip code pricing?" Thank you in advance."
Steven Butala: Go ahead, Jill.
Jill DeWit: Why? This is kind of your area.
Steven Butala: The vast majority of real estate in the country doesn't have a post office address, therefore, does not have a ready-made zip code. You only get an address for a property, or the person who built your house got an address for the property by contacting the post office.
Jill DeWit: And saying we want to get mail there.
Steven Butala: Yeah. We want to get mail.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: It's not that hard to work backwards. If you have a small data set, you can just go on a map and look. It's not hard, or if mailing one small little area, that's pretty easy. But that's not how we roll here. We we send 10, 20, 30,000 mailers out at a time and all different zip codes. So DataTree was nice enough to populate the GPS coordinates columns really effectively. So it's not hard. In fact, it's incredibly simple to copy and paste the GPS coordinates out of the mailer that you're building, whether it's a 100 unit mailer or a 100,000 unit mailer. Drop them into an application that we use called geocod.io into a spreadsheet, pay them a couple of bucks and then dump it back out, back into your spreadsheet, into your mailer that you're building, and now you have a situs address. It's as simple as that, and then you can move through the zip code pricing like we teach in the education.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Butala: Today's topic, how do we test for reason three, no less than three, sometimes more, during the acquisition process. This is the meat of the show.
Steven Butala: What is test for reason? Test for reason is an old, I think it's an accounting concept, it might be, I mean, it's just pure logic to me. But I'm not sure where I first heard about it, but it's just applying logic. You go through all this brainy stuff in the world, especially at Land Academy,
Jill Friday - Sellers Need to Like You and Your Dynamic Personality (LA 1553) Transcript:
Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Happy Friday.
Steven J Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from perfect Phoenix, Arizona.
Steven J Butala: Today Jill and I talk about, well, it's Jill Friday, and how sellers need to like you and your dynamic personality.
Jill DeWit: It kind of sounds funny when you say it like that.
Steven J Butala: I never would have thought that this was important to get anything done. And now more than ever, I don't know if it's my age or sort of experience.
Jill DeWit: Maybe it's me.
Steven J Butala: It is you. It's the Jill effect. And being an experienced parent, I just know that you need to have a dynamic personality and present stuff to sellers to get a deal.
Jill DeWit: It makes a difference.
Steven J Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Well, and sellers and buyers, all of it, all of the above. And I can't wait to talk more about this. I was thinking about career path this week, actually the last week, and we were just talking... It comes up often, and I have to remind everyone, get the mail out. There's a lot of problems you can solve on the phone. And that ties into this.
Steven J Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and if you're already a Land Academy member, join us on Discord. I'm going to set this up.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven J Butala: This is Sam and Malita, Land Academy members, responding to a question that somebody else asked about should I send a mail to a low activity area? Meaning wow, there's just not a lot of comparison value. It's both sales and actively sold property. This is what they say.
Jill DeWit: This is cool. Their take on it. So Sam and Malita wrote, for areas where I just don't see any activity or very little in the way of sold and for sale, I'm contacting agents that sell there and just getting them to give me the lowdown on the area. What's going on in this area conversation? I'm a broker and have listed a lot of land in an area where we have tons on the market and very little movement. I would always be upfront with my clients on what to expect when listing land in that area. I knew exactly why it was slow over there, and I knew what would sell and what would sit. So maybe find out what sells in that area and what sits. Love it.
Steven J Butala: Well, let me tell you a story. A true story, and it's one that's recent. We sent a mailer out in a centrally located state and did very, very well. And Jill found the right real estate agent to deal with. And he sold the property quickly. And to which she said, "Well, should I buy more?" I'll tell you what she said in less than 30 seconds, "Boy, if I had properties anything in these three zip codes, I can sell it for $20,000 an acre."
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative). It was like, "This area, yes. This area, no. This area, maybe. This area..." That's the conversation you want to have.
Steven J Butala: Is there data involved in that? No. And the reason I put that, I'm a data person. The reason I put this question in this episode is because we're going to talk about this is not all about data. It's hugely about... And so think about now, if you call six or seven good local land real estate agents, what kind of conversations you're going to have and how you can tailor a mailer around what they say without ever running any real data.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steven J Butala: Today's topic is Jill Friday. And she talks about how sellers need to like you and your dynamic personality. This is the meat of the show.
Jill DeWit: So I was thinking about this because I was watching Shark Tank the other day. I know I talk about that a lot. It's one of my favorite shows. When I'm on Hulu, it always just pops up,
Jack Thursday - The Drama of Scrapping the Internet for Accurate Pricing (LA 1552) Transcript:
Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven J Butala: welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: Is it entertaining?
Steven J Butala: Maybe.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven J Butala: For certain people it might be.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven J Butala: I'm entertained.
Jill DeWit: Oh good. I'm glad. That's what matters. And I'm Jill DeWit. We are broadcasting from awesome Phoenix, Arizona. I'll come up with a good name.
Steven J Butala: Today is Jack Thursday and the topic is the drama of scraping the internet for accurate pricing.
Jill DeWit: There's so much drama. Why is there so much drama?
Steven J Butala: I'll explain it all. Because you know why? Because it's probably not ethical. In some cases, it might not be legal. Now, there's all kinds of potential lawsuits. There's a huge multi-billion dollar, not just a lawsuit, but it's almost now a criminal thing. So I'm not sure if it's a civil lawsuit or a criminal. Nobody knows the rules. That's why. It's brand new.
Jill DeWit: It's not real clear.
Steven J Butala: Nobody knows who exactly owns what data. So we'll talk all about that.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, because it's MLS data. I can look at it freely on Zillow. Why can't I look at it this way and not that way?
Steven J Butala: That's one of the seriously compelling arguments, in my opinion. I have access to all the data anyway.
Jill DeWit: I could be writing it all down.
Steven J Butala: Right. That's right. I could be screenshotting it. Is that okay? There's a lot of questions and not a lot of answers yet. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And if you're a Land Academy member, please join us on the discord.
Jill DeWit: Kyler wrote, "Data tree question. I just pulled some data and set my parameters on all the improvement fields to zero and zero, to weed out the properties with structures. I even tried setting the living area and other fields to zero and zero, but those took my search results down to zero. Once I'd pull the data, I had almost 900 lines with some type of Homer structure on them. Is there something I'm missing to weed out the properties with structures? I tried everything I thought would work, but either they don't weed them out or it takes my search results down to zero. Or do you think it varies by county? Thanks for any help."
Steven J Butala: This is a very common question. And it's a very good question. And I have trouble with this. Everyone does. The fact is this will never go away. And here's why, here's a short answer. And then I'll give a longer one. The fields that matter to you in DataTree, don't matter to that assessor.
Jill DeWit: Good point.
Steven J Butala: But some fields do matter to that assessor. So, here's the long answer and it's very workable. I'll get you there. DataTree is a data aggregator. They have an agreement with 3,144 counties to access their assessor data. And as you can imagine, some are very urban counties. Let's use San Francisco as an example, because that's where Silicon Valley is, extremely sophisticated computerized assessor in tax role. What your accessing is this tax roll. So if you did this in San Francisco, it would probably be a breeze, but we don't buy property in San Francisco. And probably nobody in our group does because we're rural vacant land people.
Steven J Butala: So let's just pick an Arkansas. Arkansas probably doesn't use half the fields that are in DataTree. They just don't care. They might check a box. Does it have a house on it? Check. They don't care about how many bedrooms it is or whatever their methodology is. And I'm not judging anybody, whatever makes sense to them, it's their county. And so you have to manipulate the heck out of getting those structures off out of you...
Career Path Mindset and How Different This Group is After Three Weeks (LA 1551) Transcript:
Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven J Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sweet Phoenix area, Arizona. I don't know what to call it anymore.
Steven J Butala: Paradise Valley.
Jill DeWit: I know. I don't like that.
Steven J Butala: Why?
Jill DeWit: Because it's just, you know. It's a little personal.
Steven J Butala: Oh, I see.
Jill DeWit: If you really want to know. Thanks.
Steven J Butala: Well, I guess the cat's out.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, I don't think that's cool. I'm like, just say it like we'd say southern California.
Steven J Butala: Oh, I see.
Jill DeWit: See, I don't have a southern Arizona. I don't know what to call it.
Steven J Butala: Central Arizona.
Jill DeWit: Oh, okay. See, then that sounds kind of weird too. We'll get there. Okay.
Steven J Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about the Land Academy Career Path mindset and how different the entire group is after the three weeks we've been through together. It's kind of a continuation of yesterday.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. And good, because I have some notes of things that I forgot to say yesterday.
Steven J Butala: Before we get into it though, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And if you're already a Land Academy member, please join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: If I didn't know us any better, I would say we're hungover or something really bad, and we're not.
Steven J Butala: No.
Jill DeWit: We're kind of just out of sorts. So I apologize.
Steven J Butala: Overworked is what we are.
Jill DeWit: Thank you for your patience. I really appreciate that. Chuck wrote, "Good evening. Day one as a Land Academy member, many days as a lurker. Going through my video chapters. Question came to mind. I was listening to the website chapter. Seems to me that building a website targeted to sellers is very different objective than a website targeted to buyers, psychology and such. Would it make sense, given that the digital side of things is so cheap, just to create one presence for buyers and one for sellers? Anybody think this makes sense?" I like this question. I know this comes up often when people join in, and I have an answer if you want me to go first or you want to go first.
Steven J Butala: You can solo answer this question.
Jill DeWit: I can. We did that in the past. Totally thought that made sense. We no longer feel that way because the purpose of the website is A, sell property, and B, just show you're a real person and who you are and you are selling land. So if you go out right now and make a brand new landing page, just a here I am, I'm just a buyer kind of thing, that's great. And then have the second, I don't know. I think it just leads more credibility showing your full business. And we only have one website. Go ahead.
Steven J Butala: Yeah. It's more of a landing page. All it is, is this, and this question comes up so often that I don't address it clearly or it's not-
Jill DeWit: We're not doing anything clearly this week.
Steven J Butala: How we are addressing this in the formal education has changed. Here's what I think. You need a landing page that shows just some basic information because when the property owners get your letters, they need to look you up.
Jill DeWit: And one website will do it.
Steven J Butala: Yeah, one landing page with maybe a contact us.
Jill DeWit: Okay. You're saying the opposite.
Steven J Butala: But that's it. No, one landing page with maybe a contact us, and that's it. You do not need two websites, I don't think.
Jill DeWit: So the landing page is going to be like land.com/content. Where would you direct them? Because if they're going to go to your website, they're going to the website.
Steven J Butala: Yeah.
Getting Ahead of Yourself in the Land Academy Education Process (LA 1550) Transcript:
Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Steven J Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: Are you sure?
Steven J Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Okay, and I'm Jill Dewitt, broadcasting from awesome Phoenix, Arizona.
Steven J Butala: I'm hot.
Jill DeWit: How you doing there? What's going on, babe?
Steven J Butala: Well, I'm hot. I'm distracted.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven J Butala: We are recording [crosstalk 00:00:24] right now, this moment, in the middle of a construction site [crosstalk 00:00:28] we call our house.
Jill DeWit: Yes. Our house is literally at a job site.
Steven J Butala: Our sort of house. We live in the living room.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, there is that, too. All true. We're running around helping landscapers and pool people and flooring people and all that stuff, but ...
Steven J Butala: And we're still here to do the show.
Jill DeWit: I know.
Steven J Butala: The show must go on.
Jill DeWit: I'm happy to be the general contractor of our own project.
Steven J Butala: Today, Jill and I ... Wow. And I can't talk. Today, Jill and I are talking about getting ahead of yourself in the land academy education process.
Jill DeWit: One thing, I'm not getting ahead of myself with this project. You know what? This is a good example. I could be running around asking for things [inaudible 00:01:08] alone. No, I ask people, what's the process? For example, our wood flooring. How's this going to go? How long does that take? What's the next step? And then I wait. I put it on the calendar and I wait. So this ties into our topic.
Steven J Butala: When I was a kid, I took a boating class. I had to take a class from coast guard to get my boating license, and I was a little. It's like with airplanes. It's not like you have to turn 16 to get your license. You can get a boating license really early on, and I think you can get certified as a pilot early on, too.
Jill DeWit: You have to be 16 to solo.
Steven J Butala: Okay, but I don't think that was the case a while ago, and I know it's not the case for boats. Maybe it's all changed recently. And the second I got into that class, boy, did I have a lot of questions. And I was really interested in getting out on the water that day. It was two weeks before we ever got on the water, and it was books and exams and all kinds of stuff. And I got so frustrated and ahead of myself and, by golly, that's what happens at Land Academy.
Jill DeWit: By Golly. What am I going to do with you? Lickety split, by golly and bajillion.
Steven J Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. If you're already a Land Academy member, join us on the discord.
Jill DeWit: All right. So Erin wrote, Hello, I'm preparing my second first mailer. Oh, that's hilarious. I like that with a happy face. It took me second. Should I scrub out properties that are labeled low income in the opportunity zone column? That's hilarious. I'm concerned that there'll be a price cap on how much I could sell it. Is that accurate?
Steven J Butala: This is a very, very hidden PhD level question.
Jill DeWit: That's funny.
Steven J Butala: What he or she is asking is what do I scrub out of my mailer when it comes to use? Property types, commercial use, industrial use, residential, NEC, which is non-classified property and on and on. What do I exclude? And the answer is nothing. In the very early parts of Land Academy, I made a big deal about use and how you should check out all kinds of stuff, specifically industrial property because you don't want to deal with any type of [crosstalk 00:03:35] EPA cleanup. Yeah, exactly. Well, times have changed. And the more letters that you get out now ... and we've grown as a land investor,
Internet Trolling has Become Acceptable Here is What We Do (LA 1549) Transcript:
Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Steven J Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from pretty Phoenix, Arizona.
Steven J Butala: Today Jill and I talk about how internet trolling has become acceptable and this is what we do about it. Before we get into it, though, let's take a question.
Jill DeWit: I was thinking [crosstalk 00:00:28].
Steven J Butala: Oh sorry.
Jill DeWit: It's okay.
Steven J Butala: Go ahead.
Jill DeWit: No, it's just it makes me a little bit mad and it's very interesting. And what does this have to do with us? We'll tell you in a minute. It does.
Steven J Butala: We created Land Academy.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven J Butala: To really improve people's lives and to create business partners for ourselves. And things like ... you can't ever anticipate something like this, but-
Jill DeWit: It still happens.
Steven J Butala: Ut won't be prevalent in our group, let's put it that way.
Jill DeWit: [crosstalk 00:00:54] funny.
Steven J Butala: Before we get into it. Let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free and if you're already with us and you're not a troll, join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: Okay. So Vic wrote ... this is long. So I'm going to do first part, you do the second part [crosstalk 00:01:12]-
Steven J Butala: Long but incredibly important. This is a great question, a great series of questions and comments about access.
Jill DeWit: Okay. So Vic wrote this initial question. I am in escrow on a property in Florida. And I'm running into a bit of a confusing situation for me as far as the access goes. I can clearly see a road running through the property and it has a street name as well. However, the township said they do not maintain it and is likely a private road or easement. When I look at the vesting deed, I see nothing in there about an easement. But what I do see on the deed after legal description is something that says less road right of way. So what does that mean? And what does this mean about the access?
Steven J Butala: Excellent question. Access, access, access is one of our [crosstalk 00:02:03]-
Jill DeWit: One of our five As.
Steven J Butala: One of the five As and it's incredibly important.
Jill DeWit: It's important. That's why one of the As.
Steven J Butala: [crosstalk 00:02:08] you or the person you sell it to, to get to your property, within reason, without a helicopter. Kevin responds, Vic, the road is most likely a private road, i.e. not maintained by the county. Exactly. This is something that will affect your ability to sell the property quickly. When you get the preliminary title report, they should have the easements called out on the property. The road right of way thing sounds like the county has an easement for a possible future road in that area. You need to know about that and how much it takes out of this parcel. Meaning it's going to make it smaller. There's already an easement in the deed of this property to another property or a set of properties. If you get the information from the title report and you don't like the deal, you can renegotiate or decline to purchase. Jill and I just did this. You may have some fees to pay the title company if you need to do that. But that's very unusual.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. Laurie went on to add, hey, I've had this situation play out in different ways. Some of them based on county records and others based on state law. But a title company should be the ones provide you the information. Here's what I've seen. Number one, the private road and ownership marked on a survey for one of the bordering properties. Sorry.
Steven J Butala: That's awesome. [inaudible 00:03:31]. If you're listening to this, we have-
Jill DeWit: Our landscaper's here.
Jill Friday - Why My Heart Felt Land Business Model Has Worked for Decades (LA 1548) Transcript:
Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Howdy.
Steven J Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sweet, sizzling, Scottsdale, Arizona. I got to ask you something. Why did you pause there for a second, like, "What show am I doing?"
Steven J Butala: That's why.
Jill DeWit: Have you not done enough?
Steven J Butala: That's exactly why.
Jill DeWit: "Welcome to the, what show is this today?" The same one you've done for 1,547 times before this.
Steven J Butala: I've been writing the Showing Up for Life show, and we did a House Academy show for a long time.
Jill DeWit: That's no excuse.
Steven J Butala: And it's Friday. And it's your show. In fact, it's called Jill Friday: Why My Heartfelt Land Business Model Has Worked for Decades. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Please have patience with me, unlike Jill, about reading lines. If you're already a Land Academy member, join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: And as you saw, you are witness to, he just skipped right over my comments. It's Friday. He's done. That's what that is. Okay, Sam Amalita wrote, "Love the honesty. We had a similar call. Was the daughter." So this is obviously down in the conversation.
Steven J Butala: Yep. But it's really worth.
Jill DeWit: "It was the daughter of the owner. She said, 'You're absolutely sure you want to buy this?' 'It used to be farmland and the land my father grew up on. The state took most of it and flooded it to expand the lake. Now we don't even know where the parcel is, but it's only what was leftover after the flooding. We tried to get there by foot and we couldn't. We had to cross other people's land, and we could never find it. We're guessing you have to go by boat.' I asked her why in the world her dad is paying on that, and she said, well, she's been asking him that for 15 years."
Steven J Butala: They went on to buy the property. This person Sam Amalita, I believe, it was down a string, said they got it for such a good price from these people who inherited it, that they bought it.
Jill DeWit: Definitely almost gave it away.
Steven J Butala: So my point is not trying to get cheap property, because we all know how to do that. They're having a back and forth conversation, an honest conversation about the property. They clearly, as a seller, doesn't want the stuff anymore, or doesn't see the value in it. I will tell you, we have bought boat access only property and made a killing on it. People love that stuff.
Jill DeWit: It was unique. You had to find the right buyer, but it worked. I want to say this, about asking that for 15 years. This is something I come across often. People don't know you can stop paying the taxes. There's a lot of people out there that think all unwanted land is in a back tax situation. No, it's not. There's a ton of unwanted land in a back tax situation like this one. People didn't know they could not pay the taxes. They think the IRS is going to come after them and garnish their wages or do something like that, which they don't.
Steven J Butala: Let me make a comment on that. Jill is exactly right. When you stop paying your mortgage, you're in a lot of trouble.
Jill DeWit: Correct.
Steven J Butala: It's going to really affect your credit score, depending on what state you're in, they're going to come after you, and all kinds of stuff is going to happen. The IRS may or may not get involved. Typically, not now, they don't. And because you unknowingly signed a personal guarantee in a document that's tied to that real estate, usually it's a primary residence, or an office building, or all kinds of stuff, with freely owned real estate, the taxing authority,
Jack Thursday - Should Agricultural Land be Included in Your Mailer (LA 1547) Transcript:
Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven J Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from sizzling Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven J Butala: That's for sure.
Jill DeWit: Yep.
Steven J Butala: Today Jill and I talk about ... Well, it's Jack Thursday, and I talk about should agricultural land be included in your mailer.
Steven J Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free. Or if you're already a Land Academy Member, join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: "My name is Michelle. I live in Missouri and I am new to land investing. I have done some investing, but still consider myself new to the world of real estate. I have one rental property, and I just bought a property I'm doing some cosmetic fixes on for a nightly rental."
Jill DeWit: "I have been interested in land investing and purchasing for a long time, and I'm excited to learn the process and add it to my portfolio. I'm planning on concentrating on land and note investing extensively going forward at this time. I look forward to learning from you all and we'll hopefully be able to contribute to others in the future. Blessings." Aww.
Steven J Butala: I put this in here because this is very frequent, and welcome Michelle. But there's lots of people that are joining us that have somewhat of a light existing real estate investing background. In her case, she's got a couple of rentals and she's seen the light.
Steven J Butala: If you've seen the light in real ... Here's my point. If you've seen the light, and I sound like a company here.
Jill DeWit: Aah. This is it, it's just sounds a little weird, by the way I was going to ... I'm like ...
Steven J Butala: Here's what I ... Let me try it the other way. If you love the idea of making a lot of money but you haven't seen the light in real estate and [inaudible 00:01:54] just kind of an afterthought, this is not for you.
Jill DeWit: And we'll say in general, or our kind?
Steven J Butala: If you've seen the light in real estate-
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven J Butala: ... and maybe you have a rental. Maybe you redid a few houses and you know that's not for you.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven J Butala: Or inherited some land and sold it and made some money, and it just, it is now in your soul and won't go away, Land Academy is for you.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven J Butala: If that hasn't happened to you ... Or let's say you're a data person and you want to capitalize on your understanding of data. And real estate is just the thing that you think might be able to ... you want to be able to do that, this is for you.
Jill DeWit: You know what my favorite is? My favorite is the people that come to us and they're like, "Oh, that's boring." And they go off and do something else. And I'm like, "No, I think I'd like boring." You know what I mean?
Steven J Butala: Yeah, and they come back.
Jill DeWit: You're like, "How'd that renovation go?" Oh my goodness. They're like, "I could do with a lot less excitement." "Yeah, I bet it was exciting when you opened the walls and found that wasn't it." They're like, "I am not set up for that." So yeah.
Steven J Butala: Michelle, welcome to the group. You are a perfect candidate to take this all the way to the end.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven J Butala: Today's topic. Should agricultural land be included in your mailer? This is the meat of the show.
Steven J Butala: Here's the deal with agricultural property. Agricultural property is quite possibly the best zoned or used code that you can get in nearly every environment.
Jill DeWit: Why?
Steven J Butala: Because the taxes, there's huge incentives and have been ... This whole country was built on agriculture.
When is it Appropriate to Survey Land (LA 1546) Transcript:
Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven J Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven J Butala: Today Jill and I talk about when is it appropriate to survey land?
Jill DeWit: There are times it is, and there are times it is not. So does everybody hear that? There are times it is not appropriate, like most of the time. Don't give it away.
Steven J Butala: I'm going to interview Jill, and I'm going to ask her when it's appropriate and when it's not.
Jill DeWit: I can tell you, because some people think you do it on every time, and that is not the case, unless you want to give away a lot of money. Thank you.
Steven J Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. If you're already a Land Academy member, please join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: Okie-dokie. Chuck wrote, which is this the Chuck that I'm thinking of or is this a different Chuck?
Steven J Butala: I don't know. There's two.
Jill DeWit: All right. "I've run into a weird problem with DataTree. In the last two batches of records that I purchased, between one-third and one-half of each list did not have a situs zip code. The zip codes for the mailing addresses were there, but the situs was missing. This is a problem because in both counties, my intention is to make offers based on the zip code values, which I've computed. The price per acre varies greatly between zip codes in these counties. It looks like the missing zip codes are for properties that do not have a street address, which is a lot of them, by the way. In all cases, the parcel numbers are there, as are the long/lat numbers. And the county CAD shows the situs zip codes. I would think there would be enough info for DataTree to be able to produce a zip code. Has anyone run into this with DataTree? I'm thinking of just mailing those with zip codes so I can price them reasonably. That would eliminate though almost half the properties. Thanks."
Steven J Butala: This is an incredibly intelligent question, and luckily I have the solution. It's something I've been working on for a while. You take the data set that you have, and it sounds like you've taken it all the way to the point where you're stuck with this. So, I'll directly answer your question. DataTree was nice enough to include longitude and latitude numbers, and it's pretty easy for a computer to convert long/lat to zip codes in America. We use a website called geocod.io. It's G-I-O-C-O-D, without an E, dot io. For a very nominal price, and I mean like $2 or $3, you can take a massive dataset, drop the long/lat numbers in, and it's going to convert the long/lat to an American zip code. And as a bonus, it tells you how accurate that is.
Steven J Butala: So they'll tell you it's 100% accurate. We know exactly where this property is or-
Jill DeWit: Because of the long/lat.
Steven J Butala: Yeah, because, well their database is limited. So it's still a work in progress. But what you do is then copy and paste the results of that into the back end of the zip code area, and you can then be on your merry way. Concierge pricing, which is a product that Jill and I launched very recently, does all this for you. And in Land Academy 3.0, which I'm filming right now, in this actual module that addresses this will be released before, because it's such a popular topic, will be released long before ... It will be really soon, very soon, within days I'm told, or at least this month. It's in post production. I recorded it and they're just trying to make it perfect, my team is.
Jill DeWit: This is for Land Academy members, have access.
Steven J Butala: Yeah. This is what makes DataTree so superior, in my opinion, to RealQuest and to Black Knight.
Fixed Price MLS listing vs Listing with an Actual Real Estate Agent (LA 1545) Transcript:
Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello?
Steven J Butala: Wow. Welcome to Land Academy.
Jill DeWit: Puberty just strikes at crazy times, doesn't it?
Steven J Butala: Mid fifties.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steven J Butala: I'm just now getting my adult voice.
Jill DeWit: There you go. That's right.
Steven J Butala: Figuratively and literally.
Jill DeWit: You used to sound like your mom when you were 12 and now you sound like your mom again. Just kidding.
Steven J Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show. Entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And, I'm Jill DeWit.
Steven J Butala: [inaudible 00:00:36].
Jill DeWit: I mean, hilarious. If my voice dropped four octaves.
Steven J Butala: Know what else would be hilarious? If you were the data person for a week and I was the salesperson for a week.
Jill DeWit: Oh my Goodness. That would be a disaster. Anyway, we are broadcasting from sizzling, Scottsdale, Arizona. But it's cool.
Steven J Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about fixed price MLS listings versus listing the property with an actual real estate agent.
Jill DeWit: Not like a fake real estate engine, a real one. Actual.
Steven J Butala: Most of them are fake actually.
Jill DeWit: That's why you put that there. You should say one that shows up. Just kidding.
Steven J Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free and if you're already a Land Academy member, please join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: Jeanette wrote, Hi Jeannette.
Jill DeWit: "What flat fee MLS listing service is best for land? I hear a lot of people using Zillow, but if you use a different flat fee MLS service, it gets listed there anyway. Also, is the flat fee MLS fee per property, or does it allow for multiple property listings or switching properties for the listing period? Help, please."
Jill DeWit: I can answer this.
Steven J Butala: Oh, yes.
Jill DeWit: Okay. I was waiting. So, it's per property and listing. You don't just... It's not like a turn it on, turn it off thing at six months to do like LandWatch or land and farm for your signature things. You have 10 that you could have running or five you can have running depending on whatever your deal is with them. Or you could put one up, it sells, take it down, put another one in its place. As long as you don't go over the five or the 10 or 20, whatever you have. So, this is a whole different thing it's per property.
Jill DeWit: So, what does it cost? Anywhere from... I've seen deals down to man $39 for six months up to $400, 395 for six months, depending on the location. Because I think, I know that their contracts vary what each individual MLS and stuff, regions in the country charge these services. That's where the money difference comes in.
Jill DeWit: So, do we want to jump into, I kind of answered her questions. Can we jump into the show because I'm going to talk even more about this.
Steven J Butala: Today's topic fixed price, MLS versus listing with an actual real estate agent. This is the meat of the show.
Jill DeWit: So, what the heck are we talking about?
Steven J Butala: Well, let's define what the MLS is really quickly.
Jill DeWit: That's... Okay. You define MLS.
Steven J Butala: You took a lot of notes in this.
Jill DeWit: I kind of did.
Steven J Butala: This is right up your alley because we saw the vast majority or maybe all of our property with real estate agents now, so Jill's qualified.
Jill DeWit: Do people not know what the MLS is?
Steven J Butala: Yeah. People don't know.
Jill DeWit: Okay. You define the MLS, then I'll define the different ways to get things right on the MLS.
Steven J Butala: The MLS is an acronym for a Multiple Listing Service. There are approximately 344 ish of them in the country.
How Much Time Do I Really Need to Spend on Pricing (LA 1544) Transcript:
Steven J Butala: Steven, Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Good day.
Steven J Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I’m Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sweet Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven J Butala: Today, jill and I talk about how much time do I really need to spend on pricing?
Jill DeWit: Oh, What do you think?
Steven J Butala: No, I think you should take a whole year.
Jill DeWit: Oh that's true. I have a few people that are saying, "Yeah, I'm pushing a month." Oops. Yeah, we'll talk about that.
Steven J Butala: We'll talk all about it and we're joking around, but I understand. We both understand it, how caught up you can get in this.
Jill DeWit: You can accidentally spend a month on this.
Steven J Butala: Yeah. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free and if you're already with us, please join us on discord.
Jill DeWit: Anthony wrote, "I joined an auto pricing service just to see the product. I checked how they price counties and that I have previously mailed. In general, they price way too high. I've been mailing counties with a lot of waterfront properties. I find it difficult to come up with good prices, given that a parcel just a few blocks away can go for double and vice versa. Their prices were way too high there also. I don't think there's an easy way out for pricing. You have to put in the work, even if it means drilling down past zip codes to map sections. On the other hand, you can get sucked in and go too granular. I sometimes forget that perfect is the enemy of good enough." That was great Anthony.
Steven J Butala: Anthony, tell me where to send the check.
Jill DeWit: Was this in Land Investors or was this in discord?
Steven J Butala: It was in discord.
Jill DeWit: Wow.
Steven J Butala: I responded and a lot of people did too. I actually responded to him and thanked him.
Jill DeWit: So if you're in discord, you're a member. If you're in Land Investors, you might be both, by the way, you can be either. Sorry. Yeah, this is perfect. This ties right into it.
Steven J Butala: Well, this was the inspiration for the actual topic.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven J Butala: So we're right in the pricing module right now, Jill and I, or about to be for career path.
Jill DeWit: Number two.
Steven J Butala: And it, for some reason, and I believe this is great, the Land Academy itself attracts technical people or intelligent people, or it's generally attracts, it seems to me now, technical people with a technical background, but are very comfortable in a sales role too.
Jill DeWit: Because that's who we are.
Steven J Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Last time I checked.
Steven J Butala: I mean, that's exactly who you and I are so...
Jill DeWit: That's what I mean.
Steven J Butala: Individually and collectively. And so because of that technical background, it's you can just spend way too much time on pricing. Hey, wait, today's topic, how much time do you really need to spend on pricing? This is the meat of the show. I can directly answer that question. And it's a one-to-one association with how new you are at land investing and how much experience you have with Excel and data in general. And if this is brand new and you are not a data person at all, I think a month. Jill was joking about it earlier, might be appropriate or better yet, use a product like Concierge Pricing that we created for people like you.
Jill DeWit: To speed the process up.
Steven J Butala: You can go to Offers 2 Owners and check that out there or get somebody like me to do your mailers for you. And if you go through discord, there's all kinds of people in there that are willing to do it.
Jill DeWit: Here's the point. So when you're new, you need to spend the time, you need to put the time in.
Jill Friday - When to Get a Transaction Coordinator and Why (LA 1543) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here-
Jill DeWit: Howdy.
Steven Butala: ... welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land, investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sizzling Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk ... Well, it's Jill Friday, and she's going to talk about when it's appropriate to get a transaction coordinator and why you need one. Before we get into it though, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community. It's free, and if you're a Land Academy member, please join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: Miles wrote, "On my first mailer, almost all of the potential deals I got were for other parcels or land in other counties that were not on my mailer. So I'm having to make new offers and I'm unsure how to price it because there are no comps. Would you contact an agent in this case? And before you make your new offers, do you get a broker's opinion? It sounds like you don't do that, right? Thank you."
Jill DeWit: Okay, so let me back up. So here's what Miles is talking about. I sent my mailer, a guy calls back and says, "I don't want to sell that one, but I've got two over here if you want one. My brother has this, my mom has that, we want to sell whatever." That kind of a thing. And you're like, "Oh, why did this come up?" Because I've taught you well, hopefully.
Steven Butala: Because you sent some mail out.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, and one, I have it on my checklist. I always say when my inbound seller checklist, one of the questions your asking everybody is, "By the way, what else do you have?" Because they may have something great and you don't know it. They may say, "Oh, I have this other agricultural parcel two lots over, I didn't think you wanted that one." I'm like, "Yeah, I absolutely want that. That one's even better." Because that comes up.
Jill DeWit: So in this situation Miles is going, "All right, now I need to go back and make new offers." Hold on a moment, Miles. Let me make it easier for you, what I would do instead is say, "Great, you have what? 10 acres where? Happy to go look for it. How much are you asking? Let's talk a for a second. You know who I am, I know who you are. I own this sweet little company, it's mine. I pay cash, I close fast. You're staring at my letter for a different property. So with that in mind, how much would you accept and I could just cash you out of that one, too, or instead of, or whatever?" Get a number from them.
Jill DeWit: Last thing I want you to is get all excited and go and start spending a day and a half doing research, calling around, getting excited about this other area, this other potential property, and what's possible. Calling agents, calling brokers, and everything, and then coming back and going, "Okay, here's my number." And the guy says, "Oh, no, no, no. I wouldn't let it go for less than a million." You needed to know that before you even did anything. So that's what I want you to do.
Jill DeWit: So let's say now you do this, so you go, "Okay, what's this?" I said, "You know what, all right, Miles, I get it. I know how you roll. I know it's worth maybe more than this, but you know what? I just one to get rid of this one-
Steven Butala: "And I like you."
Jill DeWit: ... because I'm never over there. My wife never wanted it. So you know what? I'd let it go for 30,000." You go, "Okay, give me date. Let' see, today's Friday, can I get back to you on Tuesday? Because I know it's getting late, the county's probably closing soon. I got to make some calls. Can I call you on Tuesday?" And where's the best time and what's the best number? "Yep, here you go, you can reach me here." "Awesome." Now Miles, now I want you to go look at this.
Jill DeWit: And what do I want you to do? You're like, "Okay, how do I get the comps?" Well, look at all the normal places,
Jack Thursday - What Mailer Size Should I Send? (LA 1542) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Howdy.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today. Jill and I talk about ... Well, it's Jack Thursday. What mailer size should I send? This is an endless top five question that Jill and I get. If we get five new people in a month, we answer this question five times.
Jill DeWit: So let's do the math. If you get 50 people a month, how many times does it come up?
Steven Butala: Five zero.
Jill DeWit: Uh-huh (affirmative).
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free if you're already a Land Academy member. Please join us on Discord. And maybe you can ask this question there and everyone will help you.
Jill DeWit: You are a stinker.
Steven Butala: This might be the shortest episode in the history of the Land Academy Show.
Jill DeWit: You are a stinker. Okay. Rebecca wrote, "Hi everyone. When we previously posted our lots on Facebook Marketplace, Facebook gave us an option to add keywords in an SEO section."
Jill DeWit: Recently, I'm not seeing that area when I post lots. Has anyone experienced something familiar or similar with Facebook? The SEO keywords really gave us a lot of interest from buyers in our lots. We have not been getting as much interest now that the SEO area's gone. Any input would be great. Thanks everyone."
Steven Butala: Very familiar with the Facebook marketing, and not as familiar with Marketplace. I have two points here. Number one, sometimes stuff on Facebook changes.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: Sometimes it's not there, but it's only not there for an hour because they're working on that module. So stick with it. I can guarantee you this, SEO and keywords are the very center of how Facebook generates revenue and income. So chances are they've replaced it with something or they're working on it to make it better. Socially, I think Facebook is stupid. I think all the stuff that you hear on talk shows-
Jill DeWit: Here we go.
Steven Butala: ... and radio and how-
Jill DeWit: Here we go.
Steven Butala: ... it's just the bane of the world, I believe that.
Jill DeWit: Here we go.
Steven Butala: I think it promotes all kinds of terrible stuff. As a marketing device, there's nothing better. So if you have a product or you want to sell something, I don't care if you're selling jackknives out of your-
Jill DeWit: Trunk.
Steven Butala: Yeah, out of your garage. There's no better place to effectively sell anything, including land, than Facebook and Facebook Marketplace specifically. So if you don't know about it or it's not in your regular way to market property, I would stop what you're doing and really go look at it.
Jill DeWit: Okay, now don't hold back. Please really share what you're trying to say.
Steven Butala: Facebook for business is amazing. Facebook socially, get a life.
Jill DeWit: Steven.
Steven Butala: I mean it.
Jill DeWit: Oh gosh. Anyway.
Steven Butala: Number two.
Jill DeWit: I like it, when used properly. I don't use it for political reasons.
Steven Butala: You really want to know-
Jill DeWit: Hold on a moment.
Steven Butala: ... what your high school classmates are doing right now? I don't.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Butala: I have new friends.
Jill DeWit: All right. Well, now I use it for my current friends too to see what they're doing, because we might be in another state.
Steven Butala: That's what texting is for.
Jill DeWit: We might be in another state though, but I get it. Okay, fine. Whatever.
Steven Butala: Number two. And no one talks about this and I don't know why. There's metadata you can embed in graphics that CEO will capture. I love all the Adobe products,
Our Biggest Land Flipping Bottlenecks in 2021 (LA 1541) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from scorching Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about our biggest land flipping bottlenecks this year in 2021.
Jill DeWit: I got two.
Steven Butala: Yes, we're not perfect.
Jill DeWit: I got two. I'm sure there's 20.
Steven Butala: I have two also.
Jill DeWit: Like, you know, you ask an unrelated third party, they're like, "Oh, all right. Oh honey, sit down."
Steven Butala: I'll tell you, we just started Career Path, the second Career Path. So everybody's baring all. Like, this is what I want, this is what I do right and this is what I do wrong. And while we're doing that, I'm looking at myself going, wow, we don't have any of these issues, but these are our issues. So it's really helpful in a group like that to hear what other people's issues are.
Jill DeWit: Like an AA meeting?
Steven Butala: Yeah, just like that. Or Weight Watchers, yeah.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. It's really helpful in a closed environment where we can all share personal things.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it though, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And if you're already a member, join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: That's how I'm going to lead the next Career Path meeting. I'm going to say, "Everyone, this is a safe space."
Steven Butala: Taylor has a story here. It's a little bit lengthy, but trust me, worth it.
Jill DeWit: Okay, cool. All right. Taylor wrote, "I wanted to share my latest deal that was in a flood zone." So if I can shed some light on buying flood zone properties.
Steven Butala: Thank you, so I don't have to do this.
Jill DeWit: "I had a seller reach out to me after receiving one of my offers on a seven acre property. The seller informed me that he would sell at $35,000 and not a penny less. I began my due diligence and found the entire property is in a flood sound. However, there are mobile/RV parks and houses throughout the surrounding area all within the same flood zone. I researched and found the flood elevation is just above the surface of the property. I decided to purchase at the seller's asking price, knowing it was higher than I would have liked, but knew there was a market for this property. After closing, the seller contacted me, thanking us for the purchase at his asking price because of medical bills stacking up from a health issue he was dealing with. The seller went on to tell me that several investors had inquired about this property, but all of them passed or tried to lower the price due to the flood zone. I listed the property a week later and sold it within five days for $72,500. The buyer had been looking for property for over a year just like this one."
Jill DeWit: Two lessons to take note of here. Number one, not all flood zones are bad.
Steven Butala: Totally.
Jill DeWit: Just look at Phoenix, your famous one. Just because a property is in a flood zone does not mean the property won't sell.
Steven Butala: Absolutely.
Jill DeWit: Make sure to cover your due diligence, know what's developed around the area, know the restrictions on what you can and cannot do with the property and make sure to know where the flood elevation is. Number two, sellers and buyers both have problems that they're looking to resolve. Take the time to look into these deals and see what you can do to help. You never know. It may be profitable and beneficial for you as well.
Steven Butala: Well said. Great story.
Jill DeWit: That was great.
Steven Butala: The entire city of Phoenix is in a flood zone. If you look it up on NeighborScoop and click the flood button at the end, complete entire-
Jill DeWit: You're like, what? Oh no, move.
Steven Butala:
How to Complete a Land Acquisition with a Mobile Home on it (LA 1540) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I am Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Hot.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: 100 degrees, Scottsdale, Arizona.
Jill DeWit: I'm sorry, I meant to say scorching Scottsdale.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about how to complete a land acquisition with a mobile home on it. Or do you even want to do that?
Jill DeWit: That's a bad thing. Uh-oh, I only wanted land. Shoot. I almost said a bad word. Shoot. There's something on it. Is that bad? Hold on, everyone. This is good. This is great. It's great.
Steven Butala: Here's a spoiler. Mobile homes rock.
Jill DeWit: Yep.
Steven Butala: And they're easy deals to do. We'll talk all about it. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free and if you're already a Land Academy member, join us on Discord. Mean it.
Jill DeWit: And Clubhouse. Okay.
Steven Butala: Well, you might as well. You brought it up. When's your Clubhouse show?
Jill DeWit: Every Thursday. Well, you're joining me now.
Steven Butala: I know.
Jill DeWit: You're a guest.
Steven Butala: I got drug into this.
Jill DeWit: He did, but you like it.
Steven Butala: It's another thing on my calendar now, permanently.
Jill DeWit: He likes it. Hey Mikey, he likes it. So, yes-
Steven Butala: Every Thursday when?
Jill DeWit: Every Thursday at one o'clock Pacific time. Come find me. Search me, find me, follow me on Clubhouse. In addition to that, join the land investing group and you will get notified whenever I schedule something and whenever we go live.
Steven Butala: So there's a land investing-
Jill DeWit: Club.
Steven Butala: Clubhouse thing?
Jill DeWit: There's a Clubhouse, like a separate group.
Steven Butala: Do we run that?
Jill DeWit: It's mine.
Steven Butala: Oh, outstanding, Jill.
Jill DeWit: It's all mine, man. Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven Butala: Excellent.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Butala: I love to not know what's happening in my own company.
Jill DeWit: That great? You're welcome. And that's the truth. That's what's so funny. So, he's being sarcastic? Nope. Likes it this way. Every time we do a live event and he's like, "Just tell me where to stand."
Steven Butala: I'll write it and show up.
Jill DeWit: Sure, just like, "I don't want to do anything else."
Steven Butala: That's basically my whole responsibility now.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. Okay. Evan wrote, "I'm looking to purchase a parcel with a mobile home on it. The mobile's considered personal property with its own title. The owner wants to sell me the land and the mobile. How should I specify that the offer is for both the land and the mobile? Should I just add a line item to my purchase agreement?" That works.
Steven Butala: Evan, we're going to answer this during the show here. Today's topic, how to complete a land acquisition with a mobile home on it. This is the meat of the show. There's a deed for the property and a title at the DMV. There's two separate components to this thing. The short answer is, and everybody loves this answer, me included, title company will work it out for you. If they don't know how to do it, find another title company or another title agent in that company. These are real simple transactions. You never want to buy a mobile home property with a mobile on it and then not buy the mobile home.
Jill DeWit: Correct.
Steven Butala: It's almost always more... Not almost always. It's frequently more expensive to move the damn thing than it is to just leave it there and sell it with it. Here's why. Somebody put probably a septic tank in or septic field-
Jill DeWit: Maybe a pad.
Steven Butala: Septic systems.
Jill DeWit:
Successful Mailer Key Performance Indicators (LA 1539) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting again, back in sweet Scottsdale, Arizona. You never know where we're going to be. Right? We just keep popping up in different places.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about successful mailer key performance indicators.
Jill DeWit: That's a mouthful.
Steven Butala: This was requested by our Land Academy staff, because people are asking about it through the customer service channels. What is it really? Did my mailer work or not?
Jill DeWit: Why don't we just call it that? I have to ask. If don't you have a title [inaudible 00:00:43] and you have to explain the title. Why don't you just use the definition?
Steven Butala: I'll tell you why.
Jill DeWit: Did my mailer work?
Steven Butala: Because you and I are very fortunate because all the people that work for us are smarter than we are.
Jill DeWit: That's true.
Steven Butala: We're just the actors.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. It's getting more and more like that.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And if you're already a member, join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: I wasn't done with that thought. I have one more thing to add. I have a former personal assistant that told me this is probably something that you forgot again. I'm like no kidding. That's why I had you.
Steven Butala: If you expect us to be smart-
Jill DeWit: What?
Steven Butala: ... about anything.
Jill DeWit: I just remember everything.
Steven Butala: About anything else.
Jill DeWit: I hired you to remember things so I don't have to. I have a little bit going on.
Steven Butala: Jill and I are smart about buying and selling land. That's why you're listening to this show. Everything else, forget it.
Jill DeWit: The little details, I'm not going to remember that again. That's why I hired you. Anyway. Okay.
Jill DeWit: James wrote, Hi everyone. This is my first year as a land investor. I bought and sold half a dozen properties already. I sold all my inventory within a month of buying it. However I'm working in cold Northern states. Since this is my first year, I'm interested to hear if others find it harder to sell property up here, once snow hits the ground. Does the snow make a difference in your sales? Do folks who invest in these areas also have non snow Southern states they rely on to do deals in the winter? Trying to plan a few months in advance. Thanks for your help.
Steven Butala: You absolutely-
Jill DeWit: I appreciate this.
Steven Butala: ... So do I, it's a good question. And what I really respect here is planning ahead. Yes, you absolutely can sell property in-
Jill DeWit: Winter.
Steven Butala: I'm from Michigan. I know this. So it's just slower. And your red, green, yellow test will reflect that. So if you run a red, green, yellow test in February for November, December, January, you're going to see it's slower. It's going to slow down.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven Butala: The days on market are going to be slower and all of that. But there's no replacement for buying property at 20, 30% of it's value.
Jill DeWit: Maybe that's the time buy it, by the way.
Steven Butala: That's exactly what I was going to say. So just make sure your pictures are good. Make sure you got a bright sunny day.
Jill DeWit: Without snow on the ground.
Steven Butala: I would really seriously consider drone shots during that time of year because everything's a better from above. Everything looks better. And so no that shouldn't stop you. What it should do is encourage you to buy it even cheaper.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: What's the worst thing that can happen? You have to hold onto for six months to try and do...
Jill Friday - New Members Always Want to Send LESS Mail (LA 1538) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the last time in this location in sweet Southern California. We are going to be moving the operation. We will be back in some capacity. We're never going to always be fully out of California, but sitting in this exact seat with this [back 00:00:29] background, won't be happening again and that's okay.
Steven Butala: Our background will be improving.
Jill DeWit: As well, our mental health. What else?
Steven Butala: And our general tax situation.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. And our bank balances.
Steven Butala: Today is Jill Friday. She talks about why new members always want to send less mail versus more mail. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And if you're already a Land Academy member, join us on discord.
Jill DeWit: Mitchell and Heidi wrote, "While I didn't make it to the last accountability group meeting, I have a question though. First, as to goals for the week, we made great progress this week and we'll be sending our first 1,500 pieces out next week. Next goal is 1,500 more the following week from the same data set, but larger parcels this time. Leads me to two questions I hope to ask on the call."
Steven Butala: One second. We have accountability groups-
Jill DeWit: This came from that?
Steven Butala: As part of the membership of Land Academy and these two people missed the accountability groups. So when you miss a Weight Watchers meeting, you report in different ways, and try to make up for it. So that was the design with all of this, and it's kind of a taste on what this is about, but in their case, these are really good. They're really taking this seriously, which I love.
Jill DeWit: Good. It's kind of like, "Can we get the teacher's notes? Because I missed the meeting." That's great.
Jill DeWit: Here's what they wrote. So number one, "Do you set a lower acreage limit when pulling data or set it at 0.1 to capture the most parcels? I did 0.1 as the lower limit, which surprisingly, there are a lot of 0.1 to 0.4 acre lots in this rural county. Which leads me to question two. Upon a random test for reason of the first 1,500 pieces, I found a lot of these smaller parcels are right next to land with the owners' homes on them. I can't think of a way to stop that when pulling data. So I assume those will just be wasted mail because they aren't likely to sell the 0.1 acres right next to their home or that might be providing them access to their land. Am I missing anything?"
Steven Butala: I put this in here because this saves so much time and mistake-making energy. This is a brilliant question. It's very typical and totally understandable for a new person. Yes. You're wasting your time. Especially if you're getting that much responses from 0.1 to 0.4. That's not part of the five A's. We want acreage. Larger acreage properties sell much faster. And so, I would have to see exactly where you're pulling it and the stuff that's coming back. But in general, I don't recommend buying, especially in the beginning, buying anything less than an acre, especially in an urban setting where it's going to be really expensive.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Steven Butala: That's it?
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: Today's topic, Jill Friday, new members always seem to want to send less mail versus more. This is the meat of the show.
Jill DeWit: So I've got it down to three things. I think there's three reasons why this happens and I want to talk about them. So what are we talking about? These guys are good. I want you to send 1,500 to 2,000, or more, depending what you could handle, units of mail to an area. Period.
Jill DeWit:
Jack Thursday - 5 Rich People Personality Traits (LA 1537) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Butala: Today is Jack Thursday. And I talk about five rich people personality traits. Thursday...
Jill DeWit: Sounds kind of funny.
Steven Butala: I get to pick the topic.
Jill DeWit: Oh. How about Monday through Friday you get to pick the topic? Because that's really what goes on.
Steven Butala: I honestly have somewhat of veto power, which I don't exercise almost ever. But on Thursday, I like to talk about the stuff that I really think matters. Most of the time, it doesn't have to do with real estate.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. If you're already a member of Land Academy, please join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: Dallas wrote, "Hi everyone. I've a property in escrow. I got a title commitment, but closing is a couple of weeks out. I found a builder looking for lots in this subdivision. Is there any reason I shouldn't let them take a look at it now? Is it too early to put on my website and market as coming soon or something? It's my first run-through with all this. So not sure what could go wrong. Just eager to sell and recycle the capital."
Steven Butala: I respect that, Jill, this is all you. I know what I would do.
Jill DeWit: Technically, not supposed to. Unless you want to have some kind of conversation real quick with the seller about it.
Steven Butala: I think this is a massive opportunity. Everyone loves off-market property. I think you should say, "Look, you didn't hear this from me. I've got a piece of property in escrow." I thought you were going to fall off the stool.
Jill DeWit: No, no, no.
Steven Butala: "I've got a piece of property in escrow. It's due to close any time. It is in the subdivision that you're interested in and I'm not going to get into it in too much detail because I want to-"
Jill DeWit: We are saying the same things. We're not going to give them all the details yet.
Steven Butala: "Maintain some ethics, but here's a price range and it'll be available in two weeks and you have my word you have first crack at it."
Jill DeWit: That would be okay with me. I agree with that. See, so as you can see Dallas, he's not fully disclosing and giving it all out there, but you can start the dialogue like, "I'm buying in this area, please sit tight. And I know you're looking for what size? Good. I got something coming. I'll let you know on this day." So, that's really the right thing to do. Cause you don't want to get into a pickle because things could go wrong. That's the thing. And you don't want to be collecting money before you own it. Things could go wrong.
Steven Butala: My experience with builders is that they're not dealmakers. That's not why they do stuff.
Jill DeWit: It's true.
Steven Butala: They're builders.
Jill DeWit: That's true.
Steven Butala: They know about cabinets and framing and probably a little bit about finance.
Jill DeWit: Contracting.
Steven Butala: And I also don't think that they're left in the world in this business by being dishonest in general. So I don't think they're going to go around you or try to figure it out just to save whatever it ends up being 20, $30,000. Hopefully you're making that much money on it. But I'll tell you if you manage this relationship right and talk to this person every couple of days and say, "Hey, the escrow is just about to close. I can't wait to present it," and just build this trust, you'll have a customer for life. We have a couple of people in one market where we buy infill lots and dead houses and they can't wait to talk to Jill.
Jill DeWit: I do think that, Dallas,
Social Media Trends 2021 for Your Land Business (LA 1536) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny southern California.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about how social media trends in 2001 can benefit your land business. Which ones are good, which ones not so much, and how we use them.
Jill DeWit: Yup.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community. It's free, and if you're already a Land Academy member, please join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: Yup. Hey, Land Academy, Arturo wrote, "Hi, Land Academy. This inquiry is for someone well-experienced in this business."
Steven Butala: That's Jill.
Jill DeWit: Right. That's hilarious. "My name is Toro and for the next success chapter in my life, I've been looking for an effective and efficient way to buy and sell real estate without having to get a real estate license for quite some time. The Land Academy strategy appeared to be a good fit for me, and I've been binge learning mostly all day, every day since I first heard it about a week ago. I'm keeping my expectations low, but hopeful." That's funny.
Steven Butala: That's me.
Jill DeWit: "So, I'm going to follow Stephen B's advice from a podcast in the ebook by asking tough questions before I plunk down any dough."
Steven Butala: Good for you.
Jill DeWit: This is really good, yeah.
Steven Butala: Outstanding.
Jill DeWit: "Thank you for the opportunity, and here are my questions. Number one, how many members are there currently in Land Academy?"
Steven Butala: About 500. I'll just take them as we go here. About 500. That's where we keep it always, intentionally.
Jill DeWit: Yep. Do we close up enrollment and stuff now and then to-
Steven Butala: We don't play those games.
Jill DeWit: ... stuff like that. We do sometimes, but yeah, we're not here to sell 5,000 and say see ya. Nope. "Number two, what is the average yearly number of members who have canceled their membership?"
Steven Butala: Less than 1%.
Jill DeWit: I don't know, but it's low. Yeah. It's amazingly low.
Steven Butala: We have a less than 1% annual attrition rate.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. And the people that come back is awesome. It's always life got in the way and then they come back. "Number three, what is there no one-on-one beginner mentoring program for the people ... What is there one-on-one"-
Steven Butala: Why.
Jill DeWit: Oh, "Why is there a one" ... Oh, it is now. "Why is there no one-on-one beginner mentorship program for people who like this type of mentorship?" We do now. It started in 2021 and it's called Career Path. This is good.
Steven Butala: Otherwise, there's discord. And the reason, we've tried these things in the past, and if you get matched with the wrong person, there's all kinds of stuff that goes on. Honestly for the price and what all this costs, we can't manage programs like that. We could charge you a lot more. That's not what we chose to do. Jill's right. Career Path is what you do.
Jill DeWit: Career Path. "Number four"-
Steven Butala: By the way, this person is a member now. Arturo already joined.
Jill DeWit: Okay. I figured. Okay. Well, hopefully they're going to do Career Path too. That would be awesome. Okay. "So I've read the land investment forum that you need three things to get started, a website, a phone number and a mailing address. So in addition to joining Land Academy and the mailing service fees," like getting mail out there basically, "what are the other average startup costs associated with curating things like selling the first parcel of land, creating and maintaining a website and other things I would no way of knowing about." I'm sure everybody had a lot to say about that.
Steven Butala: There's probably 50,
How to use the Multiple Listing Service MLS in Your Land Business (LA 1535) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWitt: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy show entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWitt: And I'm Jill DeWitt broadcasting from sweet, sunny southern California.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about how to use the multiple listing service or the MLS in your land business.
Jill DeWitt: I'm going to talk about three things by the way. I want to talk about when you use it before you're buying and then pricing property. I'm going to talk about due diligence and I'm going to talk about selling. So I'm going to give you all three different reasons, so get a pen. Just kidding.
Steven Butala: I'm going to get comfortable because I want to learn some stuff here too. But when I'm done, I'm going to talk about how I use it to choose counties and stuff and-
Jill DeWitt: Well, you're going to be first and then I'll do the second.
Steven Butala: I was going to go last because yours is more important.
Jill DeWitt: Well, then the phase one is... I was going to go in order. We can figure it out.
Steven Butala: Well, do whatever you want.
Jill DeWitt: We'll wing it.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And if you're already a member of Land Academy, please join us on Discord.
Jill DeWitt: Travis wrote, "I'm nervous about this deal for some reason. I could sure use a set of experience eyes please. Would you do this deal," and he puts it in here and gives some notes. So I really liked the price of this one compared to the others and comps overlooking this river, the Arkansas river. It's hilly and it's not far from railroad. Thank you in advance. So it's [inaudible 00:01:29] County Arkansas. It's a little over six acres. It has access. The purchase price he's got locked in is 33,000 to $800 and thinks he could sell it for between 70 and 80,000. So easy doubling his money. It's got a paved road, not in the flood plain. It does have an HOA and there's electricity in the area. And the potential problems are this. He's like it's hilly, but he sees other people have solved it and they built there. So you want to go on this?
Steven Butala: Yes. So this is what we call, "Would you do this deal?" It's very prevalent on Discord and a little bit on Land Investors, but not too much, but I want people who are not members or maybe just casual listeners to see what happens constantly in this group and see the value in it. And so probably 10 people responded to this, looked it up and responded and said yes and in this case, everybody loved it, including the moderator, Kevin, including me. I loved it at 30 and I love Arkansas acreage in general. But he's concerned. This person's concerned. And all of us said... It's one of their first transactions, so we really said, "Look, if you need some help with that, let me know," including me. It's a great deal actually.
Jill DeWitt: Good. Yeah. I was going to say too, that that's part of the value of this group is that majority of what we're doing is sending mail and offers to cities in places and counties we're not in. And I think I know what's going and the numbers tell me what's going on, but man, having someone that's there and really knows is so beneficial. So having a group like this where you can throw something out there, there's probably someone who says, "Oh, I'm two counties over. I know exactly what's going on in this area. Buy it," because that happens often.
Steven Butala: I mean, I know that we've done tens of thousands of deals, Jill and I and I can tell you by looking at this that... and I wasn't alone. Like if I was just the only one who said, "Oh yeah, that's a pretty good deal. I think you should take it to the next level or buy it and I'll pay for it if you want," and everybody else said,
Land Academy Costs Less Than One College Course (LA 1534) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny, southern California.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about how Land Academy costs less than one college course.
Jill DeWit: Isn't that amazing?
Steven Butala: I talked about this in the content of one of our podcasts I think last week, and it exploded on Discord.
Jill DeWit: Well, it struck a chord with me too.
Steven Butala: Me too.
Jill DeWit: So I was like this is worth talking about, the value and just how things change, how the value of this, the value of trade schools, the value of college degrees. They all have a place.
Steven Butala: I mean there's probably 40 entries in there about personal... A lot of it is personal experiences about college degrees that people... other types of degrees they wish they got, how the degrees that they got had treated them well and then invariably costs. So Jill and I looked it up this morning because we were horsing around a little bit-
Jill DeWit: Let's share it in a minute.
Steven Butala: Over a cup of coffee. So yeah, we'll share it in a second. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. If you're already a member, join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: If you're a member of Land Academy that is. So yes. Joseph wrote, "On a recent mailing campaign, I ran into an issue with a property owner listing his vacant land for sale with a realtor. He told me he will sell the land to me once his contract expires with the realtor. Evidently, the relationship had soured." That happens.
Steven Butala: This is very common.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. "My question is this, if I wait until the contract with the realtor expires and put it into contract, would this be considered ethical? I'm not real superstitious, but I don't want any bad juju." You know what? Yeah. There is a conflict here. I mean isn't it if they bring someone in during the course of the contract and then there's always a tail end of the expiration thing. I have to go back and read the exact verbiage, but I'm not loving this because I don't want to piss anybody off but I think you have a different opinion.
Steven Butala: I do.
Jill DeWit: Here we go. And we're going to hear it.
Steven Butala: At least number one, this is a contract. That's it. It's a contract. There shouldn't be very much emotion. Joseph, this is a great question. I love answering this stuff and thank you for asking it. This is not personal at all. It's a contract and the terms of the contract are going to dictate everybody's behavior and those outcomes. So please read it. There's always, in my opinion, a trailing period of a listing where if... and I believe that it says now or it may be changed, chances are it's changed now because lawyers love to change these listing agreements minute by minute, but it used to say, like Jill said, if an agent introduces somebody to a property-
Jill DeWit: Is identified during that time.
Steven Butala: And they do buy it six months after the expiration of the contract, then you owe me money.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. Now whether or not they... Because you know what? And you found it... Well, you know what? This is a tough one too. You didn't find it obviously because of the listing, so there's a bit of a gray area. I'm not going to-
Steven Butala: That's not gray.The contract's not gray at all. It's black and white, whoever buys this property.
Jill DeWit: But do you know what's gray? What's gray is you have to read the contract is, does it say if anybody came forward or if I identify this person, because technically you found this property on your own by a mailer and didn't know it was listed on the MLS. That's what I mean by a gray area, but again,
Jill Friday - I Have Money to Burn (on Your Deals!) (LA 1533) Transcript:
S Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Happy Friday.
S Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
S Jack Butala: Today is Jill Friday, and she's going to talk about how she has money to burn on your real estate deals.
Jill DeWit: Am I?
S Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: All right. Can we spend two minutes on that, because that's not as exciting. We could come up with some other stuff for Friday.
S Jack Butala: Today, we're going to talk about what Jill wants to talk about.
Jill DeWit: That's what I want to hear.
S Jack Butala: How about inspiration by Jill?
Jill DeWit: No, we can do... Well, that would be good. We can come up with some more stuff too.
S Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and if you're already on Land Academy, please join us on [Discord 00:00:45].
Jill DeWit: Thank you. Sean wrote, "Great thanks to Jack and Jill. First mailer, a huge success." Aww. "After months of watching Jack and Jill's podcast, I put in some work and sent out my first mailer. I was planning on sending out 1500 offers but after scrubbing, ended up with only a thousand. My letters hit 10 days ago and I have four deals so far, and one seller has properties in four other states she wants to sell. After closing my first round of deals, I look forward to becoming a Land Academy member. I can't wait to join the community fully and enrich my life even further. Thank you so much, Jack and Jill, for creating such an incredible community and sharing your invaluable knowledge. I love you both and look forward to seeing every episode."
S Jack Butala: Wow. Geez. Tell me where to send the check, pal.
Jill DeWit: Aww, thank you Sean. That's so awesome. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. How cool is this? Sean just kind of winged it with what he collected here and now he's like, "Oh hold on, I know there's more," which is true, "How I can really up my game and make it big."
S Jack Butala: When people come to us from other groups or prior real estate experience or own other types of companies, real estate related or not, they stay forever. I think this is great that you tested it on your own. This is what I would do.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
S Jack Butala: Test it all on my own. Make sure I did it right, and then realize that, okay-
Jill DeWit: Yeah. This is the thing.
S Jack Butala: ... now I need to learn the right way to do this-
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
S Jack Butala: ... and bounce it out. Get myself some partners.
Jill DeWit: Yep. That's so perfect. Good job. Congratulations.
S Jack Butala: Yeah, it's great. It's a good Friday statement question. Today's topic, it's Jill Friday and she has money to burn on your real estate deals.
Jill DeWit: Ready?
S Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Yada, yada, yada, I got money. Some people are beating me to it. Stupid land tank, recreated that, some people put in deals there and keep looking at them before I do. That's great-
S Jack Butala: I'll help you.
Jill DeWit: ... because then people have money too, so I got money, hit me up, cheque book's open.
S Jack Butala: It's no big secret that Jill and I do deal funding very successfully.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
S Jack Butala: If you have a great deal, and you want a partner, just a funding partner, let us know.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
S Jack Butala: There's lots of other places in the group to do it too.
Jill DeWit: Okay, there I guess we're good.
S Jack Butala: Yep.
Jill DeWit: Now let's talk about something way more fun.
S Jack Butala: Doh.
Jill DeWit: Like deals. I know we got some crazy deals, so-
S Jack Butala: I noticed that. I just got that email yesterday.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Jack Thursday - Counties You Shouldn't Mail in 2021 (LA 1532) Transcript:
S Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
S Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
S Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about, well, it's Jack Thursday, and I'm going to talk about counties you shouldn't send mail to in 2021.
Jill DeWit: Oh I'm excited. Should I get out a pen and be ready to write them down?
S Jack Butala: Actually you should, I am going to give a couple of counties that you just shouldn't send mail to, but I'm going to give you the secret weapon.
Jill DeWit: But that's not what this is about.
S Jack Butala: I'll give you the absolute secret weapon on how to analyze any county or parish in this entire country and it will tell you whether or not you should send out mail there.
Jill DeWit: We're going to go through all 3144 today, right?
S Jack Butala: No.
Jill DeWit: Could you imagine?
S Jack Butala: No, I'm going to tell you how to set up a spreadsheet.
Jill DeWit: Yes, no, no, yes, yes, no, yes. That's so funny.
S Jack Butala: I'll show you how to set it up in a spreadsheet and it'll tell you right away.
Jill DeWit: Cool.
S Jack Butala: Before we get into it though, let's take a question posted on landinvestors.com, our online free community, or some of the questions come from Discord and if you're already a member, you know all about the Land Academy Discord.
Jill DeWit: Cool.
S Jack Butala: This is like one of my favorite, I laughed out loud at this question. You have to read this all the way through.
Jill DeWit: Okay, this is long.
S Jack Butala: It's funny too.
Jill DeWit: All right. Bear with me. This is going to be long. Okay.
Jill DeWit: "I don't subscribe to Land Academy since I come from real estate oriented family and I've been involved in real estate investing for years." This is Dallas, okay. "My opinion is real estate is often hyper-local, get out on the ground and visit neighborhoods you'd like to invest in. Don't give away your investment strategy, but meet the neighbors, invest in foot leather, et cetera. Word of mouth is so powerful. Talk to cities and get to know council members, show that you care about your investment neighborhoods and want to make them even better places. You will learn so much and open up an avenue to better leads.
Jill DeWit: Don't always enter it with expectation of flipping quickly, sometimes it makes sense to buy and hold, perhaps even develop certain vacant parcels or find temporary income producing uses. Sometimes you can work out deals with investor neighbors to acquire better parcels. PS, word to the wise, some great investment neighborhoods can be a bit rough and tumble. I'm a fairly big guy, but when I was getting started, I nearly got into a fist fight. I had an AK 47 pointed at me at point blank on one other occasion, and I've had to evict a drug addict, but I've also had disgruntled people yell at me dozens of times. Be safe and good luck."
Jill DeWit: Boy, that sure makes me want to run out there and do the same thing. Not. What? What?
S Jack Butala: This person is not a member and this person is engaging and engaging in what I would call a non data driven real estate career, like a real estate agent and like a person who drives for dollars or like somebody who flips houses for show on HGTV. I'm going to spend some time on this for a second.
Jill DeWit: Can I tell you how many times I've had anything pointed in my face? Zero.
S Jack Butala: When's the last time you saw a piece of property you even bought?
Jill DeWit: Well, I'm trying to think of now.
S Jack Butala: Five or eight years ago? On accident because we were on vacation.
Jill DeWit: We were on vacation. We drove by it, actually and the conversation was we sold a bunch of stuff over there. Oh, that's kind of nice. It's pretty.
How Much do Flood Zones Really Matter? (LA 1531) Transcript:
S Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hey.
S Jack Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny, southern California.
S Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about the topic called how much do flood zones really matter?
Jill DeWit: Are we still talking about this?
S Jack Butala: What the heck are flood zones?
Jill DeWit: Really? Is this really ... This is important? Yes, it is/however, is it worth spending weeks on this? Mm-mm (negative). We're going to talk about it. There's a lot of discussion going on in this, way too much discussion on this.
S Jack Butala: Federal government has taken it upon themselves ...
Jill DeWit: Once again.
S Jack Butala: ... to map out the ...
Jill DeWit: Once again.
S Jack Butala: That goes without saying.
Jill DeWit: Right.
S Jack Butala: To map out the entire country and tell us all where the flood zones are.
Jill DeWit: That's nice.
S Jack Butala: I'll let you decided if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I personally think it's a good thing. And they gauge it in a map about when stuff floods ... and it always does, always ... where the water should go and what should be built there. And so, we'll talk about if your property's in a flood zone, exactly what to do.
Jill DeWit: How excited should you really get?
S Jack Butala: This is one of Jill's favorite topics.
Jill DeWit: Oh, I love this.
S Jack Butala: She loves talking about flood zones.
Jill DeWit: Oh, sure.
S Jack Butala: Driving for dollars.
Jill DeWit: Oh, yeah.
S Jack Butala: She loves talking about data.
Jill DeWit: [crosstalk 00:01:21] agents, yeah.
S Jack Butala: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jill DeWit: I love how long things take.
S Jack Butala: Jill had an interview. I keep thinking about this, I don't know why. Jill hired a personal assistant recently. And she had an interview, and she comes back from these interviews ... This is an in-person hire, so they work next to her.
Jill DeWit: Right.
S Jack Butala: They don't work in Canada.
Jill DeWit: Remotely, yeah.
S Jack Butala: Yeah, and so, she came back from this interview. And as always, I'm like, "How did it go?" I mean, I'm secretly hoping that she found the right person.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
S Jack Butala: And Jill walks through the door and says, "She likes pretty things."
Jill DeWit: Yeah, not going to work. Not going to work.
S Jack Butala: Like, floral arrangements. And there's nothing wrong with floral arrangements, but that's just not the first thing you want somebody to say on an interview as a personal assistant.
Jill DeWit: Like, "Where's my desk going to be? And what's it going to look like?" Huh? What?
S Jack Butala: Before we get into that, let's take a question posted by one of our members on thelandinvestors.com online community. It's free, and if you're already with us, check out discord.
Jill DeWit: Deanna wrote, "Hi. I thought I would post here seeking inspiration. I signed up for Land Academy in September, 2020. I sent out maybe 2,000 to 2,500 mailers thus far. I had quite a bit of call backs from sellers who were interested. I've not actually bought any property, for I do not necessarily have the capital to do so. I instead, have a few active option contracts, and also reached out to a few investors, but to no avail on the investors. The properties I have under option have been there now for three to five months. Option is difficult, because the seller wants what the seller wants, so it seems that the price is usually too high. I figured I will go at it anyway, because I'm not losing anything out of it. Now that it has been seven months and I still have not made a deal, I'm feeling a little disheartened and already looking at other career paths, but I know this one can be very successful and lucrative. I assume I should set up more mail.
Career Path - What We Learned (LA 1530) Transcript:
S Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
S Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
S Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about Career Path and what we learned. We just finished our first 10-week session for Career Path and [crosstalk 00:00:19].
Jill DeWit: The very first ever, ever group.
S Jack Butala: And with glaringly positive results. Jill's going to talk to us about it. But before she does, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free. And if you are already a member, please join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: This is very interesting username, Modern Asset Management. Okay, "We just funded our 20th partnership deal. Most of the sales have been on terms. I found a couple of great partners here. My goal is to build up a portfolio of seller finance contracts. My day job is running a small ..."
S Jack Butala: Financial tech.
Jill DeWit: Oh, thank you. "Financial tech specializing in subprime medical loans. We work with hospitals and surgery clinics and underwrite, buy and collect the accounts. We have a robust application website and use a full loan management system. Currently there are 1400 active accounts. This takes way more than 40 hours a week to operate. So I'm not just a passive investor."
Jill DeWit: "We bring real experience to the table. I'm looking to buy, originate, fund, manage, et cetera. Target here is using the machine we've built and improve our assets under management. If you have experienced a good volume of smaller deals, we might be a fit. Also, if I'm completely off base just wave, and thanks to all. So far, this has been a great community."
Jill DeWit: Interesting. So they're taking what they already know and basically knowing how to do terms, transactions and manage accounts and to do it with land. And get other people to be bird dogs, and bring them the deals and they'll fund them and help them manage them. I'm sure for some people that's good.
S Jack Butala: This is something I've been waiting for, for a long time.
Jill DeWit: Cool.
S Jack Butala: Imagine this, you're new. Or you already have a well-established business like us. Properties come in. You're looking at the asset. Some assets scream to be sold on terms. You can drive right up to them. There're all kinds of stuff you can do with them. Like this weekend, you can camp on it, it's in a beautiful area. It's not necessarily a builder lot, but it's some kind of rec property that a family wants to purchase and use over time and then resell for more.
S Jack Butala: There's a lot of assets that have classified that for us. You don't have any money, but you're great at finding them. You find it. It's great for terms, you call this company, they buy it, and you manage the asset or they actually manage it for you and pay you a percentage.
S Jack Butala: How fast do you think if you're good at buying good properties like this, can you build up a portfolio with these guys and make 10, 20, $30,000 a month?
Jill DeWit: Pretty quickly.
S Jack Butala: Really, really fast. This is very unusual. People fund deals more like us, which is a lot more common in this group is, Jack and Jill, here's an asset, it's $50,000. I know it's worth 120. I've done 25 deals. I need the 50 grand. We write the check, you go and sell it. And we split the profit. That's the regular deal funding model.
S Jack Butala: But if you have that other personality type that loves these payments, and there's a lot of people that do, and there's nothing wrong with that. Think about how much better it would be to get a couple of hundred dollars a month from a deal that you fed these guys versus owning a duplex.
Jill DeWit: Oh, that's for sure.
S Jack Butala: Because that's what this is.
Jill DeWit:
How to Schedule Your Days Successfully (LA 1529) Transcript:
S Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
S Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny southern California.
S Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about how to schedule your days successfully.
Jill DeWit: All right, brain, go for it.
S Jack Butala: Full disclosure, this is one of my favorite topics, and here's why. Not because I love to live in my calendar, but I love to make money. And this is the only way I know how to actually run a crew and make money and sleep at night, quite honestly.
Jill DeWit: I thought you were going to say, I love to make fun of Jill.
S Jack Butala: No, I don't want to ... Jill's amazingly good at this. She doesn't realize it, but we'll make fun of her in a minute.
Jill DeWit: I kind of am. I mean, I do, on the big stuff. Maybe the little stuff, I kind of slack on, but remember I have my reasons why. We've talked about that.
S Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And if you're already a member, please join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: Sandy wrote, "I just joined Land Academy a couple months ago. Honestly, I have stuck with my mailing procedure. Oh, I stuck with my mailing procedure instead of starting from scratch with Offers 2 Owners." I'm curious what her old procedure was. I hope it wasn't handwriting letters with the family at dining room.
S Jack Butala: You'll see. There's a reason this made it into-
Jill DeWit: Oh, it's coming? Okay, good. I'm excited to see what this is. Okay, Sandy. Here we go. "Unfortunately, I received an email today that states I have to send my mailers first class." Oh, that's funny.
S Jack Butala: But it's hilarious.
Jill DeWit: Here come the questions. "Number one, is it standard practice to send first class?"
S Jack Butala: Not at all.
Jill DeWit: "Number two, does O2O require that offers be sent first class?"
S Jack Butala: Heck no.
Jill DeWit: "Number three, how many people send first class versus standard?"
S Jack Butala: Very, very few, if that.
Jill DeWit: "Four, other than the obvious price difference, has anyone tested to see if there are any other differences, ie. performance, ease of mailing, et cetera? Thanks so much for any help you can give, Sandy." Sorry.
S Jack Butala: If you're over 80, this matters.
Jill DeWit: I don't think it matters.
S Jack Butala: If you're over 80 and you're receiving a letter. I don't even look at how it's stamped ever. I mean, none of us do.
Jill DeWit: No. No, we don't.
S Jack Butala: First class is something that happened like in World War II and, I'm not exaggerating. No. And it goes on, everybody had some stuff to say about this, me included actually on ... And if you want to see it all-
Jill DeWit: Was she licking stamps?
S Jack Butala: ... it's either he or she, we don't know. And no, they were using click to mail. And so Click2Mail, it's not even a competitor, but it's another way you can send mail for twice as much money, and it's very popular with non-members of Land Academy and everybody changes over. And even Sandy now goes on to say at the bottom of the string. It was too long for me to include in this.
Jill DeWit: It said, so I get it? I hear ya?
S Jack Butala: So Click2Mail went into this whole thing about, they sent it to all their people saying, "If you're sending these, this and this, and here's the regulations from the Post Office," and they cited it all.
Jill DeWit: How sneaky. That's sneaky, making you think you have to do that.
S Jack Butala: Our other members just jumped right in and took screenshots of how this is all fiction.
Jill DeWit: Wow.
S Jack Butala: So look, I don't want to blow my own horn here, but I am for a second, our horn. O2O rocks. O2O is set up to do this.
Jill Friday - I'm Writing a Book! (LA 1528) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Happy Friday.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Butala: Today is Jill Friday. And she's going to talk about the book she's writing. I can't wait to hear this also.
Jill DeWit: Cool. So yesterday I alluded to, I talked about this not long ago. I always have three books on my nightstand. I have one, that's a high power, kind of business-related, leadership book. And then I often have a self-help book. And then I have a fun book, one of this fun book I'm reading right now, it's actually really fun for me. It's called Mouse Tales. It's Disneyland behind the scenes. And it's talking about all the stuff that went wrong and all the rats that happened in the beginning, early years and just crazy things that broke, went wrong, stuff he didn't know about, Club 33 is mentioned for those of you know who that is and it's just really kind of fun. It's cool. So anyway, I have all these books on my nightstand. While I'm reading this one book, this is going to tie into this, I promise.
Jill DeWit: So reading this book from this woman, so I'm going to talk about mine here in the show, but I thought as preface to my book, I've found this book on the nightstand. I'm not going to say who it is because I don't think it's nice. I don't want to name names, but I am not impressed by her book. So she wrote this book as a woman in her late forties to help other young women. So you think it's going to be great. I'm like, I got to hear what she has to say, but as I'm reading the book, I realized, well, hold on a moment. You're beautiful. You've never not got any job that you didn't want. You are happily married, no kids. She's just never failed.
Steven Butala: No life experience.
Jill DeWit: That's my problem with this and no real experience. Her parents are still together. No one's been through a divorce. I think her grandparents and great-grandparents are still alive. She's never experienced any kind of serious hardship.
Steven Butala: Who's that helping?
Jill DeWit: So what's interesting is, I'm using the word interesting lieu of other words, but interesting is because she has no real experience, the stuff that she brings to the table is kind of fluff. I'm like, that's all you got? Her experiences and here's what I think you need to do to be successful. Have another dress at the office? You can always dress up. That's in there, that's in there. It's stuff have a backup dress for emergencies so you look good.
Steven Butala: Oh man.
Jill DeWit: Wait a minute. There's way more I think people need to think about and know about-
Steven Butala: Before we get into it.
Jill DeWit: Why are you cutting me off?
Steven Butala: Because this is the topic of this show. This is interesting. You know why? Because I really want to get into it with you, but let's get the question out of the way. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. If you're already a member, join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: Dana wrote, hi everyone. I joined Land Academy recently and I'm so glad I did. There's a wealth of information available here on discord and the podcasts, et cetera and it's so valuable. That being said, I am often guilty of spending too much time absorbing information and researching. I've been slow to start taking action on my first mailer. I suspect that may also be spending too much time thinking about how I want to brand my company and deciding on a name. I want to set up a domain for a landing slash squeeze page, along with profiles on social media and listing sites. My first thought was using my last name, but I'm having second and third thoughts because it doesn't seem memorable or catchy enough.
Jack Thursday - 3 Stages of Wealth (LA 1527) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about, well, it's Jack Thursday, and we talk about the three stages of wealth once again.
Jill DeWit: And speaking of wealth, as you can see, we are I'm just saying we're lucky enough, we're fortunate enough to be in that point in our life that we could take a bike ride on some random weekday. So in case you can't tell, we're a little bit more casual than normal because we literally just got off our bikes. We had a great bite for breakfast and it was fun.
Steven Butala: Jill, you look beautiful. Don't worry about it.
Jill DeWit: Thank you. Like no, no. I don't care about that. I'm just saying we're a little beached and red and sun and shiny and got a hat on.
Steven Butala: It's not going to effect the quality of content here.
Jill DeWit: No. If anything, it clears our heads more, I think.
Steven Butala: Yeah. That's good.
Jill DeWit: Especially for today.
Steven Butala: That's a great way to look at it.
Jill DeWit: Thanks.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. If you're already a Land Academy member, please join us on discard.
Jill DeWit: I'm so tired of hearing about Discord. Just kidding.
Steven Butala: Because it's awesome.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Discord's great and so is Clubhouse. All right. [Rio 00:01:27] wrote, "Hello, everyone. How often can I double my money by doing small deals on rural vacant land? For example, buying for 1000 or 3000 and selling for 4,000 or 8,000. I want to experience the whole transaction process by starting doing small deals first. Thanks and have a good day." Well, you could do this very often, like a couple times a day, if you really want to.
Steven Butala: It depends. You can definitely do this. It depends on where you are in your career. If you ask the same question to a very successful lifelong day trader, they would answer it just like Jill, multiple times a day. Could we do it multiple times a day? Sure, if that's what we focused on. In the beginning of your career, what I would highly recommend, and we've talked about this on the show and we talk about it in the education, do one a month while you've got your W2. That's kind of what this show is about today.
Jill DeWit: Or one a week.
Steven Butala: Just do one a month. Do one a month for a couple of months. Buy for 3000, sell it for six. Buy for six, sell it for 12. And now you've got your original investment back, and so on. And then step it up.
Jill DeWit: Why so slow?
Steven Butala: For the next couple of weeks-
Jill DeWit: Why do you say one a month for real?
Steven Butala: Because you're going to run into all kinds of stuff and you do not want to risk running into stuff on a larger deal. You don't want to get too-
Jill DeWit: Oh, I read it differently. You meant buy one, sell for three, buy three, sell for eight, buy eight, sell for 16.
Steven Butala: Or just do what you can do. Buy six $1,000 properties and sell it six times for $3,000 each. So there's all different ways to slice this, but I wouldn't ... When I was younger, I just wanted to always bite off more than I can chew.
Jill DeWit: That's your concern.
Steven Butala: And I'm older now. And I really think that two months from now, it's going to be two months from now anyway, no matter what you do. If you're working your W2 job two months from now, you'll be in two months from now thinking the same thing. So why not buy a couple of pieces of property, maybe one or two, for a small amount of money, double or triple your money, put the money back into the business because you've got a W2 job paying your bills.
Real Estate Courses vs Free Online Content (LA 1526) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show: Entertaining Land Investment Talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sweet, sunny Southern California.
Steven Butala: Finally, Jill gets to come back to California.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about real estate courses versus free online content.
Jill DeWit: Okay. What's that about?
Steven Butala: No, both are going to get you there. It's just how serious are you?
Jill DeWit: I don't think both are going to get you there.
Steven Butala: If you want to spend 10 years to do your first deal-
Jill DeWit: And then still not get there.
Steven Butala: And do it wrong. All the free stuff's here.
Jill DeWit: There you go.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it... Like I did because it took me 10 years.
Jill DeWit: We're here to save you. That's the whole point.
Steven Butala: Let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free and if you're already a Land Academy member, this is paid for stuff now. Please join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Here, podcast free. The Discord, not free but good. But worth it. We'll explain.
Jill DeWit: Geraldo and Evelyn wrote, "Hello. For our mailers, we're thinking of leaving out a price offer and leaving it as if we would like to make you an offer. We're thinking this is going to entice the land owner more as it gives them a little more power on the initial negotiation." Oh yeah, it does. Have any of you ever tried?
Steven Butala: These people are consuming the free content that we put out there.
Jill DeWit: And for free, we're going to save you. We're going to attempt to save you. "Have any of you ever tried this method? And if so, was it a successful one? Is it too risky and what are your thoughts? Thanks in advance." May I go first, please?
Steven Butala: Absolutely.
Jill DeWit: Sure. We've tried it all. That's part of why you're here. That's why we're here. Oh, you better believe we tried everything.
Steven Butala: This is what they're talking about. One second. You know how we send out all of these offers and there's a price in there and we talk about pricing and how to price and obsess on pricing.
Jill DeWit: Red, yellow, green.
Steven Butala: There's a reason for that. What they're talking about is saying, "Hey, Joe Smith, I know you own this property over here. We're thinking about making an offer. Can you give me a call? Let me know if you want to sell it."
Jill DeWit: Yep.
Jill DeWit: And here's what's going to happen. Every single person's going to call you.
Steven Butala: You're going to get 5,000 phone calls.
Jill DeWit: And more than half of them are only calling you because they're all excited about their number, which I'm pretty darn sure is not your number. So, what is that you're talking about? That's the make me move number. Everybody has their... "This is our lucky day, babe. I just got it. They want to buy it."
Steven Butala: "I told you that property is worth a million dollars."
Jill DeWit: "I know. What do you think? I was going to say two. You think one? Okay. All right. Well settle for one. Let's call him. You want to call him or you want me to call him?" That's not the call. And then they call and you're going to go, "Okay. Talk to me." And maybe you throw out a number too, "Well, I'm thinking 50,000." They're like, "Oh, that's... It says you want to buy it. What the heck is that?" And they have a whole long drawn out conversation and now they're mad. You've wasted time. And by the way, let's not think about all your time that got wasted with every one of those phone calls that are going to call you that you don't want.
Steven Butala: A lot of this stuff can be solved by simple math. So, let's do some math. If you send out a 5,000 unit mailer that says,
Part-Time Real Estate Investing | Land Investing (LA 1525) Transcript:
Speaker 1: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Land Academy show entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Speaker 1: Today Jill and I talk about part time real estate or land investing. Let me tell you, we all started part-time.
Jill DeWit: That's true.
Speaker 1: With very, very, very few exceptions that I know of. We all started part-time until we made enough money and convinced ourselves that there's some longevity in it and we quit our jobs.
Jill DeWit: Beautiful.
Speaker 1: But I'm going to say this, if you start this right off the bat, because you hate your job so much and are consumed with trying to get to that starting line so you can quit your job, you're just causing problems for yourself. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free and if you are already a member, join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: Corey asks, did I send to escrow too early? I received a signed PA the other day. The signature had a small note under it saying that the owner was deceased, minor detail, right? PS-
Speaker 1: Gets good though, this is a good start.
Jill DeWit: Wait, this is going to be funny. It sounds funny. I haven't read this before. I'm just envisioning, sure we want to sell, we love it. PS, mom's dead. Here you go. Like we're not going to notice.
Speaker 1: Figure it out.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Speaker 1: At least they told you.
Jill DeWit: Well, there is that. And then just sign mom's name and pretend. Small note under it saying that the owner was deceased and that the person responding is a daughter of the deceased. The daughter didn't leave any contact info to reach her. I did due diligence on the property and realized that this is a very good deal. I signed the purchase agreement and also included a letter asking the daughter to contact me with my contact info on the letter and overnighted it to her on... This is all real time. This is a new. June 3rd.
Jill DeWit: In the meantime, I went ahead and sent the signed purchase agreement to an attorney and started escrow. The letter was delivered on 6/4/2021. I still haven't heard anything from the daughter as of June 8th. The attorney got back to me today and told me that mother conveyed the property to her in a revocable living trust and left the daughter who signed the purchase agreement as a successor trustee. This is good.
Speaker 1: Good start.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. So in parentheses, it says we're good to go there. All of that to ask this, do you guys think I sent it to escrow/attorney too quick? Should I have waited until the daughter contacted me? Or would you guys have done the same thing I did? I got with a realtor that was recommended and he told me that he thought the property would sell quickly and it would gross a profit over $130,000. I love it. Here's my only thing, I probably would've done the same stuff.
Speaker 1: I would skip trace this daughter and I would blow her phone up.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Just make sure.
Speaker 1: Did you do it too early? No. You did everything right.
Jill DeWit: So, and I imagine too right now, because you're having an attorney close the deal obviously. I think you're having an attorney close a deal. Is that what he said?
Speaker 1: Attorneys are great at finding people by the way.
Jill DeWit: That doesn't say it's nice. And let's see, in the meantime, I went ahead and saw the attorney and started escrow. Okay. So that's why I'm assuming they're doing the deal. So you're trying to reach the daughter and the attorneys try and reach the daughter. Pretty sure one of you is going to reach the daughter because what's needed from the daughter is, hey, by the way, we need to get your signature and where do you want your money to go?
The Best Way to Lower Your Seller's Price | Real Estate (LA 1524) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, Entertaining Land Investment Talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I am Jill DeWit. Wait for it. Broadcasting from sunny Southern California. I had to say that. Can you see? Can you see?
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about the best way to lower your sellers price.
Jill DeWit: What?
Steven Butala: I can't wait to.
Jill DeWit: Why would we ever do this?
Steven Butala: Hear how Jill does this also.
Jill DeWit: What? I need to do it. How do I do it? We can help. We got this. I'll tell you why this happens too. Although, you probably know.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it... Well, sometimes you send a letter out. The thing comes back and they say, "I got your letter and I do want to sell but this price doesn't work for me."
Jill DeWit: No, no, no. I'm lowering their price of any one I offered them.
Steven Butala: Whoa.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Hold on. Let me-
Steven Butala: Yes. Set us up.
Jill DeWit: Let me tell you what the show is really about today, babe.
Jill DeWit: That's great.
Steven Butala: You know what?
Jill DeWit: That's awesome.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And if you are already a member, join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: I thought you were saying, "If you work for your spouse, you understand what just happened." I work with, not for.
Jill DeWit: All right. Bobby wrote, "Hello, to this fabulous community. And thank you again for taking the time to read this. One area I'm getting hung up on is checking counties against the listed to universal rule. This usually kicks out otherwise great counties as they pass all other tests. Except that one. I thought I understood it but can someone please explain, in your words, and the overall importance of this test so I can be sure that I'm applying the correct logic. Thanks so much."
Jill DeWit: Go.
Steven Butala: Here at Land Academy, we have what is called a red, green, yellow test when you choose a county to send mail or zip code. And before I send mail out, it has to pass these three tests. And one of them is the listed to universal rule, which means how many properties are listed for sale on the MLS against the universe of like-kind properties in that county or zip code. So, there might be 50 pieces of property that are listed for sale and 5,000 pieces of property that are in the universe of just vacant parcels in that county. And you want that number to be low.
Jill DeWit: I like that number.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: 50 to 5,000, I can do. 1,000 to 5,000, not so great.
Steven Butala: Or 5,000 to 5,000.
Jill DeWit: Really bad.
Steven Butala: San Bernardino County California is like that. So, you don't want to generally send mail. In general, you don't want to send mail to where there are just tons and tons of for-sale property. And this statistic is designed to point in the direction of, don't do that.
Jill DeWit: This is such a common thing. I love it. When you do this Bobby and you do it, just get into it. Figure it out and when you're staring and please pull at least zip codes or counties or something lined up. Two or three of them are going to jump to the top. You're going to go, "Oh, I see it now." So, as you're starting the process, we all kind of question it like you are but hang in there.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Steven Butala: Today's topic: The best way to lower your sellers price. This is why you're listening.
Jill DeWit: As I alluded to in the beginning, here's the setup.
Steven Butala: I want to sit back and listen.
Jill DeWit: Okay. This is fine. So, you picked a county. You did what Bobby said. You sent out your offers. You think you did a great job pricing your offers.
Jill Friday What Jill Looks at When Doing Deals - (LA 1523) Transcript:
Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill Dewitt: Hello.
Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill Dewitt: And I'm Jill Dewitt, broadcasting from sweet Paradise Valley, Arizona.
Jack Butala: Today is Jill Friday. It's called what Jill looks at when doing deals. Yesterday was my turn. I described how I see these deals correctly or incorrectly, but it works for me. Today's Jill's turn.
Jill Dewitt: It's going to be fun because I think we have different ways, things that we look at first when the deal pops in. So this will be good.
Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And if you're already a Land Academy member, join us on Discord.
Jill Dewitt: Sandy wrote ... Okay, let me just see what I've got here. Is that the question, and then a response?
Jack Butala: There is a discussion in Discord, yeah.
Jill Dewitt: So, a little thing going on. Okay. So Sandy wrote, "One of the reasons I joined Land Academy was to find something better than DataTree. My last group concluded that there was nothing wrong with DataTree and that the problem had to be operator error." That's hilarious.
Jack Butala: Let's see what the other member John says.
Jill Dewitt: Okay. John wrote, "I have noticed in some states that there's a discrepancy between what DataTree says and what, say ParcelFact shows for both owner name and mailing address. One state in particular is a pain in the rear that I work with. I try to step back and say, if I'm mailing 10,000 records and 500 are busted, it's no fun spending that money on mail, but it's a small percentage. In one of the training videos in Land Academy, 2.0, Steven said that something like if 80% of your mail is right, you're doing great. We get 1000 free records each month. Why don't you do a RealQuest pull on a county that you have DataTree records on and compare? You may find it's better than where you're working."
Jack Butala: I mean, John, you're exactly right. And no, it's not user error for the most part, Sandy. I don't know for sure, but probably not, because DataTree is real easy to use. Here's the deal. These data aggregators, DataTree, RealQuest, and TitlePro247 pull data from assessor databases. And there are some places in the country, I'm going to give you a real solid example of a place in the country, which is South Dakota, for whatever reason is not interested in playing this game. They're not interested in providing data, or the data that they do provide is pretty substandard. It's very difficult to use if you're used to, let's say using data in Texas or California or whatever else.
Jill Dewitt: You said playing this game. It's like, they're not interested in doing their job correctly. It's kind of what it sounds like.
Jack Butala: No, I actually-
Jill Dewitt: It's like they're not interested in inputting the information correctly.
Jack Butala: There's a part of my personality that really respects that. They're kind of just putting their figurative middle finger up.
Jill Dewitt: In what way? I don't know.
Jack Butala: Just like-
Jill Dewitt: They don't fill it in, they don't provide much?
Jack Butala: This is not a priority for us.
Jill Dewitt: Data?
Jack Butala: We love living here. Maybe we live on a cattle ranch. We don't need to assess this property down to the letter. They're just not interested in providing the data.
Jill Dewitt: Yeah, we'll get it recorded when we feel like it.
Jack Butala: I don't know. It's not good for us, but personally, I kind of respect some of these counties that are like, "Yeah, I'm not going to be here on Friday."
Jill Dewitt: You know what? You're right, because there are some counties that say, "We only update all our records once a year at the end of the year.
Jack Thursday - What Jack Looks at When Doing Deals (LA 1522) Transcript:
Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hey.
Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk, we hope. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from perfect Paradise Valley, Arizona.
Jack Butala: Today is Jack Thursday and it's called What Jack Looks At When Doing Deals. I will tell you what I look at, what I look like while I'm looking at deals.
Jill DeWit: I'll tell you what you look like.
Jack Butala: How I feel about it.
Jill DeWit: Oh yeah.
Jack Butala: What makes me livid.
Jill DeWit: Oh yeah.
Jack Butala: What makes me happy.
Jill DeWit: What gets to me.
Jack Butala: What makes me jump up and down.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Jack Butala: I'll tell it all.
Jill DeWit: I love it.
Jack Butala: For better or for worse.
Jill DeWit: Uh-oh.
Jack Butala: You decide if you want to listen to the rest of the show.
Jill DeWit: That's right. For those of you who love a Jack Rand, this is for you.
Jack Butala: Oh yeah. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. If you're already a Land Academy member, join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: Aaron wrote, "In the meeting, I was asked to share some results. This is not a done deal by any means, but here's what I have to share. My second mailer is starting to hit out of state owners first. First response via email, I offered $4,000. The owner wants to get at least what they paid for it in the 1980s, which is $12,000. Both brokers I talked to today said the market has gone mad and they think they'll sell it in 30 days for $30,000 to $40,000. I have to dig into comps tonight and decide if I believe them." Love that. "I would love to hear how others are doing $4,000 and would have been about right on a lot with no trees in this area?" That was a little confusing there.
Jack Butala: A little encrypted.
Jill DeWit: But big picture is-
Jack Butala: He's buying for 12, selling for 35.
Jill DeWit: Well, right now he's offering four. The guy said he wants 12. So I have two things that I'd like to say first, please. Number one is, sometimes they're right. In this situation, if the guy just wants to go to his 12 out and you can confirm you're going to get $30,000 to $40,000 out of it, and then we'd have to discuss it and you're comfortable with that, I would do it.
Jack Butala: So would I.
Jill DeWit: My second comment is sometimes it's not right. I have had people that paid 12,000 for property years ago in the '80s, because of this mall or this airport or this freeway was going to come in and it was going to be, yay, the greatest thing, and then didn't pan out. So they have paid 12,000 for it and now it's worth two. I've had that. And they know that and I've had to remind them. They're like, "Yeah, I knew when I bought it that it was because of X, and that military base never happened." So there we go. I know. And so you have to explain that to them. So sometimes I just want you to know that just because they pay 12 in the '80s doesn't mean it's always worth money today. Go ahead.
Jack Butala: I couldn't have said it better. I mean, I would've said-
Jill DeWit: Oh, you would have said it better.
Jack Butala: No, I mean, this is a great topic. Tomorrow's topic, by the way, is how Jill looks at deals. It's Jack Thursday, it's about me, not about Jill.
Jill DeWit: Oh my gosh.
Jack Butala: And believe me, this doesn't happen often
Jill DeWit: We should do this. We're going to make Thursday all about Jack all day long.
Jack Butala: I sit next to Jill. That's what Land Academy should be.
Jill DeWit: The guy next to Jill.
Jack Butala: John F. Kennedy used to say, "I am Jackie Kennedy's husband."
Jill DeWit: There we go. Thank you, babe. That's awesome. So what are your comments?
Jack Butala: Today's topic?
Jill DeWit: You have no other comments?
Creative Deal Structuring (1521) Transcript:
Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill: Hello.
Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill: And I'm Jill DeWitt coming to you from the job site in Paradise Valley, Arizona.
Jack Butala: If you're watching this, not listening to us, we're starting to take delivery on all kinds of stuff that's happening to this rehab house that we're in.
Jill: Yes, you're going to be watching mounds of Hickory, real wood flooring show up over my shoulder here in just a minute.
Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about creative deal structuring. One of my favorite topics. Before we get into it, though, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community it's free. And if you're already a Land Academy member, join us on Discord.
Jill: Anne Marie wrote, general newbie question here. "I've been a member now for about seven weeks and I've spent many hours studying Land Academy, Land Investors, Discord, et cetera. I love hearing get the mail out from Steve and Jill. I've chosen my counties and have scraped the data of for sale and sold properties on Land & Farm, Zillow and Redfin. Is it naive of me to think I can get ahold of a good price per acre."
Jack Butala: Price per acre.
Jill: Familiar with that code. Thank you very much, sir.
Jack Butala: How are you familiar with that though?
Jill: That's awesome.
Jack Butala: BFF.
Jill: Are you familiar with some of the hand gestures I'm about to hold up?
Jack Butala: Pretty familiar with OMG.
Jill: Pretty sure. Yeah. All right. Are you familiar with BTW?
Jack Butala: By the way?
Jill: Oh, you are. Good, good. Wasn't sure.
Jack Butala: Gosh. [crosstalk 00:01:49].
Jill: Oh, my gosh. Anyway, "Is it naive of me to think I can get a good price breaker comp to price my first mailer? I've averaged out the price breaker on all three platforms and have a good average. Is it unreasonable to price it for 20% of the average value? Please confirm it is better to be under than overpriced." Oh, heck yeah.
Jill: Unlike our... What's that?
Jack Butala: I don't know.
Jill: I don't know What that is.
Jack Butala: Unlike our choices where.
Jill: Overdressed is better than underdressed. Got it. "I know the market very well. People are flocking towards these areas. There are few more properties sold than compared to list it."
Jill: This is all great stuff.
Jill: "I'm not sure how to check the wholesale for wholesale competition, but my state is X. I don't see a lot of the Thursday will you do this deals properties in this area? I'd love to know how to check that though, and I'd be more comfortable in negotiating up."
Jill: Okay. Can we tackle these a little bit at a time?
Jack Butala: You please answer all the questions you want. I'm going to answer the question about, "Is it reasonable?"
Jill: Well, good.
Jack Butala: "At 40%"
Jill: You start with that one. I'll do the other stuff.
Jack Butala: Is it unreasonable to price it for 20% of this average value question mark. There is no way, this question comes up all the time. The question is this, "I have a great price per acre. It's $1,500. I'm real confident in my data that in this zip code for properties that are between one and five acres, they've been listed and sold for an average of $1,500."
Jack Butala: So it's real easy to get to that point. If you're new, it's time consuming, but it's not that hard. Then the question becomes, "How should I price my mailer? Should I price it at 20% of $1,500 an acre? 35%, 40%, 50% am I going to ruin my mailer at 20%? Am I going to ruin my mailer at 70%?" These are the questions that go through a new person's head, rightfully so. So they seek out an answer. I'm not saying anything negative against Ann-Marie here at all. I'm just using this as an example, because this is probably 50% of the new people that gets to the point where the sending a mailer out,...
Assignment Deals - Do We Do Them? (LA 1520) Transcript:
Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill Dewitt: Hello.
Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala
Jill Dewitt: And I'm Jill Dewitt broadcasting from hot and not so perfect Paradise Valley, Arizona today.
Jack Butala: Today Jill and I talk about assignment deals. Do we do them?
Jill Dewitt: Oh I have a lot to say.
Jack Butala: This topic comes from a lot of questions that we're getting about assignment deals, because there's always this buzz, not so much in our group, but this buzz about assignment deals.
Jill Dewitt: On the planet.
Jack Butala: And why they're...
Jill Dewitt: The planet thinks they're awesome.
Jack Butala: How you can make a fortune. Yeah.
Jill Dewitt: I'm here to tell you they suck.
Jack Butala: They do suck.
Jill Dewitt: And I'm going to tell you why. I'm going to explain what this is. I'm going to tell you all the things that can go wrong.
Jack Butala: That's excellent.
Jill Dewitt: And why I have chosen to go, "Nope, not doing that."
Jack Butala: I can't wait to hear it and I bet I agree. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. If you're already with us in the Land Academy group, join us on Discord. You won't be disappointed.
Jill Dewitt: Which is another way that we communicate. It's like We Chat or Teams or something. What the heck is discord? That's what it is. And it's pretty cool. Scott wrote, "Question for the land veterans in a situation like this, where the property just went back to the tax authority, is it worth it to pay the former owner a few hundred bucks and get her to assign you the right of redemption and a quick claim deed. Then someone could pick it up for basically the cost of the back taxes. Sounds like there's enough meat on the bone for the extra trouble."
Jack Butala: May I?
Jill Dewitt: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jack Butala: We do this all the time. I've been doing this for 25 years. There's all kinds of education out there about how to do this too. Do I think it should completely and totally focus on this? Absolutely not. Do I think you should focus on back tax properties only? Nope. But what happens is we send all this mail out and invariably someone calls you back. Usually on every single mailer and says, "Yeah, I'm going to let this go back anyway. I don't want this property. It's been five years. I haven't paid the taxes. Here's the APN. Well, you know the APN, you sent it to me on my letter. So knock yourself out. Maybe send me $500." Or maybe you suggest that you give them $500 to let you to undo all this mess for them, depending on how much back taxes there are, it may or may not be worth it.
Jack Butala: It's just a math situation. If there's too much more back taxes than the properties, then you can sell it for, then it's not...
Jill Dewitt: Then you walk away.
Jack Butala: Right. There are people in our space, other people who have a land academy like environments, where they teach how to buy and sell land, that only focus on this. Which to think of silly. Why would you focus on just one small little part of the revenue stream? No, in the vast majority of these situations, we win, you would win as the investor because you're dealing with somebody who just doesn't care anymore. They already gave up, stopped paying the taxes and you have to solve their problem usually from a legal standpoint. The deed might be in a deceased mom's name.
Jill Dewitt: Yeah. You got to make sure it's undoable and they're into it.
Jack Butala: Yeah. I'm skipping along the top of this topic.
Jill Dewitt: Because we have one right now, that's majorly hard to undo and they're not into it. It's a double thing working against us. So then you have to decide is my time worth it?
Jack Butala: I put this in here for a reason, among many, many questions.
We Brought Back the Advanced Group (LA 1519) Transcript:
Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWitt: Hello.
Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWitt: And I'm Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from pretty Paradise Valley, Arizona.
Jack Butala: Today Jill and I talk about why we brought back the Land Academy Advanced Group.
Jill DeWitt: I don't think it ever really went away.
Jack Butala: It really didn't.
Jill DeWitt: No, it was kind of just on a hiatus, and we'll talk about that.
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWitt: And why it's getting big now.
Jack Butala: Massive traction. Here's a hint, it has to do with funding.
Jill DeWitt: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jack Butala: Funding new people's deals, and funding each other. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community, it's free, and if you're already a member, please join us on Discord.
Jill DeWitt: So there's two places you can connect with us is what that means. Okay, Nolan wrote, "I've sent out a couple mailers. I have had a few signed purchase agreements come back, and a good amount of leads I'm working through, but access to the land seems to be my issue. I do have a couple in the hopper I'm pretty excited about, but I'm waiting to hear back from a broker what they think they can sell them for before I buy them. It certainly takes time, and being new and in the weeds is tough, especially hunting for deal number one. It will come, I just have to keep at it." Nolan gave his own advice.
Jack Butala: Self-motivation.
Jill DeWitt: Exactly. I know it, I know what you're going to say, it's like when you're a kid, and you walk in like, "I know Dad, I know I'm wrong. I know I screwed up, I know I", whatever it is, "I wrecked the car, you don't have to tell me. The policeman already did it, we had a whole talk. I'm good." So that's kind of ... But you're not in trouble, obviously.
Jack Butala: Everybody goes through this, that's why I included this. It's not a question, it's a statement.
Jill DeWitt: Yeah.
Jack Butala: And actually, this is his response to several people saying, "My mailers are out, I've got some stuff coming back in", it's just that oh my God moment, and we all went through it.
Jill DeWitt: Yeah. And you're doing it.
Jack Butala: So important.
Jill DeWitt: Access to the land. That's fine.
Jack Butala: Yep.
Jill DeWitt: And you know what to do, Nolan. You know the difference between physical access and legal access, and I love that you're bringing in, if you're really on the fence, that's one of the best, safest things you can do is call someone really local to the area and just say, "What do you think? What could you sell this for?" Without telling them any of the backstory, just what do you think and how fas could you do it? And then you know, "Oh, I need to hurry up and buy this", or, "Oh, don't bother."
Jack Butala: Today's topic, why we brought back the Advanced Group. This is the meat of the show. If I wrote this title, and I didn't, I would say, "Why we brought back the Advanced Group, which never really went away."
Jill DeWitt: Yep. Well, maybe some people are on our staff are a little confused, and again, it never went away. We've always had the Advanced Group, but now we've added to it. We've added to the services, and the time, and the energy, and the group. So our Advanced Group was really a core, handpick, I want to give the back story.
Jack Butala: Sure.
Jill DeWitt: This was a core, handpicked group that started like 20 people that you identified as heavy hitters, like minded, sending out a ton of mail, buying a ton of deals, doing big numbers, big dollar amounts. People that we all need to kind of learn from each other, and again, it's still kind of handpicked who gets in the group, period. And if you're in the Advanced Group, you should know, you are handpicked.
Jill Friday - How We Failed at Hiring (LA 1518) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Happy Friday.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from pretty Paradise Valley, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today is Jill Friday. She's going to talk about how we failed at hiring, and bring it home this week. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And if you're already a member, please join us on Discord. This question is two parts.
Jill DeWit: I see that. There's different dates, so this us going to be good.
Steven Butala: So this is Austin asking a question on May 4th, and we'll read the question.
Jill DeWit: Uh-huh (affirmative).
Steven Butala: And then a million people in our group and outside of our group respond.
Jill DeWit: As a follow-up.
Steven Butala: Two or three weeks later, he gives us his decision.
Jill DeWit: Okay, good. Okay. So this is Austin on May 4th. "Hello. I'm writing this in response to podcast number 1479 about recovering landlords." This is good. "I've owned a duplex for about 10 years. Cashflow is about $600 a month, depending on expenses. If I was to sell it right now, I could gross approximately $220,000 after paying off the underlying mortgage." I remember this, by the way.
Steven Butala: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jill DeWit: "The real estate fees and other taxes would still need to be subtracted. I'm not sure what this looks like tax wise, until I have a chat with my accountant. Would you guys hang on to this asset and let rents and equity just go up? Or would you sell it and take this money and apply it to property acquisitions? I could also do a cash out refinance as well. Thoughts? Thanks, Austin." And a lot of people wrote in on it. I think I wrote in on this too, if I remember correctly, and I know what I said.
Steven Butala: Jill and I said sell it.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven Butala: The vast majority, if not every single response, and there were tons of them, said to keep it.
Jill DeWit: Really?
Steven Butala: Yep.
Jill DeWit: Okay, so this is good. So here's the follow-up.
Steven Butala: Bear in mind, it's cash flowing $600 a month.
Jill DeWit: $600 a month. Not counting the headaches.
Steven Butala: That doesn't pay our utility bill.
Jill DeWit: And the alcohol that he needs to consume for the headaches that go with this. I would spend that $600 easy. Okay, so Austin wrote back on May 21st. "Hello. So my question made the podcast." Yeah, it did Austin. Yeah, episode 1501. And now you're back too. I don't know what episode we're on today, but anyway. "I would have responded sooner except I was out of town doing important rural land research." Good for him. "I was comparing different areas and how affluent the flavor of wine and how they influence." Excuse me, affluent. "I was comparing different areas and how they influence the flavor of wine and charcuterie plates." That's my kind of research.
Steven Butala: This is the same type of land research we do.
Jill DeWit: That's exactly what we do. "After listening to the podcast, I'm leaning towards selling, but for a slightly different reason than it being an underperforming asset. Allow me to go on a tangent for a moment. I work for a small company and my employer is retiring at the end of the year. My current company will shut down. I will have a similar W2 job tentatively lined up. I don't find my current work very interesting."
Steven Butala: Amen to that.
Jill DeWit: "While I was on vacation, a land buyer contacted me and I set up most of the transaction from my camp site. For the next couple of days, I rode around on a deal high. Many of you out there who have done deals already should know what I'm talking about. Doing land deals is much more interesting and fun than many W2 situations.
Jack Thursday - Why Concierge Data Will Change your Life (LA 1517) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And, I'm Jill Dewitt, broadcasting from darn near perfect Paradise Valley, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today is Jack Thursday, and I talk about why our product, Concierge Data, could change your life.
Jill DeWit: It's changing my life.
Steven Butala: I am your concierge data, by the way.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. You have changed my life.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWit: This is coming from mutual and consensual.
Steven Butala: From yesterday.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Okay, Billy wrote, I am wondering if anyone has things to look out for in the Texas market.
Steven Butala: This is a wonderful brief question.
Jill DeWit: I like it.
Steven Butala: Texas is an awesome place to buy and sell land, has always been, and probably always will be. It's a great place to do minor splits. It's a great place to have the freedom to, once you buy the property, to do stuff to it. So Texas has great-
Jill DeWit: Even houses, for houses there, too.
Steven Butala: Yeah, for house academy, too. There's a reason it's like number three moving-toward destination in the country. I'll tell you. There's a couple of things to look out for. The south western part of Texas on the border, Culbertson County and Hudspeth County specifically, there's a lot of property there and how it got subdivided. No one knows where it is, including the people at the county. And, the terrain itself is pretty awful. It's kind of like being on the moon, like certain places in Arizona. And, it's dry and it's barren.
Jill DeWit: No one's going to bother you out there, that's for sure.
Steven Butala: So, it's the kind of terrain that's in a lot of cowboy movies, that's where they die, because there's no water and they just can't get anywhere.
Jill DeWit: That's as far as they got.
Steven Butala: But the real problem is not that. The problem is that knowing they got subdivided so quickly and incorrectly, and probably with some not legally, that no one knows where the property is. It's very difficult to find. Outside of that, on Thursday when Jill and I do the Thursday Would You Do This Deal call, where members give us all these deals and ask us, "Would you do this deal?" Texas is-
Jill DeWit: It doesn't come up at all.
Steven Butala: ... strangely constantly absent, which there's 244 counties in Texas, the largest number of counties in a state. And it just, I have a feeling that we have some quiet members that are just burning it up there.
Jill DeWit: That's true. And they're not talking about it.
Steven Butala: In Texas fashion. I respect that.
Jill DeWit: I agree, but there's a lot of great opportunity. An hour outside of Dallas, an hour outside of Houston, Austin, San Antonio, just outside those places, because there's so much going on.
Steven Butala: Every deal I've ever done in Texas worked out great. Today's topic, it's Jack Thursday. Why concierge data will change your life? This is the meat of the show.
Jill DeWit: Can you please explain what this is?
Steven Butala: We are soon going to release a product called Concierge Data, that was at the dramatic request of our membership.
Jill DeWit: By the time this airs, I think it's out.
Steven Butala: Yes. It's a product that falls under offers to owners. And this is what it is. If you, for whatever reason, can't get an offer campaign out as a member or you haven't joined Land Academy because you're a Jill, but you don't really... You're just afraid to do a mailer, which I get, because I'm afraid of talking on the phone. This solves that. What it does is you can actually fill out a form, a real simple form on Offers2Owners and say,
Who Should I Hire First in 2021? (LA 1516) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Howdy.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show. Entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWitt broadcasting from pretty Paradise Valley, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about who should you hire first in 2021. This is a very popular question in our customer service Land Academy environment. How do I get that first employee?
Jill DeWit: I'm excited. I have some ideas.
Steven Butala: Me too.
Jill DeWit: First, before we get into it. Let's take a question posted by one of our members on the Land Investors online community. It is free, so I'm getting an account there. And then by the way, if you are a member, I know that we're beating a dead horse here, but I want you guys to get in Discord. It rocks.
Steven Butala: John asks, "Can anyone elaborate and help me understand the paragraph from V26 May investors newsletter?"
Steven Butala: We have a newsletter, Land Academy does. I don't know if it goes to everybody or if it goes just to our members. And so I write stuff in there, I'm a writer for the newsletter. And, this whole thing, I'm going to read this because this person was asking for clarification about what I said. A lot of years ago, I was with us listening to Larry King on this long drive. And he was interviewing William Shatner and of course, Star Trek came up and Larry King said, "Do you have these people that ever come up to you and ask you about Star Trek?" And he said, "Oh yeah, I have people on a daily basis." And, so they'd take a question from a caller on that switchboard. And the caller says, "What did you mean by... When you said XYZ in episode 14 in the third season of star Trek?" And, William Shatner blew his top.
Jill DeWit: That's funny.
Steven Butala: He said, "I don't remember."
Jill DeWit: Why would they not have a better relationship with the Klingon community based on X?" Yeah.
Steven Butala: He said, "Listen, asshole" I can't say that. I'm going to ask our guys to... He just blew his top. He said, "Listen, I can't remember even actually doing that show at all. Ever."
Steven Butala: Are you writing down the time?
Jill DeWit: Yes I am.
Steven Butala: "I don't remember showing up for work for that entire part of my life, let alone episodes and what I said and the dialogue and all of that. And by the way, it wasn't me who said that it was my character." And, so he just went off and I don't know, I stopped the car. I was laughing so hard.
Jill DeWit: That's good.
Steven Butala: So, here I am saying and writing some stuff, then I'm going to try to translate that I don't remember saying it, right?
Jill DeWit: Go for it.
Steven Butala: He asks,, "Can you elaborate or help me understand what you meant?" And, what I wrote is this, "Here is what it can do for property investors like us after reviewing the entire 150 million unit data set, there's 150 million unit properties in this country, I would like to see properties with no improvement value, just land in zip codes, where the spread between the average completed sale value and the foresale values are the largest."
Steven Butala: So, you've got really large for sale values and really low completed sale values. "This tells me where to send out blind offers. Then I would like to see within those geographic parameters, what acreage range is the widest. This tells me which owners or to whom to send blind offers after scrubbing down to this dataset, I'd like to know what the actual spread prices are. This tells me for how much to send each offer out how to price the offers."
Steven Butala: That makes complete sense to me. Does it make sense to you? What he didn't include, and it's fine, is the context of what this was and what I said. And, this is my advice to everyone. Take four steps back and don't get all in the deluge of the data. Take a look,
The Employees We Can Live Without (Rants) (LA 1515) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Steven Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from pretty Paradise Valley, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about the employees we can live without.
Jill DeWit: Oh, I've got one.
Steven Butala: This is our rant.
Jill DeWit: Oh.
Steven Butala: It's hiring week all week today, all this week.
Jill DeWit: This is going to be good. I'll tell you one employee I could do without, the kind that wants to replace me.
Steven Butala: Who would ever replace you?
Jill DeWit: Oh, wait, I'll fill you in.
Steven Butala: Let's take a question before Jill's rant. It was posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. If you're already a member, please join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: Martin wrote, "A potential buyer reached out to me following my first mailer interested in selling their 0.5 acre vacant lot for $14,682. They informed me that they were selling not only the lot from my mailer offer, but the neighboring 0.5 acre lot. This is cool. I was informed that the additional lot has their deceased mother's hundred year old home on it and it was quoted as being uninhabitable. This is my first mailer and I'm diving into some unknown territory with potentially buying a lot with a home on it and I'd like to get some perspective from the group. The sellers informed me that both lots are off of primary roads and a three minute walk to a lake and both lots are in the seller's name."
Jill DeWit: This is all good information.
Steven Butala: This is really good.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. So here are the questions.
Steven Butala: This is a beautiful story.
Jill DeWit: "Number one, pending I can get the home for a low price, is it worth it? I don't want to do a home flip as one of my first buys and would plan to list as is. Two, can I take the home straight title myself or do I need to hire a realtor once I get the purchase agreement back? Thank you to match your health, Martin."
Jill DeWit: This is great. Do you want to go first or do you want me to go first?
Steven Butala: Yeah. 99% of all cases with vacant land, if there's something on it, it's more valuable, not less value. I don't care if it's a blown out mobile home, it's better. The 1% where you don't want this to be the case is where there's something that would fall under EPA guidelines as toxic and it would require a cleanup. So if there's an old house that's fallen down on a piece of property that's a few blocks from a lake, you can tell that's a beautiful, beautiful story. It's a fantastic. With a vacant lot next to it?
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Now you have an acre.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: By the way, now you have a full acre. One of them has a house on it. So whoever buys it can keep one, sell the other, keep them both, whatever.
Steven Butala: Can you imagine a situation where a vacant piece of property would be more value than one with an old house on it?
Jill DeWit: Nope.
Steven Butala: Neither can I.
Jill DeWit: Nope.
Steven Butala: All the utilities are hooked up. There's probably a slab there.
Jill DeWit: That's great.
Steven Butala: There's all kinds of positive things that go with that. And people know that. This world, people who go on Craigslist or anywhere are DIY type people. They would love to get a really inexpensive old house and spent five years fixing it up.
Jill DeWit: Someone's going to want that. The hundred year old home that's been there and the loving story that goes with it. That mom lived there for how many years. Maybe dad built it. Maybe grandpa built it. That would be so cool and someone will love that.
Jill DeWit: Another thing is, too, by the way, you can do this whole transaction yourself. Just because there's a house on it does not mean you need an agent.
Our Favorite Types of Employees (Raves) (LA 1514) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala,
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt broadcasting from sweet paradise valley, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today. Jill and I talk about our favorite types of employees. These are raves and it's a-
Jill DeWit: Positive.
Steven Butala: ...hiring week, all week.
Jill DeWit: Yep. Employee, employer, I love that. This is going to be good. Things that we've learned that we can help you with.
Steven Butala: Yeah. You know enough.
Jill DeWit: Because we've done it wrong and we've done it right.
Steven Butala: We're getting a lot of questions from our members about how to scale their businesses up. They're buying and selling land pretty successfully, and now they want to make it a career.
Jill DeWit: They need to expand their team and hire people.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and if you're already a member, please join us on discord.
Jill DeWit: Cool. Amir wrote, hi guys, thanks for the endless valuable information you give. I learn something new every podcast you post. As a beginner that aims to make relatively big deals, I want to buy between 30 and 70,000 and sell between 90 to $200,000. That's my favorite too.
Steven Butala: That's what I want.
Jill DeWit: I'm wondering, should I start with 10 to 20 small deals, buy in $3,000 in sell in the $10,000 range and then scale to the bigger ones or should I get familiar with the big ones right on my first mailer. Thanks at advance, Amir. You want to go first?
Steven Butala: Yeah. A lot of people had a lot to say starting with our moderator, Kevin. Kevin, I can't thank you enough, by the way. And they all said go small first and I agree. I don't necessarily think you need to... And it's not because, here's why, there's two reasons. Number one, you're going to make some mistakes, everybody does. And the earlier you make the mistakes, the faster you're going to be successful. So you want to do that on smaller deals. You don't want to lose a lot of money.
Jill DeWit: I'm not going to sweat about it.
Steven Butala: I'm not necessarily saying you're going to lose money, but you might not do a deed right or you might not respond to a seller the right way, or there's just little things that happen.
Jill DeWit: Really, that's stuff you can solve regardless of the deal. But what if you bought one wrong, I don't know, you overpaid for one big deal. So, that's my usual thing at the 10 out of the way. If they're 10 smaller ones and nine of them are great, and one you're like, oh, I totally screwed up and shoot. Technically I lost money on that one or I broke even on that one, but that's okay because the other nine make up for that one and now you got it.
Steven Butala: And then my second and final point, which is I think incredibly important is you need to find out if this is for you.
Jill DeWit: True.
Steven Butala: So there's a lot of their sips. This isn't for everybody. It's a lot of work, it's extremely rewarding. I think it's a lot of fun. You might find out this is just no fun.
Jill DeWit: We are weird.
Steven Butala: I know. Yes. Land Academy is a group full of weird people that enjoy buying real estate and selling it for more. You get high off of it actually, just do so.
Jill DeWit: Totally.
Steven Butala: Here's another question here later in the week where we talk about the deal high.
Jill DeWit: Can I pause for just a second here BEcause this is so good? Because we sometimes talk about this differently. We really have told people, Hey, go for it, whatever you want to do, you can just go for it. So there's no real wrong answer here. If you want to just dive in, go for the bigger deals, you feel real comfortable with them and do deal fundi...
Jill Friday - We Have Hot Water! Starting my House Renovation (LA 1513) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill, here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from happening Paradise Valley, Arizona. It's happening because we are here now. Everyone-
Steven Butala: It's-
Jill K DeWit: Excuse me. Hold, please. I'm not done. All of you 80 year-olds that are listening that are my neighbors ... Just kidding. Watch out. There's new kids in town. There's a reason we're here. We have no HOA so we're going to have some rocking parties.
Steven Butala: We're the young whippersnappers.
Jill K DeWit: Yes, we are.
Steven Butala: We're the ones who are going to create the noise in the state.
Jill K DeWit: Oh, it's going to be good.
Steven Butala: We're the Gatsbys.
Jill K DeWit: Our neighbors are going to wish we had an HOA. Just kidding. "Paradise Valley Police Department. Yeah, yeah, we know. Jack and Jill? Uh-huh, we're on it." Just kidding.
Steven Butala: Today's Jill Friday and she's going to talk about how we actually have hot water in this monstrosity of a mess of a house that we just bought and how we're starting-
Jill K DeWit: How we're starting some renovations.
Steven Butala: Jill's renovation, I call it.
Jill K DeWit: I'd like to add, too ... Here's what realistically happened because this is what happened at the beach. When you call the police department you might get a voicemail because they're at our party.
Steven Butala: That's true.
Jill K DeWit: That really did happen at the beach.
Steven Butala: That's true. Those guys are great.
Jill K DeWit: So, just be prepared.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on LandInvestors.com online community. It's free and if you're already a Land Academy member, join us on Discord.
Jill K DeWit: Andrew W. wrote, "Hi, everyone. Question for you. We have a buyer who's interested in one of our properties and he wants to purchase but he stated they want to meet us, the owners, in person at the property to confirm before purchasing. Has anyone experienced this and know what to say or do? The property's out of state and if anything we could make the trip but wanted to see what others have done in the past. Thanks."
Jill K DeWit: Well, one easy way to get out of it right now is play the COVID card like, "Oh, I can't. My wife won't go." Play the double whammy. "My wife is not into it and ..." What were you going to say? You're so serious right now.
Steven Butala: I've done this ...
Jill K DeWit: Have fun.
Steven Butala: Here's why I'm serious, because this is a serious question.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. I know that. You want me to answer? Because that's ... I believe it. I'm having fun but I wanted to lighten it up a little bit and [inaudible 00:02:30][crosstalk 00:02:30]-
Steven Butala: I'm racking Jill's time.
Jill K DeWit: And then I can reel it ... give a real.
Steven Butala: This is not the first time.
Jill K DeWit: You know what, Andrew. I accurately tell people I'm not there. I've had people say, "Are you going to show me around?" And I made a joke and I said, "Yeah, I'll leave a key under the mat," and then they didn't quite get it and I had to ... It's okay. The right people get it. But there's nothing wrong with that. You don't need to be there. You don't need to show the property. I'm just ... You have a lot to say. I can tell you're holding back.
Steven Butala: I don't have a lot to say.
Jill K DeWit: I'm honest about it.
Steven Butala: I've three or four sentences. I've done this a handful of times and every single time it's a mess.
Jill K DeWit: You show up there?
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: Oh, I've never done that.
Steven Butala: And here's what I've ... This is way early in my career because we were dying for sales and it was never ...
Jack Thursday - DataTree vs RealQuest vs TitlePRO (LA 1512) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from pretty Paradise Valley, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today's Jack Thursday. I'm going to talk about DataTree versus RealQuest versus TitlePro. These are the three largest mainstream data aggregators. I'll really deconstruct them and tell you which ones are which and why.
Jill K DeWit: This sounds so exciting.
Steven Butala: What color is your nail polish today that you're going to put on your nails while I talk about this?
Jill K DeWit: I don't have any. I'm going to run and get some here. I will have plenty of time to choose and paint.
Jill K DeWit: Just kidding.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. If you're already a member, join us on Discord.
Jill K DeWit: Sean wrote, "Which is more accurate for getting situs zip, geocode.io or DataTree?
Jill K DeWit: There's other places to do those, too, by the way.
Jill K DeWit: I ran the long [lap 00:01:09] from DataTree through geocode.io to get situs zip codes. Then I noticed DataTree already had the situs zip codes listed to download. I can put the two columns side-by-side and notice some discrepancies. Anyone have any experience on which one is more accurate?
Jill K DeWit: Where to go?
Steven Butala: Sean, this is the right way to do this, but as I'm going to explain here in a few minutes about sources of data, generally, the more urban the data, the more populated all the columns are because the assessor has a vested interest in getting to know properties more in urban areas versus rural areas. Why? So that they can charge accurate and, in a lot of cases, higher-
Jill K DeWit: More.
Steven Butala: ... property taxes.
Steven Butala: This is a universal rule about data. This is a good question for today. The more urban it is, the more populated or accurate it probably is. When you look at data for LA County, specifically City of Los Angeles, I fall out of my chair at how amazing the data quality is, regardless of the source. If you go to rural, I'm not picking on any state in general, Indiana or anywhere, some rural counties in Texas, it's incredibly incomplete to the point where you fall out of the other side of your chair. You can't use it. I'll talk all about that.
Steven Butala: The reason that you're getting discrepancies in geo zip codes is because you took a county or a city or zip code, whatever, that was really populated with zip codes, situs zip codes in DataTree. Then when you try to convert it over, there are discrepancies because geocoding is not perfect. It's just like everything. Does the discrepancies matter? No, it's all a numbers game. If 90% of it's probably accurate or higher, you're going to buy some real estate. That's the whole point here.
Jill K DeWit: Thank you.
Steven Butala: And I'll just say, the people that join Land Academy are incredibly intelligent. We don't have any control over who joins or who doesn't.
Jill K DeWit: Well, we do.
Steven Butala: We have control over who stays in the group.
Jill K DeWit: There we go. Like, hold on a moment.
Steven Butala: This is a crazy intelligent question, but I think that there are certain types of people that join Land Academy and just make it an academic exercise for them. Instead of, let's say, quilting, data analysis becomes their hobby.
Jill K DeWit: It's good.
Steven Butala: This is how people get divorced, by the way.
Jill K DeWit: I thought you were going to say how people get rich.
Steven Butala: No, just [follow 00:03:44] me on this.
Steven Butala: Instead of keeping your eye on the prize, which is buying a piece of land and reselling it for more infamy-
Jill K DeWit:
How to Find Real Estate Deals 2021 | Direct Mail (LA 1511) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Howdy.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from sunny Paradise Valley, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about how to find real estate deals in 2021. So is it any different than 2020? Is it any different than 1960?
Jill K DeWit: No. Well, probably. 1960 was probably a lot of knocking on doors back then, but it could have been done the same way.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And if you're already a member, please join us on Discord.
Jill K DeWit: I'd like to talk about that here in a minute.
Steven Butala: I will. I'll ask you questions.
Jill K DeWit: All right. Jordan wrote, "When you guys are looking at Land Watch and Land and Farm, do you pay attention to the listings from other sources? It seems like a lot of the properties on listings from other sources are always a lot cheaper and more reasonably priced." Is that like on Zillow, where it's like FSBO versus agent listings? I'm not even sure what that is.
Steven Butala: Jordan, this is a brilliant question. There are alternative sources, which I love, alternative sources to look at real estate that's for sale that's posted because people like us and people like Land Academy members understand it. You don't have to necessarily go through the MLS. So on Zillow, there's a category called other, and you should study that. On Land Watch and Land and Farm, those two sites specifically encourage independent postings for property.
Jill K DeWit: I thought the whole thing is that way.
Steven Butala: The whole thing is not that way anymore. They have what's called an IDX feed for each area, so-
Jill K DeWit: They're pulling it in from MLS. That's taking away what it used to be.
Steven Butala: Exactly. Exactly. It's just those sites, not so much Zillow, although it's true are all run by tech people in San Francisco and so they don't really, truly understand-
Jill K DeWit: They're not investors. We happened to know that. We had a run in with them several years ago and they're like, "We don't really care who you are, what you do, or how much money you pay us every month. This is just the way it is." I was like, "Okay, noted," and then we've made our own site called LandPin.
Steven Butala: Exactly.
Jill K DeWit: So we don't need you guys then fine.
Steven Butala: But Jordan's question is, is it pertinent to running data from a red, green, yellow test than from a.. Yeah. It's pertinent. I would absolutely look at it. Would I throw it into your pool of data and then take averages out and price it that way? No, not at all, but I really would use it to see what kind of activities there are and all that. This is a very good question. Today's topic, how to find deals in 2021. This is the meat of the show.
Jill K DeWit: So I would like to talk about... I'm trying to think. So in 1960, I bet that was like the height in up and coming thing, was probably very classy and maybe they had the gold jackets back then. I don't know. Was it century 21 when they had the gold jackets I think?
Steven Butala: I can tell you from experience. I bought a house in the late eighties personally, or maybe it was very early nineties and when I sat down with a real estate agent and I...
Jill K DeWit: There's a book.
Steven Butala: I put a yellow piece of paper, shoved a yellow pad and I said, "I drove the whole area where I want to buy a house, and these are all the addresses that have listings and here's the listing." I was creating my own MLS. I didn't know anything about this stuff. I was a kid. And she looked at me and said, "Whatever you choose to do, be for your living for the rest of your life,
Is it Too Late to Get Started in Real Estate? (LA 1510) Transcript:
Jill K DeWit: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt, broadcasting from pretty Paradise Valley, Arizona. That's a mouthful. How am I going to get that? I'm have to come up with some cute little saying with that.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And if you're already a member, please join us on Discord.
Jill K DeWit: Cool. Nolan wrote, "Hello, all. Curious to know how you include a second parcel in the original purchase agreement, if possible, meaning the seller wants to sell the property you sent the PA for, purchase agreement, but he also wants to sell another one that they own in this transaction. Do you typically just mail another PA for the second property, or can something be written on the original PA to include the second one. The seller is older and not very tech savvy for DocuSign. Thanks." You can, a hundred percent, just write it on the bottom. I just tell them, "Hey, if we change the price or something, cross out that price, put in the new price on there and initial it." Good enough for me.
Steven Butala: And take a picture of it and send it with your phone, or have his grandchildren do that, or whatever.
Jill K DeWit: I've done them all.
Steven Butala: However, it works.
Jill K DeWit: I have called on Saturday and taught them how to take a picture with their phone. I have waited for the grandkids to get home. Sometimes they have an old fashioned fax machine kind of thing. So there's lots of ways to get it back to you. You can just write it on there. It doesn't have to be... And even for escrow. I have two things I want to say on this. One is, if you're going to self close a deal, it's just, if you want to have it, it's only personal preference, you don't need to have this piece of paper. It's like your accountant's going to need to see it or anything like that at the end of the year, if you want it. But for escrow, most of the time, they're going to want you to have something opening up the transaction, showing that, "Hey, here's what I'm buying. I have a signed purchase agreement. This is the price. And moving forward." Thank you for letting me finish my sentence today.
Steven Butala: The National Association of Realtors and lawyers in general, spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year to fake you out, into believing that you have to sign your name 50 times to buy a piece of real estate and that you need them. Here's the facts. This came up in Career Path and we talked about it for a long time. And somebody in Career Path... These are extremely advanced, intelligent people in some cases, said, "What do you need from a legal documentation standpoint to close a deal?" To which I said, "A deed. You need to have the seller sign the deed over to you."
Jill K DeWit: That's it.
Steven Butala: That's all. Then the deal is done and it's legal.
Jill K DeWit: It makes me nuts. I can't believe I've had to sign like COVID things and all that stuff for a piece of land, four states over that I'm never going to see, and I'm never going to even talk to that person.
Steven Butala: That's right.
Jill K DeWit: Why do I have to sign this?
Steven Butala: So as far as the purchase agreement is concerned, it's only a guide for pricing. It's an agreement between the buyer and seller. You can do it on the back of a cocktail napkin. I've done many deals on the back of a cocktail napkin where two people have initialed it. You put the APN on there and the price and the time. Do you even need that? No, but it's just like an agreement. It's an agreement between two people. So as far as that purchasing agreement goes, if you have somebody who's not super elderly and understands how to use their phone,
Investing in Other Business vs Real Estate (LA 1509) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt, broadcasting from sweet Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala: I don't think it's Scottsdale, Jill.
Jill K DeWit: Oh, I'm sorry. Well, let's just say-
Steven Butala: This is new for us.
Jill K DeWit: Well, I'm near Scottsdale, Arizona, we'll just say that. I'm sitting in front of what appears like, you know what it looks like? It looks like we're at a resort. Coming to you from the Camelback Inn Resort and Villas. Coming to you from Ballroom A. We should do that.
Steven Butala: Jill and I are recording this week from a property that we purchased in Paradise Valley.
Jill K DeWit: Thank you very much.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And if you're already a member, please use Discord, but don't overuse it.
Jill K DeWit: Noted.
Steven Butala: I'll leave it at that.
Jill K DeWit: Noted.
Steven Butala: This is a long story that's worth reading. I'd happily read it, if you'd like.
Jill K DeWit: I like reading it. I will settle in. And you too should settle in, as I look how long this is. Tony wrote, "Hi everyone." Wait, wait. Was this in Land Investors or was this in Discord?
Steven Butala: Land investors.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. "Hi everyone. I just wanted to chime in, introduce myself. My name is Tony and I've owned and operated an insurance agency for the past 11 years with great success. Finally I got tired of the company that I was selling for and sold my agency about six months ago. Was in the process of trying to figure out what to do next when I came across a YouTube video ad for land flipping. I thought to myself, is this for real? Well as most of you know, research leads you down some pretty deep rabbit holes, and I finally came across Land Academy with Steve and Jill. Those guys really struck a chord in me, as I found them to be probably the most sincere and entertaining educators on the subject out there." Entertaining.
Steven Butala: I'll take it.
Jill K DeWit: I'm sincere, you're entertaining. We're going to change our ending.
Steven Butala: I think it's the other way. Insincere? This is Steve and Jill. Insincere.
Jill K DeWit: And entertaining. Insincere and boring. No, I'm just kidding. That's so cool. Thank you, Tony. All right. Back to the comments here. "As much as I've researched and tried to learn, and trust me, there's plenty more out there to learn, I was and still am a bit skeptical. One night I was talking about possibly doing land flipping at the dinner table with my family and my 15-year-old daughter got intrigued as much as I did. Afterwards, little did I know she started to watch Land Academy episodes on YouTube." You've got to be kidding me.
Steven Butala: Entertaining teenagers.
Jill K DeWit: Wow.
Steven Butala: It's something that Jill and I haven't been able to accomplish in our own family.
Jill K DeWit: Wow. This is the only one.
Steven Butala: Congratulations, pal. You have the unicorn.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. "YouTube and started to learn on her own the basics of land flipping. She came to me a little over a week ago and said, 'Dad, we could totally do this.' She then went on to tell me why and she went into steps of one" ... I'm still flipping proud of her.
Steven Butala: Me too.
Jill K DeWit: I want to give this little girl a hug.
Steven Butala: We should have her on the show.
Jill K DeWit: She's so good. "One, researching counties. Two, pick a county. Three, get the data. Four, scrub the data. Five, send out mailers. Six, buy the land. Seven, sell the land. Eight, rinse and repeat. Now I'm sure to all the experienced land folks out there, this is way over simplified,
Jill Friday - Sometimes it Takes the Owner to Get a Deal Done (LA 1508) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sizzling Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala: It's getting that way.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: Today is Jill Friday. She says, "Sometimes it takes the owner to get a deal done." Boy, that's the truth.
Jill DeWit: Yep.
Steven Butala: Sometimes the owner's got to get involved.
Jill DeWit: Yep.
Steven Butala: Sometimes dad's got to get involved.
Jill DeWit: Yep. That's what this is all about.
Steven Butala: Is that what this is?
Jill DeWit: That's exactly what this is about. You don't want to do it. I'm here to save you. If you think your staff's all idiots and no one can do anything, that's not true. Sometimes it just takes that extra whatever to get it, to get it done.
Steven Butala: Before we get into this, let's take a question posed by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and if you're already a member, join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: Andrew W. wrote, "Hey, everyone. I'm very interested in doing Land Academy. However, I'm not a citizen of the United States and was wondering if it would still be possible to purchase and sell land in America?"
Steven Butala: Yes.
Jill DeWit: "If anyone can answer the question for me, that would be great. Also, if possible, are there any particular issues that came along with not being a citizen? Thanks a lot, Andrew." I thought this was important because it hasn't come up in a while.
Steven Butala: It's a great question.
Jill DeWit: People don't realize that you don't have to live here and you don't have to be a citizen. You don't have to have a visa. You don't have to be a resident. You can be happily in, say, Ireland and do this.
Steven Butala: This comes up probably once a week now, maybe once a month. But probably every couple of weeks somebody ask this question, whether they're in Discord or wherever, and we point them to the other people that are successfully doing this from other countries, specifically Canada and Ireland. We've got military people that are stationed all over the country that are doing it. I mean, all over the world.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: All of our VAs are in the Philippines, so it's truly a worldwide situation.
Jill DeWit: Isn't that great? And it's funny, remember a long time ago we talked? One of the reasons we do what we do in the United States is the ease of it, but it's the ease of the data. And we were looking at doing this maybe internationally in Australia, because I think still right now it's the only other place that we can really get quality data and it's legal. Because we were talking about this with somebody in England one time, that version of the assessor and the owner data is not public information.
Steven Butala: Yeah. We're very, very fortunate in this country.
Jill DeWit: It's public information.
Steven Butala: When the property got all subdivided or sanctioned, or whatever the verb is, by the federal and then eventually homesteaded out, I don't know why, but they just became a transparent ownership scenario. In most places in the world, it's the exact opposite. Nobody wants anyone else to know that they own anything.
Jill DeWit: Or what they paid, or any of that.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: It's so funny that it's your home, but not your car.
Steven Butala: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jill DeWit: There's so many other things that it's not.
Steven Butala: Right.
Jill DeWit: It's real interesting. But luckily for us, it is.
Steven Butala: Yeah. Well, it wouldn't be possible.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven Butala: I've spent a substantial amount of time trying to duplicate this in Canada and it's just not going to happen.
Jack Thursday - State of the Union - Do We Care About Lumber Prices? (LA 1507) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hey, hey, hey.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show. What the heck?
Jill DeWit: I don't know.
Steven Butala: Entertaining Land Investment Talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, and I apparently had too much caffeine.
Steven Butala: Yes, you have.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Steven Butala: Today is Jack Thursday. I'm going to do what our customer service people have requested. A State of the Union, real estate in 2021. For example, do we care about lumber prices?
Jill DeWit: I have a lot of questions, don't worry.
Steven Butala: Okay. Before we get into it, then, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And if you're already a Land Academy member, please join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: Corey wrote, "Good evening."
Steven Butala: Sorry.
Jill DeWit: When posting a deal on Land Tank or sending a deal to someone for funding, what info about the property is good to include, so that no time is wasted, to get a quick "yes" or "no" answer for funding? Of course, I know that the [inaudible 00:01:06] are important, but what else should I include? I love this question, by the way. I am new and I haven't bought any land yet, but I'm sending offers to ten to a hundred acre properties, because I know that there are plenty of people here that will fund a deal if it's right. P.S. Jill, I had to leave this in here. I absolutely love listening on Clubhouse.
Steven Butala: You snuck this in here.
Jill DeWit: I totally.
Steven Butala: Jill has a love affair with Clubhouse.
Jill DeWit: This is not me making it up. Corey really put this in here and I'm like, oh I am putting the whole thing.
Jill DeWit: He said Jill, I absolutely love listening on Clubhouse for someone that isn't a member yet. I feel like I'm breaking the law getting all the info for free that you guys talk about on there. Of course, the podcasts on this site are great too. Thanks, Corey. [inaudible 00:01:54] this is awesome. Okay. I need to know how the property is going, how the property will be sold, how fast it will be sold and what the game plan is. So let me give you an example. So Corey, you come up with a beautiful twenty-acre property and whatever county and whatever price let's just say. Say it's twenty-acre property for $20,000. So not only do you give me the property details. If there's anything pertinent, I want that I found that there is a well, they used to have a mobile on there.
Jill DeWit: I've found out that it just got rezoned to this. Something unique or cooler, something that's making you want, why we're doing this deal about the actual property. Then the other thing I want you to do is tell me about you. You're selling me not only on the property, but you're selling me on you because you're coming to me to money and you should be saying, here's how great the property is and here's how great I am. And here's what I'm going to do with this. So I need information that says, I've been studying this for six months. I've got three brokers lined up champing at the bit. They think it's going to sell within 30 days at three times our money and how fast can I do it? And I can, and I've got the title agent ready to go. I can do this in two weeks. That's the information I need.
Steven Butala: Let me state the obvious.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Butala: And put this sentence in there. I don't need anything from you guys except the money.
Jill DeWit: Yep. Perfect.
Steven Butala: [inaudible 00:03:36] We have not so much now anymore. We've had a lot big problems with that when we start started Land Tank and deal funding. Basically new people were just throwing a property in there. It's a great deal. I know it's a great deal and just handing it to us and expecting us to do work.
Steven Butala:
The Power of Answering the Phone (LA 1506) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill, here.
Jill DeWit: Howdy.
Steven Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: I'm Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from sizzling Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about the power of answering the phone.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Nothing like a live person answering the phone. You need to do that, and I'll explain more in a minute.
Steven Butala: Yeah. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free if you're already a Land Academy member. Join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: Sean wrote, "Have any of you ever had a title company refuse to close a deal because the sale price is too far greater than the county assessed value? This just happened to me with two different title companies. I bought a lot with a current market value of $10,000. I'm selling it for $5,800, but the county assessor data has it valued at 3,825. The title companies are saying they cannot issue title insurance on the property because the sale price is more than 50% above the tax value. Since when does a title company determine the value of the property?"
Steven Butala: Never.
Jill DeWit: You are correct, Sean.
Steven Butala: You're correct to question this. They can't ...
Jill DeWit: You are correct.
Steven Butala: They shouldn't. There's something else going on.
Jill DeWit: There's somebody with ... Is it a big ego thing?
Steven Butala: If you're brand new at this or you're thinking about getting into this business, these things almost never happen. This is a strange anomaly that, Jill and I have done almost 16,000 deals combined in our career. I think something like this has happened to me maybe less than five times, but I'll tell you, yeah, I had a title person one time, after she did about eight deals for me, called her husband and said, "These deals are all coming in. We should just buy these ourselves, they're so cheap," and so she took a bunch of business away.
Jill DeWit: That's, like, not legal.
Steven Butala: I've had country recorders a couple of times refuse to record property that I bought because I was from out of state and they didn't want to sell property to people that were out of state, especially for an expensive amount.
Jill DeWit: Hopefully that's all fixed by now.
Steven Butala: Yeah, you can fix it. This, honestly, I would call a lawyer.
Jill DeWit: I have an example, though. This is how I would explain it. We've all heard of this situation where a home was being sold for a price higher than it was appraised at. We've all heard of that. You get an accepted offer, the appraiser goes out ... Normally, this happens. Normally, you're buying a house, you're buying it for $479,000. The appraiser goes out. We always want it to be that price or higher. We obviously want it to be higher, right, because thinking, "I got a good deal," but it's funny how, "Gee, look at that, the appraisal came back at $479,000. What the heck?"
Jill DeWit: Now and then, and I haven't heard so much now, but I think anybody over 30 has heard of this. Now and then you've had an appraiser goes out and then, like, "Oh, shoot, they only appraised it at 459," so you have to pay cash for that last bit if you really want the house. This, to me, is no different, absolutely no different. The title company's not going to go, "Nope, not doing it. Not taking it because it didn't appraise to what you're actually spending so we're not going to close the deal." They never do that. That's not true. We just know that, and especially, often if there's a lender involved, that's why you had to get it appraised, too, by the way, so the lender says, "Oh, we're only going to loan you up to the 459, because that's what it's appraised at." It's a hot market, we realize, you're buying it at 479. You get to pay that extra 20,
We Answer the Same 10 Questions (LA 1505) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show. Entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewit. Broadcasting from sunny Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about how we seem to answer the same 10 questions over and over again.
Jill DeWit: Oh, we'll talk about this.
Steven Butala: I can't wait to record this episode-[crosstalk 00:00:24]
Jill DeWit: I know.
Steven Butala: ... and that's the truth.
Jill DeWit: You really are giving me the green light to talk about this? Yes, yes.[crosstalk 00:00:34] Give me the green light.
Steven Butala: We are going to make sure we keep it humorous, even though Jill right before the show was said... She got a little heated.
Jill DeWit: We're not going to name names. This will be good.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on a LandInvestors.com online community. It's free, and if you're already a member, join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: Sandy wrote, "In Steven's state summary..." Remember this?
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Butala: I created a dictionary.
Jill DeWit: He did. It went state by state about how the deals get done in that state. "... He indicates whether closing is done by attorney or title company. How do I know if I can do a self-closing, or if I have to close with an attorney/title? Am I able to self-close anywhere? Are there laws against self-closings? And if so, is that at the state- or county-level? Thanks for any help you can give."
Steven Butala: Thank you Sandy, this is a great question.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: And it's not one of the same 10 questions that we constantly get.
Jill DeWit: [inaudible 00:01:35] Exactly.
Steven Butala: Without exception, you can self-close in any state... That's the answer.
Jill DeWit: Even New York?
Steven Butala: Yep... There's huge misinformation about this out there. You can do it. I'm not saying that the recorder will allow you to record it. I'm not saying that if you asked title companies, they might say, "No, you have to get an attorney," and if you ask a lawyer, they might, because they've all been misinformed.
Jill DeWit: Wow, that makes sense.
Steven Butala: A long time ago. There was before... During homestead times, people would just walked in and do their own deeds. The recorder would help them. They didn't then-[crosstalk 00:02:20]
Jill DeWit: That's what I was going to say.
Steven Butala: ... lawyers got involved. Because there were so many mistakes. Or landowners wanted to protect their interests, so they got lawyers. So eventually then title insurance came in, and Escrow and all that much, much, much later. So no, you can close.
Jill DeWit: This country was founded on that, is what you're trying to say?
Steven Butala: Right, that's right.
Jill DeWit: That we can do that. It's like saying, "Oh, I can't sell you a car because I'm going to go to jail." You're not going to go to jail for selling a car on Craigslist. You don't have to have a dealer's license.That's kind of what you're saying.
Steven Butala: No, it's interesting you bring cars up. Because there's a huge number of laws associated with how many cars you can sell each state by state, before you become a dealer. I think in Arizona, it's six a year. And then on your seventh you have to get your dealers license.
Jill DeWit: Because you're making it a business now, [crosstalk 00:03:07].
Steven Butala: Get this too, because Jill and I started a company called Car Academy, and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars. Got all the way down to just about ready to release it, and found out that there's some pretty serious federal laws against using DMV data for any type of marketing. And when you think about it, we all own cars. I've never gotten a note that says, "Hey, you owner,
Cool Things You Find When You Dig a Little Deeper (LA 1504) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from awesome Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about cool things you find when you dig a little deeper into some of the Land Academy tools.
Jill DeWit: Yep. Well, actually it's dig a little deeper and due diligence, and things like that. So we'll help you out.
Steven Butala: All week. These are...
Jill DeWit: Jill and Aaron topics!
Steven Butala: They're customer service driven topics that, somewhat, clearly out of frustration...
Jill DeWit: Jill and Aaron sat down, let's truth time it here! Jill and Aaron sat down the other day and said, we're picking the topics this week. And you said, go for it.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And speaking of cool things, when you dig a little deeper, join us on Discord. If you're a Land Academy member, it's turning out to be one of the most amazing tools or decisions that we've made. It's really helping a lot of people. Me included.
Jill DeWit: Well, it's like Land Investors. It's another version of a way to get stuff answered really fast.
Steven Butala: Yep.
Jill DeWit: So the only thing that I have to say real quick is, the Search and the things like that, and Discord, are not like a website. So I think you should use both. So don't forget landinvestors.com. So, all right, this question, and this comment came from Discord, so Miguel wrote, "Any suggestions as to what I should be doing while waiting on my next mailer to hit? Thanks in advance." This is so funny. You get all excited. The mail goes out and now you're just sitting. And you're like "Should I just sit here and wait and watch the phone to ring?" Nope, you should be getting stuff ready to go. You want to talk?
Steven Butala: Go ahead. I mean, I have a couple of things.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Butala: But I bet mine are real different.
Jill DeWit: Well, it was funny. One thing that one person wrote in there I've chimed in, which was right, they're like "Yeah, start picking the next County!"
Steven Butala: That's it. That's my answer!
Jill DeWit: Exactly. Start thinking for the next one, which is true. But the other thing you should be doing is making sure you're ready for the calls to come in. Do you know when the calls come in, the questions you're going to ask the sellers? Great. You know, go get my cheat sheet on Land Investors. Print that out. Have a couple of copies on your desk. Maybe 10, maybe 50. I don't know. So when the calls come in, you right away can grab that sheet and go all right, I know exactly what to ask this person when they call.
Jill DeWit: Also, how's it going to flow? Where are you going to put all the information? Do you have a spreadsheet set up even just starting there? I would definitely just start with a great spreadsheet. Take the information that's on my cheat sheet (go to land investors and scroll down on the left!) It says "Jill's inbound seller checklist", something like that. Take those columns and make a spreadsheet with all of the state, County, APN. Because once you get all that stuff on the sheet, you need to put it into your spreadsheet. So you could start the process here of going through all the properties. You know, what's going to be next? Doing your due diligence. What's going to be next? Buying the property. What's going to be next? Posting the property. What's going to be next? Selling the property.
Jill DeWit: So think ahead about the process, everything that you're going to do here and start building out your sheet and the columns. Think about... The area that you sent, by the way, you know you were searching for five acre properties in Northern Ca...
Jill Friday - Where Do I Start in Real Estate Land Investing (LA 1503) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Good day.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show. Entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt broadcasting from sweet Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today is Jill Friday. And, we talk about where do I start in real estate land investing? Jill's going to enlighten us, I'm sure of it.
Jill DeWit: I got this. It's not hard. Well, there's a lot to it, but the steps to get started are easy. I will help you and I will lay them out.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWit: By the way, in case you hadn't heard earlier this week, oh boy. Have we revamped and reworked, and you're going to see some changes physically, not physically, but on the website, physically. And, then in the way we run things with Land Academy Deal funding. We are partnering up and have partnered up with some heavy hitters and you really have no reason to not ask for money. We not going to make it super easy for you. We have so much capital behind us and decades of experience, as you already know. And we're here to help you get those deals done. So, don't wait, go to land investors.com. Click on deal funding, submit your deal. And, we will tell you what to do next.
Steven Butala: You got a couple of deals you're not sure about? Submit them. We'll tell you whether or not we'll happily fund them. We'll tell you if they're good deals or not.
Jill DeWit: Aaron wrote, "I caught a bunch of RV parks, lots in my data. The county has them at 0.9 acres, but they're probably 0.09. They do seem to sell for 10 to $20,000. Probably have rules like an HOA, anyone mail RV parks, or is it a waste of 50 cents?"
Steven Butala: These types of properties, RV properties are what I call specialty real estate. I put them in the category of mobile home lots, mobile home park lots. Property that is zoned for a hotel, maybe any type of special use property. Zone for a cemetery. You'll find them a lot in urban areas where a city planner has gone through it there and said, "This is where we kind of want all the industrial areas to be. This is where you want the high end houses to be. The low end houses to be and, and on and on and on." That's what a civil engineer or city planner does.
Steven Butala: I absolutely love these kinds of lots. They sing to the right person. They're usually... How many times if be driven down the street and seen a defunct trailer park? That's just waiting for somebody like us or you who's got some skill and some energy to go in there, put a sign up, put a shack up there and say, "Look, bring your mobile home." Or "We'll put a mobile home on here for the right person." So, I love specialization property like this, as long as it's super cheap. And, if you know anything about internet marketing, the more specialized, whatever you're selling is, the easier it is to find people in a specifically in that geography and that zip code with Instagram or Facebook. So, it pops right up while they're going through whatever.
Jill DeWit: Ding ding.
Steven Butala: So, hell yes. And you need a partner in this? Please call me. It's one of my favorite types of real estate.
Jill DeWit: Thank you for playing Aaron. I have nothing to add.
Steven Butala: Today's topic is well, it's Jill Fridays. She's going to tell us about where do I start in real estate land investing? This is the meat of the show.
Jill DeWit: Okay. You stumbled across the show. You ran into somebody in Land Academy you're like, "Wait a minute. What the heck are you all talking about? How are you all making this money? Doing this stuff? What do you mean land? Okay. I want to do this. I really want to jump in."
Jill DeWit: Let's hold on just a moment.
Steven Butala: Good. Good Jill, thank you.
Jack Thursday - 5 Things You Must Know Before You Start Real Estate Investing (LA 1502) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hey.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, coming to you from sizzling Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about, well, it's Jack Thursday.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: It's the five things you must know before you start real estate investing of any kind. I'm going to tailor mine a little bit to land, but it's really just being a general real estate investor.
Jill DeWit: Oh.
Steven Butala: I think there's a little bit of a misconception about what this takes.
Jill DeWit: Oh. I can't wait because I wrote down my own list. I had trouble coming up with five. I think I came up with four. I could have turned four into five. I thought, "Nah, I'm going to leave them condensed."
Steven Butala: I came up with 40, but we'll just do the top five.
Jill DeWit: Aha. But mine's also just general real estate investing. Mine is not necessarily land-focused. It's kind of anything. Honestly, mine can be any niche. Mine can be anything. Mine could be the top five things you must know to start X.
Steven Butala: A marriage.
Jill DeWit: Even that.
Steven Butala: Go.
Jill DeWit: No, I'm not going to share my list now.
Steven Butala: Quick. Come on. Read it off.
Jill DeWit: No. I'm not going to share my list now.
Steven Butala: Top five things you need to be in a successful marriage. Go.
Jill DeWit: It's the same list. I'm going to share it in a minute.
Steven Butala: It's the same list?
Jill DeWit: Oh, it's good.
Steven Butala: You want to get into it?
Jill DeWit: You're going to hear this. We're going to do this in a minute when we get to the topic. We're going to have you envision my list.
Steven Butala: Right. Here's a new title. There's a new title, five things you need to know before you cross out, start fill in the blank.
Jill DeWit: Start X. Oh, yeah.
Steven Butala: Because that's how mine is too.
Jill DeWit: Oh, mine could be a marriage. I'm going to use it. You know, I wrote it down as real estate investing, but we're going to sub marriage in a minute here and it's going to be funny.
Steven Butala: Excellent.
Jill DeWit: It's like Mad Libs.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and if you're already with us in Land Academy, join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: Hold, please. Before I read the question, I'd like to give one little thing too. Don't forget, Land Academy deal funding is bigger and better and faster, and boy, do we have money. We now have limitless money available and decades of experience, you can tell, look at us, to help you get deals done. Right?
Steven Butala: Yeah. See this gray hair?
Jill DeWit: Lots. So go to landinvestors.com and click on the Deal Funding tab today. Thank you. All right.
Steven Butala: Nice.
Jill DeWit: Where was I? Danielle wrote, "I have an owner who wants to sell and has three people on the deed. All three will signed." That is helpful. "She also asked to have three checks, one-third to each." Fine. "She also asked that I send them each a purchase agreement." Okay, Danielle. Now you're pushing it with me a little bit, but okay.
Steven Butala: Well, they're pushing it with her.
Jill DeWit: That's true.
Steven Butala: It's not you, Danielle.
Jill DeWit: The other two are giving Danielle a hard time. I get it. "Should I list the property for the total amount? Should I list the property for the total amount on each purchase agreement or break it up into thirds for each person's portion? Or should I send all three a new purchase agreement, three places to sign?" I like that one. It's not that big of a deal. You don't even really need ... I mean, depending ... If you're going through escrow,
Real Estate Investing 2021 (LA 1501) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hey.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit coming to you from scorching Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Not yet, but coming.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: We'll be in a different state.
Jill DeWit: It's probably 100 today.
Steven Butala: We'll be in a different state for sure, when it gets real hot. Today, Jill and I talk about real estate investing in the year 2021, what's different about the past and what's probably coming in the future.
Jill DeWit: You know what this is like, I remember when I was dating, newly dating, late teens, early twenties, and you're a girl, I'm a girl all hung up on a guy and my mom sat me down and said, "Look, don't get all hung up. You think this is it, this is the guy, this is what I'm going to do, whatever."
Steven Butala: He loves me. But he loves me. You don't understand.
Jill DeWit: It wasn't even that. I was too into him. But my mom's like, look, let me just share with us with you. The guy that you bring home at 18, 19, 20 is pretty different from the guy that you're serious about in 30, 31, at an age that you should be really getting serious.
Steven Butala: Do tell. What are the differences? Because this is going to be the show now.
Jill DeWit: All right. Want some truth time?
Steven Butala: Yep.
Jill DeWit: I may or may not have been in a punk rock phase at that age. I once had my hair done, came home and my mom cried. So I may or may not have dated a guy that wore more eyeliner than I did. And as you can see Steven wears zero eyeliner. So there's a little difference there.
Steven Butala: I'm the guy she settled for.
Jill DeWit: Where is eyeliner guy now, I don't know.
Steven Butala: He probably looks like me, just a lot less money.
Jill DeWit: That's true. So anyway, that's one really good example of what was then and is now, what you thought was important then and how it's the end all be all and what's really important now are different. And what's really going on in 2021 now with real estate and investing and everything, it's pretty darn awesome. And I'm glad that you're older and can handle it and you're ready for it.
Steven Butala: I don't understand this. So is 2021 the punk rock guy or the old guy like me?
Jill DeWit: 2021 is you.
Steven Butala: Okay.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, yeah, no, no. That was a year that I'm not going to call out, but it was way before 2021. When I was 20.
Steven Butala: Okay, you're actually assigning a real year. I understand.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Yeah.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. If you're already in our group, join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: It was in the eighties. I will be truth. So, okay. Austin wrote, "Hello. I'm writing this in response to podcast number 1479." Do you remember that one? I do.
Steven Butala: Oh yeah. I remember every single word.
Jill DeWit: Me too.
Steven Butala: I remember episode 10.
Jill DeWit: I love it. "About recovering landlords." I do remember that. "I've owned a duplex for about 10 years." This is going to be funny. "It cashflows about $600 a month, depending on expenses. If I was to sell it right now, I could gross approximately $220,000 after paying off the underlying mortgage."
Steven Butala: I'm going to stop you there for a second.
Jill DeWit: Yay.
Steven Butala: You would net 220, not gross. This is, oh my God, Jack, really, do you have to call us out on every little nitpicky thing, gross, net, please.
Jill DeWit: He does. He does.
Steven Butala: Well for the same reason that your mother stopped you from saying, ain't your whole life. Like I ain't going to eat my broccoli.
Jill DeWit: Okay. You're picking on us, got it.
Steven Butala: It's net, it's net.
Episode 1500 of the Land Academy Show (LA 1500) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land, investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala
Jill DeWit: Jill Dewitt, broadcasting from sunny Scottsdale Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today it's episode 1500 of the Land Academy show, and I am absolutely floored.
Jill DeWit: I know.
Steven Butala: That you, the listener still listens to this.
Jill DeWit: There's marriages that have not lasted this long.
Steven Butala: Well, there's a lot.
Jill DeWit: Exactly, especially during COVID. Exactly.
Steven Butala: So we've decided we're going to kind of reflect on Land Academy and its members and what this group is all about. And the truth is, Jill and I have not talked about what this episode is going to be about at all. So-
Jill DeWit: [crosstalk 00:00:43] I have some funny things.
Steven Butala: ... I'm just interested or uninterested as you are.
Jill DeWit: Ha, yeah. Thanks.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And if you're already a member, please join us on Discord to get your, all your questions answered in real time.
Jill DeWit: To put your minute-by-minute land fix.
Steven Butala: Or just lurk.
Jill DeWit: Oh my gosh. It's ... Let me warn you. It's nonstop. All I hear on his desk is ping, ping, ping all, and all day and all night.
Steven Butala: It's the tool, the membership tool that I've been waiting for for six years. That's the truth of it.
Jill DeWit: It's Jack's Clubhouse. Let's just call it. There you go.
Steven Butala: You can get your answer. I don't care what you need, put it in Discord.
Jill DeWit: Okay. Jeff wrote, "Hey guys, I'm buying a property through title and a survey is needed. There's also an heirship issue that the seller needs to work out. Do you do anything to protect against spending all that survey money and then having the seller disappear to fix their heirship problem?" Nope. You know what? I had to do this.
Steven Butala: You would never get a survey before this heirship problem solved.
Jill DeWit: Well, hold please.
Steven Butala: There's two-
Jill DeWit: I've had to do this.
Steven Butala: Yeah, I understand.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Butala: I'm not saying don't get a survey. I'm saying do not even start down the survey path. And so this is one of the five A's during due diligence. You need to make sure everybody's alive and the person who's signing on the deed is going to convey and all that. So there's an order in which this goes and it's an education and you need to make sure you can close the deal and people are alive and available to sign. And the chain of title is correct long before you start ordering surveys.
Jill DeWit: That's correct. As I read it, I was thinking as I'm selling it, not as I'm buying. So yeah, no, you're right. Don't put any money into somebody else's property that they could go away, number one. But on the flip side, what I was starting to say, which I've had to do is there's properties that require documents in certain counties for certain green belt zones that every time it changes hands, you have to do stuff like that. I've done that. I've had to get things ready for when I sell it, knowing I'm going to sell it. And I don't wait for the buyer to come up, and then I start the process. I just got it out of the way because it was like a requirement. That's okay.
Steven Butala: I don't want you to be afraid of things like this.
Jill DeWit: Oh, yeah.
Steven Butala: Especially if you're new, not all deals are like this. Most deals go really well. Really, they're very smooth, but people ask questions when there's issues. People don't ask this question, "Why is it so easy?"
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: It just never comes up.
Jill DeWit: And this is usually needed. Most of the time, in this situation,
How to Get Your Deal Funded by Land Academy Deal Funding - Its Official (LA 1499) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy Show, Entertaining Land Investment Talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sweet Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about how to get funded, how to get your deal funded through Land Academy Deal Funding. It's completely official now.
Jill DeWit: It's beneficial. It's now even better, right? It's huge and better. And I'm going to pause and have my little, I prepared a new little commercial spiel. So you tell me what you think. Land Academy Deal Funding, now with limitless money available and decades of experience to help you get deals done. Go to landinvestors.com and click Deal Funding Today.
Steven Butala: I think I love it. So what does it mean? It means you should never have to worry about getting money to buy a property. That's good.
Jill DeWit: And we'll talk all about that.
Steven Butala: Yeah. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. If you're already a member, please take advantage of the amazing conversations that go on Discord.
Jill DeWit: Every minute. Nick wrote, "Hi, all. Just joined Land Academy. Pleasure to meet you. I'm particularly interested in the deal funding/landing tools and was curious, which you recommend. Are there other ways you can get all your deals funded? Thanks." Can we just roll this into the beginning of the show or into the whole topic of the show?
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Because I don't have to answer it twice.
Steven Butala: Today's topic, how to get funded by Land Academy Deal Funding. It's official. This is the meat of the show.
Jill DeWit: Okay. So it's been a year and a half since we've had deal funding, roughly. It started after the second live event and it's come, and in that last year and a half, let's just say, we pretty much have limitless capital. So there's two things going on here. There's Land Academy Deal Funding. I'm going to tell you what they are. And then I'm going to tell you about LandTank, and then we'll talk about changes and all the great things that are available to you. So let's back up. Do you want to give the background as to why this exists?
Steven Butala: Sure. Here's an eighth grade simple explanation about what this product is. Land Academy Deal Funding was put together by Jill and I originally so that you don't have to use your own money to do deals. Here's a real simple eighth grade example. You find a property because you sent mail out. You learned how to do it correctly. You learn how to price a mailer. You listen to Jill and all the programs and you engage the seller and bought a piece of property for let's say $10,000. You think it's worth 30,000 or 40,000. That's the typical Land Academy model 2021, but you didn't have the 10,000, nor should you have the 10,000. People feel really guilty about that. Like, I don't have enough money to do this. No, you just need to be real smart about sending out mail, answer your phone and create some deals.
Steven Butala: And so we're here to fund that $10,000 and then split that profit margin. If it's $30,000 or $40,000, there's $20,000 or $30,000 of profit in that deal, we'll split it with you. We may split it with you for as much as 50%. So you take $15,000 out and you're off to the races, and then you can use that 15,000 for however you use it. We have people in our group that this is their whole model. They don't ever keep any money. So we're trying to make this really simple and very, very clear because what's happened is this. It's become a shark feeding frenzy of money people out there attacking Land Academy members to be their funder. And so what we've done is we've approached all these people. Now they're behind us and they're funding in a pool.
Jill Friday - One Third of Our Members have Quit Their Jobs (LA 1498) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from awesome Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today is Jill Friday and she talks about how one-third of our members have actually quit their jobs.
Jill DeWit: This is so cool.
Steven Butala: Both of us are enamored of this.
Jill DeWit: Yep.
Steven Butala: It's not something I ever, ever really just anticipated in any way.
Jill DeWit: I know.
Steven Butala: How do we know this? We sent out a poll.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven Butala: Every year, our team sends out a very detailed poll and people are nice enough to take 10 or 20 minutes out of their lives and send it back. Most members.
Jill DeWit: Excuse me. Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven Butala: So, I don't know if... Jill can talk all about it. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on a landinvestors.com online community. It's free and if you're already a member, please join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: Okay. Dianna wrote, "Hi. Thought I would post here seeking inspiration. I sent for Land Academy in September 2020. I sent out maybe 2,000 to 2,500 mailers/offers thus far. I had quite a bit of call backs and sellers who were interested. I've not actually bought a property for I do not necessarily have the capital to do so.
Jill DeWit: I, instead, have a few active option contracts and I reached out to a few investors but to no avail on the investors. The properties I have under option have been going now for three to five months. Option's difficult because a seller wants what the seller wants, so it seems that the price is usually too high.
Jill DeWit: I figure I'll go ahead anyway because I'm not losing anything out of it. Now it's been seven months. I've not made a deal. I'm feeling a little disheartened and already looking for other career paths, but I know that this one can be very successful and lucrative. I assume I should send out more mailers. I'm having a hard time putting more and more money into the game and I have yet to see any of it come back.
Jill DeWit: What I'd love to hear is some advice or words of inspiration, whatever you have got that you're open to share with me. Thank you."
Jill DeWit: Shucks. Okay. Couple things are going on here. Number one, you have the money, Dianna. If it's a really good deal, then someone will fund it. My thoughts are, you came in, they're not that good a deals because she said she shopped into some investors and no one was interested. So, did you hit enough people? Did you put it in land tank? Where are we in the situation? Because if you put it in front of anyone, myself included, and it's a good deal, the money will come. No problem.
Jill DeWit: So, that's what I suspect. I suspect that these are a little too high or there's something else going on that nobody jumped on them. And that you have these option agreements and they're not selling. You know more than I know about this.
Steven Butala: I have an opinion.
Jill DeWit: Okay. I'm looking at you like I heard the exhale and I thought, oh, what else do you know?
Steven Butala: No, go ahead.
Jill DeWit: Okay, got it.
Steven Butala: I know what's going on here.
Jill DeWit: Okay, what do you think it is?
Steven Butala: She's not following through.
Jill DeWit: That could be, too.
Steven Butala: You did everything right. You proved the concept right, you joined, you learned.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: You got the mail out, and she says here, "Quite a few callbacks and sellers who were interested."
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven Butala: So, it's not like the mailer failed or the business failed for you or you didn't set stuff up right. You did everything right and you got a great response.
Jack Thursday - Unique Ways to Improve Your Land (LA 1497) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about unique ways to improve your land. It's Jack Thursday.
Steven Butala: There's so many things, simple things that you can do to a piece of property that will set it apart from the five or eight or 10 other pieces of property that are maybe listed for sale in the area. We'll talk about simple, fast, cheap ways to make your property stand out on the internet against all those other properties. And keep you legal, if we can. Like meth labs, that will make you stand out.
Jill DeWit: That's true.
Steven Butala: But that's not the best thing to do, I don't think. Although, it might sell fast.
Jill DeWit: The caution tape and all the stuff from the police, that will make your property stand out.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and please join us on Discord if you're already a member.
Jill DeWit: You should have called this, Unique and Legal Ways to Improve Your Land.
Steven Butala: Yeah, but we'll address some of the illegal ones just because it's fun.
Jill DeWit: Got it.
Jill DeWit: Where's my question? Here we go. Lee wrote, "Hi all. I just turned down a deal that wasn't for me, but the seller has other property that could be for another Land Academy member. How do I go about it? Where do I post it? Thanks."
Jill DeWit: You know what? That was a thing for the deal board. That was the original intent of the deal board. I was passing on so many deals that I'm like, Somebody should get this. I don't want it. It might be for somebody else because it's too small to ... fill in the blank. I don't know the area that well. Whatever it is. Usually it was too small money-wise and I'd throw them up there. I wouldn't use LandTank because that's not what that's for.
Jill DeWit: What would you suggest?
Steven Butala: I think this is chaos waiting to happen.
Jill DeWit: There's that, too.
Steven Butala: I think that if you go post it on a deal board, which I'm not recommending at all ... In fact, we need to stop talking about it on this show.
Jill DeWit: That's true. It is going to go away.
Steven Butala: We're decommissioning it. If you have another person in the group that you like, maybe you know their name. Kevin Farrell, who's our moderator, would be a perfect candidate for this. He does this all the time. He marks it up a certain amount and just passes on the deal. Marks it up a very small amount of money, less than a thousand dollars regardless of how large it is. At least that's what he reported to me the last time we talked about it, which actually several months ago. It's always better to go with somebody with a sentence like this, "Hey, Kevin," just like this, "I got this deal in. It's not for me. I know it's a good deal ..."
Steven Butala: We get great deals in all the time, for some reason we just don't do it.
Jill DeWit: I gave one to Aaron the other day to give to somebody.
Steven Butala: Okay, good.
Jill DeWit: We do do it.
Steven Butala: Great example.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, I did. I don't want any money for it.
Jill DeWit: On Land Academy. I just gave it away. I just said, Hey Aaron, here you go. Give it to somebody you like.
Steven Butala: Jill, what was wrong with the deal? Everyone-
Jill DeWit: Too small dollar-wise.
Steven Butala: Excellent. That's a perfect example.
Jill DeWit: I'm not going to run up and down for $4,000, but somebody else would.
Steven Butala: Excellent.
Steven Butala: What I would do is personally reach out to somebody that you have some respect for in the Discord or the Land Investors,
Our Last Mailer Deconstructed-We Created a Quarter of a Million Dollars (LA 1496) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here. Welcome to the Land Academy show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt broadcasting from sweet Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill-
Jill DeWit: I was going to say sweaty Scottsdale, Arizona. Not to make you and the rest of the country mad at us, but it's 22% humidity right now which is pretty darn high for us.
Steven Butala: High for us. At 95 degrees, it starts to get-
Jill DeWit: A little bit... Yeah.
Steven Butala: Start to have thoughts of Christmas. And these things happen when it's may. Yeah.
Jill DeWit: I'm like, "I need to be in the pool right now." Okay.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about how our last... well, we're going to deconstruct our last mailer and show you exactly how we made about a quarter of a million bucks on that.
Jill DeWit: Cool.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And if you're already a Land Academ member, please join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: Mike D wrote, "Hello everyone. I've actually been a member since August 2020, and I've done 10 deals since then, mostly buy for two to 5,000 and sell for double. I'm starting to gain some momentum. And I'm looking to get some help from members on how to move forward with confidence. I would like to discuss a rather large deal for me, buy for $150,000 and sell for $300,000. And I need the assurance from people that have been doing this a while that it's a good deal. Where can I post the details so it can be discussed? Thanks." Aww.
Steven Butala: Mike D., you've done every single thing right, every single thing. It's been about six months, less than six months, you've done 10 deals just like Jill always talks about, get 10 deals under your belt. Who cares what they look like? Who cares how much money you make? Just to see if this is for you. And now you're ready to make $150,000 on a deal. And this is a great question. It's actually my favorite question of the week. I would reach out. There's two or three places that we have set up for this to really get some traction for you and people like you. I would start with Discord. I know you're a member because I can tell on Land Investors. We also have something called Deal Board, which we're kind of phasing out, but our members-
Jill DeWit: Because of Land Tank now.
Steven Butala: Our members won't let us phase it out because they like it. It's like a bulletin board in a hospital for guitar lessons.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, exactly.
Steven Butala: And then there's Land Tank. I'm not so sure if you don't have a deal, that Land Tank is the best place if it were me and I can speak confidently. If it were Jill, I would post it on all three places just to see what would happen.
Jill DeWit: But I do want to sign purchase agreement though moving forward just to make sure because no one really has a deal until we have that, then we can really talk about it.
Steven Butala: If you have a signed purchase agreement and you think the numbers are 150 to 300 and you put it on Land Tank, it won't last three minutes. There's vultures and I say that in a good way, money people in our group that are dying to fund property.
Jill DeWit: I would like to add a point here too. We don't always have to double our money. So think about the numbers you've been doing to this point. What if you do it all wrong and you buy it for 150 and you sell it for 250 or 225, those are still great numbers.
Steven Butala: We do deals like that all the time.
Jill DeWit: So don't worry. Don't stress. If you know going into it, "I'm buying it for 150 no matter what. I really made a mistake. I sell it for 200," you're still going to be just fine.
Steven Butala: Yep. That's a big topic for last week that came up a lot.
The Mystery of Assessed Value (LA 1495) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from sweet Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about the mystery of assessed value.
Jill DeWit: God, this comes up often.
Steven Butala: Yes. Why do you think it comes up so often?
Jill DeWit: It's a thing. Well, because people need to have some way to value property. And when they're doing pricing and they're buying and they're selling, right. So we often go, "Well, what does the assessor say? Where can I find some numbers?" And the number that jumps up first, it's like, "I'm staring at it. I'm staring at the data. It's the assessed value." So that must be real, right? So it's always real, right?
Steven Butala: I'll tell you what I think about this in a minute.
Jill DeWit: Oh okay. Thank you.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and if you're already a member, please join us on discord. It's an amazing tool. And I get a lot of our questions, like the question that Jill's about to read, from landinvestors.com. And I see older, seasoned, amazingly successful members, piping in hard on landinvestors.com, but not discord. And I'm about to call him myself.
Jill DeWit: What does that mean?
Steven Butala: There's some older established people that have been with us for five years that don't know about discord.
Jill DeWit: Oh, okay. You're about beating that dead horse now, by the way. So I think we got it.
Steven Butala: This is such an invaluable tool.
Jill DeWit: Okay, thanks. Jason wrote, "I have a deal that I have a seller willing to sell and a buyer ready to buy." Nice. "The buyer wants to go through title of his expense. My first thought is to do a notary close, get the land deeded to me and record it. And then...", Sorry, I lost the question.
Steven Butala: Oh, I'm sorry.
Jill DeWit: You're fine.
Steven Butala: That was my fault.
Jill DeWit: You got it. "And then go to the title company with the deed in hand and then sell to the buyer." I get it, and do title insurance then. That's what Jason's talking about. "So I disclosed this to the seller and he says, he's an investigator. And he asked..."
Steven Butala: He's an investor.
Jill DeWit: Oh, excuse me. Anyway, "...and he asked, 'Well, why don't I just assign the contract and then collect the assignment fee versus the double close?' I don't know why not, so, I wanted to ask the group. We all live in a different city across Texas. So I don't know if the assignment may be too messy for the seller, that I've already said I would just send a check for the notary close. Pros versus cons on the double close versus the assignment." So I'm going to go first, sir.
Steven Butala: Actually, you can just go.
Jill DeWit: You know what's funny? This has come up a couple of times in Clubhouse.
Steven Butala: Jill loves Clubhouse.
Jill DeWit: I do, just as much as you love discord. And it's interesting, but anyway,
Steven Butala: Jill has her new baby and it's called Clubhouse. And she feeds it and pays tons of attention..
Jill DeWit: So do you, Mr... Yes. Anyway, it's not about me right now. So this has come up because a lot of people do this successfully. And it's kind of like it's given the wholesaling term a bad name. So you've got to be real careful here. So let me back up and just explain. So there's a couple ways to do this. So you bought a property, you're under contract, whatever it is to buy it, and you start shopping it around to some of your buyers and you find out, "Yeah, I want to buy it." And you're like, "Huh, okay, wait a minute. He's ready to go. And the seller's ready to go. I can just take a piece in the middle." That's what he's talking about doing an assignme...
Working with Your Spouse (JJ 635 / LA 1494) Transcript: Jack Butala: Jack and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Hi. Jack Butala: Welcome to the Jack Jill Show, entertaining real estate investment advice. I’m Jack Butala. Jill DeWit: And, I’m Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny southern California. Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about working with your spouse. Jill DeWit: What could be more fun? Jack Butala: This is a topic I feel extremely qualified to discuss. Jill DeWit: Aw. Jack Butala: In public. Jill DeWit: It’s every day. Jack Butala: Unlike most of the topics we talk about. Jill DeWit: There’s a new surprise that just makes me want to do it more. Jack Butala: So, what should the title really be? Jill DeWit: Oh, my gosh. Jack Butala: It should be Working with your Spouse- Jill DeWit: Without Killing Someone. Jack Butala: Working with your Spouse,- Speaker 3: Go ahead. Jack Butala: Without Killing Someone. Jill DeWit: Or, Yourself. Jack Butala: I think that’s how it should be, Work Without Your Spouse. Jill DeWit: Oh. Jack Butala: How did we end up like this? Working together? Jill DeWit: You know why? Jack Butala: What the hell- Jill DeWit: I have a lot to say about this. Jack Butala: We’ll get into it in a minute here. Jill DeWit: Okay. Jack Butala: Before we actually do get into it, let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the jackjill.com online community, it’s free. Jill DeWit: Okay, Rick G. asked, “Hi. I have a seller who will sell a 40 acre property in ___ County, Arizona, for $8,000.00, about eight miles from ___ city. The owner tells me,” he wrote, I’m not doing that on purpose, “roads are good enough to be traverse with a two wheel drive.” This is really good. “Planning to re-sell at $12,000.00, which should be more competitive than when I typically see on Land Watch for this county.” Aw, and he even included a satellite image of a property on this site. “I’m looking for a money partner to fund this deal, and split the profits 50/50. Here are the sample prices from Land Watch for this county on 40 acre properties,” and he puts $32,000.00, $25,000.00, $24,900.00, $13,000.00, $39.9, $24.4, $29.9 … do you want me to keep going, Jack? Jack Butala: No, it’s $30,000.00. $20,000.00-$30,000.00 comparison values. Jill DeWit: There’s one funky one in there for $13,000.00, so the lowest is $13,000.00- Jack Butala: Which is probably a Land Academy member. Jill DeWit: Right? And, the highest is $37,500.00 thousand dollars. Jack Butala: It might even be us. Jill DeWit: So, this is really, really good. Thank you for doing your homework. We all know he can buy it for $8,000.00. Okay. “Planning on posting this on the Member Deal Board, also, but I’m working with getting it set up. Please let me know if interested.” Jack Butala: I love it. Jill DeWit: Okay. Jack Butala: So, you did every single thing right here. This member did everything right. That’s exactly what we teach. For $8,000.00, and you have it by county, that’s a heck of a deal.
Jill Friday - Best Investors Know their Limits (LA 1493) Transcript:
Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Happy Friday.
Steven J Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt broadcasting from sweet Scottsdale Arizona.
Steven J Butala: Today, it's Jill Friday. And she talks about the best investors. Know their limits.
Jill K DeWit: Yes.
Steven J Butala: And my head's a little smaller because Jill-
Jill K DeWit: Informed you of your limits?
Steven J Butala: I mean physically smaller in front of this camera because she backed me up. So we're a little bit more equal. She said, "You know, they've been meaning to tell you your heads a little bit big because you're sitting too far forward", which prompted as you can imagine quite the conversation.
Jill K DeWit: That's great. I thought you were going to say I put... Like, let's talk about your limits, babe.
Steven J Butala: Oh we're going to talk about that in a minute.
Jill K DeWit: Okay good.
Steven J Butala: And your limits.
Jill K DeWit: Oh great. Thanks.
Steven J Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And if you're already a member, join us on discord.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. This is cute. So Luke, our infamous Luke Smith wrote, "Have you guys ever been pooed on by a barn owl? I went to get pictures of some land today that is covered in junk and try and figure how much it costs and clean it up and sell it. Looking into this slide sling blade"
Steven J Butala: "Sling blade looking tool shed built on telephone poles, the owl came right at me when I was in the doorway, dumped white goo all over my hat"
Jill K DeWit: The hat.
Steven J Butala: "Front side of my shirt, backside, as well as my shorts leg and shoe. It got my dog, some of my dog also in the same second. Amazing load of crap right there. By the way..." This is a perfect Luke Smith format.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven J Butala: "Got a commercial retail vacant lot under contract today, 54,000. By-side 135,000 south side, on land tank. Another land tank deal closes today. Buy for 55 south through title at 122."
Steven J Butala: Even owl poop doesn't stop Luke from making money.
Jill K DeWit: Not the good hat, not his favorite hat.
Steven J Butala: A lot of people had some stuff to say, this is on discord.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah.
Steven J Butala: A lot of people had owl stories. So it turns out, I didn't know this until all this came out on discord that owls are strategic about who they poop on-
Jill K DeWit: Oh, for real?
Steven J Butala: And territorial and why. Yeah. Especially when there's dogs, they don't want the dogs around.
Jill K DeWit: So, it wasn't a coincidence that he flew by and happened to release at that moment.
Steven J Butala: Nope. Not at all. It was a full blown-
Jill K DeWit: Attack.
Steven J Butala: Dive bomb, fighter jet dive bomb.
Jill K DeWit: All right. Noted. Yet another reason to not go out and look at your property. I'm poo free today.
Steven J Butala: Yeah, me too. And he would've made numbers anyway. True. He likes the drama.
Jill K DeWit: He does.
Steven J Butala: And he likes to report the drama to us.
Jill K DeWit: Yes. That's funny.
Steven J Butala: Today's topic is Jill Friday. Best investors know their limits. This is the meat of the show.
Jill K DeWit: Nice. Okay. So this came from, I was thinking about some of our discussions in career path. So career path is, This is our first time ever running it this year. It's a small elite group of 15 people that we do now once a quarter and take you from wherever you are right now to wherever you want to be personally. How's that?
Jill K DeWit: So, one of the things we talked about, because there's some really awesome people in there. And I was just sitting back and thinking about how well everyone in this group kind o...
Jack Thursday - More Deals Less Work (LA 1492) Transcript:
Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven J Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from awesome Scottsdale, Arizona
Steven J Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about how it's Jack Thursday, and more deals and less work is my current goal in life.
Jill K DeWit: Yes.
Steven J Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. If you're already a Land Academy member, please join us on Discord.
Jill K DeWit: I'd like to back up for just a moment.
Jill K DeWit: Shouldn't that be everybody's goal?
Steven J Butala: You know-
Jill K DeWit: It's not just your personal goal. It happens to be mine, too.
Steven J Butala: I know. It's Jack Thursday, so it's kind of about me. Jill Friday is tomorrow.
Jill K DeWit: Oh, excuse me. Oh, it's about you. Sorry. Oops.
Steven J Butala: Well, I'll give you an example where this should not be your goal. If you haven't done your first deal yet, this doesn't apply to you. You just need to get past that first deal. In fact, Joe Long said, get 10 deals under your belt, see if you really want to do this. But if this is now your career and you're full-time, this would absolutely be your goal.
Jill K DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Totally.
Jill K DeWit: Okay, Miguel wrote, I failed my first mailer.
Jill K DeWit: He thinks he failed his first mailer. Let's see here.
Jill K DeWit: I had co ... Oh
Steven J Butala: I love to throw Jill for a loop on these questions because she doesn't read them before.
Jill K DeWit: No, I have no idea. This is cold, in case you can't tell. In case you did not know, this is totally unrehearsed.
Steven J Butala: In fact, this is the most that Jill and I talk to each other the entire week.
Jill K DeWit: This is true. Only on Thursdays.
Jill K DeWit: I had calls sent to my Google voice number voicemail, and I missed most of the calls. Won't happen again. I have PATLive now. No deals, no acceptance on any offers, but a few angry owners left messages. I offered 20% of the assessed land value per the data tree column just to get the mail out. Any tips from a pro are appreciated.
Jill K DeWit: Well, [inaudible 00:02:04] without giving Miguel ... Miguel kind of knows.
Steven J Butala: No, I do.
Jill K DeWit: We've got a couple of things he already figured out. You want to-
Steven J Butala: Here's the good news. Here's good news, Miguel, this failure is one step closer to success. If I added up all my failures, oh my gosh.
Jill K DeWit: Sorry, I wasn't laughing at you. I was just giggling.
Steven J Butala: One of my really long time friends for decades came to me and said, "Look, I've got this great business idea. I'm not sure where to start and I could really use your advice." And I said, "I'm happy to help you, but I will tell you, no one can turn a dollar into 50 cents like me." I said, of all the companies Jill and I have ever started and all the stuff I've ever done, the ones that we have right now are the ones that were leftover because they succeeded.
Jill K DeWit: They made the cut.
Steven J Butala: And they're the most recent. All the failures and all of that, we don't have a show about failing at companies. We have the Land Academy Show.
Steven J Butala: Don't get discouraged. That's the good news. I will tell you, this questioning and the few points in here, I have to really seriously request, and please take this to heart, this is for everybody, you got to go through the steps, the Land Academy steps. You've got to go through the program. You have to participate in our Thursday calls. That's how you get the most up-to-date information on the tools that we use. You have to use the Discord, and you put this in Discord which is awesome.
Top Three Data and Pricing Tips (LA 1491) Transcript:
Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven J Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And, I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from sunny, I almost wanted to say Southern California, but I'm not there right now. It's just a habit. Sunny, Scottsdale Arizona.
Steven J Butala: Today Jill and I talk about the top three data and pricing tips.
Jill K DeWit: I can't wait. So, I'm sorry. Do we have three of each?
Steven J Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: Oh.
Steven J Butala: My top three of each.
Jill K DeWit: This is going to be good. This is important.
Steven J Butala: This is crazy, crazy important. And it's an imperative step to, I think, being really successful at this. There's a bunch of steps, but pricing and data it's all centered around that.
Jill K DeWit: Yep.
Steven J Butala: So, before we get into that, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the Landinvestors.com online community. It's free and if you're already a Land Academy member, please join us on the Discord.
Jill K DeWit: Bobby wrote, "Hello land investors/Land Academy community. I hope you're all doing well. When scrubbing our lists, do you guys filter out owners who have owned their property for less than X, fill in the blank, years? For example, I am wondering if excluding owners who have owned their property for less than three years or whatever helps avoid wasting postage on those who just purchased the land and are less likely to want to sell. Money, saved as money earned, right? And postage is expensive. In the name of efficiency, what has been your experience?"
Jill K DeWit: You want to go first?
Steven J Butala: Yeah. I don't think money saved is money earned. I think money spent as money earned when it comes to the postage and all of that. Number one, number two, I don't know where this comes from. There's a whole handful, not a ton of things, but there's a ton of topics right now, somebody out there who's less qualified, way less qualified than us is saying to do some certain things just probably because they're real out about it. No, we don't. If this makes sense to you, here's a real answer. If it makes sense to you do it. We have never done that.
Jill K DeWit: If it makes sense to you, I'm sorry. Don't do it. Let me save you. This is one of the things about us that makes us different. So many people are trying to save a penny and send only due back tax property or only do out-of-state owners or they think there's some magic to getting a really small whatever list and you know what? You're missing a lot of people. So, what I cannot tell you how much wonderful property I have bought from people who fit this mold.
Jill K DeWit: Dad just passed on, probate was done. The property just got in their name a month ago. Everybody paid the taxes on it. It's all current. They just don't know what to do with it. And they just got my letter. You would have missed them. Oh, and they live in the same state. By the way they lived, they live in the same city as this property that dad had down the road and I'm buying it. They just don't want it. It's all about the situation. And you just can't assume one thing. You can't assume that because they're paying the taxes on it. They love it. No, a lot of people are paying the taxes on it because they didn't know they could not pay the taxes on it. That's the reality.
Steven J Butala: Here's the big picture perception, my perception of what's happening with some of these topics, specifically mailer efficiency. And, then I'm going to follow it up with a incredible success story that happened to us yesterday in career path.
Jill K DeWit: Okay.
Steven J Butala: So, what you're really asking is Bobby, what you're asking is how can I make my mailer efficiency or my mailer yield more efficient? How can I send out less mailers and buy more property?
When to Perform Due Diligence (LA 1490) Transcript:
Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hey.
Steven J Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sweet Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven J Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about when to perform due diligence on a land deal.
Jill K DeWit: For every property before the mail goes out.
Steven J Butala: This is a snarky little topic where we don't want you to waste time. We only want you to do due diligence on properties that have already-
Jill K DeWit: I'm going to help you.
Steven J Butala: ... pass the financial test first.
Jill K DeWit: I'm going to help you. We got this.
Steven J Butala: But before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free if you're already a Land Academy member, please join us on Discord.
Jill K DeWit: Cool. Mike wrote, "Hi guys. I'm trying to conduct my due diligence on a property that I got a response on today."
Steven J Butala: That I got a response on today.
Jill K DeWit: Thank you. What the heck was that? Oh my god, could you imagine-
Steven J Butala: If I conducted-
Jill K DeWit: Wait, wait, wait I've got to say this. Could you imagine if we walked around like that in life?
Steven J Butala: Let's do it. Let's do it all show today, on the whole episode today.
Jill K DeWit: This would be so fun, like, hey, what do you want for lunch? What do you want for lunch?
Steven J Butala: I'm sure there's people like that.
Jill K DeWit: This is awful.
Steven J Butala: Let's do it right now, annoying and funny.
Jill K DeWit: It's annoying and funny.
Steven J Butala: She says.
Jill K DeWit: This is awful. That's a good one.
Steven J Butala: Let's do it.
Jill K DeWit: Do you remember that movie, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days? That would be the way. If you go on a first date and you act like that, you announce whatever the person says like that with emphasis on all the wrong words too.
Steven J Butala: Yeah.
Jill K DeWit: Oh, this is good. Anyway. Okay, this is going to be funny. "I looked it up on the county assessor's website" ... I'm waiting for you to do it again.
Steven J Butala: I'll do it at the end of the sentence for effect.
Jill K DeWit: Oh, okay. Got it. "But it wouldn't pull up on the county map. It only gave a general area to look."
Steven J Butala: A general area to look.
Jill K DeWit: "No luck. I took the APN from the county data and I tried to look it up on the ParcelFact. Still no luck. Any suggestions on a workaround for this issue? I also tried calling county assessor, but they were not any help either. Thanks." County assessor, no help.
Steven J Butala: So what's going on with Mike here, Jill?
Jill K DeWit: Oh, this is totally easy. Okay. So he's just having trouble finding the APN. So sometimes it's a formatting issue. No big deal. You and I do ... Well, hold on a moment. I'll get to that in just a second. There's two parts of this question. One is I can't find the property because of my APN's mis-formatted, or something's on here wrong. I don't know what to do. So, the quickest, fastest, easiest way is to jump into something like TitlePro or DataTree, search by owner name. You have that. Or if you're staring at your purchase agreement back in the mail and you've got a reference number on it, maybe jump back into your master spreadsheet where you downloaded the data, look up and see what the correct formatting is somewhat. Usually it's in there. Like when you download the data, there's usually two ways of format APNs, and sometimes there's even an ownership number, depending on the area that starts with like an R one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. You might be able to find it like that.
Jill K DeWit: But my easiest way is just go search by owner last name, and then you can find it in one of the other sources and go,
Why are We Still Talking about a Secret County List-There is No Such Thing (LA 1489) Transcript:
Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Good day.
Steven J Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven J Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about why are we still talking about the Secret County List?
Jill K DeWit: Really?
Steven J Butala: There's no such thing.
Jill K DeWit: Really. Thank you for listening. I had to push this forward as a podcast topic because I can't believe it's still coming up.
Steven J Butala: There is no such thing as a Secret County List to send mail to buy property.
Jill K DeWit: Right. We're going to explain where this came from, why it's popular, what it is, and what you should do to save yourself.
Steven J Butala: It's frustrating a lot of people, and we don't want to see that.
Jill K DeWit: Exactly.
Steven J Butala: We want you to succeed.
Jill K DeWit: Exactly.
Steven J Butala: Before we get into it let's take a question posted by one of our members on thelandinvestors.com online community. It's free. If you're already with us as a Land Academy member, join us on Discord.
Jill K DeWit: Mike wrote, "I have been using the purchase agreement from Land Academy. I've recently had a seller call back and want to back out of the contract because he now wants to sell it to his daughter instead." If I had a nickel...
Steven J Butala: Yeah, this is very common.
Jill K DeWit: Uh-huh (affirmative). My brother, my mom, whatever. "I sent the contract to a lawyer here in Oregon, and this is his response below. I have the purchase agreement and it was signed by the seller and dated on July 15th." It's like valid until July 15, 2021. That's it. Okay. So I guess he copied and pasted there. Great. And then he goes on to say, "Has anyone else ever been in something like this? I could make a lot of money in this deal and I want to make sure it's worth it. I have seen Steve talk about how the PA is fine and sufficient enough to hold a seller to a contract. Any advice would be great." I would love to go first if I may.
Steven J Butala: Sure. Yeah. I mean, I really shortened this.
Jill K DeWit: Obviously.
Steven J Butala: Out of respect for my co-host cause last week.
Jill K DeWit: There were a mile long.
Steven J Butala: She said they're too long.
Jill K DeWit: Will you give me a real quick two seconds? What did the lawyer say?
Steven J Butala: Well, there's a lot of money involved. He was going to make a bunch of money.
Jill K DeWit: But did the lawyer have a comment?
Steven J Butala: Yeah. The lawyer said you're out of luck.
Jill K DeWit: Oh.
Steven J Butala: And so did our moderator, Kevin. And so do I. That's what I say.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. So here's the point. Here's what I was going to say. Even if the lawyer says a version of this: "Oh, absolutely binding. Here's what we do. You could expect these fees. It's going to take this long and you're going to get this deal." I don't want to be that guy. So I kind of don't really care what the lawyer says. And this came up, was it on a Thursday? It came up recently. Somebody asked me this exact question basically like, "What do you do?" You know, do you push it? Like, no, do you want to be that guy. Do you want to spend your time, your money, your energy chasing somebody down for a dumb deal.
Jill K DeWit: I don't even care. I do not care if this stands up in court. Do you want to go to court over this? No, you don't want to do that. Yeah. My exact answer was, "I let karma work these things out." Totally fine.
Steven J Butala: I could not agree more with everything single thing you said. We live in a world now where it's very popular on television, in the media, and even like in fictitious stories now where there's just a victim, and it ends up in a courtroom,
Jill Friday - Three Ps and What Makes a Great Land Investor (LA 1488) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt broadcasting from sweet Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Jack Butala: Today. Jill and I talk about... Well, it's Jill Friday and her three P's and what makes a great land investor.
Jill K DeWit: Versus a good one. I think I did a week or so ago on Clubhouse and people were trying to figure out, "Hey, what's the difference?" Really, it came to be who are these career path people because they look at it for them as great, great investors because they're really putting the money and the time and energy into making this a really a career kind of thing. And so people say, "Well, they're obviously great investors. What makes them stand out?" All right, I'm going to put some thought into this. What do I think is the difference here? And then you and I talked about it and I did the first two, three P's, and you came up with the 3rd P, which we'll share in a few minutes.
Jill K DeWit: And I did this little talk on Clubhouse and it was really fun. It was an open discussion as Clubhouse always is. It was super fun. By the way too, I'd like to note, thank you for my pretty flowers. For those of you who are watching us on YouTube right now, you notice I put some pretty red roses behind me that Steven got me for, what was the occasion?
Steven Jack Butala: For no reason at all because I like to.
Jill K DeWit: These are really nice. Thank you. So now that they look so pretty behind us, we should make this a thing.
Steven Jack Butala: Oh, this is Jill's way of getting flowers every single week.
Jill K DeWit: You better believe it is.
Steven Jack Butala: Which I have no problem with.
Jill K DeWit: Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala: If there's a subscription flower service.
Jill K DeWit: I'm sure there is. It's called 800 flowers. You could probably have different color roses and stuff. Do you want me to just do it for you?
Steven Jack Butala: No, no, no, I'll do it. I'll go do it. I mean, I wonder if Amazon's probably got a floral component to it. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. If you're already a Land Academy member, please join us on Discord. It's a tremendous tool to get every question you've ever had about this answered. And if you're just a lurker, it's a great way to learn through other people's questions. I'm on there all the time all day.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. So this is a lengthy one. I'm going to go through the whole thing here, but it's a great question that we have. Yes.
Jill K DeWit: Greg wrote, "Hi everyone. Another fun story to share with the group and looking for any advice. I have a property in blank that has no legal access. The road doesn't quite make it there that I sold/I'm selling on a land contract. Of course, I told the guy I didn't think it had legal access, but he wanted to buy it anyway for a low price. That was a year ago. So a month ago, I get a letter from the Property Owners Association indicating that the parcel has trucks and trailers and all of stuff parked on it and apparently it's in the middle of this association and the road that almost leads there is owned by the Property Owners Association, the POA. The POA asked for all the stuff to be removed within 30 days and to stop trespassing or they would call the sheriff. I told the guy that I sold the place to, again, it was under land contract and he wasn't too happy and has missed his March payment. I fear he's going to back out of the contract and I understand why. So today, I get a letter in the mail from an attorney in the state saying that they represent the Property Owners Association and they go on to say that all the junk is still on the property.
Jack Thursday - Mailers are Never Finished (LA 1487) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from sweet Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about how it's Jack Thursday, how mailers are really, truly never finished like art.
Jill K DeWit: Yes.
Steven Jack Butala: At this point in my career, there's more art in doing a really good well-priced mailer, one's that's really effective than there is a science or technical talent.
Jill K DeWit: You think so, really?
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. I think when a painter learns to paint, it's all about technical stuff. Or when you learn to play the guitar in the beginning, it's all about getting the techniques down. And further along in their career, it just becomes an art effort.
Jill K DeWit: I understand.
Steven Jack Butala: I don't know. Is it that way with your end of the business, you think?
Jill K DeWit: Mine's all art. It's a little bit of both.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.
Jill K DeWit: And if you're a Land Academy member, please join us on Discord. All right. Doug wrote, "Hi, I'm in the middle of purchasing a parcel in North Carolina. To get an idea of what price I should sell it at, I'd like to talk to a local realtor to get their thoughts on what the parcel might be worth. Especially, is it a zone for agricultural use? How are you approaching realtors with this question, especially if you don't actually plan to work with them to sell the property?"
Jill K DeWit: Well, first of all, I never let them think that. I let them think that I'm... which I really am. Because what if they really are awesome. I do let them think that I am interviewing them if they want to maybe sell my property and you get to know each other. They might be fantastic. Because I've had some guys that just blew my socks off. I've had some that didn't, but that's the whole point.
Jill K DeWit: So number one, what you want to do is make sure you have it locked in. I want you to have it a signed purchase agreement. You shouldn't even doing anything without a signed purchase agreement anyway, because as far as I'm concerned, it's not a real deal. Anybody could change their mind at that point. You could speak vaguely enough that it's almost done, preferably you have it in escrow. That's my second thing.
Jill K DeWit: If I'm that serious about it, I'm talking to brokers and agents trying to get an idea of what to sell it at. I feel pretty good about it and like, "Hey, I'm just closing on this," and then that's all I'll say. "I think I know what I'm going to do with it, but I'm just reaching out. You look like the expert in the area. I'm reaching out to find out what your thoughts are, what you think we could sell this for, and in what timeframe."
Jill K DeWit: The other thing I also tell agents and brokers is, "Hey, I'm not that guy. I'm not holding out for retail, by the way. So I hope to be your favorite person. I really want this to go within 30 days. So be aggressive. Tell me what you really think."
Steven Jack Butala: I also think you should explain to the person that you're happily, we'll pay them 10%. But you want to feel like you got all of it. You got the service that you needed, that the buyer's a correct buyer. And that the person really did put a lot of work into it, unlike most residential real estate agents who don't understand what work is.
Jill K DeWit: You're bashing on them a lot this week. Are you okay? Did you have some run in? Did a real estate agent rear end you, and I don't know about it?
Steven Jack Butala: You know what happened, why I'm real down on real estate agents? Somebody in a Land Academy Discord group asked, they said, "Look,
Land Academy Members Overall Deal Quality is Now Amazing (LA 1486) Transcript: Steve Butala:Steve and Jill here. Jill K DeWit:Howdy. Steve Butala:Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investing talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit:And I'm Jill Dewitt broadcasting from sunny Scottsdale, Arizona. What was the long pause there for? Steve Butala:I forgot my line. Jill K DeWit:Wow. Steve Butala:I've said it 1,485 times. Jill K DeWit:1486, okay. Sorry. Steve Butala:Today Jill and I talk about how the Land Academy members, their overall deal quality is now amazing. Yesterday, we talked about at the end of the show, every Thursday, Jill and I have a member call. It's a webinar. It began a lot of years ago. We're on episode, I mean, it's thousands of hours now. Jill K DeWit:Every week. Steve Butala:Every Thursday. And it began as a continuing education product a lot of years ago where I would just sit and talk. Jill K DeWit:Answer questions. Just answer your questions about things, rant here and there. Steve Butala:And it evolved over the years into us giving our opinions about members deals, whether they should buy it property or how much they should sell it. Or just a general question forum. Jill K DeWit:We have the Land Investors online community, which we're going to talk about here in a second. And I'm going to read a question from there, which is great to write things in, but sometimes you need to see things. It became a, you know, especially visual became, you know what, here I'll show you what I do kind of thing. And then it evolved into the call and the what are you want to call it? It's a tool that it is today. The resource. Sometimes it's more entertainment, entertainment and information. Entertainment first I think. And then information second. Steve Butala:And Jill and I treat the deals as if they were our own. So we would look it up, do the due diligence, check the floodplain, check the pricing, as if it was our own deals. Jill K DeWit:Yeah. It's every Thursday. I love it. And it's funny because now it's a thing, I know people are just, I'm sure there's people that may or not be doing as aggressively doing deals, but they're on every Thursday call because it's just so funny. And we can share things because it's not edited like iTunes and Spotify. Steve Butala:It's not necessarily rated Google like this show is. Jill K DeWit:And all the places that you get this show, so we can kind of really cut loose and be silly and have fun. It's hilarious. And there's interaction. Steve Butala:It's very real. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. If you're already a member, join us in real time on Discord. Jill K DeWit:Greg wrote, and this is going to be a little bit lengthy, I'll let you know now. "So the way I look at pricing is you can't make everyone happy with the same pricing at X dollars per acre. This is because the values of the properties in any sample, regardless of the size will vary. So let's assume a normal distribution. You can one, set your price based on the lowest junk you can find on the web. And most of the calls you get back will be from owners of the lowest priced junk in that sample and perhaps a diamond. Downside is you self-select to the junkers and lose out on the larger number of nicer properties in the higher value in that sample." Steve Butala:Before you go on to number two, he's dead right, Greg and this is why I chose your question. And this is how we used to do it. This is how in the early nineties, before we had all this information, before there was a Zillow or Trulia or realtor.com or any type of real comparison value online mechanism that you can get real time like you can now, that's what we used to do. Jill K DeWit:Thank you. Steve Butala:Did I wreck your rhythm? Jill K DeWit:No, it's okay. "Number two, set your price based on the mean value in that sample,
The Story of Two Broker Opinions (LA 1485) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny, Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about the story of two broker opinions. In life, sometimes brokers don't agree.
Jill K DeWit: It's funny. It's funny how you reach out- [crosstalk 00:00:20]-
Steven Jack Butala: Sometimes couples don't agree.
Jill K DeWit: Not us, other couples.
Steven Jack Butala: No, it's peaches and cream with Jill and I, every minute.
Jill K DeWit: Steven, I can't tell you how much I appreciate it. The way you just cheerily jump out of bed every morning and are always just smiling and never serious, just giddy.
Steven Jack Butala: Especially during the COVID.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah. Oh, that was my favorite time, I love that quality time we got to spend together.
Steven Jack Butala: Nobody, nobody likes work Steve, especially Jill.
Jill K DeWit: Exactly. I get to see it all.
Steven Jack Butala: Everybody loves drinking Steve.
Jill K DeWit: Oh yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: But not work, Steve.
Jill K DeWit: And spending Steve and rewarding Steve and like, sure, why not? Buy it Steve. Okay.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into today, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's completely free and if you're already a member, please join us on Discord, it's a blast.
Jill K DeWit: Austin wrote, flood pocalypse.
Steven Jack Butala: This is the title of his question, flood pocalypse.
Jill K DeWit: Flood pocalypse, I love it. "What do you folks do regarding your due diligence for flood plains? I found some info for the following designations. Holy moly. A, AE, A1-A30, AH, AO, AR, A99, V, VE, V1-V30. It's Greek to me...
Steven Jack Butala: Me too. Not really.
Jill K DeWit: ... If there's anything floody that comes up, do you pass or does it depend? Also, please share what tools you use. Thanks, Austin." This is very sweet. So, Laurie very nicely wrote, "hey Austin. As a rule of thumb, regulatory flood plains are unusable...
Steven Jack Butala: Yep.
Jill K DeWit: ... Other designations have varied implications depending on the place. I do a quick check using the FEMA flood map overlay, which you can find in neighborscoop.com and it's available on the fema.gov site, to see what others have done with land in the same flood designation areas. Is there a house? Is there a barn? Mobile? Crops? Boat tied up to a fence? If I want a purpose or I want to pursue the property, I'll call the county and find out what the requirements are, if any, to build in the flood plain. He didn't mention wetlands, there's still a hope, if the properties in the floodplain, wetlands hopeless. Best, Laurie."
Steven Jack Butala: Couldn't have said it better myself. All of it.
Jill K DeWit: Yep. Now, Kevin says don't mess with it.
Steven Jack Butala: Kevin the moderator says, one short sentence, "don't mess with it."
Jill K DeWit: So I guess- [crosstalk 00:03:16].
Steven Jack Butala: They're both completely right.
Jill K DeWit: So, it depends on what it is, for me. So for example, I use neighborscoop.com, I have it open all day, every day. So, property comes in, I pull up my NeighborScoop and that's one of the things that I go through, my quick, little, five minute, phase one due diligence and I'll see if it falls under flood plain. And then, I'll start on, say it's a light purple and so I'm like, "all right, what else has been built in light purple? And when was it built?" Because that's the beauty of NeighborScoop, I can click on it and go, "all right, this isn't a flood pipe. Look, here's a house that was just built or a barn or something, in 2010, I can see it on there, I pulled up the property history, so it's no big deal. And they solved it.
Be a Producer Not a Consumer (LA 1484) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala
Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt, broadcasting from sweet Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Jack Butala: Today Jill and I talk about how I think you really should be a producer more than a consumer, which is a ridiculous podcast topic because you're consuming this podcast.
Jill K DeWit: Yeah, [crosstalk 00:00:21] excited about that. I'm like, it's interesting when you wrote that down, you're like, "That's a great line." The other day, I'm like, "Where are we going to go with that?" So I do have some questions.
Steven Jack Butala: Somebody in our land academy accountability group said, they typed this in and said, and so I really think that's good advice for, you need to be a land investor, you need to produce.
Jill K DeWit: Okay. I have questions. I'll save them for the show.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on our landinvestors.com online community. It's free and if you're already a member, please join us on discord.
Jill K DeWit: You love the discord.
Steven Jack Butala: I do love the discord.
Jill K DeWit: Thank goodness that's not a drinking game. I bet it is actually.
Steven Jack Butala: For somebody it is.
Jill K DeWit: Oh my gosh. It started on our Thursday call and now it's just become a thing that we have a few keywords that we tend to maybe overuse. Like I've stopped saying dreamy, all of you.
Steven Jack Butala: I have some too. Like tragic.
Jill K DeWit: Tragic, yeah. That's a good one.
Steven Jack Butala: This is a tragic piece of real estate.
Jill K DeWit: Oh yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: And you're approaching this in a very tragic way.
Jill K DeWit: Exactly. Slopeyness. That's another one. So anyway, it's funny, it's turn into a thing and discord is one of the words. As is Clubhouse and we'll get to that later.
Steven Jack Butala: Yep.
Jill K DeWit: So Rebecca wrote, "Hi, all. Quick question I need advice on. I have a sold lot in North Carolina. It's closing on January 8th." This is a couple of weeks ago. "We had no idea if it was perced." Oh my gosh.
Steven Jack Butala: Perced is a drinking word.
Jill K DeWit: That's a drinking word for me. That is a trigger word for me. I've got to tell you right now.
Steven Jack Butala: It is a trigger word for me, too.
Jill K DeWit: I hate perc and any version of the word perc. So we don't even have a percolator coffee thing. Anyway, "Buyer was told to do her due diligence and sign a contract. Seeing they're responsible for all due diligence on the lot. The buyer never did a perc because-
Steven Jack Butala: [crosstalk 00:02:19].
Jill K DeWit: ... because it would've taken too long. We're not going to hold a lot for her that long. Neither of us, nor the buyer knew if it perced. Today, randomly, some realtor who we don't know, just emailed us out of the blue and said, "oh, the lot does not perc." An old client of hers ran a perc test and it failed. I don't know who this realtor is or why she's contacting us. Should I just close it to the buyer. Please advise, please." You want to go first?
Steven Jack Butala: Buck response. This is, in land investors-
Jill K DeWit: [inaudible 00:02:50] people wrote in.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, this gets great. I would not have put this in here if it's not fantastically entertaining.
Jill K DeWit: You've got lines and lines here. I see responses.
Steven Jack Butala: There's multiple responses, including our moderator.
Jill K DeWit: All right. You want to read Buck and I'll read the back half?
Steven Jack Butala: Buck response, "sounds like sour grapes." I couldn't agree more. I always refer buyers to the county septic department if they have questions about getting a permit. Getting this hearsay from a questionable source,
Jill Friday - So Much Fun Looking at Our Properties (LA 1483) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hey.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sweet Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about how it's Jill Friday and how much fun we have looking at our properties right now.
Jill DeWit: Kind of eating your words.
Steven Butala: I thought you said never go look at your properties. You should never leave your desk.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, you lose money.
Steven Butala: Well, this is the way we do it, it's kind of fun. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. If you're already a member, please join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: Of Land Academy. That's right.
Steven Butala: You will learn stuff. I learn stuff every day.
Jill DeWit: Cool. Dave wrote, I've got several sellers lined up from my first mailing and I wonder which deed to create and mail to the notary for the transfer? The initial deal is from a seller who's owned the property since the early 90s, and the county website says he purchased a quick claim deed following a public auction. I just told him I would send him a deed to sign without bothering to figure out what kind of create. How do you decide which deed to use? I use DeedPerfect.
Steven Butala: Whatever it spits out.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. For the most part. For the most part, hold on a moment.
Steven Butala: DeedPerfect is a site that we own.
Jill DeWit: Let's just say, because most of the time, you do need to check and make sure, but usually most of the time it's a normal transfer. Where'd you go? And it's saying California. It's a grant deed. Other places, it's a special warranty deed. That's usually what we're doing. I'm not going to do another quick claim deed, that's used for a certain situation. [inaudible 00:01:52] back up, Dave, first just kind of researching, it's really easy to, research in google types of deeds and what they mean.
Steven Butala: It's very state specific.
Jill DeWit: You need to first understand what is a warranty, what's a quick claim deed, what's a trust deed. There's different kinds of deeds, treasurers deed. Just because they obtained the property that way, this is one of the mistakes that I made originally. I had a property, I'm looking at a treasurer's deed, and I was brand spanking new at this. And I thought, okay, you always copy the same deed before. So I'm redoing it and I called it a treasurer's deed. I'm not a treasurer, I don't do a treasurer's deed. So, you just need to understand what the deeds are, first of all, and who uses them.
Steven Butala: Thank you for not asking me which one to use.
Jill DeWit: Oh, you're welcome.
Steven Butala: I really appreciate that you don't ask me that.
Jill DeWit: I learned, I learned, like, oh, so I'm not a treasurer so you don't use a treasure's deed. That's just how they bought it. Now, when I sell it, now it goes to a special warranty deed. Say if it's that appropriate state, California might be a grant deed. So my cheat sheet, first of all is, I use DeedPerfect because for the 99% of normal transactions that you're doing, the deed is universal and it can be found in deedperfect.com. And we made this site to solve this problem for everybody. If you're a Land Academy member, it's free. Everybody else is like a hundred bucks. Rocket Lawyer, and those guys are like 200 bucks, or it's like a couple hundred bucks for one deed. Ours are $99, that's it.
Steven Butala: We got tired of doing our own deeds. We were doing so many deeds that we said, you know what, we need to build a site and we're not going to pay Rocket Lawyer or whatever else. The way that those sites are set up, it's not set up for what we do.
Jill DeWit: It's not to spit out a deed, I don't know what it's used for,
Jack Thursday - Just for Engineers and Business Owners (LA 1482) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sweet, sunny, Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about how it's Jack Thursday, just for engineers and business owners.
Jill DeWit: Bye-bye.
Steven Butala: We have a tremendous number of business owners and engineers in our group, and I'm going to talk about why, and so is Jill.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and if you're already a member, I urge you to join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: Okie dokie. Chris wrote, "Hi, my name is Chris B., and I've only been a member for maybe two weeks and I've watched all the videos." Chris, those are two weeks you'll never get back. Just kidding. Good for you. I am happy, you blew through that. "I didn't know if there was a place on the website to make myself available to fund deals. Any input is appreciated." There is. There's two ways.
Steven Butala: Well, there's two that I know of, but let's see if they're the same.
Jill DeWit: One is where you could be watching for deals via LandTank and HouseTank. When people need money, that's where they post them. And you can just go in there and grab them.
Steven Butala: Get on LandTank and make sure that you turn your notifications on, because every single deal without exception, that goes to Land Tank, it gets gobbled up within minutes by other funders. That's one way. What's your other way?
Jill DeWit: Well, every January, we put out a master list where we ... You'll get on the next one, Chris. We publish who you are, all your contact information, any details about how much money you're willing to spend per deal, how much money you're willing to spend in total. If there's any parts of the country that you like, any nuances about how much you're willing to help or not help or whatever it is, funding other people's deals. That's it.
Jill DeWit: The other way I'd say put it in, maybe Land Investors? I'm trying to think where else he could-
Steven Butala: Nobody listens to that funding deal, and it comes out once a year anyway. It's just cool to know that there's $100 million available to people who were in the Land Academy to do good deals.
Jill DeWit: Well, I look at it.
Steven Butala: So, it's a cool thing. I look at it, too, but it's once a year.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Butala: There's a section in Discord called Would You Fund This Deal. And people who need transactions funded, us included sometimes. We do some deals that are so big that we don't want to bite it all ourselves.
Steven Butala: There's a section called, Would You Fund This Deal. If I were you, and there's other people in this group that have no intention of ever sending out a mailer, they just want to fund other people's deals, which is fine. People from institutions and hedge funds and stuff, actually, are members. I would go be real loud about it in Discord and say, "I fund deals. And they better be damn good deals. And you better be really intelligent or else I don't want to work with you." And I would really be that clear about it. Because you will-
Jill DeWit: Not you, Chris. You tell them that if you want.
Steven Butala: Tell them. Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: You better be intelligent and nice and have only five star deals.
Jill DeWit: Give us your checklist. Jack's like, "Here's what I expect." Come on, are we working together?
Steven Butala: Between the two of us, Jill and I, I'm not allowed to fund deals.
Jill DeWit: Correct.
Steven Butala: Because of this attitude I have.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. As you can see, he's still on step one of my 10-step anger program.
Steven Butala: You know what the truth is?
Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill Dewit: Hi.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill Dewit: And I'm Jill Dewit, broadcasting from sunny Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about ... really, I talk about web scraping for accurate mailer pricing. Jill adds some flair to it.
Jill Dewit: Truth time. This was my topic. I love this.
Steven Butala: You like web scraping?
Jill Dewit: Yes. I just said, "Can we please talk about this? I just can't talk about it enough." I think this is the greatest thing. Ever since I've learned this trick, I do it for everything. I web scrape to make sure I'm buying the right mascara, hair products.
Steven Butala: You know what? Friday, tomorrow's Jack Thursday.
Jill Dewit: Okay, got it. Do I get a Friday? Oh, I get my ... okay.
Steven Butala: On Friday, it's Jill Friday. So much fun looking at our properties, so you can talk about-
Jill Dewit: Okay. I can talk about that. Oh darn. Okay.
Steven Butala: Yeah, so taking the [crosstalk 00:01:03]
Jill Dewit: Fine. I'll let you have web scraping this time. I might roll that into mine on Friday.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Oh, and if you're already a member, you should join us on Discord. Seriously, I'm not joking. It cracks me up that a lot of people in our group aren't on Discord. That is 50% of the education value of being in Land Academy is Discord.
Jill Dewit: It gets distracting though, because I mean, we have that, and then we have the land investors online community. Both are great. Both are great. Okay.
Steven Butala: What I'm noticing since we started the Discord thing is that the people on land investors are all not in our group. Even though there are a lot of people that answer questions on land investors that are in our group, but the questions are from new people that are not yet members, but all the real questions and education goes on in Discord.
Jill Dewit: Understood. Hello, Bobbie. Bobbie wrote, "Still new here and getting my bearings. First off blessings to you all, Steven and Jill and the entire Land Academy team." Thank you, Bobbie.
Steven Butala: That's nice. I never get tired of hearing that.
Jill Dewit: Aww. She says, "Thank you for creating such an amazingly helpful community and offering so much of yourselves to all of us. After a lot of research I have yet to stumble across this info. I just wanted to find out what's typical with regard to the purchase agreement when selling land. Is it as simple as using the same purchase agreement to buy it? If so, do you all have suggestions on any necessary modifications when converting the agreement? Thanks in advance." I use the same one.
Steven Butala: Same one.
Jill Dewit: It doesn't really matter.
Steven Butala: If you go to offers, the number 2, owners.com, and you go to forums-
Jill Dewit: Forums.
Steven Butala: ... This is all free and it's all open to the public. Click on purchase agreement, and whether you're in the group or not, you can use it to buy and sell real estate, and here's why. Jill and I just bought a house. We're going to flip it, but it's an extremely expensive high-end house that Jill got for an amazing price. I have never ... And we got a mortgage on it, because it was less than 3%, because I couldn't make the math work otherwise.
Steven Butala: I have never signed so many documents in my life. I bet we signed our names-
Jill Dewit: Tell me. I know. A hundred times.
Steven Butala: ... probably a hundred times. You know how many times we sign that purchase agreement when we buy and sell land? Once, and the seller or buyer signs it once.
Jill Dewit: Right. I sign that, I sign off on one-
Steven Butala: So it's just my way of sticking my middle finger up to real estate agents and the lawyers behind them.
Land Academy Career Path is Not Just for Pros (LA 1480)
Transcript: Steven Butala:Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWitt:Hello. Steven Butala:Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWitt:And I'm Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from sunny Scottsdale, Arizona. Steven Butala:When will we be back in California to do this? Jill DeWitt:I don't know. Steven Butala:In the middle of May. Jill DeWitt:Maybe. You'll be there and I'm going to go back for a couple of days in a week or so I think. Steven Butala:Oh, I didn't know that. Jill DeWitt:Yeah. It's on the calendar. Steven Butala:Today, Jill and I talk about how Land Academy career path, it's not just for pros. Before we get into it though, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and if you're already a member, join us on Discord. Jill DeWitt:You know what I should've said is I'll be back when it warms up. Steven Butala:Yeah. Jill DeWitt:It's been cold there, like not even 60. I'm like, no, I'm good. Ross wrote, "Hi everyone. I'm interested in possibly not selling a land property with seller financing, but actually buying one from a seller. My intent is to sell it though and, of course, when I sell it I want to write it into the contract that the seller will make whole once I-" Steven Butala:Will be made whole. Jill DeWitt:"I'll make him whole once I sell it, just like a traditional montage would be." Steven Butala:Mortgage. Jill DeWitt:Oh, okay. Steven Butala:It's okay. it's not you. Jill DeWitt:All right. Steven Butala:It's a puzzle. Jill DeWitt:Okay. Steven Butala:This question is written in puzzle format. Jill DeWitt:Oh, good. You're going to help put this all together. Thank you. "In order to be legal, I understand that my name needs to be on the title in order for me to market it for sale. Otherwise I'm marketing property that I don't legally own. So I'm not sure how, what kind of contract or deed instrument I should use in this situation. For example, I buy this hundred thousand dollar property from you, but you have to provide owner financing. I pay you $3,000 per month in monthly payments and when selling the property, the next buyer you'll be made whole at that point. Is this possible? Anyone would have a contract that could see or use or hire someone to write me the contract in the legal way? Thank you for all you do." Steven Butala:So what you're, if you do this and there's a contract in the Land Academy program, the first one, to do this. So it's in there. I don't recommend doing this at all. I think you're getting yourself into a mess, but if you want to do it, I understand. You're not breaking the law at all, in my opinion, you're not representing someone else in the sale of their property because what you're doing when you sign this is creating equitable interest in a property. And so if you buy the property on a contract, you own it. You just have a lien, there's a lien on it, just like you do with a mortgage. So if you go buy a house and Bank of America provides a mortgage for you, you will move in, paint it, do whatever you're going to do to it, clean it up, renovate it. If something goes sideways and you stop making payments, the bank comes and gets it. It's the same situation here. So I don't believe that there's any legal issues here with this at all. Steven Butala:You own the property. There's a lien on it. You have equitable interest. The real problem here is there's just a lot of stuff that can go wrong. Let's say you don't, if you don't sell the property, you're going to stop paying. So there's some huge financial concerns that I have. But if this is the way you want to start, knock yourself out. Jill DeWitt:Yeah, I'm not a fan. If it's that good, here's the bottom line, if it's that good, somebody will fund it, like us. Steven Butala:If it's a great deal. Jill DeWitt:Yeah. Say let's all back up for just a second here.
Are You a Recovering Landlord? (LA 1479)
Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWitt: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWitt: And I'm Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from sunny Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I are talking about are you a recovering landlord?].
Jill DeWitt: That's funny, because we have a few.
Steven Butala: Since the COVID, it seems like it's optional to pay your rent now. Do you feel like paying your rent? Go ahead. If you don't, don't. If you feel like wearing a mask, go ahead. If you don't ...
Jill DeWitt: Well, wait a minute. And if you don't want to fill out the paperwork to get rent aid, I'll do it for you.
Steven Butala: That's what's so bad.
Jill DeWitt: I feel bad for these poor ... No, it's true. The landlords are allowed to do it.
Steven Butala: Oh, man.
Jill DeWitt: It's like what's funny, with the person's permission. It's like, "Yeah, I'm too busy sitting on my couch. Will you do that for me?"
Steven Butala: Never. And on top of that, institutional real estate companies, specifically class A apartment building REITs and stuff are reporting the best earnings ever, like record earnings. So I think some of the smaller landlords, some of these smaller apartment buildings in really specific states, California is one of them. California, New York and Michigan are having huge, huge problems with people not paying their rent. And every politician on the television is saying it's okay.
Jill DeWitt: And it's extended again and again and again.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWitt: Yeah. I'm glad we're not in that business.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And if you are already a Land Academy member, join us on Discord. It's a party every minute.
Jill DeWitt: So silly. Steven's Discord is my Clubhouse.
Steven Butala: I love Discord.
Jill DeWitt: I know you do. Ann Marie wrote, "I'm working my way through the course and also listening to the podcast while driving. I have a mailer question. I think I've understood to send a tri county area a 1500 unit volume of mailers with 500 to each of the three." Got it. "Then today the podcast was about getting really knowledgeable with one county and how to price it. Should I interpret this, that me, that I should send on my first batch to only one county with 1500 units going to the one county and drill down on two or three nearby counties and then go 500 each to those? Thank you."
Steven Butala: This is all you.
Jill DeWitt: Me, why? Why? You're the mail guy.
Steven Butala: Because Jill and I-
Jill DeWitt: Differ.
Steven Butala: ... Jill and I are enjoying instructing our first career path class, Land Academy Career Path.
Jill DeWitt: True.
Steven Butala: And we divided the whole entire group, it's a group of 15 people, between brand new people and not brand new people. And the not brand new people could be, I've done anywhere between 10 or 20 transactions and I get it and I want it to be my career now, all the way up to I've done thousands and thousands of deals but I want to grow my business from 500,000 a month to a million a month. And she got the new people and I got the not new people. So, Ann Marie's a new person.
Jill DeWitt: You're so funny. We might have different answers. This is going to be funny.
Steven Butala: We do have different answers, and yours is the right one.
Jill DeWitt: Here are my thoughts. Ann Marie, if you want to make your life easy, I really want you to send more mail to one concentrated area, so the offers you're getting returned are like kind. You're comparing apples to apples, not getting to know a new area based on what comes back. Are you sighing because you don't like that?
Steven Butala: No, I'm not sighing.
Jill DeWitt: You're breathing heavy like, huh.
Steven Butala:
Jill Friday - The People Side of Real Estate Investment (LA 1478)
Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Happy Friday.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the LandAcademy show, entertaining real estate investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt broadcasting from sunny Scottsdale, Arizona
Steven Butala: Today. Jill and I talk about... Well, it's Jill Friday, and she's going to talk about the people side of real estate investment.
Jill DeWit: What's this thing on my head?
Steven Butala: Before we get into it and talk about the thing on Jill's head, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And if you're already with us, check us out on Discord.
Jill DeWit: Dave wrote, all right, so I have a question and a comment, it looks like. Dave wrote, "Anyone downloading Redfin data for their red, yellow, green test and finding days on market data to be arbitrarily and incorrectly set to 19 or 22 days on market for 80 to 90% of properties in a county. Not sure what's up with this, as I've tried several counties now, and I'm finding this for the listed data. When I go into an individual listing, they're showing the correct date of the listing, which is often sometimes last year, but in the data I downloaded, it's showing 22 days on market. Anyone else have this happen? At first, I thought it was just a bad county, but a few of them have been like this."
Jill DeWit: So Chuck replied and said, "Regarding days on market and Redfin-"
Steven Butala: This is days later.
Jill DeWit: Okay. "I have confirmed that the data shown on the Redfin data download is incorrect as posted here previously. It is days since the property sold, not days on the market to sell. I called Redfin and they confirmed this and say that they're aware of the problem and it's being worked on." Got it.
Steven Butala: Boy. This question could not be more inappropriate for the show title. There's nothing people business about this. It's all the tech side, the data side on mine.
Jill DeWit: Well, I guess it's people, because Chuck is helping him. Chuck's like, "Don't worry about it. I called Redfin and I can help to save you some stress. They know there's a problem. And it's coming."
Steven Butala: There's a couple of points here and we'll move on to Jill's happy place. Number one, Jill just made my point. The people component is the fact that we're in a community, we're all interacting together and solving each other's problems. I would have never caught this.
Jill DeWit: And I wouldn't.
Steven Butala: You know, I check days on market through two to three sources before we make a decision on sending mail somewhere. So kudos to both of these guys for figuring this out and sharing with the group and saving us a ton of time and energy and potentially some money loss on sending mail out to counties that we didn't have good data on. So thank you fellows. It's awesome. That's what this is all about.
Jill DeWit: Tech support, Chuck.
Steven Butala: Today's topic. It's Jill Friday. She's going to talk about the people side of real estate investment. This is the meat of the show.
Jill DeWit: You brought up a good point as we were sitting down to record. And you said, the reason you came up with this title was so many brainy tech people in our group, and which is, like you, and you were saying-
Steven Butala: Not necessarily tech people, just people with technical backgrounds, counting, aerospace-
Jill DeWit: Numbers.
Steven Butala: Yeah. Numbers.
Jill DeWit: Analytical, research driven, staring at computers in dark rooms, kind of things. And not necessarily working with customers, at least in person or on the phone and things like that. And it was really nice, you said, I wrote, "Are they missing it? Are they missing out on this?" Because you had said you... will you back up and preface your whole thing again?
Steven Butala:
Jack Thursday - You Have to Start Somewhere (LA 1477)
Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hey.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from sunny Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about it's Jack Thursday, and you have to start somewhere. Jill and I just started doing Jack Thursday and Jill Friday, and all of our people, our Land Academy employees, love it. For some reason, it's generating a lot of questions. It's clarifying a lot of things in a human perspective, instead of talking about data and real estate and mail and stuff like that.
Jill DeWit: Cool.
Steven Butala: So, you got to start somewhere. And this is a culmination of me being in this business since the early '90s and all this gray hair that you see, and then Jill and I starting Land Academy in early 2015, so we've got a good six years, a full six years of experience teaching people. I'm starting to feel like we know what we're doing sort of. Are you?
Jill DeWit: Your hair is not that gray.
Steven Butala: That's what you got out of that?
Jill DeWit: That's what I got out of that.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com community. It's free. And if you're already a member, join us on Discord, please.
Jill DeWit: Luke wrote, "Mailed a bunch of commercial vacant properties across a couple of states, most of all of the West," most all the West, maybe not all of the West, but in the West. Got it. "Boy, a lot of them accepted. I'm dreaming of building warehouses, fast food, Dollar General, tractor supply store, gas stations, auto repair shops, storage, trailer parks, medical, et cetera." This is all commercial stuff here. "Not much of any multi-family or office space-looking ones. I would've guessed it was going to be all office space-looking commercial land taking me up on my offers." Interesting.
Jill DeWit: "Trying to ..." I already have some things to say about this, "Trying to verify lots of the pricing on these with third-party brokers. I think I'm in over my head. Looking for the sweet, obvious ones that are just priced way wrong. I'm sure they're in here." You know, it's funny. I was just reading an article on this, with the whole 2020, how the year went, everybody working from home and now staying at home. There's still a huge office component. I am seeing and hearing office space not going away. And if anything, it might even be maybe a little bit better because those dear sweet people who still want office space now are wanting more room. The days of cramming people in one room and cubicle after cubicle after cubicle might be gone.
Steven Butala: I read a similar article that said, "We all know what happened in 2020. And despite that, institutional landlords, specifically multifamily, are killing it. They had the best year ever."
Jill DeWit: Yup. Yup, so there you go.
Steven Butala: So, where's the tragedy?
Jill DeWit: I know. I love this though. So, what Luke is talking about is, "Hey, I went into it thinking I was going to get all the office stuff. I didn't, number one. Number two, this is such a new venture for me, so I'm just looking for the low-hanging fruit," which I totally get. And I'm sure they're in there. Yeah. Grab them and go and then figure it out. He's very good at that. That's one thing about this person. Luke's nuts.
Steven Butala: Luke Smith. If you follow-
Jill DeWit: He's like me. He's nuts.
Steven Butala: If you follow land investing and the people that are involved, Luke's one of our-
Jill DeWit: Long-time members.
Steven Butala: He's number 22 or something like that. And he's taken Land Academy to a place I didn't even know where it would go, and he's fearless. And so he obviously said sent out a massive mailer to commercial property owners,
Interview with Long Time Member Matt Bailey (LA 1476)
Transcript:
Steve: Steve Butala here for Land Academy. Jill's not with us today. Lucky for her. She's actually out having some fun. So I wanted to take this opportunity, this kind of vacant opportunity to introduce, I think, a long time member, Matt Bailey, a member of Land Academy. Matt came to us from another member, Lori Phillips, who said, "Look, you got to, I just talked to this guy. He's been a member for a long time, a lot longer than I have. He's really got his stuff together. And he'd be a great guy to have on the show because I think a lot of new people specifically would get a lot out of this." We are Steve and Jill.
Jill: Together we've been buying and reselling land since the 90s.
Steve: Our data centric approach leaves our buyers asking, "How can you sell it so cheap?"
Jill: Here on the Land Academy show-
Steve: We answer that and more. Welcome, Matt. Thanks so much for being on the show. I'll start off right away and just ask you, how'd you find us? How long have you been with us? What are you working on? If you can just introduce yourself and give us a little flavor, that'd be great.
Matt: Yeah, sure. So I've been at this for about four years now. I got into it, like I think a lot of people did, listening to BiggerPockets and then Seth had a podcast early on in there and I got started on his course shortly after I jumped in. And did your course. I think that both have a lot to offer. I'm glad that I had done both. And so, yeah, I mean, I've been with you guys for four years, working and lately really this year kind of scaling the company up. So now we have four full-time employees. Lori was the person who introduced us and suggested we jump on the podcast and I'd kind of come to her because I was working on trying to build the processes out, scaling the company, training. And I didn't really have a ton of time to price a mailer. And she had a bunch of mailers priced, but not a lot of bandwidth to do the overhead and the actual execution on it and that's exactly what my business is kind of designed to do.
Matt: I've kind of built it from the beginning to be designed for scaling, so I focused a lot on business processes and developing a CRM with automations and stuff to kind of like help streamline everything. And that's how I started working with her. And I think we did like five or six deals off of that mailer. And, most of them have kind of come full circle now and yeah, I mean, it's just land's been pretty good. I'm really enjoying it and it's nice to be able to be on the podcast with you.
Steve: That's great, man. So what's a typical deal look like for you right now with Lori or without Lori or what's a typical deal look like?
Matt: Yeah. So, I started on some of the smaller deals and as I've done more deals, even though I built this for volume, I think that if you build your business from the beginning to be able to handle volume, you can do fewer deals and not have to work so hard on each one because all of your stuff is streamlined. Right? So, I started doing smaller deals and right now, my minimum threshold is $5,000 profit is what we're looking to do. So I'd say most of them are probably in that five to $20,000 range and we're starting to work on larger ones. So like I mentioned, I've got now four full-time employees that work with me and I know exactly what we're going to convert in the markets that we've done before if we mailed a certain percentage of offer price to these five to $20,000 deals, right?
Matt: So I'm keeping those as the bread and butter, but I'm looking to scale up to larger deals, but I don't want to jump into those larger deals and find out that, okay, it turns out you convert one in 7,000 if you're trying to get more than a $50,000 profit or something. Right? And I assume that it's going to be closer to one in 1000 or 2000 or whatever it might be. So now that I've got all these people underneath me, it's like,
Pick a County and Price it - the Two Ps - PP - Its a Thing Now (LA 1475)
Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy show. Entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about how to pick a county and price it. We all call it the two Ps. It's a thing now. It just became a thing because it was born out of a discussion in Discord about-
Jill DeWit: I thought you were going to say disgust.
Steven Butala: Well, maybe there is. No. On somebody's part there might have been some disgust. It's just one of those things where it's so simple. We all know we have to do it, like exercising every morning, but it doesn't happen often enough. In my case, anyway.
Jill DeWit: Would you just pick a damn county?
Steven Butala: That's it.
Jill DeWit: That's it.
Steven Butala: And get it priced.
Jill DeWit: That's it. People get hung up on that.
Steven Butala: This'll kick your whole career off.
Jill DeWit: Totally. And don't pick one that we've all talked about.
Steven Butala: Well said.
Jill DeWit: Now I'm done. We don't have to do this episode.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it? Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and if you're already a member, join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: John wrote, "How soon should I expect to start hearing back from my mailers? The first one, 600-ish mailers, went out on March 18th." So, this is cool. So Leonard, dear Leonard in Ireland ... I'll weigh in on this too.
Steven Butala: Thank God.
Jill DeWit: Dear Leonard in Ireland wrote a response that we have shared here. I'll read that and then I'll give you my response.
Jill DeWit: Leonard wrote, "You should get a response in a mailer, but I typically buy one in 1500 sent. If I get a high response, it can be less than a thousand units per purchase, but you may not get a deal in only 600 units. Depends on how much the area is mailed. Great start and look forward to hearing your first deal. Not to say it doesn't happen, I got my first deal on a 200 unit mailer."
Jill DeWit: Two things are going on here. I'll let you handle the second part, which is the volume that he sent. I'll handle, the question is, did it hit? Is anybody going to call me? This happens every single time, including to Steven and I. We'll send out these mailers, we're like, "When's it going to hit? When's it going to hit? When's it going to hit? Did we do something wrong? Did we forget our phone number on there? Is our address wrong?" We go through all the possible scenarios. Or, "They all hate them. I did something wrong. Everybody's shredding them right now. I'm not getting a response." And then you watch, you wait two days and here comes a blast of response. It's always our first reaction that we just, we're like, "Oh no." The calm before the storm.
Steven Butala: I take it even more seriously than Jill. I'm like, "Ugh, I guess my career is over."
Jill DeWit: Yeah, "My pricing, I'm done."
Steven Butala: I guess all the land that's ever going to be sold, is sold.
Jill DeWit: Is done. That's right. We're done. No one's going to do this anymore. What have we done?
Jill DeWit: Yeah, whatever. No.
Steven Butala: I'm just joking.
Jill DeWit: So funny.
Steven Butala: I used to do that a long, long, long time ago. Way before Jill. I obviously stopped doing that.
Jill DeWit: Tell me about what you think about the volume he sent though. That's the thing I want you to touch on real quick.
Steven Butala: I think it's crazy. I think Leonard was very, very nice about it.
Jill DeWit: He was politically correct.
Steven Butala: I'm running out of analogies to explain this. Now I'm thinking it's might be biological, that makes somebody want to test this mailer concept.
Why Distressed Property Acquisitions Don't Work (LA 1474)
Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt broadcasting from sunny Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about why distressed property acquisitions don't work. It's a big pile of fiction.
Jill DeWit: What?
Steven Butala: And you've heard it. Well, we're going to reiterate.
Jill DeWit: Wait a minute. Do you mean that I'm not the first one to find this boarded up house and this diamond in the rough that's just sitting there waiting for me?
Steven Butala: Yes. You're not the first one.
Jill DeWit: Darn it. Oh, come on. It makes me think of those two houses on Jolla Cove that had been there for years. I wonder if they're still there. They may or may not be there, but it was a good 20 years that they were boarded up in like some of the most prime real estate on the planet and I'm sure people went, "What," and tried to track them down.
Steven Butala: Jill and I are staying in a VRVO for a few months while the house that we bought is getting all cleaned up and we're right next to a vacant piece of property that's fallen down in a really nice area of old town Scottsdale. You can walk to all the fun stuff and it's just dying to be renovated or torn down or whatever. If I had a nickel for every car that stopped there and they got a yellow pad out with some pen and paper-
Jill DeWit: Write down the address.
Steven Butala: Like it's 1983, I watched it all day long. I watched people just stop and take down the address and write stuff down on a piece of paper. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And if you're already with us in the Land Academy group, please join us on Discord. I can't stress it enough.
Jill DeWit: He loves it. Discord's the new Clubhouse, in case you didn't know that. And those of you on the Thursday calls know exactly what I'm talking about. All right. By the way, I have not promoted Clubhouse really once here, so I don't [crosstalk 00:02:07]. I should. John wrote, "Question for all, but hoping to get Steven's input when he has time. For those of you with well-established internet presences that are linked to certain geographic locations, rural vacant land San Diego, LandStay, Phoenix for example. When starting a mail campaign in a distant state, do you start up both a new phone number and a new mailing address? If yes to either, when interested sellers are looking up in the internet, how do they say there's a Tennessee number based with a Phoenix company?" Oh, John, you know us. And that's me. Yeah. I have a lot to say. "And does this even matter? Thank you."
Jill DeWit: Can I go?
Steven Butala: Yeah. I think this is for you. And I did answer this in Discord and a bunch of other people did too.
Jill DeWit: Okay. So here's the deal. I've never had someone that said, and if they do, it's like, "We have a Tennessee office. We're based out of Phoenix, but we have offices around the country." Oh, done. That's all I ever have to say. And it depends on how much mail you're going to send, how long you going to be in that area because once you start a new phone number, a new address, you want to keep it. So I don't think it's wise to have one address and one phone number in 50 states. I don't think you need that nor do you want to pay for that for years and years because the mail and the calls will still keep coming. You want to own these numbers and put them in. So what we do though, is if I know we're going to go on for a while and be there for a while, I'll do it. I'll bite the bullet. No, I'm going to keep it and I'll make it like a regional number kind of thing. So I might send, maybe the Tennessee number gets anything on the East coast, except for upper East,
How to Fund Deals and What You Should Look for if You're the Bank (LA 1473)
Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Friday Land Academy show. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt broadcasting from sunny Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about how to fund deals as the funder and what you should look for in the bank roll.
Jill DeWit: All right.
Steven Butala: We're reversing the talk this week.
Jill DeWit: How different deals, what you should look for if you're the bank. Okay, got it.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And if you're already a member, join us on Discord for sure.
Jill DeWit: Saba wrote, and I've got some comments it looks like too?
Steven Butala: These are two really nice compliments about how these two new members found us and why they made a decision to join. It's not really a question.
Jill DeWit: Okay, good. This is cool. Saba wrote, "It's nice to meet you all. I was trying to look up on Google how to use Google Maps and search for properties by APN, and I ended up here. After reading a few posts, I decided to create an account because you guys seem to have pretty interesting discussions here. I'm a real estate development professional with a decade of experience in a corporate setting, I've sourced multiple deals and processed entitlements for many projects. I'm currently helping a few clients with financial modeling, market research, and zoning research on a consulting basis. Some of my clients are not in the area where I'm located, so I think I may be able to find some good, useful info about how doing deals in various municipalities work in this forum. Feel free to ask me any question you might have. Thanks." How sweet is that?
Steven Butala: You're in the right place.
Jill DeWit: I'm going to use you guys for information for me, and I'm happy to share what I know. That's our community. That's awesome. RSally wrote, I hope I'm saying your names correctly, thank you. "Hello. So I'm just starting my late in life dream of buying, investing, and owning land. I found Land Academy on Instagram and I've already learned so much. I was about to start my coursework and get my real estate license. I know you don't need to have a license to buy and sell land, but for me, it's about gaining new knowledge. The coursework is a small investment for me to understand best practices, terminology, contracts, et cetera."
Steven Butala: There's one more paragraph, but I'm going to jump in here and say that Jill and I have both been through the coursework portion of getting a real estate license with no intention of taking the test, just to learn very specific State-specific real estate laws and rules. And I think it's cheap. When I went through it, it was like four or $500 and it's intense. There's a huge legal component to it.
Jill DeWit: It's like 60 hours for the course here in Arizona.
Steven Butala: I learned a lot. It's really worth it.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Back to the question. He said, "My dream is to buy small parcels of land that have minimal deed restrictions to build and rent out or sell small custom modern cabins for city dwellers. I live in Philly, Philadelphia, and I'm fortunate to be a short drive to wooded land. Personally, all this started with my desire to have a few acres where I could have a small off-grid cabin and get away and let my dog run around freely. I guess I can have both, huh? Anyway, I'm excited to continue learning and hearing from all of you."
Steven Butala: All of this started because I had a desire to have a small cabin on a small piece of property, 30 years ago. And here we are. Welcome everybody.
Steven Butala: Today's topic, how to fund deals and what you should look for if you're the bank. This is the meat of the show.
Steven Butala:
Why Having Someone Else Fund Your Deals is Smart - We Do it Too (LA 1472)
Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Howdy.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala: I think it's sunny is the staple.
Jill DeWit: Just leave it as sunny. [crosstalk 00:00:17].
Steven Butala: But it is sunny here, more than California.
Jill DeWit: That's true.
Steven Butala: Today, jill and I talk about why having someone else's deal, why having someone else fund your deal is actually a good idea. In fact, we do it all the time. We actually seek out partners to fund some of our deals, and the short version is, it depends on the deal. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And if you're already a member, join us on Discord, it's worth it.
Jill DeWit: All right. So Andy wrote, and there's a note here that he's not a member, "In the process of browsing counties, I often come across areas where sorting low to high brings up similarly priced lots, but the acreage of the lots varies wildly. For example, I'm currently looking at a zip code in X state where half acre lots and 20 acre lots all seem to be in the 10 to $20,000 price range. I tend to avoid areas like this because of the huge discrepancy and it throws off my confidence in pricing. It would feel unwise of me to mail the half acre lots, offering 3 to $4,000, and then go on and mail 20 acre lots and offer the same amount. Any thoughts on how divided areas like this or how to get a better read? Do you ever just blanket mail a county with one offer price and then disregard acreage? Any thoughts? I appreciate it."
Steven Butala: Always. What's important here is to get the mail out. This discrepancy in data, get used to it. This is one big... If you're a data person in another field or you're a retired pilot, or you got 30 years in public accounting, or you're a mechanical engineer, maybe you're retired. You know what looking at a data set like this and how frustrating it can be. And you've been doing it for decades. Welcome to Land Academy and welcome to real estate investing in general. Andy's already light years ahead of the clubhouse discussion that Jill was involved in this morning. Whereas they drive around and they'd look for dilapidated houses. They write down the address, they find the owner's name and they send them a kind little note saying, "Your house is a pile of crap. I'm happy to... Why don't you give me a call? I'll take it off your hands."
Steven Butala: So Andy's already looking at data sets. He's realizing the data's not perfect. It's a little bit wonky and he's trying to figure it out and get into that real estate market through data, not through the actual real estate. So, if you're new and you're listening to these sentences that I'm saying, and the light bulb's going off over your head, this is for you. And expect some weird data because I know exactly where he's talking about him in New Mexico, and I know how I would do it, but it's all based on experience. So honestly, my opinion on this is just based on... Jill and I've done thousands of deals in New Mexico. So, in the beginning, this is frustrating for me, but not really. If you can crack through this data and figure it out, get it in a spreadsheet, go price per acre.
Steven Butala: You're going to find similarities. You're going to dig through that data and scrub yourself down to a point where you actually do have confidence that this 20 acre property in this zip code is actually probably worth $12,000. So I'm going to go out. I'm going to offer everybody 2000 bucks. And so you have to just deconstruct the whole thing, chill out, get a good cup of coffee, make yourself a sandwich, turn all the lights off, spend three hours in a dark room,
Interview with Long Time Member Kevin Farrell (LA 1471)
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here. Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill Dewitt: I'm Jill Dewitt, broadcasting from Sweets. That's still Arizona.
Steven Jack Butala: Today we have the greatest treat of all. We have a long time member, Kevin Farrell with us who is also Kevins-
Jill Dewitt: Does consulting for us-
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, he does land academy consulting, he's a moderator in a couple of our forums on land investors specifically, and just always a treat to talk to Kevin because he brings a certain serious expertise, but also a certain sense of... I can't describe it. Well, you'll see it in a minute. This type of sense of humor, and this whole thing.
Jill Dewitt: Welcome! We are Steven and Jill. Together, we've been buying and reselling land since the nineties.
Steven Jack Butala: Our data-centric approach leaves our buyers asking, "How can you sell it so cheap?"
Jill Dewitt: Here on the land Academy show-
Steven Jack Butala: We answer that, and more.
Steven Jack Butala: Kevin how have you been since the last Land event?
Kevin: I've been well. I mean, the main word is "well" because we've gone through this crazy pandemic and you know, I'm glad I'm in the land business because I want to tell people that it has not affected my ability to acquire land or my ability to sell it, which is amazing.
Jill Dewitt: I'm so happy. You know, I want to pause and say thank you, by the way, for all that you have done for us and our other members and the consulting and the hours and the time and the welcoming new people that you put in for us. I really, really appreciate it and I know it makes a difference and people connect with you.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill Dewitt: Thank you.
Kevin: Yeah, thanks Jill. I appreciate it. It's I still enjoy doing it, so that's why I'm in there every day.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. That's the same as for us here. I stopped telling people that the pandemic hasn't negatively affected us because they just... you never know how it's going to go. I don't want to, I don't want to make it seem like I'm bragging or anything, but we were just all really lucky. I can't think of anything else. Just purely lucky to be in this business when this thing rolled around.
Jill Dewitt: That's true.
Kevin: Yeah.
Jill Dewitt: Right.
Kevin: Yeah, thanks to this I don't [crosstalk 00:02:07].
Jill Dewitt: Catch us up.
Steven Jack Butala: Perfect example.
Jill Dewitt: Yeah.
Kevin: Yeah, well, [crosstalk 00:02:15].
Jill Dewitt: What kind of deals are you doing? Catch us up in your world.
Kevin: Yeah, I've been doing my version of the business, which is kind of laid back. When I speak with people and we're doing consulting calls, they want to know how much mail we send out, and what kind of targets to make. I said, "Well, I may not be your role model. I'm 64 years old, and if I work two days a week, that's a full schedule. I'm pretty good with that". We put ourselves in a position, financially, where our needs are not really that high, so I'm all about being comfortable with what I'm doing. I have also been trying to find my niche. I think all of us in this land business, we're always kind of trying to figure out where's our niche either geographically or property type. Whether it's desert or commercial or infill, et cetera, et cetera. I've learned some things. I've had some real good lessons the past year or two.
Kevin: I would say the five anchor lesson is a big one that I want to pass on to experienced and new people. There's just something magic, Steve you've said it before. People want five acre properties. I don't care really where you are. If you're selling, what I call, small properties, if you're doing five acre properties that phone's going to ring more than if you had one to two acre properties or even 10 acre properties.
Land Academy Deal Funding 101 - How Deal Funding Works (LA 1470)
Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show. Entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt, coming to you from sizzling Scottsdale, Arizona. Soon we'll be saying a lot.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about Land Academy deal funding 101 and how deal funding works. Yesterday we talked about private equity and private lending and the basis of that and why I think it's the best way, we think it's the best way to raise capital to get deals done when you don't have your own money. Jill's going to walk us through the mechanics of when somebody sends her a deal, how she chooses it, how she analyzes it, why she says yes, why she says no. Maybe I'll actually submit a couple of fictitious deals to you and you can say, you're an idiot for this and you don't ever call me again.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, I will happily play that game.
Steven Butala: Or happily do this deal like right now. In fact, let's all stop what we're doing and fund it.
Jill DeWit: Got it.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. If you're already with us in Land Academy, join us on Discord. It's nothing short of amazing.
Jill DeWit: Anthony wrote, "In using the red, yellow, green test, I have found massive differences in days on market. I searched and found the base formula for days on market. It's a 12 month sold overactive for sale, then divided by 365. So let's say there were 3000 properties sold in the last 12 months and they are 500 sale for sale now. So 3000 divided by 500 is six divided by 365 divided by six, we got it, is 60.8 days on market. Zillow, Realtor, and Redfin all have different numbers for days on market. How do you guys account for the variance?"
Steven Butala: This is very, very important question and it doesn't just apply to real estate or days on market. Where you have data sets from different sources it's very important not to mix them up. However, let's just pick on Redfin. However Redfin came about having properties in their dataset both for sale and sold is the same for sale and sold. But if you just look at for sale property in Redfin and then sold property in Zillow, it's an apples to oranges situation and you're mixing up two non-life kind data sets with different definitions. I don't mean to nitpick here, but this is actually pretty important because you're spending money on sending mail out based on data. So it's very important to just apples to apples it. So great, Jack. Steve, why are they different then? The real question is why are there's three sources of data?
Steven Butala: I kept them separate. They're apples to apples to apples, all three. Why are they so different? Because the sources of data for Zillow, Zillow brags about the fact that they have all kinds of data in their dataset for properties. They could be Jill and I posting a property without a real estate agent as a for sale for owner. They could be the MLS. There's all kinds of places that you can get data to do this. Redfin goes the opposite way. They only have datasets in very specific areas based on which MLS is. There's three or 400 MLSs believe it or not, little local ones all over the country that roll up into the National Association of Realtors. So there's only certain local MLSs that participate with Redfin. And why is that? Because Redfin is not really interested in rural areas. They're really interested in urban areas where there's huge high volume of transactions.
Steven Butala: That doesn't help us as much because we buy rural vacant land. And where that line cuts off, just imagine a boundary of the MLS is all geography based. So where one ends and one starts could be in the middle of a zip code. It could be in the middle of a county. So there's really,
How to Use Private Money to Get Started in Real Estate (LA 1469)
Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt broadcasting from sweet Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about how to use private money to get started in real estate. Jill just sat down. This is what happens. I do all the work, hours of work and Jill sits down at one minute till the time we're supposed to record and she says, "Okay, what's the topic? And how do I look?" And I say, this is the topic and you look great. And she gives me an opinion on the topic. And she happened to like this one. It's a 50/50 shot.
Jill DeWit: That's kind of funny.
Steven Butala: What were just doing before you got on the show?
Jill DeWit: Oh, so I was on clubhouse. I jumped into this clubhouse group. It was real estate, just kind of like a real estate one-on-one and there were people in there. Everybody's trying to find houses to like rehab and rent them out. They're trying to buy them, rent them out. By the way, they're talking about some markets like Columbus I want to say and Indianapolis and these stupid places. It's so nuts. You can buy a house for like $40,000 and rent them out for a thousand.
Steven Butala: That's what my sister does in Cadillac, Michigan.
Jill DeWit: It's brilliant. They're figuring out these good areas, but where they're falling down is how to buy the asset. So that's where I chimed in and let them know how to get the data and what to do. So one guy said direct mail and you better believe I jumped all over that one.
Steven Butala: Yeah. I think that rental model is compelling. If you can get a good management company and you can buy a lot all at once, it's still a lot of work. In the end, I would never pull the trigger on it just because land is our thing, but my sister's got 30 or 40, 45 doors she said the last time I talked to her in Cadillac, Michigan because her husband, this is what he does full time.
Jill DeWit: He's kind of the management company.
Steven Butala: He is the management company and he has patience. So I don't have any patience for that.
Jill DeWit: Yes. No, we do not. What do you have patience for babe?
Steven Butala: Land acquisitions and resales and teaching.
Jill DeWit: Even then it better go quickly.
Steven Butala: That's true. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And if you're with us already in the Land Academy community, please join us on Discord. It's gets bigger every day and I'm getting a lot out of it for sure and I know just based on the volume that our members are really... it's a new tool for us. It doesn't cost anything. It doesn't cost us anything and it doesn't cost our members anything and it's a great way to stay in constant contact with all of us.
Jill DeWit: Cool. Johanns wrote, "I've done some research about closing costs, but most resources I've found are related to buying house using a mortgage and not buying vacant land without a mortgage. So what are your typical closing costs on the buy and sell side provided that A, use a title agency when both buying and selling the property B, use an agent to sell the property. Let's say you buy a property for 30,000 and sell it for 70. My questions are, what would be your average title agency fees when buying property for 30,000? What other closing costs are there? What would be your overall expenses when buying? How much does an agency typically charge? What would be the title agency fees and other fees on the sell side? Who has to typically carry the title agency fees on the sell side? I understand that it's negotiable, but what is standard? Who typically has to carry the agent's fees?" We're getting a little too brainy here, but I'll answer them.
Steven Butala: Well,
Jill Friday and Her Take on Relationships (LA 1468)
Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, coming to you from awesome Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about it's Jill Friday, and her take on all types of relationships. Are you looking forward to this, or are you dreading it?
Jill DeWit: No, are you kidding? I love talking about this stuff.
Steven Butala: She loves this topic.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: Just actually thinking about it.
Jill DeWit: It's important. I am write... I'm going to do it. I'm going to write a book series on these things, and I will tell you how it's going to come out. It's good.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community. It's free, and if you are already a Land Academy member, join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: Can you imagine? If I didn't like talking about relationships, I'd be pretty sucky in relationships.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: But like talking in general. It's kind of funny.
Steven Butala: Yeah, it's something that you always improve on. Like I'm always trying to be better in any relationship that I have. I'm always trying to improve.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Steven Butala: Is that obvious?
Jill DeWit: It is obvious.
Steven Butala: Is it really?
Jill DeWit: It's appreciated. It is.
Steven Butala: That's good. I didn't know it was obvious.
Jill DeWit: Totally. All right. Johanes wrote, "Learning. If you want... " Lost my question here.
Steven Butala: Sorry.
Jill DeWit: Sorry.
Steven Butala: That was me.
Jill DeWit: Okay. I guess it's like, "I'm learning. If you want to use money partners, you have to use an agent, unless the money partner will market the property with you only acting as a bird dog."
Steven Butala: Let me explain this.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Butala: This is a legal question.
Jill DeWit: Oh.
Steven Butala: And the question here is, do I need a real estate license? That's really what they're asking.
Jill DeWit: Okay. I missed the whole preface to this.
Steven Butala: The only reason that you need a real estate license... This is very important, if you don't know about this. Jill and I have talked about this a lot over the years. The reason you need a real estate license is because you are representing somebody else in the purchase or sale or lease of real property. It doesn't matter what kind. We don't need licenses at all, because we represent ourselves. It gets a gray area when you take on a partner.
Steven Butala: And so, here's how you can completely and totally avoid any legal issue entirely. They are on the deed. So, if you're a money partner you're on the deed, and if you're the person who brings the deal to the money partner... We call that a manager in our... You know. There's the manager and the investor. We're the investor, because we put out the money. You're the manager, because you brought the property to us and you're going to manage the deal. You're going to actually buy it. You're going to sell it. You're going to deal with a title agent. If there is a real estate agent, you're going to deal with them, and on and on and on. Great. We're all partners, and we're all owners.
Steven Butala: There are times where I don't think it's appropriate for a manager, especially if they're brand new and we don't know if they're any good or not... I shouldn't say any good. We don't know where they are in their land investing career, how educated they are yet... where Jill and I would theoretically just be the only ones on the deed, because we don't want to go through-
Jill DeWit: Undoing anything.
Steven Butala: ... undoing stuff.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: And have any type of confrontation with their manager. We want it to be positive. So,
Jack Thursday and What Your Father Never Told You about Land Investing (LA 1467)
Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewit, Broadcasting from sexy Scottsdale Arizona.
Steven Butala: Wow. How long have you been holding that in?
Jill DeWit: I just came to me actually, just S word, S word, sexy done.
Steven Butala: Today, when Jill's not horsing around, today, Jill and I talk about what your father never told you about land investing. this title I wrote, if you can't tell. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free. And if you're already a member, join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: Jeff wrote, "Hey all. I'm sure this has been answered before, but if you have two comparable info lots across the street from one another, with the only obvious difference being that one is cleared and the other is wooded, is there typically a difference in value? In this case the cleared lot last year sold for $65,000. Just wondering if it's an apples to apples comparison."
Steven Butala: This is a fantastic question. Reality-based question and an academic question. So if you asked an economist this, if you're not an economist and you're not an accountant, you would never know that economists hate accountants and accountants hate economists. Accountants say to economists, get in reality. Yeah. Great. You sit in your office all day and come up with these concepts. But in reality, I'm an accountant. I'm in there in the field and we're looking at stuff and how to make or lose money. This is an academic question. an accountant would say this, the price different, I'm sorry, an economist would say this, "At the price difference is how much it costs to clear the lot. That's the difference." An accountant would say, "No, you're an idiot. It's whatever the market demands. There could be some real value in a wooded lot, because you're just going to create clear a little part of it to build a house." So there's your academic answer and there's a reality answer. I personally probably price them the same. Would you?
Jill DeWit: It's the funniest thing too. I'm like, I have to say too. It depends Jeff. So when you say infill lot, now I'm thinking house lots are not that big. If we were talking 20 or so acres, I'd want the wooded one. I think the wooded one would be more valuable than the barren one kind of thing. It's usually, that's how that goes, because you have a lot of options at that point. I totally agree with you. So in this situation, yeah, I would just be pricing it based on per acre average in the area. But my gut tells me that for a buyer coming in, having a cleared lot, if it's, again, I'm going to put a house there. It's somebody did the work. It's like someone poured a pad. Even if it's not exactly what you want to build your house, somebody started to construction and then they walked away. But they put in some of the infrastructure and poured a pad. That's worth something.
Steven Butala: All true. It's interesting you ask this now because the properties that Jill and I are buying, we really look at this. Because we're improving the property to resell it and we look at the cost of how much it's going to get that property graded correctly and all of that. And that stuff's not insignificant. It can be expensive. But I'll tell you if two people drive their car up to a property and they see a barren lot or if they see with one with beautiful trees on it, guess which one they're going to choose.
Jill DeWit: Then you have that.
Steven Butala: Beautiful trees.
Jill DeWit: There you go. Exactly. And they can decide where they want to put the house and position it and what trees they want to keep. So there's value there.
Steven Butala: Today's topic, what your father never told you about land inv...
Pros and Cons of Leveraging Time vs Money (LA 1466)
Transcript: Steven Butala:Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit:Hello. Steven Butala:Welcome to the Land Academy show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sizzling Scottsdale, Arizona. Steven Butala:Today, Jill and I talk about the pros and cons of leveraging your time versus money. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and if you're already a member, join us on Discord. Seriously, join us on Discord. Jill DeWit:Okay. In case you can't tell, he's got a little bit of a thing for this Discord. It's a little unhealthy. There's no money involved. It takes a lot of time on his part. Just kidding. You love it. Steven Butala:Really Clubhouse? Jill DeWit:I was waiting for that. We each have our new favorites. Isn't that hilarious? I'm like, "All right, you represent us on Discord. You just have a blast. Let me know if there's anything interesting. And I'll take the Clubhouse thing and that's fun." So, it's perfect. Steven Butala:It's funny you bring up unhealthy because somebody said, and it turned into this huge thing. Somebody said, "I listen to X while I'm scrubbing data." And it just became a whole thing, and it unraveled about what people listen to and all their unhealthy weird habits about how they crunch data to get it ready for a mailer and when they do it and where they do it in their house. I listen to the band Tool extremely loud when no one else is around while I'm scrubbing data. And everyone's like, "You think that's weird, then," fill in the blank. Jill DeWit:That's hilarious. Steven Butala:It became this thing, like we are not healthy, normal people. Jill DeWit:That's true. Steven Butala:We're all these weird data people that are ... That's what I love about discord. And no one's afraid of that. We're all serious geeks, is what it is. Jill DeWit:Yeah. It's a support group. That's it. If you're struggling to find friends because you are weird too, you can find them in Discord and you can all just have a great time together. Mom, I have friends. Leave me alone. Steven Butala:Yeah. You know what it is? It's like this age, this is our video game. Jill DeWit:It is. Yeah. Steven Butala:The kids get on the line and- Jill DeWit:So they're playing with the thing and then the talking. This is your version of you're doing that while you're scrubbing data. Steven Butala:It's great. Jill DeWit:Oh, this is hilarious. The grown-up version of gaming with your friends. All right. Back to the question. Daniel wrote, "I'm in negotiations with a seller for a $1 million acquisition price for a bulk purchase of multiple properties. I need help pricing from a local realtor, but I'm hesitant to give them all the information since I do not yet have a signed purchase agreement. Is this something you'd be cautious with?" Yeah, I would. Totally. Steven Butala:Whatever you say, I'm going to agree with you on this. Jill DeWit:Get a signed purchase agreement. There's no reason- Steven Butala:Jill has a, and correctly so, has a peeve about not signed purchase agreements. You're not doing anything wrong in any way here, Daniel. It's a good question. Jill likes signed purchase agreements. Jill DeWit:Well, for two reasons. Here's reason number one. So Daniel, you're going to sleep better. I would even take it so far if you're really worried, take the signed purchase agreement, give it to an escrow agent and say, "Give me an escrow number. And even though we can all change our minds, I just want to have a number that it's started the process," because that's good faith moving forward. Steven Butala:This is extremely important, what she's saying, in my opinion. Jill DeWit:And as far as an agent's involved, you're in escrow. It's like a hands-off kind of thing. Even though all you have is a number and nobody's done anything,
Using Data 101 in Your Land Investing Career (LA 1465)
Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt broadcasting from special Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today jill and I talk about using data 101 in her land investing career. Special Scottsdale?
Jill DeWit: I don't know. I'm just trying to think of a different S word. I had sizzling. Sunny I say for California. I said sweet. Today it's special. I'll come up with some other words. Someday it might be sucky. I don't know it. It won't be sucky. It's awesome.
Steven Butala: Are you guys really going to talk about data again?
Jill DeWit: I know.
Steven Butala: Don't you think you talk about data enough? I thought this show was supposed to be about real estate. Where's the ... I want to choose paint colors. I want to choose window treatments. I want you to talk about issue TV and buying a rickety, broken down house and making it beautiful. Isn't that what real estate is? No, it's not for us.
Jill DeWit: Stop it. Just stop it.
Steven Butala: It's not just it's about assessor's tax rules, and it might as well not be about real estate. In fact, what we should probably call this as a Data ... Data Academy is what we should call this.
Jill DeWit: That's true. You are right.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and if you are already a Land Academy member, make sure, put it on your list today. Join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: I'm making a note to talk about here, but on the topic, because it's important, but with this data. Okay, Doug wrote, "I've got eight siblings with 10 acre parcel each. All want to sell to me. They're all clustered together. Problem is, no access. Is this worth contacting a neighboring land owner to try and work out a deal for on an easement? Providing I can make that happen. I'd have to get a dirt road built to access the other seven parcels, and then build that easement into each of the deeds. Headache or goldmine waiting to happen?" This ties into the Luke thing yesterday. Go.
Steven Butala: Run. Run the other way. Open the next signed offer and do that deal. That's my advice here.
Jill DeWit: It's doable. Doug's not nuts, but are you saying because of the time and the energy and the costs and all of that?
Steven Butala: Yeah. Yeah. Before ... I'll tell you, here's my serious answer. How much money are you actually going to make? If you're going to make a couple million bucks, okay, I get it. Then you can start down the year long path of how long this is going to take, and make sure that it doesn't stop you from doing other deals too.
Jill DeWit: It's true.
Steven Butala: This is a long, long path, and I've never ... I'll phrase this in a question. Have you ever had the sibling thing work out to your favor? Everybody signing at Thanksgiving kind of thing.
Jill DeWit: A few times, but when there's that many it's hard.
Steven Butala: It's the exception for sure. It's not the rule.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. It is hard. Often one of them gets a stick up there or whatever, and they decide they don't want to sell at that price or something. It's really hard to get eight on the same page. It's very true.
Steven Butala: Siblings are famous for fighting with each other at the time of parent's death.
Jill DeWit: Oh, I thought you just meant in general.
Steven Butala: Oh, they're famous for finding each other anyway, but specifically when everyone breaks the will out and says ... The worst thing you can do is Jill and I are going through this estate planning right now. The absolute worst thing you can do as a parent to your heirs is say, "The daughter gets 50% and the son gets 50%, and you guys work it out, knock yourselves out."
Jill DeWit: Right. Whatever it is. I don't know.
Using WebHarvy to Collect Comparison Values on Zillow (LA 1464)
Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from sweet Scottsdale. Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about using WebHarvy to collect comparison values on Zillow.
Jill DeWit: Oh boy. Alrighty, it sounds like, and we're out. I promise it's not that bad. This is a good thing, but it sounds like this is a big topic.
Steven Butala: Today, we talk about how to make the best out of your new encyclopedia set.
Jill DeWit: There we go. That's what this sounds like, "Today we're going to dissect and discuss your accounting," whatever. "We're going to dissect and discuss all the tax changes from 2021."
Steven Butala: You know you've made it in life when you don't have to write the titles of your own show anymore. I'm not a writer on the show anymore, and I think that's great.
Jill DeWit: That's funny. So, okay. Yes, I did have encyclopedias, by the way. I remember that.
Steven Butala: So did I. Did you have World Book or Britannica?
Jill DeWit: Britannica.
Steven Butala: We had World Book. Britannica, that's why you're smarter than me.
Jill DeWit: I didn't say I used them. We had them.
Steven Butala: Mine were very, very, very unused.
Jill DeWit: Remember you'd opened them up and the pages would just crinkle
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Because they were brand new.
Steven Butala: Because it's brand new. I think it was a guilt thing. Our parents they had to get it because they wanted to make sure we were educated.
Jill DeWit: They felt like they were better parents.
Steven Butala: Right.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, it's true. You had to have it as a parent. It was a rite of passage or something.
Steven Butala: It was really truly just silly because any topic you looked up, there was a paragraph on its whole subject. I don't know, let's say you looked up turtle, and it's a tiny little paragraph. You didn't learn anything.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: All it did was say, "You need to go to the library and actually get a book on turtles."
Jill DeWit: Right. Here's where the country is.
Steven Butala: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jill DeWit: Not going to tell you that much about it.
Steven Butala: Right.
Jill DeWit: Here's the brief overview. You know what? Actually, this is one of the reasons I like encyclopedias, it was a Cliff Notes to wars, countries, all of that. I'm all about Cliff Notes.
Steven Butala: You'd look a country up and it's like, "Their major exports are shale and oil and corn." I'm like, "Oh, that's awesome. That's exactly what I needed to know about country X."
Jill DeWit: Exactly. Population. This is funny. We should find some old, that'd be really good, like at Goodwill, it'd be fun to have an encyclopedia to show the kids.
Steven Butala: These kids, I'm going to sound like an old man, these kids have no idea with Google and then with YouTube how ...
Jill DeWit: Lucky.
Steven Butala: ... far ahead and how educated they are at such a young age on anything, because I had a computer when I was a kid. I was real lucky, I always started with computers, and I said, "My dream one day is to have a computer in the living room, in the corner." There were no such thing as notebooks back then, or laptops, but to have a computer terminal where you could find out the answers to stuff when you wanted it.
Jill DeWit: Is that why we had that computer in the corner?
Steven Butala: Yes.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Butala: That's exactly what that was.
Jill DeWit: When we got together, there was a computer in the corner and I'm like, "Is that a timeout? Someone has to go sit there and stare at it?"
Steven Butala: Yeah, your punishment is to go sit there and learn stuff.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. That would be punishment for me.
Steven Butala: Jill,
How to Jill-ify a Land Transaction (LA 1463)
Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hey.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sweet Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about how to Jillify a land transaction.
Jill DeWit: You came up with this.
Steven Butala: This is a sentence Jill just said before we turned the camera on, just now.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: "Don't go all man on me and tell me the facts and the truth."
Jill DeWit: Don't tell me about the year and the make and the model and why that car is dumb. That's not the point here.
Steven Butala: What is the point?
Jill DeWit: I was making a comment about the car. I was skipping along the top and you're like, "No, here's why this car's bad. This is what it's worth. This is what kind of mileage it gets. This is where it won't go." I'm like, "What the heck?"
Steven Butala: Don't go up all man on me.
Jill DeWit: Like, "That's not the point, at all." Oh my gosh, yeah.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and if you're a Land Academy member, please make sure you join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: Aaron wrote, "Newbie, first mailer, stage question. Is ParcelFact or NeighborScoop required right away for due diligence? I've been looking up properties at assessor sites, and the owner info seems to be available there. Also, I think there's a site to look up FEMA flood maps, checking the parcel on Google earth is a PITA? I don't know what that is, but possible without tools.
Steven Butala: Pain in the.
Jill DeWit: Oh, now I know what that is.
Steven Butala: Is a PITA.
Jill DeWit: Okay, got it. I didn't know that. I hadn't heard that before. That's funny. Am I correct in that tools like ParcelFact and NeighborScoop are more for productivity? Can't DataTree do most of this as well.
Steven Butala: Hold on a second, I have a lot to say about this. This is in Discord.
Jill DeWit: Go.
Steven Butala: And I answered it in Discord this way, and I'm going to answer it here as well.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: You don't need Land Academy, you don't need NeighborScoop, you don't need O2O, you don't need any of this. I never had any of it. Never. And it took me 20 years to get where I am. It can take you two months with all these tools. You have this podcast that's free. There's all kinds of free stuff. You don't need to join Land Academy. You need to look at Land Academy like an insurance policy. If you do join Land Academy and follow along here and participate and actually watch the program and ask questions, you're going to make a fortune. It's either going to click in place for you or it's not. So no, you don't need these tools. Good luck.
Jill DeWit: I was not expecting that. That's like a speech you give a kid. You know what? Nope, you don't need high school, you don't need college. You want to drop out now? Go right ahead. Nevermind.
Steven Butala: And eat nothing but pop tarts. Good luck, kid.
Jill DeWit: Sit on the couch, buddy, but it's not going to be my couch. Good luck. Oh my gosh. Call somebody who cares.
Steven Butala: I personally-
Jill DeWit: That's awesome.
Steven Butala: This is the truth of it. I don't want to mansplain anything.
Jill DeWit: Oh yeah, that's right, don't go all man on me.
Steven Butala: I'm trying to micromanage what I say. Jill thinks in sound bites. The shorter, the better.
Jill DeWit: That was not in the book by the way, about me and my personality, but I'm still learning. That's good.
Steven Butala: Today's topic, how to Jillify a land transaction.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Butala: This is the meat of the show.
Jill DeWit: Would you like to man explain, mansplain?
Steven Butala: I'm about to give you a bunch of compliments here.
How and How Not to Review a Land Acquisition Deal (LA 1462)
Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill Dewitt: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show entertaining land, investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill Dewitt: Oh, and I'm Jill...
Steven Butala: What's going on?
Jill Dewitt: I don't know. For some reason I was waiting, I was ready for what I was going to say after that I forgot about my name. I was focusing on what word do I want to use today? So I'm going to say, and I'm Jill Dewitt, broadcasting from sizzling, Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala: It's perfect weather right now though.
Jill Dewitt: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.
Jill Dewitt: Isn't it funny when you live in some of these places, by the way, where the forecast doesn't change? I'm sure it's like that for some people in the winter, in some locations, like, "Well, and today's another cold one."
Steven Butala: I moved to Arizona in 1994. And I can tell you very accurately that all the perceptions that people from Michigan have about Arizona and specifically Phoenix are completely incorrect. It's only old people live there, it's too hot all year round, you can't really, it's just so hot. None of those things are true at all.
Jill Dewitt: That's cool.
Steven Butala: And there are 10 other ones, but some of them are really derogatory, so I'm not going to... I'll stop right there.
Jill Dewitt: Okay. Cool. All right. I'm not sure how to say this name [Sitoboh 00:01:18] wrote. Thank you both for providing insightful answers and guidance on last evening's accountability group call. Following up now on one of the topics discussed, accounting as a land investor. Within that topic, you Steve had spoken about the importance of setting up separate bank accounts and to never co-mingling funds. Would welcoming the opportunity to continue discussion here and potentially receive further guidance on handling bank and funds and bank accounts in the land business, tracking expenses and related areas of accounting within reason since this could be an entire course that you believe are important to an entry to mid-level land investor. That's a lot.
Steven Butala: This is posted on Discord and what ended up I answered it. And I'm going to answer the question here, but more importantly, what ended up happening is that we have a member who lives in Salt Lake City, who's a CPA and has his family practice in California, so he quote-unquote escaped California a lot of years ago, more than 10 years ago. Good for him. We just did too. And this became a massive topic. And now this guy, I'd plug his name if I could remember it, is taking on new clients and customers and setting up bank accounts and helping people in our group. This is my point about Discord. It just became this topic. Then it turned into, "Hey, you got to read this book." And then we all... Did you see it?
Jill Dewitt: No no.
Steven Butala: Then we all piped in like, "No, you got to read this book and you got to read this book." So my Amazon cart's full of books, that members are saying, you need to read and you need to think about it this way.
Jill Dewitt: That's really cool.
Steven Butala: Here's what you do. Wherever your personal bank account is right now, go on there and open another account. It takes seconds. In most cases, I know for Bank of America it just take seconds.
Jill Dewitt: Like a sub-account kind of thing?
Steven Butala: Yeah separate account. And go fund it put some amount of money in from the other account. Whenever Jill and I start new companies, I always put $10,000 in there. I don't know why. Sometimes it takes a lot more, sometimes it takes a lot less. And then every single expense you incur, get checks, order checks and a debit card, and it doesn't have to be in an LLC yet. What's important is it's separate.
5 Land Investing Tools We Can Not Live Without (LA 1461)
Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from sweet Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about the five land investing tools that we can't live without.
Jill DeWit: Yes, this is going to be good. I have my list. Don't look.
Steven Butala: Okay.
Jill DeWit: Don't [inaudible 00:00:20].
Steven Butala: Okay, good. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free. And if you're a member, please join or participate in our strings on Discord. I promise you, you will not be disappointed.
Jill DeWit: You're going to get immediate answers. I was telling someone about that the other day. I'm like, if you're struggling with anything.
Steven Butala: Anything.
Jill DeWit: And you're not taking advantage of the support that's there, you just got to throw a question and people will answer it.
Steven Butala: Here's an example.
Jill DeWit: That's kind of like, I can't help you with that. If you don't do it, don't ask.
Steven Butala: I'm having trouble getting my first mailer out. I can't just pull the trigger. Can somebody please kick me in the butt? And everybody will sweep in, me included. I answer tons of questions in real time.
Jill DeWit: That's good. Okay. Thomas wrote, I have sold many things online in the past and understand that there's no shortage of flaky people that call on items listed for sale.
Steven Butala: We talked about this yesterday.
Jill DeWit: I did not expect this with real estate though. I'm trying to sell my first two properties and I'm getting a steady flow of interested buyers, but all of them disappear after telling me how interested they are to buy. I'm now advertising on Craigslist and Zillow right now. The properties have good attributes, almost five acres each, and a price at half of what two and a half acre properties are. Is the issue my lack of reach in marketing or because they are desert properties where several others are being bought and sold?
Steven Butala: This is [inaudible 00:01:45]. This is a classic. This is classic men mistake. I'm a man and I have made this mistake and sometimes make it to this day. You believe that the thing that you're selling is what matters. You believe that the mouse trap that you've built doesn't require any sales, and what really is happening here is, you're doing the first 60% of everything correct. And you're not doing the backend 40%. I would bet you a dollar that you are not having this conversations with these people and then saying, "Hey, what's your email address? I'll email you all the information right now, and included there is a link for you to put $500 down on the property so we can start the closing process, and somebody would buy it. That's all you need to do. It's not the posting is bad or the real estate's bad. It's the sales. It's the call to action closing part.
Jill DeWit: We had someone on our staff who now is doing a different job, trying to help with this job for a while. And that's all they were doing. They thought they were just there to answer questions like customer service.
Steven Butala: No.
Steven Butala: I'm like, no, you've got to...
Jill DeWit: You're there to sell it.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. You've got to do a little bit more than just answer the question and go, is that it? Okay, well, have a nice day. Click. Hello? What the heck? That's not what this is about. That's right. That's where it is. Okay, good. All right. Take care. No.
Steven Butala: It's interesting, most real estate agents are like this too. They just don't... They just wait. Okay, thanks. No, you've got to send... You need to...
Jill DeWit: Work. You've got to work a little bit.
Steven Butala:
What Makes a Good Land Internet Posting (LA 1460)
Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill Dewitt: Howdy.
Steven Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill Dewitt: And I'm Jill Dewitt broadcasting from sweet Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about what makes a good land internet posting.
Jill Dewitt: I have a good list here.
Steven Butala: I will tell you the single best and most important thing about a good land internet posting is posting it.
Jill Dewitt: Is it exists. So that's step one.
Steven Butala: I made people buy property and they forget about the sales part. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And if you're a Land Academy member, please join Discord. It's becoming an irreplaceable, essential tool, in my opinion, for being a Land Academy member.
Jill Dewitt: It's funny that though, I was talking to somebody about this recently, about posting property and you can't sell it if no one knows it's for sale. And then number two, I was mentioning using Discord as a way to get some quick feedback. If you want some feedback on your posting, throw it on Discord and everybody will [inaudible 00:01:09]. I said, "You put it on Discord and show what you've got going on there, trust me, you'll get 10 responses really fast about that's good, change this, whatever it is, you priced it wrong or whatever you need that..." Because everybody is so good on their [inaudible 00:01:24]. Okay, Andy wrote, "I understand that it means things can be built on it, but is this a legal designation or does it have something to do with soil utilities slope? Is there a good way to check for this and to get a good yes or no? Or is this something that is more of a gray area and it depends on the buyer's plan for the property? Thanks. Any advice is appreciated. Thanks, y'all."
Steven Butala: I failed to put the title of the posting and what Andy is asking is what is the definition of buildable? He goes on to say what Jill just said. I understand that it means things can be built on it, but is this a legal designation? This has long been a misunderstood phrase. Is it buildable? This is what buildable means. It's not a legal designation. What it means is this, in it's current state, and I mean grading and everything, when you walk straight up and stand on the property, you can either start construction that day from a stick-built house or structure, or you can put a mobile home on it, which means this, almost all property, almost without exception, it's not buildable in its current state. Stuff has to happen, whether it's grading or checking to see if utilities are available or creating utilities. In a lot of cases, you do a septic in a well situation.
Jill Dewitt: Zoning. [crosstalk 00:02:46] things.
Steven Butala: I see a lot of new people and when I was new, I did this. My lawyer called me and said, "You need to stop this right now." In fact, our teenager who's selling property online right now, just saw this happen. It said, "A buildable lot," in XYZ city and it's not buildable at all. You should never use that phrase. You should say things like... This is timely, too. This is actually good for this episode. In your internet posting you just don't want to use the word buildable. You probably can say, "Look, it probably needs, in my opinion, it needs this, this, this and this to make this property buildable." And it's very close. You know, maybe it just needs grading. Jill and I just bought a piece of property that all it needs is grading for it to be buildable.
Jill Dewitt: What we do in our postings, like on LandPin and everything, it says, "Time limit to build," which is usually none. But you can talk about that. And you can talk about what's allowed there per the zoning. Maybe it allows mobiles. Maybe it allows RVs.
Mistakes We Have Made in Land Investing (LA 1459)
Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the LandAcademy show, entertaining land, investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from sweet Scottsdale Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about the mistakes we've made in land investing. And man, I have made some great-
Jill DeWit: This ought to be funny.
Steven Butala: Biblical mistakes. You know what? I bet my mistakes are way bigger than yours.
Jill DeWit: You know, it's funny, I have one catastrophic mistake that we make all the time, seriously. And then I have mistakes that I've just talked to people recently about, and I will share those too.
Steven Butala: Excellent. Before we get into it though, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com forum. If you're already a LandAcademy member, please make sure you check us out on Discord, one of my favorite tools actually.
Jill DeWit: Cool. Yeah. There's two places. So you can go on landinvestors.com and chat with everybody. That's free, you don't have to be a member. Or the Discord thing he's talking about, is for members, and that's super special and fun and fast.
Steven Butala: It's my new favorite tool.
Jill DeWit: It's hilarious. Okay. Levi wrote, "Hi everyone. They're still in escrow now, so I don't want to count my chickens too soon, but I just snagged my first two big time deals. They'll both end up being about $15,000 to acquire, and I think they're worth about $100,000 each, retail."
Steven Butala: That's why we're here.
Jill DeWit: Holy moly. "I will probably list them at 65 ish."
Steven Butala: No.
Jill DeWit: No, no. Let Levi go. Let him go. I'm going to share, it ties in today. "And move them quickly. They're both partner funded and it's also my first time doing that as well, working with an old childhood friend."
Steven Butala: Excellent.
Jill DeWit: "Cross your fingers for me because if the spread works out the way I think, that'll be the most money I've ever seen in one place in my life." Aww.
Steven Butala: That's a great story.
Jill DeWit: That ties into the show too.
Steven Butala: And you're never going to get rid of that childhood friend when they get a check, they're going to be standing at your door.
Jill DeWit: Yep. So here's one of the mistakes I'll give it. It's a prelude and it ties into what Levi just said, and it's a prelude to the show today. People often go in and retail price, and then they sit there and wonder why it doesn't sell. Well, congratulations, because you're retail price, you're one of however many there are in there. You got to stand out somehow, and it's usually price. It's price and reach, that's the whole point here.
Steven Butala: It does tap right into the show.
Jill DeWit: And you're going to totally, Levi's going to way double his money. If he wanted to move them for 35... What's funny is Levi's getting into the territory where if you price things too cheap, that you just try to really double your money and move on. Now it's priced too cheap and people think there's something wrong with it, and that's the funniest thing.
Steven Butala: Yeah, the good news is that there's two. So I think you have the opportunity when you have two APNs like this, or more, to sell the first one at 40,000 and sell the second one at 100. So you recoup all your money, you get another mailer out, and you let the better of the two properties just mark it up. And if it's really, truly worth 100, sell it for 90.
Jill DeWit: Not what I do, but that's okay. I like Levi's read too, both at 65 because they're worth 100 each and then let them go.
Steven Butala: Today's topic, mistakes we've made in land investing. This is the meat of the show.
Jill DeWit: We obviously see differently about these things, and there's nothing wrong-
Steven Butala: No, I was just moving if forward because we're really...
Becoming an Influencer by Jill DeWit (LA 1458)
Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from sweet Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Hey Jill.
Jill DeWit: Want to see why we're laughing?
Steven Butala: I just looked at Jill's notes and she wrote down this word, quesadilla. And we both just burst out laughing. I've never met anyone who writes down in their notes what they want to eat for lunch.
Jill DeWit: Yep. That's right. It just sounded good, didn't want to forget. So I wrote it down.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about Becoming an Influencer, by Jill DeWit. I said this story yesterday, I'll say it again. A couple of weeks ago, we were standing in the kitchen and our number three kid, who's a late teenager said, ended a sentence with this, "Because, like, you guys are influencers on the internet." Both of us stopped and said, I had never thought of myself as an influencer. And he looked at us like, "People a lot less than you are influencers." I guess this is show 1500 or something.
Jill DeWit: 1458.
Steven Butala: 1458, so I guess we do have a lot of content out there and we are in our little land flipping niche, somewhat of a authority, but Jill's becoming more and more of an influencer, especially on Clubhouse.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Steven Butala: And what's happening is that, this is the reason I really wrote this title, more and more and more people are asking Jill to share and teach, really, how to handle these people on the phone. How to handle a seller on the phone, how to handle a buyer on the phone, basically how to have a personality to do this stuff more successfully. And I'll tell you what, she's a thousand times more qualified on this topic than I am. The second that Jill and I joined forces, I never picked up a phone again. I couldn't do it fast enough and more happily.
Jill DeWit: Thanks, babe.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it. Let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free and if you're already a Land Academy member, please join us on Discard.
Jill DeWit: Scott wrote, "Hello, Land Academy folks. I am putting the final touches on my first mailer, targeting properties between 5 and 20 acres, recreational land. I have done all the requisite research like the red, yellow, green test, etc. So I feel good about my county selection. However, I would like to send at least 2,500 pieces for my first mailer, but my chosen county has only just over 1400 records that meet my criteria. The neighboring counties don't seem strong candidates to add to my mailer in order to get to my target 2,500 units"-
Steven Butala: Excellent. Excellent question.
Jill DeWit: ..."so, here's my questions. Should I just go with the 1400 units in my selected county?"
Steven Butala: No.
Jill DeWit: "Should I add another county in the same state, but not neighboring, maybe an hour away? Or should I add another strong candidate from a county from another state? Thanks in advance."
Steven Butala: Strong candidate from another state. This does two things. It gets you to that 2,500. Thank you for listening by the way, because we always recommend in the beginning to send out a bunch. 2,500 is good. Two things, add another super strong candidate from another state. This accomplishes diversity too, a diversification. So on a small chance that something weird is going on and there's a bunch of weird gas leases or something... One time I sent a mailer out in New Mexico and there's all these natural gas leases that stopped us from doing any deals there. So this will make you avoid that, and it's kind of an extra insurance policy. Diversification is always good in any type of investment.
Steven Butala: And number two, it gets you to that 2,500 unit mark. And then, finally,
How much Available Investment Capital is Really in Land Academy Group (LA 1457)
Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sweet Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today jill and I talk about how much available investment capital is really in this Land Academy group of ours. Lots.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, that we know of, by the way.
Steven Butala: I would actually say it's limitless for the right deals.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven Butala: It's limitless for great real estate deal.
Jill DeWit: That's true.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it...
Jill DeWit: Well now you've answered the whole... did the whole show.
Steven Butala: That is pretty much... you don't need to listen...
Jill DeWit: There we go.
Steven Butala: ...to the rest if you...
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Butala: ...don't want to.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it let's take a question posted by one of our members, LandInvestors.com. Our online community, it's free. And if you're a Land Academy member already, please join us on discord.
Jill DeWit: Wouldn't it be funny. So did you hear the show yesterday? Yeah, it was three minutes long.
Steven Butala: We should do that one time. See what people say.
Jill DeWit: That would be funny. They would... I think they would think that's cute. Okay. So Chip wrote, "Hi land investors. I'm prepping for a mailer for large tracts of land that I will flip to a network of developers who focus on low density, large acreage land developments."
Steven Butala: I love that.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven Butala: Low density, large acreage land developments are my favorite.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative) everybody wants that.
Steven Butala: Yes.
Jill DeWit: Does anyone have a template for a non-circumvent non-disclosure agreement.
Steven Butala: An NDA.
Jill DeWit: Right, or whatever it might be called. There you go. "The price point of these properties will be beyond my capabilities and quite a bit larger than many of the deals done within the group."
Steven Butala: Well, this is a perfect question for this topic. Go ahead Jill.
Jill DeWit: Gee, imagine how that happened.
Jill DeWit: I know.
Steven Butala: Honestly, it was just pure luck.
Jill DeWit: Oh okay. "My plan is to either do a simultaneous close or simply sign the contract to the end, excuse me, end buyer. These developers form a new LLC for each land track," which is kind of normal for that. "My concern is that when I present these deals to the buyer, they or partner of theirs will go around me and directly to the seller and then steal slash kill the deal for me. Does anyone have any suggestions or a template document that I could use for some level of protection?" You want to go?
Steven Butala: Yeah, this has happened to me, and it's going to happen to you. So you just have to accept that. Ask them for an NDA, because if they are big developers and they're very experienced and it sounds like they are because they're doing a new LLC for every deal, they're going to have one. And so especially they're going to have one, if they give it to you and you ask them to sign it and they say no, it's like, why do they have have it. They make other people do it.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: So it's not so much... I would actually get their NDA and then I would look out on the internet. I used to, when I was buying and selling long-term care facilities and brokering them, I would make them sign an open-ended agreement that says, look, you're going to pay me 2% of the transaction value of any deal I bring to you and I'm going to register each deal and you're going to sign it.
Steven Butala: You're going to sign it. When I bring you the deal, you're going to sign that. Then you're going to pay me. After a while, they stop...
Breakdown of How to Hire Staff (LA 1456)
Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from sweet Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about the breakdown of how to hire staff. Super, super popular topic with our customer service people and on Discord.
Jill DeWit: Do you know why this makes me so happy?
Steven Butala: Tell me.
Jill DeWit: Because that means so many people are doing it right, and they're getting busy, and they need help.
Steven Butala: Oh, sure. Right, I didn't think of that.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. If you're not thinking about hiring, you're not doing any volume. You're not busy, you're doing just fine. But this many people, this is such a hot topic right now. And I'm like, "Oh, it's going great for a lot of people."
Steven Butala: This is the single most challenging thing in my career, is hiring people. And fortunately, now we've got staff now to hire other staff. And they're very, very good at it, much better than I ever was. Steve jobs said one time, if you do everything right in your career, at some point you will end up being a recruiter. And I think that's really telling.
Jill DeWit: I love that. I agree.
Steven Butala: We actually just recently put up a webpage on all of our sites about careers and our help wanted.
Jill DeWit: I hoped it's to the public now. It's on landinvestors.com. If you go to the top and look at jobs there. And it's not just us, we have our own jobs posted, and it's a place for you as a member to for free post your jobs.
Steven Butala: Does anybody use it?
Jill DeWit: Yeah, there's actually other people on there.
Steven Butala: That's great.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Totally.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and if you're a Land Academy member already, please join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: Rachel wrote, "Hi all, I'm looking to join a mastermind group where I can contribute and continue growing as a land investor. Are there any groups willing to open the doors for one more? I can be reached here and we can also connect on Discord." Thank you for any consideration, Rachel. First I was going to say, Rachel, you're on discord, so you're a member. I hope you're in the Land Academy ladies group. So definitely join there, because we have people from, oh boy, all levels.
Steven Butala: I'll tell you, that's free, and these women are doing deals together. Jill's a ringleader. And it's worked out. A lot of times you start these products and they just don't work. I don't know, three out of 10 maybe. This thing worked, this lady's group, they're kicking it.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative). It's awesome, and it's fun.
Steven Butala: Here's the thing, we've got the regular Land Academy, we've got Land Investors, we've got discord, we have Jill's ladies group, we have the accountability group. This is a closed group, we have to cap it. Then it's very, very popular, and it's hard to get into. Reach out to service@landacademy.com. Jill and I are doing it presently, we're going to get other people to get involved, other members who've shown interest in teaching. And it doesn't cost anything, at the moment anyway, but it's hard to get into. I was actually considering doing two, so we'll see what happens. We have tons and tons of people trying to sign up for it. And then ultimately, we just started Career Path.
Jill DeWit: It just recently launched by the way. What day are we airing.... This is Wednesday.
Steven Butala: It's April 4th.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, yeah.
Steven Butala: When it starts. Land Academy Career Path is a paid-for 15 person cap, Jill and I'll teach the class. And at the end of it, you'll be selling the real estate you bought during the class.
Self-Discipline 101 (LA 1455)
Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Howdy.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sweet Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Oh, that's better.
Jill DeWit: I don't know. It just came off, just came out.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about self discipline 101. It is not something you're born with. People think that.
Jill DeWit: Oh, I have a ton of it. I'm happy to share. Just kidding. Could you imagine?
Steven Butala: Yeah, we'll use ourselves [crosstalk 00:00:27]. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on thelandinvestors.com online community.
Jill DeWit: Sure.
Steven Butala: It's free.
Jill DeWit: You know.
Steven Butala: If you're a Land Academy member, please join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: Oh, I'm commonly going, "No, just put down the cookie. I got this."
Steven Butala: This is exactly what happened a half hour ago.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: Jill, will you please turn your phone off.
Jill DeWit: Oh, yeah.
Steven Butala: We need to record these shows. Because you're going to California tomorrow. We're not going to be in the same room. To her credit, she can't put her phone down because we've got a very successful mailer going on right now.
Jill DeWit: It's so [inaudible 00:01:03].
Steven Butala: And she's like, "Listen man, you want to make money buying real estate today? Or do you want to record shows today?"
Steven Butala: And I said, "We need to record these shows." So you're going to have like, 10 deals when we're done.
Jill DeWit: I know, the mail's hitting, and it's awesome.
Steven Butala: It is. We got three properties out of this mailer already, and they're ...
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative), phenomenal.
Steven Butala: We'll make six digits on each of them. And I bet, there's probably like, 10 more.
Jill DeWit: And nobody's mad. I'm really going to up my game, by the way. Side note, we're totally off topic.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: But I'm working on more content and to help everyone, because as time goes on, I'm getting better. And I can really help everyone here with these phone calls coming in. And winning them over in just a few sentences so they want to sell to you, and they're not mad.
Steven Butala: Here's what I did on this mailer. It's a very low volume mailer, about a thousand units-ish. But I went in at about 60 to 80 percent of the retail value, because I know the area very, very well. And I know that ... I was just explaining this to somebody on Discord. I know how fast they're going to sell.
Steven Butala: So think of it in houses, from a housing standpoint. If you live in a neighborhood where there's a lot of similar houses, and three of your neighbors sold like kind houses really recently for 300,000 dollars, would you pay 250,000 for the house across the street?
Jill DeWit: Yeah, mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven Butala: Absolutely. And that's a pretty high percentage. That's 70, that's 85 percent of retail value.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven Butala: Because you know you're going to sell it really fast. And you know the neighborhood, and you know the whole thing. So, people were pretty surprised that I was talking about this on Discord, because there's always somebody in the group that says, "Oh my gosh, you've been telling us for two years just to do it at 25 percent." I said, "You know what? It's not engraved in stone."
Jill DeWit: I know, it's true.
Steven Butala: Going into a new market like we are still buying property from an old mailer.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative). I got a couple [crosstalk 00:03:01].
Steven Butala: We went in at 20 percent on that, and she's still buying property.
Jill DeWit: Yep. All right, Jason wrote, "I have an accepted offer on a parcel in Blank County.
Your Income Directly Correlates to the Amount of Mailers You Send (LA 1454) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewit, broadcasting from sunny Southern Scottsdale. I have to figure this out. I feel so bad. I'm so sorry. I need to have a good [crosstalk 00:00:17]
Steven Butala: It's not your fault if we change the script.
Jill DeWit: Well, you know what, I'm not sure that sits well with me. It's not like it's not sunny and it's not like we're in Southern Scottsdale, but it's like, I need something a little catchier. So we got to work on that.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about your income is directly correlated with the amount of mailers you send. I got this topic from Discord. If you're in our group, you know all about Discord. We recently maybe a couple months ago set up, our staff set up a Discord account so we can in real time communicate with each other and ask questions. And somebody was talking about how much mailers they sent and it was a very small number. It was like 200 mailers a week.
Jill DeWit: How are you going to make money off that?
Steven Butala: I can tell you exactly where-
Jill DeWit: How that's going to go.
Steven Butala: Well, that person came from the land gig because that's he teaches that. He teaches, you and your family sit around the kitchen table at night and do about-
Jill DeWit: Lick stamps.
Steven Butala: 20 letters every day. And that may work eventually. But why wouldn't you just send out 5,000 letters?
Jill DeWit: I know. All I can think of is the, well, we'll talk about it, the yield and you're scrambling for a deal.
Steven Butala: Plus the COVID might be on those stamps.
Jill DeWit: There is that, too.
Steven Butala: And what your kids licking that stuff. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And by the way, if you're a Land Academy member, you can also find us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: Sounds like we get money from Discord, but we don't.
Steven Butala: I love Discord. That's why I keep plugging it.
Jill DeWit: I know.
Steven Butala: We have no financial affiliation, but I just, I love the, " Hey Jack, would you do this deal?" And it's like, bang, bang, bang. It's very quick. I just reviewed somebody in our group who's brand new. They did the Craigslist thing and the ebook. And they came up with 80 acres in downtown Sacramento and I priced it at about 10 million for each property. And which was a perfect pricing because I then, about 20 minutes later, found out it was listed on LoopNet commercial property. It's being used as agriculture, but it's a subdivision waiting to happen. And that they're listed for 22 million each. So I was right. At 10 million, we would've would've done okay.
Jill DeWit: So what happened?
Steven Butala: Well, it was already listed for 20 million.
Jill DeWit: Oh, they can't still... They don't have an agreement.
Steven Butala: This person and she did the right thing. She's just brand spanking new. She's doing the Craigslist thing. She just like, I tell everybody go on Craigslist, type this in.
Jill DeWit: Oh, so someone said I want to sell.
Steven Butala: The owner did.
Jill DeWit: And she said, "I'll offer you 10." And they're like, ha ha.
Steven Butala: He said I can live with 16. And so she reached out to me on Discord and said, "I don't usually reach out to you, but I'm brand new at this. And this is a $16 million deal. And you might want to look at it."
Jill DeWit: You know, well, here's the reality is you can buy it for 16. Then you sell it for 17. You made a million. It really does make sense but-
Steven Butala: Well, here's the, I'm just down on California's real estate market right now. But that's the truth. But and here's how it ended. I said, "We just do not ever,
How Many Offers Should You Really Be Sending per Month (LA 1453) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show. Happy Friday. Entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny southern Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about how many offers should you really be sending a month. And yesterday we agreed that-
Jill DeWit: We'll do three levels, whether you're brand new, whether you're intermediate or just an average in this business and then your advanced/pro, what you should be sending. And like I said, we separately wrote down our numbers and we'll share them with you in a few minutes.
Steven Butala: But before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And if you're a Land Academy member already, join us on Discord. I really mean that. If you're a Land Academy member already, this Discord thing was one of the best things that ever happened to this group. It's just real-time advice. Hey, should I be buying this property or not? Hey, I need a lawyer in Atlanta. It's pretty cool stuff.
Jill DeWit: It is. Austin wrote, "Hello. After reading a recent post, I came across an affidavit of disclosure. I looked it up and it looks like Arizona may require this document when transacting land. For my Arizona transactions so far, I've conveyed the property to my buyers with a special warranty deed and an affidavit of property value. Am I doing the right thing or do I need to include this additional document to be above board? Thanks, Austin."
Steven Butala: You're doing every single thing right. For Arizona, it just happens to be called an affidavit of property value. There's a lot of other ... By the way, this is all you need to buy property, two documents, the deed, and let's just call it an addendum because it's called different stuff in different states. It's called a P-Corp in Colorado. What do they call it in California?
Jill DeWit: I can't remember.
Steven Butala: The reason for this document is so that the assessor and the treasurer get a copy of it. Actually, I'm sorry. One goes to the recorder, the deed, and the affidavit never gets recorded. It gets walked over or sent to the assessor to notify the assessor that a transaction happened and so that it gets reassessed, most of the time, for the next year's tax rates, which gets communicated to the treasurer.
Jill DeWit: Based on what you paid for the property.
Steven Butala: Right. In some states, they don't do it at all. They used to not do it in New Mexico. I haven't done a deal there in a while, which was just slam that stuff out. You could do a deed in five seconds. But they require something now. Today's topic ... Oh, you want to answer this?
Jill DeWit: No, no, we're good. Yeah.
Steven Butala: Usually I just sit and listen to you.
Jill DeWit: I'll be over here. Just let me know if you need anything.
Steven Butala: Today's topics, how many offers should you really be sending per month? This is the meat of the show.
Jill DeWit: This is your inventory. This is why you are in business. This I would argue is the number one thing. You can't buy any property to sell any property to make any money if you don't have any deals coming in, and you don't have any deals coming in if you don't send out any mail. So this is crucial. And I see people often make mistakes and it's one easy little fix. They're sending too little. You can't send 100 a week. You can't hand-write them. Actually today, by the time this airs it'll be last week, I'm going to talk on Clubhouse about the difference between the number of deals that we get sending direct mail versus driving for dollars, even pre COVID. Let's just say pre COVID, you can go knock on anybody's door, introduce yourself, hand them a card. And you're trying ...
Transcripts:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, and I don't know where we are. We've been doing this for several years. Broadcasting from sunny southern Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about housing versus land investing in 2021. You guessed it. You should be doing a version of both.
Jill DeWit: I'm sure you're going to tell us all about that job.
Steven Butala: And where you should be doing it. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWit: Mitch asks ... This is a long one, I'm just ... Hello. I'm currently working on purchasing three properties from a church. The deeds that I received from the county seem to be written well, and are all in the same format. It sure seems like a nice, easy purchase. The properties are currently written to be owned by the Episcopal church in blank state. My question is: who is able to sign the new deed once it's written, since it's owned by the church, instead of an individual? I asked a representative from the church dealing with the transaction if they know who signed the original deed, but they were unsure. I'm currently a grad student, so I'm in the process of saving up to join Land Academy and have some extra capital for my actual mailers and deals when the time comes. My question is, for someone who's totally new to this, how would you recommend someone who has a couple of months to prep to make the most of their time before diving in?
Jill DeWit: So there's two parts, one's how to handle the deal, and then some other parts here.
Steven Butala: I'll do the first one.
Jill DeWit: Okay. I'll finish the whole thing, and we'll go back. What's your recommend who has a couple months to prep, make the most of their time before diving in? What are some of the good resources to really map out this process, and maybe even get the feel for searching, scrubbing, and playing with some data? I'd also be super grateful to get the chance to speak with someone who's been through it to see how they learn those first few steps.
Steven Butala: That's what I was going to say.
Jill DeWit: In any case, it'd be a pleasure to be here and excited to start. Thank you very much and wishing everyone the best. Cheers, Julius. Cool.
Steven Butala: Boy. What a good attitude.
Jill DeWit: [inaudible 00:02:20] Let's go. Oh. Is it Mitch or Julius? I guess it's Julius.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Sorry.
Steven Butala: Maybe I did it wrong.
Jill DeWit: That's okay. Cool.
Steven Butala: This whole business with the church thing, when any entity, other than an individual, John Smith or whatever, owns a piece of property, you need some backing to identify, and to tie into or desk audit to check to see if they are able to sign on behalf of the entity, whether it's an LLC, a trust, whatever.
Jill DeWit: A church.
Steven Butala: In this case, a church. All churches are by default, this is interesting, all churches by default are deemed by the IRS as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, but they don't have to fill out any paperwork and file it. They're just deemed that. There's a charter somewhere or something like that that says, "Hey, this" ... It's usually the pastor actually or-
Jill DeWit: Or the board. Sometimes you have to be a member of a board.
Steven Butala: It might be a board. In some cases-
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: I doubt it.
Jill DeWit: I've had a few where they knew, and they had the document, and they could send it to me.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Most of them they do.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: That's always been my case. Yep. Here's a copy of the document. It shows this is the primary for the board, the secondary for the board, they both sign it-
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
Transcripts:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here. Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from sunny, Southern Scottsdale. Where it's got a cowboy vibe around here. Let's just tell it like it is.
Steven Butala: Whenever Jill goes into any new environment, even if it's very temporary, she has to dress the part. So, she's got... Like if we go skiing, even though she doesn't ski [inaudible 00:00:31], she will get all the outfits...
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: If it's a six day ski trip, she's got six outfits, six new outfits.
Jill DeWit: If we were in Japan, I'd be wearing a kimono right now.
Steven Butala: We're no stranger to Scottsdale. We lived here together and separately for years, years and years. We never had cowboy boots.
Jill DeWit: First separately, and then together.
Steven Butala: We never had cowboy boots, never had hats or anything, and now she's got all that.
Jill DeWit: Totally.
Steven Butala: What's all that about?
Jill DeWit: Got them in Utah, which is really funny. Park City started the whole thing. It's just cool. I love it. I enjoy this environment.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talked... And she doesn't find the cheap ones.
Jill DeWit: Come on. It's not like I have 10 of them.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about the top five mistakes new land investors make. This is going to be an interesting show. We all went in separate corners and listed the top five separately. So, I have no idea really-
Jill DeWit: It's going to be fun.
Steven Butala: Yeah. I wonder how much they overlap. I bet not at all.
Jill DeWit: I bet they do. I bet there's total overlap.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and if you're a Land Academy member, please join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: Luke wrote, Hey guys, hope everyone is doing well. Just curious, how many of you send just the purchase agreement in the mailer from offers to owners, to the title company / attorney versus closing with another version of the purchase agreement. Perhaps even as far as the state or the realtor version of a purchase agreement. I only bring this up because many attorneys have sort of chuckled at my purchase agreements I've used when I was wholesaling houses, as if to say they were short-sighted and too basic for such an agreement. It sounds like they chuckled at it, but they took them, which is kind of funny. Just wondering if the one used in the mailer is more of a barometer of testing the willingness of the seller. Then from what you utilize a more detailed and professional purchase agreement. Thanks.
Steven Butala: I'm going to answer this, all right?
Jill DeWit: Sure.
Steven Butala: When I started this, I sent a scaled down version of the purchase agreement that we use now, which is literally half of a page to my lawyer. And he looked at me and said, "this is the greatest thing I have ever seen ever." Total binding legal document with parameters for both parties and a timeframe. I think whoever said this, they're not laughing, Luke, because it's not comprehensive. They're laughing in a manner that's like, congratulations, you guys are doing this the right way. I don't want to say you're getting away with it, but this is thought out, it's a binding agreement. It does the job. People sign it and send it back. And it's a single page. It's very clear. I want to buy a property, here's the APN, here's the legal description for the price within this timeframe. And here's how we're going to do it. Everything else in life is complicated as hell, everything.
Jill DeWit: I agree.
Steven Butala: Why does a real estate deal have to be complicated.
Jill DeWit: The answer to the question is no, we use the exact form. That's what I sent into a title company or attorney. And they're like, okay, here we go.
Transcripts:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny, southern Scottsdale.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about How to Take Full Advantage of Land Academy Membership. I can't.
Jill DeWit: What? What?
Steven Butala: My first reaction to this whole topic is, "This sounds like a sales pitch. I don't want to do it," but it really ... But then I started thinking about it. I took some notes. I'm like, "Wow."
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative). It's for the people that are here. This is ... Sorry. If you're not a member, this'll still be beneficial, I'm sure. But if you are a member, this is going to be very beneficial, especially if you're a new member, because there's a lot of moving parts. So we're here to kind of describe the components and tell you how to best take advantage of everything we have.
Steven Butala: And how to use it. Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWit: John wrote, "I'm about to close a deal tomorrow, and I understand I have to register the property, which takes up to several weeks, as I was told at the recorder's office in Los Angeles. How can is sell it in the meantime?" Okay. I'm reading it as when he means register, it's going to [inaudible 00:01:16] recorded.
Steven Butala: Recorded.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Butala: Yeah. And John's not a member, so it leads me to think he's new. You can, especially ... I know this property's ... Yeah, it's in LA.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven Butala: You can just record it online.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven Butala: You can do it within seconds and get a ... They literally stamp the deed. Now, they actually have a sticker with a two-dimensional or a three-dimensional bar code or a QR code, so they can file it correctly. It's called book and a page, and once you have that, you own it. So if they're several weeks behind, they're not behind on ... It's called Simplifile, and you can e-record it, so that doesn't ... You just got a recorder that is a government employee that doesn't want to do it fast.
Jill DeWit: Here's the thing, too. No matter where you are in what county, this is pretty much universal. So you've got the deed, it's signed, you're sending it in for recording, and you're just waiting for it to come back to you. I would totally go ahead start marketing it, start doing everything, and selling it because you could sell it and do another deed. And while you're waiting for this one to come back, you could be sending it in for the next person to own it. It could hit 10 days, 10 whatever-it-is later, 10 hours later from when the first one goes in. It doesn't matter, as long as they're recorded in order, and that's really kind of the gist of it. So don't worry about that. I would not wait for, "Okay, I sent it and to be recorded however I'm doing it."
Steven Butala: Yeah. Just sell it.
Jill DeWit: "Wait for it to come all the way back to me before, now, I push the button and go to try to sell the property." That's so much valuable time that you could be done and moved on and have the cash.
Steven Butala: Exactly.
Jill DeWit: Good question.
Steven Butala: Today's topic, How to Take Full of Advantage of the Land Academy Membership. This is why you're listening. Jill, you have notes, I see.
Jill DeWit: I do. I wanted to cover everything that there is. There's a lot. When we first launched this in 2015, there was one thing, education, and that was it. And it wasn't even online. It was in DVDs which, oddly enough, I have about five sets.
Steven Butala: Why is that?
Jill DeWit: Because we just ... Okay. Since COVID, we've all decided we don't need our sweet little office that we had in R...
Transcripts:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from awesome... Where am I?
Steven Butala: Central-
Jill DeWit: Arizona.
Steven Butala: No, sunny Scottsdale. Southern Scottsdale, actually.
Jill DeWit: Well, do we say southern... Okay, there we go. From sunny Southern Scottsdale. Okay. Here we go.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about the right kind of buyer to sell from, and we don't talk about ending a sentence with a preposition.
Jill DeWit: I was going to say. Oh, look cute it is, our bikes are in the back of the frame. I like that. There's my new bike and your new bike. That's so cute.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWit: Jack, I think it's okay. I'm not... I'm pretty sure your English teacher is not listening.
Steven Butala: I bet she's not either.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Butala: You know what my English teacher told me?
Jill DeWit: What? Uh-oh.
Steven Butala: "Why are you going to go to college? That's just... Just so you can beat your head against the wall and when you stop, it makes you feel better?"
Jill DeWit: No.
Steven Butala: I swear.
Jill DeWit: Who told you that?
Steven Butala: My high school English teacher said that.
Jill DeWit: Why?
Steven Butala: She's just an old, cranky lady and she didn't think I was smart. We all have stories like this.
Jill DeWit: Okay. I never had that. That's kind of interesting. I'm sorry.
Steven Butala: Well, you're a happy, nice person, and you were probably a good student.
Jill DeWit: Maybe it's all true. Okay. Got it.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the online community. It's free.
Jill DeWit: Okay. Mike wrote, "Hi guys. I'm getting a great response from my first mailer. One of the responses is a lady who has 23 acres and willing to sell. However, it turns out that she has another 84 acres that is connected to the 23 acres that she also wants to sell." Good problem to have Mike. "The only thing is there are three homes... " Wow "... included." Again, not seeing a problem. This is great. "Two houses and one mobile home. There are three other family members on the deeds." Here it comes. "All of which are willing to sell also." Okay, doing great. "On top of this, the total of 107 acres and divided into nine different parcels, three of which have one of the homes included. Leaving six vacant parcels. I needed advice. Does all this strike you as a huge mess or huge opportunity? Thanks in advance for the input."
Steven Butala: You go first.
Jill DeWit: Opportunity.
Steven Butala: Massive opportunity.
Jill DeWit: Holy moly.
Steven Butala: Here's what's funny about this. I chose this question in part because there are two members of the advanced group that answered this question in Land Investors, and also our moderator who is a very active land seller. And all three of them said, "This is a huge mess."
Jill DeWit: They did?
Steven Butala: "It's complicated." This person isn't a member.
Jill DeWit: Oh.
Steven Butala: They're just part of the [crosstalk 00:02:55].
Jill DeWit: Mike's not a member?
Steven Butala: Mm-mm (negative).
Jill DeWit: Okay. Got it.
Steven Butala: And so they said, "No, you're too new and this is too complicated. Don't do the deal." I'm like-
Jill DeWit: Or bring somebody on like us and we can do it with you.
Steven Butala: I would immediately get with... One of the members is Lori Phillips and she didn't say don't do it, she just said, "This is too complicated for you in the beginning."
Jill DeWit: True.
Steven Butala: What I want you to do is reach out to her or somebody in the advanced group.
Jill DeWit: Seasoned.
Steven Butala: Or us.
Jill DeWit:
Transcripts:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Steven Butala: Hey, welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt, broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Butala: Today. Jill and I talk about where to start when starting a business and without fear.
Jill DeWit: What is this?
Steven Butala: So it's not just about starting a land business. It's just basically starting a business. I think this confuses a lot of people. For other people, it's just very natural. It's a logical extension to having a W2 job. But this is really just about that initial twinge like, "I really want to start a business and I don't want to do it with fear. I want to know that it's going to work within reason and I just need a first few steps to check it out."
Jill DeWit: Perfect.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWit: Buck wrote, "I have a buyer who wants to immediately move his RV onto a property where I'm providing owner financing. The county requires that septic be installed and that he have a temporary use permit for the RV to be legal. The buyer says he'll get the permits. What would you do?"
Steven Butala: Run the other way.
Jill DeWit: Wait, wait, wait, wait. Hold on a second.
Steven Butala: I would never allow this.
Jill DeWit: Why not?
Steven Butala: There's too much legal issues.
Jill DeWit: No, no, no. Oh, owner financing. Sorry.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: That was my thought. I'm like, "Wait, wait, wait, wait a minute. Where are you going with that?" I had to take a step back and realize it's owner financing, because most of what I do is cash.
Steven Butala: You bought a $10,000 property. You posted it for sale on Craigslist for $2,000 down and $150 a month for 15 years. And you calculated on your little calculator that you're going to make about $22,000 on this deal when it's all paid off. And so you're jumping up and down around the kitchen. Well, the fact is that a very material percentage, more than 50% of these properties, when they get sold, you get the down payment, they make five payments, then they go dark and you just never hear from them again. And so there's something wrong. This person has a lot of money to do all this RV stuff and these improvements, but they don't want to buy the property outright. There's some issue there.
Jill DeWit: So that's what you'd do. Number one, you say, "Look, owner financing, I'm not comfortable with this. Can't do it. You want to buy it cash from me, now it's yours and everything's on you. Knock yourself out." That's the first solution, is right there. And I would even say, "Look, here's the deal." Most people do that. When the people that I've seen, they have a cash price and they have a seller or an owner financed price, and it'll be obvious, you cash out, it's definitely cheaper. So if you don't even have that, offer them a great cash price. "Look, I'll give you a 20% discount if you want to just buy the property and then it's yours and then I won't have a say in it. You can do whatever you want."
Steven Butala: Jill's an expert at this. I've heard her on the phone. If you've got to list a property for, here's my example, you bought it for 10, just say you sell it for $15,000 or $18,000 cash, and if the property is worth 50, he'd be shocked at how fast whoever they are can come up with their money from their relatives or whatever else just to get them into the property, all of it.
Jill DeWit: Right, they really want it.
Steven Butala: As an owner with no liens.
Jill DeWit: But I agree with Steven. I mean, the bad news is it's just too much that I could be liable for and I don't want to do that. I don't want the county calling me saying, "This guy's out there. He needs to move it." And it's mine, so I'm responsible to get somebody out there to ge...
Transcripts:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hey, hey, hey.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny southern California.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about what to do when you can't find a dataset for a mailable county.
Jill DeWit: I'm going to sneeze. Nope, we're good. Sorry. I'm like, "Oh, oh, can I talk?"
Steven Butala: This week it's like most popular questions week. "Jack, I can't find this dataset. I could find it for the county over. I can't find it at Redfin and I can't find it in realtor.com, but I know it's in Zillow. What do I do?" It's a very valid question. It's like looking at chocolate cake through glass. It's like, I know it'll work. I have all the answers actually.
Jill DeWit: I have never heard of that. What is that, like up against the window? I want the chocolate cake. What? That's funny. Did you make that up or is that a thing?
Steven Butala: Yeah, just now.
Jill DeWit: Oh, that's good. Very good.
Steven Butala: I just watched this video on YouTube.
Jill DeWit: Chocolate cake through glass.
Steven Butala: This guy sits his toddler down and puts a ... Did you see this?
Jill DeWit: No.
Steven Butala: It went viral. Sits his toddler down and puts a bowl full of Skittles or M&M's, a big bowl, like big as their head. And says in the nicest way, "Oh sweetheart, I've got to take this phone call. Don't don't eat this. I'll be right back." And it goes on. She only can take it for three minutes and it's just pure torture. And she's tiny. She's really little.
Jill DeWit: That's not nice. Here's the grown-up version. Oh, I put down a bottle of scotch and there's a little a bit at the bottom, all of it's gone. You're like, "Oh man, I wish I hadn't even thought about scotch. Now, I'm thinking about scotch. We don't have enough scotch." Shoot, I could see you trying to get every last drop.
Steven Butala: Well, I think there's a lot of grown-up versions of temptation that we could talk about too that, you see it, but you can't have it.
Jill DeWit: Hello. That's not where I was going. Well, yeah, yeah. Okay. I get it. Let's get to the show.
Steven Butala: So, back to data. Yeah. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWit: Julius wrote, "Hello everyone. My name is Julius and I'm just jumping into land investment, 100% fresh." I like that. It's a great way to put this. "I've been thinking about it for my own personal property purchases for a while now, but after some research, I found this business model to be rather incredible. I'm currently a grad student, so I'm in the process of saving up to join Land Academy and I have some extra capital for the actual mailers and deals when the time comes." Thank you, Julius. You're doing it correctly and I really appreciate that.
Steven Butala: Me too.
Jill DeWit: "So my question is this, for someone who's totally new, how would you recommend someone who has a couple of months to prep make the most of their time doing so before diving in? What are some good resources to really map out the process and maybe even get a feel for searching for, scrubbing and playing with some data? I'd also be super grateful to get the chance to speak with someone who's been through it to see how they learn from those first steps. In any case, it's a pleasure to be here and very excited to start. Thank you very much and wishing everyone all the best. Cheers, Julius." Well, he's already in the right place.
Steven Butala: Yeah, that's what I was just going to say, that he took the first step. And then there's a bunch of people in Land Investors that go on to say, "Hey, give me a call. I'll tell you exactly what to expect and what to do," other members.
Jill DeWit: That's so nice.
Steven Butala: And the moderator too.
Transcripts:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt, broadcasting from sunny Southern California .
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about the types of blind offers to send and the types not to send.
Jill DeWit: Oh, I have a list. Believe you me.
Steven Butala: This is one of those topics that just gets a little passionate about, and I love it.
Jill DeWit: Well, only because we've done it all. I mean, I can honestly say, we haven't been doing this... Well, you, because you're much older than me, since the '90s, and tested every possible thing. There's a reason why we got to this point. The reason why we're successful, is the reason why our community is successful, and we all have the secret, and I'm happy to share it.
Steven Butala: Awesome.
Jill DeWit: For $10,000. Just kidding, I want to share it right now today.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and if you're a Land Academy member, please join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: James wrote, "I'm in one of the states with a lot of rural lands and with thousands of lakes." Well, how lucky are you, James? You're bragging a little bit, and I think that's awesome.
Steven Butala: You can brag, but those lakes are frozen, right now.
Jill DeWit: Oh, well, there is that.
Steven Butala: I'm from a place like that.
Jill DeWit: Okay. "I ran the red, yellow, green test, and many of the counties look like good spots to mail. My problem is, it's hard to find any good average for the pricing, because of all the lakes. On a coastal lake are often higher priced, where a half mile to mile away are much cheaper. I was thinking I need to use in-fill lot pricing, but even on the zip code level, there's a lot of price variability. Do I have to price APN by APN? Or is there a way to price to get me in the ball park of a decent sized area?" This such a good question, because this is stuff that we talked about in the show yesterday. That's a common thing here, if you're doing an area like where we're sitting in Southern California. Ocean front and on the west side of PCH is a whole different pricing point versus one mile or even half mile or even yards away.
Steven Butala: James, this is a question I asked myself, even today. I'm working a certain, very specific area in a specific state right now, and I looked at and studied and studied and studied pricing variances based on attribute, that's really what the issue is. And the red, green, yellow test, was designed to solve that for you. So, even in a rural area, if you take each zip code, if you're lucky enough to get the data and drop it into the red, green, yellow test, you're going to see where property is selling, and where it's not. So the theory is, property that's close to the lakes and cheap or cheaper, will sell faster. And then, so you can price that that way, so that's one way to look at it. And then if that's the case, and it almost always is, it's pure supply and demand, pricing and supply and demand go together.
Steven Butala: Then you can extrapolate that and run the data sets that way, based on what you find from a zip code standpoint. But zip codes don't often comply with, let's say, shoreline, so what do you do? You have to pretty much run an APN scenario, and I just did it. All of this is more theory than reality. The fact is, if you stick 42 fishing lines in the water versus three, you're going to catch more fish and some of the fish that you catch are going to be small, and you're going to throw them back, because you don't want them. Some of the fish are going to be awesome, you're going to keep it. And some of the fish are going to be, you're going to shake your head and say, "This might be a record for this lake, for the biggest catch of all time,
Transcripts:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: I'm Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about the first 10 weeks of our Land Academy Accountability Group and how much of a success it has been for our members. I'm surprised by this, like always.
Jill DeWit: We're halfway in, right? Where are we ... I don't know what weekend.
Steven Butala: We're on session six of 10-
Jill DeWit: There we go.
Steven Butala: ... or seven of 10 actually.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Butala: It'll be almost done by the time this airs. Every single time Jill and I start something new, some little subsection based on what people ask for, I don't think it's going to work. That's just how my personality is.
Jill DeWit: I was going to have a different answer. Go ahead.
Steven Butala: Every single time, Jill's like, "Oh, I'm so excited. It's going to be ... Everyone's going to love this." And that's what ends up happening. Most of the time, not all the time.
Jill DeWit: Here's my takeout. Every time we start something new, it develops into something else new.
Steven Butala: Then we have to do more stuff.
Jill DeWit: So instead of one new project, then we have three. It was so sweet, I had Kristin and I had a consulting call the other day. And it was very nice, the first few minutes she said, "Look, I own my own business and I'm just getting started in this. How the heck do you guys do what you do? I can't believe what you do." And every time I hear that, I'm like, "Yeah ..." First of all, thank you, Kristen. And yes, I am that tired.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: It is a lot, but it's all good and I'm very happy and we have a great group. And so I'm inspired just to get up every day and do it again.
Steven Butala: Deal funding really helps deal. Deal funding allows us to do a lot of real estate deals without doing a tremendous amount of work.
Jill DeWit: That's true. [crosstalk 00:01:38] help.
Steven Butala: So for years and years ... I mean, we still do tons of our own deals, but we've got a good staff in place so it's not that bad.
Jill DeWit: It's true.
Steven Butala: We still do it.
Jill DeWit: I know. We do it to ourselves
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWit: Thomas wrote, "Hi, everyone. My partners and I are active since about a year ago and currently operating in X state. We made multiple acquisitions so far and I'm very enthusiastic about the process. We started off in a lower price range in X County, and are now dealing with gradually larger and higher value properties that range between 10,000 and $20,000. However, we've noticed big price fluctuations depending on the attributes, specifically trees. It seems that land with trees on it is disproportionally more valuable than land without." I'm sure in this area, it makes a difference.
Jill DeWit: "For instance, we recently bought a property with a tiny forest on it for $6,800 and sold it for $20,000 within a matter of days. While the treeless properties, we can often sell with up to a 50% profit margin. A few days ago, we received a signed purchase agreement for a seven acre property with lovely mountain view for $14,000. According to our research and comps in the area, we estimate a conservative retail price of about 25 to $28,000." So 80% of the lowest price comparable in the area. These are all making sense to me. This is great.
Steven Butala: So far, so good. Yeah.
Jill DeWit: "Nevertheless, it neither has electricity nor trees, but it's located near a creek." I'm good with all of this.
Steven Butala: Yep.
Jill DeWit: "A local land investor who we sold properties to in the past and sometimes consult with about our new acquisitions,
Transcripts:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about the pros and cons of using your own money for land flipping.
Jill DeWit: Let's talk about the pros and cons of going back and forth from state to state. It's a little nutty. Truth time. Before we recorded this, we went through, I don't know, how many hours setting this whole thing up now, because we're half here, half there, but at least we're set
Steven Butala: I think we have two pretty permanent studios now.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, now we do. It took a little while.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about... Oh, I already said that. Before we get into it, though, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWit: Okay. Corey wrote, "Good evening. I received a response from a potential seller. I sent an offer to him on 40 acres. He replied saying he has an additional 40 acres for sale right next to the property I sent an offer on. Both properties and landlocked, but the timber company that owns the last next to the parcels allows access. Is this something you guys would move forward with? It seems good to me, but this is only my second positive response I've gotten from this first mailer. Let me know. Thanks."
Steven Butala: Well, two 40-acre properties at the right price, Corey, would be fantastic.
Jill DeWit: I agree.
Steven Butala: I think that this is a perfect example of how you can make a true success story on rural vacant land, buying rural vacant land, with just jumping over one little hurdle. So, if the timber company is going to allow access, all you need to do is get it in writing, and then maybe cut them a deal. So, the more contact that you can have with people in and around the property where you're taking a look at it, where you're considering buying, maybe it's with adjacent property owners in this situation, if you can take two 40-acre properties, buy them for a very small amount of money, create access, that's what you're actually saying here, that's the improvement. I mean, wouldn't you rather do that with a few phone calls and probably a $1,000 attorney bill than renovate a house or renovate an office building?
Jill DeWit: Right. I love this.
Steven Butala: I think it's a great position to be in.
Jill DeWit: I love it. You touched on something that I'm actually putting a lot of energy in right now and writing a bunch about, is about relationships. So much of our business is not just our offers and how well it's done and the data and what you do, and getting them in the right people's hands, but making these transactions happen because we can forge these relationships with these people.
Steven Butala: Yep.
Jill DeWit: If you didn't have a good relationship with the seller, you wouldn't know about the property nextdoor, number one, and then he's sharing great information with you about the lumber company, and then you have the opportunity now, Corey, to reach out, like Jack said, to the lumber company, get a relationship and a dialogue with them going, and say, "Hey, let's make this work for everybody. I just need to get to these properties. What's it going to... I'll do the work and I'll pay for the attorney. How is it going to go best for you?" and I'd have a hard time saying no to that. It's awesome.
Steven Butala: Yeah. I wonder how... He says the timber company that owns the land next to the parcels allows access, quote-unquote, so I wonder how he knows that. Did he talk to a neighbor?
Jill DeWit: I bet he's been driving over their land for a long time, and they never said boo, and there's no fence. That's what it sounds like to me. Allows access, to me, I could be reading this wrong, but it sounds like there's a path,
Transcripts:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about, are you a one deal a month or a one deal a day kind of investor?
Jill DeWit: You to do our answers now, or you want to save it for the show?
Steven Butala: I think everyone can pretty much guess.
Jill DeWit: Okay. Okay. Here's what we're going to do. I'm going to count down. I'm going to do three, two, one. And then you either say month or day, depending how you feel. Okay, ready? Three, two, one. Month.
Steven Butala: Both. Month? You're a one deal a month person?
Jill DeWit: Boy, if I had my way, I'd be-
Steven Butala: Are you serious?
Jill DeWit: We used to ... that's why I wanted to do this.
Steven Butala: Wow. I'm both.
Jill DeWit: I would love to do one stellar deal a month. I think that would be awesome because then I can goof off the rest of the time.
Steven Butala: I understand that goof-off point, but you're just putting your eggs in one basket if it doesn't work out.
Jill DeWit: But I have 12. I have more going on. Let's be honest. Because you know what? I'll have a rotation of many in the pipeline at the same time. But, hey, between one deal a day and one deal a month, I'm leaning towards month. But as I say that, I'm eating my words a little bit because I do say volume a lot.
Steven Butala: I just think that you got to have 10 or 20 really good deals in the pipeline. And some months you're going to close 10 of them. Someone months you're going to close two. It's not often that you would close-
Jill DeWit: All the bigger ones.
Steven Butala: Yeah. It's not often you're going to close 20 a day. But the point is-
Jill DeWit: But you have.
Steven Butala: ... we all have met people. If you're in this group, you know people that are one deal a day kind of people, and you know people that are just one deal a month. That's it. I'm good. I want to make a couple hundred thousand bucks.
Jill DeWit: This one's been one deal an hour.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: It's a little nuts.
Steven Butala: It's not that I want to do the deals because I've done that. My time for doing deals is over. My job is to keep everybody motivated and paid and happy and healthy and working in an environment they want. And generally being kind of, hopefully, a leader and not a pain in everybody's butt.
Jill DeWit: He's become the HR department. Just kidding. I'm joking.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWit: You know I was teasing?
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Okay. By the way, if you are a Land Academy member, don't forget you can find us on Discord. Jesse wrote, "I'm new to Land Academy, just about ready to pull the trigger and lay down my money. In the interim, I figured it would be a good idea to brush up on my Excel skills. Does anyone know of a good online course that is applicable to the data analysis used here at Land Academy? I did a search, and the only one I found mentioned was it at ... " Is it Udemy?
Steven Butala: Udemy.
Jill DeWit: Udemy.
Steven Butala: Like university.
Jill DeWit: Okay. "I had someone else, not Land Academy, suggest DataCamp. Does anyone have any experience with DataCamp? Thanks in advance."
Steven Butala: There's a lot of places to learn things like this, and I think it's great that you're trying to learn more. I would start with Khan Academy, K-A-H-N.
Jill DeWit: That have Excel stuff?
Steven Butala: They have everything. I mean, I have never ... and it's all free. It's a foundation. Now they raise money, people donate. It's been around for a while. It was originally designed to help young people from not affluent areas who didn't have access to learning how to c...
Transcripts:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWitt broadcasting from sunny Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about how to develop the skills that you may be missing to have a successful company like Jill talked about. I'm sort of wondering this about you actually.
Jill DeWit: It's a long process, but I'm going to share all of it today.
Steven Butala: As we talked about yesterday at the end of the show, Jill and I host an accountability group. And go ahead, Jill, explain the backstory with this.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, so it's our first ever Land Academy official accountability group held by Steven and I, and it's free and voluntary to anyone that enrolled. It was like November, December, last year kind of thing. And we started in January, kicked off in January. So we had a really good question last night or the other night, which was, "I've heard you guys talk about how having a past life or being a business owner in some form was a good indicator who's going to be successful in this world."
Jill DeWit: And so we answered that question and then the person said, and I'll give you the quick answer, which was, "You can afford it. Tenacity. You know how to solve problems. You die trying. You're going to kick [inaudible 00:01:31] high water. It's going to be successful." If you've done that, then there's not much you can't do I think, so stuff like that. And then the person said, "All right," and there's a lot of other things. They said, "Okay, well, how do I develop the skills that I'm missing then to be that person?" And that's what we're going to talk about today.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWit: By the way, if you are a Land Academy member, don't forget. You can reach us on Discord. So Anthony wrote, "I have been seeing a lot of posts like does anyone know of a good photographer in X, Y, Z County? I was thinking we could add state and county sub farms to the resources forum, so we could share resources by county rather than having to post requests for providers in the general forums. Then, we can share who is good in each county and who we should avoid." And I personally think this is a great idea.
Steven Butala: That's good, but I have a 180 degrees different opinion. Over the years, Jill and I have created forums and we do have forums in Land Investors, in Discord and a knowledge base that I think we're transferring through different... well it's knowledge based. The software that it's being used on is obsolete, so we're moving into another one. And the heartache that it causes, if you go say in X, Y, Z County, I've got this great person who can close deals. I have a great lawyer, closes deals all over the state. They're based out of this county. It's going to become obsolete fairly quickly, number one. Number two, we're going to get a call from that lawyer that says, "I'm getting all these calls from Land Academy members and they're not asking me the right questions. What they're asking me is, where should I send mail, things that I've never heard of before." And so it's title mind all over again.
Jill DeWit: I was only talking about photographer.
Steven Butala: And I think photographers get obsolete too. The best photographers I've ever had, the times that I've gone to use them again, they're gone. I just don't think-
Jill DeWit: That's fair.
Steven Butala: It's like saying air table is the best CRM. It's not. It's really good for us. We love it. Jill loves it. It's pretty. She says it all the time. Apparently, that matters to her and that's fine. Whatever it takes to get deals done. I just don't think that sharing this type of information... and this question is appropriate for this topic today.
Transcripts:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Jill DeWit: Welcome to the Land Academy Show. Entertaining land, investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWitt coming to you from sunny Scottsdale, Arizona.
Jill DeWit: Where am I, where am I, where am I? Nevermind, I'm looking straight out a window staring at a big cactus, but every now and then you forget, and these old habits, you just-
Steven Butala: Well, we've been saying sunny Southern California for about-
Jill DeWit: A long time.
Steven Butala: ...two, at least two years.
Jill DeWit: Wait a minute. You know what's funny? We started this in Arizona.
Steven Butala: I think so, too.
Jill DeWit: I wonder what I used to say back then. But now we're here, that's funny. Went to Southern California and now we're back.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about boondocking on your land. What the heck is boondocking? It's when somebody that you don't know at all is driving their RV around because their employer lets them use their laptop to work anywhere they'd like now. Not lets them, but he's forced to because of the COVID or whatever "de jour" problem there is.
Jill DeWit: That's cool.
Steven Butala: And he's on your land. Is that good or bad? And can you do it if you have an RV on other people's land? We'll talk about that in a second. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free.
Jill DeWit: And if you're a member of Land Academy, by the way, you can also catch up with the [inaudible 00:01:24]. James wrote, "Hello in Texas, a real," excuse me. "In Texas, realtor.com does not have data on rural counties. Steve mentioned that this should not exclude you from going after rural land. Anyone have a manual way to pull data in the red, yellow, green test and figure out which rural county is best? Assuming that days on market is the most important indicator, pulls data on all property types, including housing, which may skew results for land. Also, Texas land seems more expensive, like $9,000 an acre retail, than most of the two to $3,000 retail deals that you have here around in Land Academy. Does it matter as long as the land is retail for the price on the various websites, such as Redfin, Zillow, realtor, et cetera?" Take it away.
Steven Butala: Well, this is the third or fourth time I've answered this. And I think at least two times, maybe three times from the same person. This is not, there's no equation. And if you think like in math, in high school or college, where you figure it out and you've got it and that's it. Every single county is different. The states are different. You have to feel your way through this and figure it out. And data is readily available for certain product types like houses in certain areas like urban areas. When you get out into rural areas and you start changing product types, like land, like we all buy and sell, you're going to get a different result. Especially in Texas, Texas is famous for not reporting the completed sale and everything that surrounds it, including and most importantly price. So yeah, you're going to have a tough time completing an OCD complete, I'm going to write this down. Red, yellow, green test. This topic comes up a lot for new people and I'm trying to drive this point home.
Jill DeWit: There's no secret. We're not holding you back. We're not holding back.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: There's a special way.
Steven Butala: The reason that some people do extremely well with this, us included, is because we have an open mind when we go into a dataset and we say, "It's not complete. I'm going to have to fill in some gaps here. I'm going to have to guess over here, I'm going to have to take the data that I have," which could be 50% incomplete. Look around surrounding counties. Look at housing data, call the 7-Eleven clerk. I'm not sure what you need to do,
What We Learned in 4 Weeks Hosting the Land Academy Accountability Group (LA 1440) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Yee-haw!
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show. Entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWitt broadcasting from... What's a great Western term?
Steven Butala: Sunny Scottsdale, Arizona.
Jill DeWit: Okay, we'll go with that.
Steven Butala: What's a good Western term?
Jill DeWit: I don't know. I'm trying to think of a good Western description. Dusty, dusty, Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Dusty boots Jill today.
Jill DeWit: There we go. We actually took our car, truth time. We went up to parts of Northern Phoenix area-
Steven Butala: Carefree Cave Creek.
Jill DeWit: ... Carefree Cave Creek.
Steven Butala: Looked at ranches.
Jill DeWit: Driving all over in dirt and four wheel drive. And think of this. We have that. And my beautiful clean car was like a dusty mess, but it was cool. And I wore my cowboy boots. Very proud of them.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about what we learned in four weeks of hosting the Land Academy accountability Group. Take it away, Jill. This is the first-
Jill DeWit: We missed the question.
Steven Butala: Oh, no, there isn't a question.
Jill DeWit: Oh.
Steven Butala: That's what we learned about.
Jill DeWit: Oh, okay. [crosstalk 00:01:03] topic. I'm all goofed up.
Steven Butala: Jill and I, we started, decided to start an accountability group because our members were like starting these little groups on their own and they were asking us to attend and we did and it was kind of just a talking session. So we decided to bring, it's all free for members or for certain members that sign up at a certain time and it's working out great. I really think it's or at least our members are-
Jill DeWit: I have results to share.
Steven Butala: Yeah. Okay. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWit: By the way, if you are a Land Academy member, don't forget, you can find us on Discord. Patterson wrote, "Howdy Accountability Group. Heidi and I are behind sorry for that. It keeps us from contributing to the calls in here." This must be from Discord?
Steven Butala: Yes.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Butala: Yes, it is.
Jill DeWit: We have-
Steven Butala: There's a specific Discord Accountability Group too.
Jill DeWit: OK, cool. We have a lot of time blocked out this weekend to work on getting caught up. Anyone else struggling to keep up and interested in, perhaps jumping on Zoom call this weekend to discuss the red, green, yellow test, test for reason, data polling, data scrubbing and work you've done to date. How cool is that?
Steven Butala: And of course, a lot of people responded.
Jill DeWit: Aw, that's nice.
Steven Butala: And so I wanted to put that in here because it's a study group just like in school.
Jill DeWit: That's one of the things I was going to talk about here on my list. Let's jump into it.
Steven Butala: Today's topic, what we learned in four weeks of hosting the Land Academy Accounting Accountability Group. This is the meat of the show.
Jill DeWit: I want to start right there. So, because it's a small group, it's not a hundred, it's a small contained group. Everyone found us or joined up with us within a 30 or 60 day window. Can't remember what it was. So everybody's really on the same timeline. And that has really encouraged like this, will have great open communication because no one can say, "Oh, I did that two years ago." Everybody's at the same point, like, "I haven't read that. What was that? Or how, what was your take on that?" Just like you said, being in a class, being on the same page, it'd be hard to talk to someone who's in their masters in accounting versus I'm just taking the first class. The master's in accounting person is going to be sick of my questions an...
Land Academy Membership vs Owning a Franchise (LA 1439) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt broadcasting from awesome Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today. Jill and I talk about Land Academy membership versus owning a franchise couldn't be more different.
Jill DeWit: But sounds like, well, hey, wait a minute though, well, Land Academy to be an investor, right? So it's really kind of about being an investor versus this business... What business do you want to be in? You want to be an investor, which is what we teach you how to do and set you up for, versus owning a franchise, which is kind of, they teach you how to run, let's just say it's Cold Stone Creamery. You even go to Cold Stone school, and then you have your business. But there's a lot of different things going on.
Steven Butala: We teach you how to get free, and autonomous, and independent, and happy and done. We don't have our hooks in you forever, like, let's say, Cold Stone.
Jill DeWit: Well, we'll talk about that because I made a list and you're tying into my list. I'm trying to just state the facts, man.
Steven Butala: I'm not talking about you.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Butala: I just, I'm not a huge franchise fan.
Jill DeWit: No kidding.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free.
Jill DeWit: I'm here to tell you, truth time, there's one and only one franchise this person likes to go to, and it's Wendy's.
Steven Butala: Just because I want to eat for free?
Jill DeWit: No, just the chilies. No, not because you want to eat for free, I'm here... it's truth time. You're like, "I don't like that, I don't like... " You don't like the franchise, anything, but you're like, "I do like Wendy's Chili." How's that? Okay.
Steven Butala: Let's see. If you had a franchise, it would be a Zales Jewelry or something.
Jill DeWit: No. What would my franchise be? Oh, Nordstrom.
Steven Butala: Yeah, that's for sure.
Jill DeWit: Well, it's not a franchise-
Steven Butala: I know, I know. Neither is Zales-
Jill DeWit: Oh yeah-
Steven Butala: ... I'm just joking around.
Jill DeWit: I don't know what my... Maybe subway? No. I have to think about that.
Jill DeWit: Okay. Herbert asks, "Hello. I know this isn't our typical vacant land leasing, single family convo, but I would like some help clarifying some things, and figured what better place to gain information about this topic than from our super knowledgeable and amazing group here at Land Investors?"
Jill DeWit: Okay. Herbert, are you trying to get brownie points? Because you're winning. It's working.
Jill DeWit: All right. I'm pretty new to real estate in general, never owning a home before. So I'd like your advice on the process slash plan of action for acquiring a four unit, multi-family property to serve as a primary residence. I plan to purchase the four units by using an either FHA or FHA 203(k) loan to renovate, and then live here in Miami, Florida.
Jill DeWit: My questions are, number one. Am I correct to assume that our direct mail approach to acquiring real estate is also the best way to acquire my first multi-family deal for a primary residence?
Steven Butala: Yes.
Jill DeWit: What are some of the differences in the approach that I should be aware of?
Jill DeWit: Number two. Will House Academy teach me how to acquire multi-families as well as single families?
Steven Butala: Yes.
Jill DeWit: Steven. Ready. Go.
Steven Butala: Yes, but I have to tell you, I think you're on the wrong path here.
Jill DeWit: Ah, uh-oh. Well, like you said, Herbert, you really want to pick the brain from the knowledgeable, amazing group here at Land Investors. And one was going to really pick apart your thing, and I'm sure he's right.
Jills Recent Successful 11th Hour Land Upsell (LA 1438) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from awesome Middle Arizona. Since I was-
Steven Butala: Scottsdale.
Jill DeWit: It was so politely, which it was pointed out to me yesterday. What's with the Southern, I'm so used to saying Southern.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Right, so that's why.
Steven Butala: Sunny Scottsdale.
Jill DeWit: Sunny Scottsdale, I'll change the script.
Jill DeWit: That's good. Cool.
Steven Butala: Did he, Jill and I talk about Jill's recent successful 11th hour land upsell. I could, could be. Couldn't be more proud of her.
Jill DeWit: Thank you very much.
Steven Butala: We had, many, many, many times it happens, you have adjacent property, you buy two properties, contiguous two or three or four properties altogether. This, these two properties that we Joe and I happened to buy really recently generated a ton of interest. And so well, I'll ask her about.
Jill DeWit: I'll explain it in a little bit.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it. Let's take a question posted by one of our members on the land, investors.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWit: Ross wrote "Hi guys. We're in the process of hiring staff. And my question is specifically about an acquisition manager and a sales manager. Do you think that these two positions should be equal compensation or is one position deserving higher pay? Thanks".
Jill DeWit: You wanna go first?
Steven Butala: You're like pitting us against each other,
Jill DeWit: Huh.
Steven Butala: Cause I think there's more way more value in the acquisition process and less value in the sales manager, but...
Jill DeWit: And I feel the opposite.
Steven Butala: I'm confident. She feels the opposite.
Jill DeWit: Yeah exactly.
Jill DeWit: So then that way equal pay.
Steven Butala: I'll tell you Ross, I'm not sure that you want to outsource both of those at the same time. Nothing happens. There's nothing to sell. Unless somebody bought something at a great price where there's built in equity and then the sales happens automatically. So if you are, if you are and have been the acquisition manager, which Jill and I both kind of do in our, in our life, our professional land life, you're just shoving it off to salespeople. Basically, they're just posting it and taking calls and saying, this is how you pay, or this is how we're going to close. So I think the acquisition manager, hopefully it's, you should stay on and you should get not managers, but assistance to help you post stuff and, and kind of train somebody and guide them along. And I'll tell you what worked for us, is hiring family members really early on at this point. Cause you can, they're going to not, you're going to have a 'tiff and some stuff's going to happen and they're not going to leave and go screaming off. And it was just worked out well for us.
Jill DeWit: Well, you have the trust factor and all that too. So if you've got someone, that'd be a good someone who wants to learn and get in this with you, which I'm sure someone wants, you start making a few dollars. There's going to be family members that come, come forward.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: And say, what are you doing over there?
Steven Butala: Or a spouse.
Jill DeWit: Aha, and want to help? That's a good idea. I love it.
Steven Butala: It's philosophically. Let's say it's not land business. Do you think acquisitions, like an investment banking they're paid equally. [crosstalk 00:03:04] If you see a bifurcated investment bank without acquisition, people are going to find properties, companies to buy and people are dealing with selling them, dealing with it.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: It's challenging enough. I was in investment banking. I was always on the South side.
Personal Career Advice from Steven and Jill (LA 1437) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Howdy.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewit, broadcasting from awesome western southern Arizona, not western as in western southern, I mean kind of western cowyboyish around here.
Steven Butala: Yeah. I think it's central Arizona, don't you?
Jill DeWit: I don't know. I would say southern, I don't know. Because I can drive to the border in a couple of hours, so that's why I feel like it's southern. So I don't know.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about your personal career advice from both Jill and I.
Jill DeWit: Now I took this a little bit career and because I heard personal, so I put career and like a life advice. I came up with three-
Steven Butala: That's how I feel too.
Jill DeWit: Okay, good. Because it always does tie together.
Steven Butala: Professional career advice would be something like ...
Jill DeWit: Get a recruiter.
Steven Butala: Don't wear high tops.
Jill DeWit: Don't wear high tops?
Steven Butala: Yeah, it's work.
Jill DeWit: Would you ever? Do you own? Have you ever owned?
Steven Butala: Yeah, I'm sure I did.
Jill DeWit: Really?
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: I never did.
Steven Butala: Not like the ones that the kids wear now.
Jill DeWit: Okay. The kids.
Steven Butala: Not the $500 ones, I'll tell you that.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free.
Jill DeWit: And by the way, if you are a Land Academy member, check us out. You can reach us on Discord to.
Jill DeWit: Kevin wrote, "Hello, land investors. My name is Kevin, I live in New Jersey, about 20 minutes outside of New York City. I currently own two single family homes and properties. Here it's expensive, but can be found if you look hard enough. We purchased our investment property for $160,000, put $40,000 into rehab and did a cash out refinance at $200,000. Our tenants pay $2,100 a month, which gives us, excuse me, cashflow of about $250 a month and the house is valued at $350,000."
Steven Butala: That's a good start.
Jill DeWit: This is great, "Our personal property costs $260,000 and it's valued at $325,000 currently, although we're in the process of fixing it up to force value. Taxes in this area are killer, with it being over $6,000 on each of the properties." I'm sure that's a year.
Steven Butala: New Jersey has the worst taxes, highest tax rate in the country.
Jill DeWit: Worse than California?
Steven Butala: Yeah, by far.
Jill DeWit: Got it. Okay. "We want to continue to buy and hold properties, but it requires a good amount of cash on homes in this area. We're not quite at the point of feeling comfortable investing in buy and hold properties out of state. After hearing about the podcast through a book and listening to Steve and Jill, I believe buying and selling land will give us a cash infusion we need to further our long-term goals." This is great.
Steven Butala: Boy, whoever you guys are, you're smart.
Jill DeWit: "Right now, my biggest question is to figure out where do we begin with my mailers. The U.S. Is a large place, lol." That's true.
Steven Butala: All right. So you're smart and you understand real estate. That's the good news, Here's the bad news. We're going to have to undo a little bit of this. I hope you don't deal with the real estate agents. I almost want to say Kevin, that you might want to take a look at a, we have another product that Jill and I never talk about called House Academy. If you go to house academy.com and take a look around there, it's going to really sing to you. These properties that you can successfully clearly renovate, you need to be finding them cheaper. So imagine this $160,000 hot property, you bought it for 80,
Structuring Infill Lot Development with Home Builders (LA 1436) Transcript:
Steve Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWitt: Hey.
Steve Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWitt: I'm Jill DeWitt broadcasting from beautiful Southern Arizona.
Steve Butala: Today, jill and I talk about Structuring Infill Lot Development Deals with Home Builders and it's Infill Lot. I-N-F-I-L-L. It's pretty funny, because I've heard people call it infield.
Jill DeWitt: Oh.
Steve Butala: And, inful.
Jill DeWitt: Inful?
Steve Butala: I-N-F-
Jill DeWitt: F-U-L?
Steve Butala: Or, something. F-O-O-L.
Jill DeWitt: Infilt? Infold? Unfold?
Steve Butala: So you're filling in a lot between two houses. We'll talk all about that. There's a deal we're involved in that's pretty pertinent, but before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWitt: Hey, by the way, if you are a Land Academy member, you can also find us on Discord. So Julius wrote, "Hi everyone. My name is Julius, and I'm just jumping into land investing 100% fresh. I had been thinking about it from my own personal property purchases for a while now, but after some research found this business model to be rather incredible."
Steve Butala: Good.
Jill DeWitt: Yeah, you're right. "I'm currently a grad student. I'm in the process of saving up to join Land Academy. I have some extra capital from my actual mailers and deals when that time comes. My question is this. For someone who is totally new, how would you recommend someone who has a couple months to prep make the most of their time doing so before diving in? What are some good resources to really map out the process, and maybe even get a feel for searching for, scrubbing and playing with some data? I'd also be super grateful to get the chance to speak with someone who's been through it, to see how they learn from those first steps. In any case, it's a pleasure to be here and very excited to start. Thanks very much and wishing everyone all the best. Cheers, Julius." Oh. That's awesome. You want to answer first? Or, you want me to answer?
Steve Butala: Yeah. I mean, Land Academy is very much like Alcoholics Anonymous.
Jill DeWitt: Oh my gosh. Not at all what I was going to say.
Steve Butala: You're in a group, and there's some steps to complete before you can get a chip.
Jill DeWitt: Move forward.
Steve Butala: Instead of getting a chip, you get a big bank balance.
Jill DeWitt: Or a deed.
Steve Butala: Then, if you're lucky, you can find somebody who will, on a personal one-to-one basis, mentor you. Just like AA.
Jill DeWitt: Like your sponsor. Mentor. We call it mentor, some call it sponsor, pick a word. Oh my gosh.
Steve Butala: Jill's going to answer.
Jill DeWitt: Well, I was going to say, you're doing everything right. Start communicating.
Steve Butala: That's what I think too. Yeah.
Jill DeWitt: Communicate with everyone. Okay. Yeah. If you don't know Excel, get to be a wiz in Excel. You don't have to know exactly what we're scrubbing, just get really good at maneuvering and not looking at the keys when using Excel. That's a lot of it. Just, I think that there's so much out there. Listening to this show is one. There's so much free content that you and I put out over the years now, five going on six years, that you can really get a lot of information right there. I would just spend time listening, watching, following, writing, communicating, then you're going to get a real good idea. Enough that you think, "I got this," but wait for it. Then, when you're ready and you join, it's going to put all the little moving parts in place. You're going to know, "Oh, I put this before that, then I do this. That's the nuances. I really need to know about that," because it's impossible here for you and I to really... We do, but it just puts it all in place,
Blast from the past June 2016: Removing Risk from Your REI Career Jack Butala: Removing Risk from Your REI Career. Every Single month we give away a property for free. It's super simple to qualify. Two simple steps. Leave us your feedback for this podcast on iTunes and number two, get the free ebook at landacademy.com, you don't even have to read it. Thanks for listening.
Jack Butala: Jack Butala for Land Academy. Welcome to our Cash Flow From Land show. In this episode, Jill and I talk about removing risk from your REI career. Great show today, Jill. Before we start, let's hear some funny stuff.
Jill DeWit: It's interesting that I am still surprised by the things that come out of your blog sometimes, Jack. What were you checking for titles today?
Jack Butala: What?
Jill DeWit: I'm not sure those will pass the ...
Jack Butala: My gosh.
Jill DeWit: Who's in charge of when you write a blog and you title ... Is there an FCC? Who's in charge of that kind of thing? I happen to,
Jack Butala: You mean the boredom-
Jill DeWit: ... catch you.
Jack Butala: The boredom factor?
Jill DeWit: No, no, no, no. I caught the ... I was lucky enough to sit in on your marketing meeting today. You guys are running through some title checker thing which I thought was really cool. I was just a little surprised by how far south you two took it looking for titles is what I'm trying to say.
Jack Butala: What did you hear?
Jill DeWit: I heard things like strippers. I heard things like how horrible it is to be Italian.
Jack Butala: It's not horrible to be Italian. It's great to be Italian.
Jill DeWit: No, wait. Not horrible, but what was the word? Shucks, I forgot what the terminology was.
Jack Butala: Italian people, at times, communicate through yelling. I'm softening it for the show.
Jill DeWit: You were working on something like a blog title and print titles. That's what I caught. I was just like ... I can't believe I'm still surprised by what you guys come up with.
Jack Butala: I'm having trouble being Italian. That was one of them.
Jill DeWit: There you go. It was really funny. All good.
Jack Butala: Yeah, that is some funny stuff that we heard today.
Jill DeWit: Yes.
Jack Butala: Boy, if I knew that was the topic, I would have some [insane 00:01:40] one-liners. Anyway, let's take a question-
Jill DeWit: That's why you don't know what's coming until I get to say that.
Jack Butala: Let's take a question posted by one of our members on successplant.com, our free online community.
Jill DeWit: Okay. Kyle says, "I'm just getting started in pulling my first list from Agent Pro. For property type, do I select agricultural/rural or residential vacant land?" Do you want to back up?
Jack Butala: Can you take a crack at answering that?
Jill DeWit: Well, I would like to back up and ask, if you would, Jack, explain what he's trying to do here for people that might be just joining in.
Jack Butala: Yeah. There's lots of places to go get data. Most of them are ... Well, some of them are very credible. What you want to make sure about any data that you pull is a couple of things. One that it's fresh because properties get bought and sold all the time. If you have a database or a list ... If you're not accessing a database, chances are you have a list. A list can be old. It could be 20 years old, two years old, one year old. We don't know. It could be from yesterday. You want fresh data. The best way to do that is to access the database.
Number two, you want that database for all product types, not just land, to have a assessed value. It's the way that you can really scrub your data down and send offers to the right people. This is for apartment buildings. It's for houses. It's for vacant land, all product types. That's how you gauge who you're sending a letter to and that's, in some ways, how you priced the offer. If you don't have assessed value, you're really taking a stab in the dark. What you're going to end up doing is wasting a to...
Interview with Member Laurie Phillips (LA 1434)
Steven Butala: Steven and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from sunny southern California.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I interview Member Laurie Phillips. Laurie, welcome.
Laurie Phillips: Thank you.
Steven Butala: Give us just a little introduction and then we'll take this question. Tell us where you are and whether or not you're happy to be here at all.
Laurie Phillips: All right. Well, I live in Richmond, Virginia and I've been here for a while. I'm happy to be here. I know that we've talked before. Some of the things I'm doing in my business, which is not very old, there are a little different than what some other people did. Might be interesting to hear what you think about it.
Steven Butala: I can't wait to hear. Everybody who's different in this group seems to do extremely well. You take the basic stuff that we offer-
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: In the environment and then make it your own.
Jill DeWit: You make it you're own.
Steven Butala: Yeah, exactly. Hey, before we get into it though let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWit: Brandon asked, I'm a new member based in Atlanta, Georgia. Three weeks old and I'm trying to choose a market and ultimately do my first mailer in Alabama. I'm considering the following counties, low population density but near a city, low population density and days on market, less than 100 days. I've searched the forum... They've searched and the forum doesn't seem to have much conversation or topics about Alabama. Can anyone speak to their experience working Alabama or any of these counties?
Steven Butala: Laurie, I chose this question because you actually answered it in the forum. I think better than I ever would have answered it. Do you remember this question?
Laurie Phillips: I don't. Yeah.
Steven Butala: That's great. You want to take a shot at it?
Laurie Phillips: Why don't you go ahead and read what I wrote? I answer a lot of questions in the forum. I really enjoyed it and they make me think. I don't recall this one.
Steven Butala: Go for it. What you said was Steve spends a lot of time addressing this topic and maybe you should listen to him. I'm paraphrasing. I'll find the question though.
Jill DeWit: That's awesome. That's hilarious. Trying to find it here.
Steven Butala: Here it is. You got it.
Jill DeWit: There we go.
Steven Butala: Do I read it, Jill?
Jill DeWit: Will read. This is good. Hi Brandon and welcome. I'm pretty new to... This was months ago. After a lot of overthinking, should I mail to this particular vacation county? Even though it's five hours from a population area, et cetera. I went back to Land Academy 1.0 and followed Steve's instructions exactly for picking a new County. I decided being new wasn't the right time to be creative. His process didn't involve minute analysis.
Jill DeWit: Just pick a county, follow the process, have some data to support your choices and mail. That's what I did but you may have more knowledge of the areas or REI in general. Take what I say above with your experience in mind. Let me keep going.
Steven Butala: No-
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Butala: She goes on to say-
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: The real clear message is here and I can concur exactly. Get the education under your belt. Get that mailer too under your belt and adjust and do the research. But you got to get it out the door, right? The truth is, I have to get a mailer out the door and I'm two days late on it.
Jill DeWit: Yes, he is.
Steven Butala: This is just-
Jill DeWit: That's true.
Steven Butala: It happens to everybody. Today's topic interview with member Laurie Phillips. This is the meat of the show. All right. I can't wait to hear it.
How Income and Property Taxes Work in Your Land Business 2021 (LA 1433) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny Southern California and awesome, cool Arizona.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about how income and property taxes work in your land business in 2021. Why? Because all week this week, Jill and I were talked into talking about the most boring things possible in the land business. What's not boring in the land business, making hoards of money.
Jill DeWit: Boy, am I excited about this show.
Steven Jack Butala: If I could write a topic and no one had any say in it, specifically our customer service people, here's the topic. This is how much money you're going to make next month. That's a whole topic.
Jill DeWit: Oh, this is good. Do you know what mine would be?
Steven Jack Butala: All you got to do are these three things and that's it. That's a whole topic. But no, we have to talk about taxes today.
Jill DeWit: Wait, wait, wait. I want one. Mine would be, this is how to replace your income times two and cut your hours in half. I will show you.
Steven Jack Butala: Here's another one. What to do with all the time that you're going to have when you're rich.
Jill DeWit: Or what boat works best in X conditions?
Steven Jack Butala: I like those. Let's take a look in Jill's garage. That's another show.
Jill DeWit: That's right. That's perfect. You know what's funny? Seth did this a couple, like a year ago. Seth bought a new big house in Michigan, right? I don't know if you saw this, Steven.
Steven Jack Butala: No.
Jill DeWit: Okay. So Seth, bless his heart, got a new house in Michigan and he gave a tour of the house walking around like a selfie tour on his phone. And I'm like, this is hilarious. And I bet a lot of people were very intrigued by that though. He went through the living room, the kitchen, you could see the kids' toys in the corner. It was the funniest thing. And he goes downstairs, like it's a Michigan basement, and that's where his office is and it's really nice, and he shows the layout and everything. And I thought that was funny. So I'm wondering, should we do that, when you talked about the garage thing? We don't need to see the garage, but I don't know, maybe somebody would like to see the garage. It's kind of funny.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. The garage I'm okay with.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Jack Butala: Because there will be 16 not so inexpensive cars in there when we're done.
Jill DeWit: We'll work on that later. Okay. So did you set me up for the question?
Steven Jack Butala: So before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And if you're a Land Academy member, please join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: I got so excited getting off-topic because we're both avoiding this topic.
Steven Jack Butala: Actually, I should have said this before we started being negative, but I can save you some money on this episode here, I think
Jill DeWit: Bob wrote, "Hey, Land Academy folks, we're wanting to bring on someone per task or on a part-time basis to help us get our mail out consistently. My wife, Carly, and I have scaled our business over the past year and it's currently more than we can keep up. If you have a knack for data, but don't like the rest of the business, let me know and we can chat further. Experience with RealQuest, compiling comps, pricing, and data scrubbing is a must. Here's my cell number. Evan, if you want, you can text me for a faster response. Thanks." There you go. There's Bob's job posting for the board.
Steven Jack Butala: Bob, I just posted this exact job, exact job on the job board on Land Academy or Land Investors, so touché. If you get a good person, let me know, Bob.
NEW Land Academy Job Board (LA 1432) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Jack Butala: And me from Arizona. Today, Jill and I talk about the new Land Academy/Land Investors job board. I am personally ridiculously excited about this. There's not one lick of sarcasm or non-truth to what I said.
Jill DeWit: I know.
Steven Jack Butala: I have long, long said the most challenging thing in any business, including this, is staffing.
Jill DeWit: Yup.
Steven Jack Butala: We've got a huge group of people that know this business, and they're entrepreneurs. I've actually posted jobs up there myself.
Jill DeWit: Yup. Three of them on there right now are ours. Three of the job postings are for some part of our company.
Steven Jack Butala: If you're a member or even not a member, and you're looking for a job in this industry, we are hiring.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community. It's free, and if you're a Land Academy member, please join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: Nick wrote, "What's the best way to handle a potential seller who refuses to accept or deny the amount of the offer, but insists on me sending her the comps of how I came up with the offer, before any further conversation? She wants to sell, but won't say anything about the offer price without comps. 'I send dollars, not comps,'" in quote, Nick wrote.
Steven Jack Butala: That's my little comment. I send dollars, not comps.
Jill DeWit: That is so funny. Sometimes, Nick, people get a little confused about who you are or what you do. I've had that. I've had people, four from mailers from years back, calling me and asking me questions like I am the county. What the heck? They get kind of demanding too. I'm like, "What are you talking about?" "Hey, I need to know what you guys show for this, that, and this." I'm like, "Well, how the heck do I know? I just sent an offer to buy your property." The first thing I would do would be to educate her on who you are, and what you do, and what you're happy to do. I would just stand firm, honestly, Nick, on this one. I would say, "Look. My name's Nick. I own nicksLand.com. Check me out. There's me. Yep, that's me with my dog. There's my wife and our baby," whatever it is, "camping. We buy and sell property. I sent you an offer. If it works for you, great. Please, sign it, send it back. If it doesn't, I wish you all the best." "But I need comps. I need comps." "You know what? You could reach out to maybe ..." I guess now I'm talking myself out of it. She could reach out to a local agent. Maybe that's what you should say. Let's be honest. "You can reach out to a local agent. They could probably help you with something like that." Now, we do run the risk of her reaching an agent, and the agent saying, "Oh, I can sell it to you for this." You know what? Then let them do that, honestly. But most likely, especially if it's a small whatever property, the agent's going to go, "You're who? You want what? It's how much? No. I'm sorry. That's not what I do." She's probably going to really hit a wall. If it's a smaller property, like less than $10,000, a lot of agents, "Do I want a commission on $10,000? Am I going to make 600 bucks, maybe a thousand, when I'm doing deals where I can make 50,000? It's not going to be worth my time." It's probably going to go like that.
Steven Jack Butala: If your seller knows the word comps, which stands for comparison values, by the way, you're not going to do a deal with them.
Jill DeWit: That's true.
Steven Jack Butala: They have a bunch of experience in real estate. They want a current comparison value driven price.
Start to Finish Documents Needed to Buy and Sell a Parcel of Land (LA 1431) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWitt: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWitt: And I'm Jill DeWitt broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about start to finish documents that are needed to buy and sell a parcel of land. Again, this is a requested topic by our customer service staff because a lot of people are asking about it.
Jill DeWitt: I'll make it really easy. I promise. You know what's funny? I made some notes here and I'm thinking about what are all the documents? It sounds like, "Oh no, this is going to be hard," but it's actually very easy and there's not a lot. And I'll explain each and everyone and let you know what's important.
Steven Jack Butala: Good. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And if you're a Land Academy member already, please join us on Discord.
Jill DeWitt: Kyler wrote, "Has anyone had a title company refuse to handle your closing because the purchase price is three times lower than the assessed value? Only two title companies in this county and they said they can't do it. Never heard of this. With that said, if anyone knows a normal title company in Northern blank state, please refer them." That's the stupidest thing I have ever, ever heard. Could you imagine?
Steven Jack Butala: I responded to this. I actually responded to this and what I said, I'll say it here again. I've been dealing with this in some way my entire career, whether it's a know-it-all title company or real estate agent that gets wind of the deal and says, "You know what? For that, I'll buy it," or, "Hey, I can even do better than that," or somebody's sister-in-law says, "What do you mean you're selling that property for 10 grand. I'm happy to buy it from you for that. Don't give it away," so this is part of this business and it needs to be accepted and dealt with. And probably you just need to accept it.
Jill DeWitt: It's amazing. It's almost like I want to say to the title company, "Oh, I'm sorry. Excuse me. What should I be buying it for? What the hell? You shouldn't be involved in it at all." It's like-
Steven Jack Butala: In small counties, I know this from personal experience, all the title agents talk to each other, regardless of the company that they work for. The people at the county talk to the title companies. If there's HOA's anywhere, they all talk to each other.
Jill DeWitt: All of four them.
Steven Jack Butala: And date each other. Really I mean it. They're married to each other or their sister works there or something crazy like that.
Jill DeWitt: I would just like, go find an attorney then. Go rogue, find another way to do this. If you need title insurance, do you even need title insurance, Kyler? I would maybe get the deal done and then after the fact. That might be the way to do it, close the deal, get it done then saying, "Now let's get title insurance."
Steven Jack Butala: That was exactly my final point like, is it really that necessary?
Jill DeWitt: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven Jack Butala: Get it. Buy it. It's over. Now get insurance and you don't need to do that at a local company. You can cross state lines on that. Today's topic are start to finish documents needed to buy and sell a parcel of land. This is the meat of the show. Start us off Jill, what's document number one?
Jill DeWitt: Okay. The first document in our business is a combo document. It goes out in the mail. It's a cover letter, introducing ourselves and our mailer and a purchase agreement with the offer price. So that's it. It's mailer/offer, which includes a purchase agreement. Do you want me to keep going?
Steven Jack Butala: Yes, please. So they sign the document.
Jill DeWitt:
What is HOA and Why it Matters in Land Investing (LA 1430) Transcript:
Steve: Steve and Jill here.
Jill: Hi.
Steve: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill: And I'm Jill Dewitt broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steve: Today, Jill and I talk about what is an HOA, and why does it matter in land investing? I hate them. Who doesn't?
Jill: I know. Who wants more people involved telling you what you can and cannot do with the property that you own. By the way, they don't own it, you do. So I have a lot to say about this.
Steve: I do, too. I have to tell you, I've always had this weird fascination with somehow requesting that clinical psychiatrists or psychologists do a dissertation on certain topics. And this has always been one of them. What psychologically makes someone choose, forget about the money, [crosstalk 00:01:02] make someone choose to start an HOA? Which I get, because you make some money. But more importantly, why do you seek out to live in an HOA or seek out some type of a land where there's more rules, not less? Is it better that we have more laws in life or less laws?
Jill: I was just thinking that. Working at an HOA has got to be like the IRS. There's really no reason anyone's going to call you happy. They're calling you to find out what's the stupid rule, or why did I get fined?
Steve: What's that movie, when the kids were little? It was a cartoon about the bunch of animals are living in the back of the woods, and they in they're all hibernating. And they woke up out of hibernation and there this massive subdivision where they used to live?
Jill: Yep.
Steve: What's it called? Hedge ...
Jill: I forgot, and they went through the fence.
Steve: Over the Hedge.
Jill: That's right.
Steve: Over the Hedge. Yeah.
Jill: Okay.
Steve: And there was this character in there, this woman who was the classic real estate agent/president of the HOA. And they took it to extremities where she would measure the length of everybody's lawn and then send them notes. Do you remember that?
Jill: No. I mean, I do remember that movie, but I don't remember it in that level of detail that you have. I do not recall. That is so flipping funny. I love it.
Steve: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.
Jill: Kristen wrote topic idea. Why do responding sellers have property with no physical access, or in a flood plain, and what to do about it? Oh, why do responding sellers have property with no physical hazards or a flood plan? What to do about it? I know new sellers shouldn't be buying these, but it's pretty much all I'm getting. Yeah. I like that. That's a good idea. Can we do that one day and really dive deep into it?
Steve: Yeah, we can dive deep. I can give you the 32nd overview here, too, if you want.
Jill: Go for it.
Steve: Sellers almost always don't know about their property. They've inherited it. They've never seen it. I mean, back me up here or correct, Jill, probably 80% of the time, they have no idea about the property. Sometimes they live adjacent to it and that's a different story, so they don't know. No physical access can be remedied. It's not that complicated. You just need to get the right people involved and make sure that there's a ton of profit margin on it, because it takes a while. And if there's a process, then it's possible. The floodplain scenario, they're not going to know. It's only relatively new to land ownership that we can click on these FEMA maps at places like Neighbors Scoop, and just within seconds, see if the property is in a flood plain.
Jill: Right.
Steve: So even two years ago ... I mean, even now, if you go on to fema.gov and try to find out if a property ... it's a big, huge, massive process. So, that's not their fault at all. And what do you do about it? You just work through these things where you adjust the price.
Post Transaction Communication (LA 1429) Transcript:
Stephen Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Stephen Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show. Entertaining land investment talk. I'm Stephen Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWitt broadcasting from sunny Southern California, for me.
Stephen Jack Butala: And Arizona.
Jill DeWit: Anyway.
Stephen Jack Butala: Today Jill and I talk about post-transaction communication and we're also trying out new software. So we'll see how this goes.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Stephen Jack Butala: Sometimes it's appropriate, I think, when the deal is all done to talk to a seller. And when a buyer buys property, it's appropriate post transaction to talk to them too. Jill is going to tell us all about it. Although my personal opinion is that it's not that common, but we're going to find out from the expert. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community. It's free and if you're a Land Academy member, please join us on Discord, which is getting more popular by the minute. I'm happy to report.
Jill DeWit: I saw you in there just a little while ago. Lucas wrote, after five months, 4,000 letters, and five completed assignment deals, I finally got a deal that I was able to self-fund and now it's under contract to sell. It feels great.
Stephen Jack Butala: It's a beautiful way to say it's working.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. My offer was for a property that was already listed. The seller and I couldn't agree on a price. However, he had a tiny parcel in a nearby county that he was also wanting to get rid of. It was so tiny that I wasn't sure if anything could be done with it, but it was right downtown in a nice community directly off main street. City zoning allows for trailers and modular homes, so I went for it. We agreed on a price. Closed quickly. I put it up for sale. I put up a for sale sign and it was under contract to sell within a week. Never even had time to get my posting online. Bought for $3,800 and sold for $9,000. Now I have enough cash to go back and try some deals that I missed from my first mailer. Again, I owe a debt of gratitude to this community. Your examples, keep us going. Thank you. How cool is that?
Stephen Jack Butala: It's kind of a mic drop posting.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. So it wasn't really a question. It was really like, hey, here's my story. I love it. I'm so glad, how great is that [crosstalk 00:02:39]
Stephen Jack Butala: Congratulations Lucas, that's fantastic seriously. I'm very conscious now, Jill of the words that I use, because yesterday we had our Thursday webinar and some of the members reported... Our regular members reported to us that they have a side drinking game going on because it's kind of at night, based on the words that Jill and I say probably too often. So I just said fantastic and I know that's one of the drinking words.
Jill DeWit: Yep. Okay. Everyone now you got us started. Now we're going to come up with our own drinking game.
Stephen Jack Butala: Yeah. [crosstalk 00:03:20] I mean, this airs at 3:00 PM. So I hope there is not that much drinking, but if you're listening to this at nine o'clock, as Jill says, drink yourself silly.
Jill DeWit: Yep. Exactly.
Stephen Jack Butala: Today's topic, post-transaction communication. This is the meat of the show. So like I said, in the intro, Jill, when do you think, is it appropriate? Or do you have communication right now with anybody that consistently they like to do as a friend, that you've done a deal with either on the buyer or the seller side.
Jill DeWit: Yes.
Stephen Jack Butala: You really do?
Jill DeWit: Only one and it's a personal transaction. That's the only reason why.
Stephen Jack Butala: Like a primary residence?
Jill DeWit: Yes.
Stephen Jack Butala: You're not going to tell us?
Jill DeWit: And she happens to be the lender. So right now she's my best friend.
Stephen Jack Butala: Oh,
Red Green Yellow Test for Picking a County Explained (LA 1428) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from beautiful central Arizona.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about the Red Green Yellow Test for picking a county explained. We don't have a lot of dart boards in our office. We don't do a lot of guessing about real estate and whether we should buy it or sell it or where we should send a mailer.
Jill DeWit: I wouldn't mind a dart board in our office, but for a different reason. Here's what I think about what this person told me.
Steven Jack Butala: There's some politicians I'd like to put on a dart board-
Jill DeWit: There we go. That would be nice.
Steven Jack Butala: ... But we'll talk about that later. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWit: Mitch wrote, "Hello. So my first mailer did not get the response I was hoping for. I mailed one acre properties in Mojave County, Arizona targeting Meadview-
Steven Jack Butala: Meadview.
Jill DeWit: ... Meadview, and I didn't get much response. Luckily I was able to purchase three properties, but all were from the same seller. Other than that, I had only two calls come through, one being a hate call. I understand that this county is a highly competitive market, which could be the reason I didn't get much response. However, I'm concerned that my pricing was way off and this is the reason I didn't get any takers. I priced my property at $652 per acre. Now I'm getting ready to send another mailer to Santa Cruz County, Arizona targeting Rio Rico's zero to two acre properties, and I was wondering if someone could give me any advice on pricing so I can hopefully get more response."
Steven Jack Butala: Oh, you're going to get some advice from me in a second here.
Jill DeWit: I've been waiting for it. I'm holding back, I know. "I know this is more of an art than a science, and I need to fail to learn, but I'm worried my whole thought process on pricing is inaccurate. Thanks in advance for any advice. Mitch"
Steven Jack Butala: Mitch, this is not personal. I'm only responding to what you're saying here to help everybody who's listening to this.
Jill DeWit: But put your face mask on.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Put your helmet on.
Steven Jack Butala: Not going to use your name. I'm just going to assume that you're just somebody. This is not personal. You cannot send a mailer out for $652 for a piece of property and expect to get anybody to respond. You just can't. Those days are gone. They were gone in 1975. Mojave County in Arizona is the county that I chose to, as an example, in both of the programs both the Cash Flow From Land Program and then Land Academy 1.0. 2.0 is about infill lots, so I used another county and I say, all the way through the programs, please don't mail Mojave County. Please don't use this. I'm only using it as an example. It's not the place to do this. Meadview itself is becoming a subdivision of Las Vegas. In fact, Jill and I just bought a mobile home there. I don't know when. It was like three days ago. We paid 5,000 bucks for it; it's worth 40, on a one acre property in Meadview. Santa Cruz and Rio Rico, you just stop. There's 3,144 counties in this country. There are 13 counties in Arizona. They are grossly over-mailed. The same thing with Nevada. We have these Thursday calls and I have never been so proud as the last probably five calls that we've had. People are mailing counties that I've never heard of, and they're killing it. They're killing it especially on the East coast. This goes for everybody. Stop it with Arizona. It's over... And he even bought three properties. So it's not like you're not going to buy property.
Good Bad Ugly About Land Sales on Terms (LA 1427) Transcript:
Steven J. Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven J. Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from awesome Central Arizona.
Steven J. Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about the good, the bad and the ugly. About land sales on terms. You can sell a property for cash, buy for $50 sell it for $100 or you can sell it on terms, buy for $50, $10,000 down, $1000 a month until you pay it off.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven J. Butala: Who doesn't want to have more money in their bank account? Who doesn't want to talk less on the phone and listen to [inaudible 00:00:40] get to know your tenant.
Jill DeWit: We'll talk all about that and more.
Steven J. Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free and if you're already a Land Academy member, please join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: Greg wrote, this is a long one, bear with me. "Hi everyone. Love to get your feedback on this one. I have a desert junk property in New Mexico, bought it for $1,600, six months ago and it's not selling. I'm about to unload it at $3,200 to a fellow and I haven't signed any papers yet."
Steven J. Butala: I don't know how that's losing or failing, but okay.
Jill DeWit: I know. And that's not junk to me.
Steven J. Butala: We don't use that word.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. "A couple of days ago, a guy called me claiming to be an attorney and offered to buy this parcel from me for $2,000. Claimed to have tracked me down from the previous seller. I told him I wanted $3,800 and he proceeded to tell me that this property was subject to a quite a title that he and his family were working on. Something about it being sold incorrectly 50 years ago."
Steven J. Butala: Lies.
Jill DeWit: Wow. That mean?
Steven J. Butala: All lies, [inaudible 00:01:48].
Jill DeWit: Yeah. "I thought that was strange that he offered to buy it, combined with a quiet title information. I gave him my address and told him he was welcome to send any claim or action my way, but I haven't received anything yet. It's only been a couple of days."
Steven J. Butala: This is the last you'll ever hear of this.
Jill DeWit: "So my question is, should I say something to this guy who now wants to buy it, should I say nothing since I've seen nothing in writing, or should I not sell it and sit on until I hear something from the quiet title guy? I don't want to mess. I'm thinking to just sit on it, low value, not a finance problem for me, instead of risking a sale and an unhappy customer. Happy to hear your advice, Greg." I know what I'd do.
Steven J. Butala: Go.
Jill DeWit: Ignore the call. It's amazing that he even found you and tracked your number and everything. I don't believe it too.
Steven J. Butala: I'd chill for about a week.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven J. Butala: And I wouldn't... And then I might... I would actually research. With resources that we have at Land Academy, you can go look at the chain of title.
Jill DeWit: Sure.
Steven J. Butala: Here's the thing about New Mexico-
Jill DeWit: Do your homework and make sure.
Steven J. Butala: Specifically New Mexico. Long before I met Jill. I was on the auction circuit in my car, in my SUV, six months a year. And I spent a lot of time in New Mexico going to auctions and buying property and selling it on the internet. And every third auction that I would go to in New Mexico, someone would stand up right before the auction and give us a big, long speech about how we're terrible Americans and we stole all this property from Mexico. And how dare we buy any land in New Mexico. That's what this is related to. This is some kind of meeting that either native Americans or Latinos have organized and there's to call them land owners and something like that.
Simple Ways to Improve Your Land so it Stands Out Online (LA 1426) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy show. Entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from awesome central Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about the simple ways to improve your land so it stands out online. I was just thinking about Arizona and yesterday we were talking about how happy you are, because you've got a personal assistant and everything.
Jill DeWit: Oh yeah.
Steven Butala: I could be not be more happy in my life then right now. I know this is like the happiest I've ever been. Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Really? Really?
Steven Butala: Arizona rocks.
Jill DeWit: Because you're not in California?
Steven Butala: Yes, that's part of it. Yeah, Jill. That's part of it.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Butala: And I just feel understood here. And I feel like there's camaraderie and the people that are here want to be here and they believe in everything. In California, since March, half the people you talk to are disgusted and they can't leave. We're fortunate that we could leave.
Jill DeWit: I know.
Steven Butala: And it's too bad because they have family and jobs or whatever or businesses. We have a really good friend who owns, two friends, who own a bunch of restaurants and they're really struggling. And they're real upset with the way the decisions that are being made. And we're just so fortunate that we're not subject to that. So I'm happy too. It's not just you.
Jill DeWit: Oh good. I'm glad.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And if you're a Land Academy member already, please join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: Chris wrote, "I've been a member since July 2020, and I have yet to send out a mailer. I had several unforeseen events happen that drain the bank account, but I'm now at a point where I'm ready to send out a mailer and pick a county. My question is if I only have $5,000 to $10,000, would it be better to buy several cheap desert properties or send out a mailer in a more expensive, less competitive area and use LandTank to deal fund? By doing the latter, I would be using the $5,000 to $10,000 to solely send out mailers and buy data. But on the other hand, it may be better as a beginner to send out my first mailers to an inexpensive desert area and fund the deals myself so there's less risk for my first few properties. Any advice or thoughts?" I know what my answer would be and I bet it's the same as you.
Steven Butala: We have the exact same answer on this. Go ahead.
Jill DeWit: Go big. Use it on the data. You use it on the mail. Don't worry about funding the deal. I'll buy it.
Steven Butala: You need to forget about... Think of it like this. You're never going to pay for a property, but what you need to do then is find some great property at fantastic prices.
Jill DeWit: Get to know the area.
Steven Butala: Your job for the next six months, Chris, is to understand data, get into the whole mailer part and understand how to answer the phone and generate some great real estate deals. Forget about the money. I truly, truly mean that. I just had a consulting call with a guy that said they have limitless money for this. They joined the... they actually... He scheduled a-
Jill DeWit: Consulting.
Steven Butala: ... consulting call with me and at the end of the call, and I said, "This is how you mail. This is what you do with urban counties." The whole thing. And I said, "I got to tell you, man, I don't believe we're ever going to send out a mailer at all. I don't think you're actually paying attention. And I think you're making so much money as a lender, as a partner to other Land Academy members, why would you?" And he said, "Thank you. That's kind of what I wanted to get out of this because I...
Introducing Land Academy Accountability and Women's Groups (LA 1425) Transcript:
Steve: Steve and Jill here.
Jill: Hi.
Steve: Welcome to the Land Academy Show. Entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from awesome, Southern... Are we southern or central area?
Steve: Central?
Jill: Excuse me. Awesome, Central Arizona. [inaudible 00:00:16] I have got to figure that out.
Steve: Our elevation's 1500 here. In California, we were at elevation number... Like one foot.
Jill: There we go.
Steve: You know how you obsess on-
Jill: I do obsess on that.
Steve: On the weather and stuff?
Jill: And GPS and all that.
Steve: I have elevation issues. I put elevation in every single one of our land postings.
Jill: [inaudible 00:00:38] you remember, you used to have that thing... And it was dialed into satellite stuff?
Steve: Yeah, the weather...
Jill: Yeah. And it would tell you all kinds of cool... The barometric pressure and things like that. I'm going to get one of those again for the new house.
Steve: I think that you can get... I like the one that goes on the roof, where you don't need the internet.
Jill: This one didn't need the internet too.
Steve: So you install a little thing that goes... You ever see those little...
Jill: A little gyro thing?
Steve: Yeah.
Jill: Oh, well you can do that if you want. I don't need that.
Steve: [inaudible 00:01:09] Jill's out, if you have to install anything now.
Jill: Exactly.
Steve: Do you ever notice how girl products are just like open it and plug it in? And it's clean and pretty and simple and you don't really get any real information or the meat of anything? But-
Jill: Why is this a bad thing?
Steve: They're happy.
Jill: It should work. I should open up and plug it in.
Steve: I think I just described Apple computer.
Jill: It's like a bathroom scale and should be able to just do it quickly. Not have to program the whole thing.
Steve: Before Jill starts to talk about women's weight. Today, Jill and I talk about introducing Land Academy accountability and women's groups. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And if you're already a member, please join us on Discord.
Jill: Okay. James wrote, "Hello. When filling in the red, yellow, and green tests in the equity planner, which filters are used for land and farm to get land postings and Redfin [inaudible 00:02:09] data?" Assume on Redfin for [inaudible 00:02:13] data, you only select land for the last three months. And for land and farm, no houses and undeveloped land. However, the numbers from these filters are very different than the numbers in the example Jack uses for the equity planner. And I want to make sure I'm doing this right.
Steve: You're doing it right. James, I can tell you haven't filled this out before and by this question, you are going to be wildly successful at this. Whenever I get questions about equity planner, data scrubbing. Like yesterday, the school district thing yesterday was nothing short of amazing. I didn't make enough of a big deal about how positive that is like Jill did. So I'm doing it now. The answer is this. When you have a lot of data available, i.e. You have an urban county or a zip code that you're sending it to, then use it all in from one source, probably Redfin. You're not going to get the data that you need in realtor, all of it. And you're not going to get all of the data that you need in Zillow. You are going to get it in Redfin. The bad news is that Redfin's coverage doesn't... Rural counties are not a priority for them. So you're doing it right. I can tell. In three months is great, that's actually what I use. It's interesting that you say three months, because that just made sense to you and that makes sense to me. Jill likes 30 days, but there's not enough data. You can do it back three years if you want on Redfin, that's,
Land Academy 1000 Free Record a Month Giveaway (LA 1424) Transcript:
Steve: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Howdy.
Steve: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from awesome, cool Arizona.
Steve: Rainy Arizona today.
Jill DeWit: It is, a little bit.
Steve: Today, Jill and I talk about Land Academy's 1000 Free Record-a-Month Giveaway. I was just informed, it's not a giveaway at all.
Jill DeWit: It's not a giveaway. It's a new thing. It's not like it's a special thing right now. It's the way we roll, and I'll explain it.
Steve: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And if you're a Land Academy member already, please check us out or join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: David wrote, "My latest mailer had sites zip code-
Steve: Situs.
Jill DeWit: Situs, excuse me. It was not spelled the right-
Steve: I know. It's not you.
Jill DeWit: Okay, got it.
Steve: It's David.
Jill DeWit: S-I-T-U-S zip code for about half of the 1000 records I downloaded. I got those all priced by zip code. Then there's the other 4000, and I don't know where they are in the county, unless I put them into ParcelFact. Pricing by zip code or subdivisions, always how I do it, but on this other half of the [inaudible 00:01:15], that that doesn't seem to have those. How would you price them? I have them priced by school district right now, which looks to be a reliable data set for the properties. But I haven't sent them out. My gut is that this won't be perfect, but the county's good enough that I think I'm willing to risk my mailer costs on pricing that may not be exact. Take it away, Jack.
Steve: It's never perfect.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steve: Jill and I went to a dinner with a bunch of our years and years friends last night. And one guy's a government contractor. And he owns a manufacturing company. They do all kinds of stuff, from jet engine parts to whatever. And we're going down the path, starting a company with him, which we will market some very specialty items that he will manufacture. And there was a guy there that has been in that business for a lot of years, but he's never been an entrepreneur. He's been a friend of mine for 25 years. And so, I started down the path with the entrepreneur buddy. And the guy who's a former CEO of a company, a government contracting company, couldn't keep up and didn't understand us. And I love these guys. I love them equally. But there's entrepreneurs who just won't take no for an answer. And then, there's former CEOs or former W2 employees that have never been truly through a startup, so they don't get it. So on my left, is this guy saying, "We're going to do this and we're going to probably fail at it 50 times before we get it right," which I'm saying, "Exactly. Is there another way?" And my former CEO buddy's just horrified. And he doesn't understand why. So look, so my point is here, yeah, it's not going to be perfect. The mailers I do are not perfect. I'm going to talk about failing all this week. Because we have a lot of new people, and there's a material percentage of these people... I'm not sure if David is one or not. I don't think so. He's not actually, now that I'm thinking about it, that haven't wrapped their head around the fact that they're going to fail a few times.
Jill DeWit: What do you think about his thought process here? I think that was scrappy.
Steve: I do too.
Jill DeWit: I'm really impressed. You're like, "Okay, what else can I use?"
Steve: That's geographic specific.
Jill DeWit: School district is great.
Steve: Yeah. Yeah.
Jill DeWit: That's a great way to do this. I love it.
Steve: Here's what I'd do-
Jill DeWit: I'd love to... you can't... what David said in the beginning, I'm just going to explain real quick. There's no way, nor should anyone ever sit and one-by-one look up things.
Introducing Land Academy Classroom (LA 1423) Transcript: Steven Butala:Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit:Hello. Steven Butala:Welcome to the Land Academy Show entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from sunny, hot almost- Steven Butala:Hot? Jill DeWit:I guess it's not hot. Steven Butala:It's gorgeous out. Jill DeWit:It's nice. All right. Gorgeous southern Arizona. I don't have a good saying for this. We got to figure out the Arizona saying. Steven Butala:Yeah, it's okay. Might take a couple of weeks. Jill DeWit:It might. If you have any ideas, please put them in the links below and tell me what to say because I clearly don't know what to say. But Arizona's awesome. Steven Butala:Today, Jill and I talk about our introduction to Land Academy Classroom. Jill and I are real proud of this. About a year ago, people started to ask us for the next product. Great, you guys have a self-study product, but we really would like to be in some type of classroom setting where we can learn from you directly and we all go through it together, like a regular classroom. Jill DeWit:And it's not an accountability group. This is something very different. We'll explain it here in a few minutes. Steven Butala:Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And additionally, please join us on Discord. If you're already a member of Land Academy. Jill DeWit:Edgar wrote, "I read that it costs $800 a year." Did he really write this? Is this you but this is true? Steven Butala:This is all true. Jill DeWit:This is true. I happen to know this is true. Steven Butala:I did not make this up in any way. Not have a word of it. Jill DeWit:I thought you put this in here because of me complaining. Steven Butala:No. This is going to be a little bit of a rant. Jill DeWit:Okay, cool. All right. So Edgar wrote, "I read that it costs $800 a year to maintain an LLC in California. Specific to California, are there any other out of the ordinary LLC fees to be aware of in regards to establishing, maintaining and/or one day terminating the LLC?" And Frank wrote, I'm going to read Frank's thing, "Correct on the $800 flat annual fee. There's a $70 filing fee and $5 certified copy fee. Also, an operating agreement is not required, i.e. for single member LLCs between spouses or even multiple people. And it can be verbal, but it's not a good idea. So you may need an attorney to write up an operating agreement. Also, every two years, you have to submit a statement of information, which is a $12 fee." Steven Butala:$20. Jill DeWit:Excuse me, $20 fee. I'm just making up stuff here. "There's no termination fee." So is there more to this, or is that the end of this? Oh, okay. Cool. Happen to have [inaudible 00:02:37]. Inside information is true, and this is all true. It's expensive. Steven Butala:There's a reason we're sitting in Arizona right now and not California. And it's because of crap like this. They make everything from a business owner's perspective infinitely more complicated and expensive than it needs be. I don't know how it got to be this way, but Jill and I are fed up with it. And that's truth. There's no fee at all if you are willing to wait the right amount of time to file an LLC in Arizona. And they don't come after you with all these other little fees and all this stuff. I can tell these two guys are both from California and probably were born there because this is what has been my experience because I've lived in other states, a lot of other states actually, other than California. Oh, yeah. [Inaudible 00:03:30]. You got to do this. You got to pay the $800. You got to do this. You got to cut your toenails correctly. And you've got to make sure that you look okay and wear Vans shoes Jill DeWit:Okay. What Jack is nicely saying is they don't know better. They just grew up in it. And that's true. I understand that.
DataTree vs TitlePro vs RealQuest Pro (LA 1422) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Howdy.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from amazing, arid Arizona. I'm trying to think quickly, "What can I do that all starts with As?"
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about DataTree versus TitlePro versus RealQuest Pro. Those are the three best professional sources of data. We're licensed providers for all three of them, Jill and I are. And every member with us has access to all of them. And again, this, like all week this week, this topic came from our customer service department because they're getting a lot of questions on this.
Jill DeWit: This topic is the very best way to get out of a conversation if you're approached by somebody boring in a bar environment. [inaudible 00:00:53]
Steven Butala: Well, I think that if you say, "We're licensed providers of data," and then fill in the blank, you've already lost most of the people.
Jill DeWit: There we go.
Steven Butala: Just licensed providers. It's like, "Nope."
Jill DeWit: "How was your day?" "Well here, thank you for asking. Here's what I did." And watch their eyes go, "And we're done."
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And additionally, if you're a member, join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit: Tiffany asks, "I'm wondering has anyone experienced longer and longer lead times on getting deals closed through an attorney or title in the last several months? Or do I just need to get a new attorney? Laughing. Ha ha. Though this is the second one. And they have both been just swamped. I'm guessing it's across the board." I have, but it's not catastrophic. I seriously have. What I used to do in 10 days, might take... If I used to do it in 10 days, it maybe takes 15 or 20. But a 30 day escrow is not a 90 day escrow.
Steven Butala: Here's why. Whether you're closing a deal through an attorney or you close it through escrow, they both have to get a, depending on the state, a preliminary title report back that says, "Okay, green lights. Everything's passed. We're now putting together the actual title insurance policy, or a title plant done in some cases. State to state is different. And sometimes the property is, there's issues. So we need to get plant work done." That's the holdup. There's a lot of escrow agents and a lot of lawyers that'll take your deal. And the best lawyers in the world can get deals done in days. They still are held out, this, right now. And this is a sign of the times in whatever it is, January of 2021. Because it's so busy, they're held up by title people.
Jill DeWit: It's just volume. It's just the amount of deals getting done right now.
Steven Butala: Title companies and escrow companies are different. Sometimes they have a title division, but they're usually just escrow companies. Lawyers never have a title component. They always go out to a title company. And title companies, they have a huge problem staffing. Because the title plant people don't get paid that much and they need to be really smart. So that's the real answer, Tiffany. That's really what's happening. There's a huge shortage of title people, not escrow people.
Jill DeWit: Right. So anything you can do? Help them, always be available. Like the things that I would do to be different, check in with them. Don't wait for them to check in with you. I would call them a couple of times a week. Maybe twice a week is probably a good number. Because they're busy. And just say, "Where are you in the process? And what do you need from me?" I mean, this is what I do and I have my team do. I always make sure you're not waiting for me. If you're waiting on me, I'm on it kind of thing. Call, find out ahead of time before you open escrow,
Cloudy Title Drama (LA 1421) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny Southern Arizona.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about cloudy title drama.
Jill DeWit: What the heck? All right. This, like yesterday's topic, came from our staff.
Steven Butala: From our customer service staff.
Jill DeWit: Our customers, actually. Because this comes up a lot. And I want to say, to quote you, Jack, "Everyone, everyone, everyone." There's things to get worked up about and things not to get worked up about, and this is not a thing to get worked up about, and a lot of people do. So that's the whole point here, it's like, "Oh my gosh, how do I uncover this?" It manifests into this big problem and it doesn't have to be that big of a problem. So we're going to talk a minute about the drama. Are you a drama person? Because that could be part of the problem there, number one, but we'll tackle that.
Steven Butala: Oh, that was right in my whole talk today.
Jill DeWit: What other drama is in your life?
Steven Butala: The cloud on the title is not really the problem.
Jill DeWit: That's not the problem, exactly. It's the problem right now, but it's not the problem. Number two, we're going to talk to you about, okay, what's really important here? And then number three, I have solutions for you.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a ... I was going to start down the path of defining a chain of title, but we'll do it in a minute. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and additionally, if you're a member, join us on Discord as a Land Academy member.
Jill DeWit: For a lot of more exciting chat. All right, Dave wrote, "Two times now I've downloaded a bunch of what was supposed to be vacant land data from DataTree only to find out that 25 to 35% of records are actually the owners' residence and are not in fact vacant. What the heck am I doing wrong? This is super frustrating. Anyone else having this problem, or better yet, know what I need to do to avoid this?
Steven Butala: Sure, I'm happy to help. 25 to 35% of a data download that you end up not using the data is not that bad. If you would download 10,000 records and you end up using eight or 7,500 of them, you're going to scrub that stuff out because ... And there's, that I know of, no way to really avoid it. In this case specifically, if you're getting data records that are residences with vertical construction on it, it's happening because ... And this is all in education. So Dave, I hope you remember. I'm not sure if you are, but if you go through all the education, Land Academy 1.0 and 2.0, it's in all in there about how to do this. And again, that's what Discord is for. And I think I actually pulled this question off of Discord. Anyway, there's two or three or four or five ways to make sure you don't get property that have vertical structures on it and that's through ... Every single property should have two types of assessments so that the assessor can tell the treasurer how much taxes, real estate taxes, to charge every year. The land value and the vertical value, or the improvement value is what it's called. If the improvement value is zero, then you know it's a piece of land. The problem is that not every ... There's no universal way to book data from assessor to assess her. You can imagine, an assessor in Arkansas that hasn't yet computerized their operation in 2021 versus an assessor in let's say Silicon Valley where computers were actually created. There's going to be a pretty substantial difference between how they contribute that data. So the answer is to be redundant. There's vertical assessment percentages that need to be zero. There's vertical or improvement assessed values that ...
Deal Funding with People who are Unfamiliar with Land Investing (LA 1420) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Steven Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy Show. Entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny, southern Arizona. I have to change that every time. You watching can tell my background is different. You probably have an idea that I'm not in Southern California. We're not in Southern California, but.
Steven Butala: We're going through a back and forth. We're making some changes.
Jill DeWit: We got some projects we're working on and it involves us spending a little more time here. It's all good stuff.
Steven Butala: Exactly.
Jill DeWit: What were you saying at the beginning? When we just were starting?
Steven Butala: Our numbers were, on this talk show, we get all kinds of analytics back. We always have for five, whatever, six years that we've been doing this show. And our numbers have been incredibly well. They're doing very, very well. This last two months, I guess.
Jill DeWit: Where did we record last time?
Steven Butala: Because I think Jill and I are just having little bit more fun. I really do.
Jill DeWit: Were we sitting here? I can't even remember.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Okay, got it. I'm like, we've been traveling around, not traveling around, but you know, making changes in different, doing different things and trying to do stuff. So I'm like, I don't even know where I am. It's Friday, right?
Steven Butala: It's actually Tuesday.
Jill DeWit: I know. It's Monday.
Steven Butala: Yeah. No, it's Tuesday when this airs.
Jill DeWit: That's true.
Steven Butala: That's what I meant. Today, Jill and I talk about deal funding with people who are unfamiliar with land investing.
Jill DeWit: But before we get into it first, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the land investors online community. It is free. Jen wrote, got my first response today from my mailer. Yay. Lady inherited three parcels from her-
Steven Butala: Mother-in-law.
Jill DeWit: Mother-in-law, thank you.
Steven Butala: M-I-L.
Jill DeWit: I'm like, I see it. I'm like military. I'm like what the heck? Mother-in-law, okay, forty-five years ago. And recently quit paying taxes on them. She owes about thousand dollars so far in back taxes. There's access to only the first parcel, all three equal, and about two acres. So I'm thinking I'd have to sell them all together. Could probably get around $2,000 as I'm thinking she just wants out. Probably buy them around $2,000. Called the county to confirm utilities and access and found out the ground is rock hard, and to get utilities to it, they have to use explosives. They were very nice and actually going to call me back tomorrow with an estimate. Oh my gosh, I can't imagine. Thinking this one's dead, but good first learning experience.
Steven Butala: I think, and Jen, we all know who you are. You're very new and very vocal in our group, and I appreciate that.
Jill DeWit: You are.
Steven Butala: But it seems to me, you're trying to find a way to kill this deal. I'm not sure why. How about we just look at the core economics of it. You can get it for 2000, 3000 with back taxes. I don't know what the value is. It's all economics for me. The hard rock thing, the hard rocks been that way for as long as that property has been there. And people, hopefully, have found a way around that or there's solar panels now and stuff. So I don't know enough about this deal to tell you, yeah, you should do it, or no, you shouldn't. But I do know you just found five reasons not to do the deal instead of maybe the one reason that you could do the deal that, and hopefully it's some version of, I'm going to be into it for three or 4,000 bucks, by the time it's done and it's worth 20.
Jill DeWit: This made me think of what you took a picture of just yesterday.
Interview with Land Academy Members Mike and Joe Brusca (LA 1419) Transcript:
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email me directly at steven@BuWit.com.
The BuWit Family of Companies include:
https://BuWit.com
https://offers2owners.com
https://landinvestors.com
https://landacademy.com
https://landpin.com
https://parcelfact.com
https://countywise.com
https://deedperfect.com
https://ownersdata.com
https://houseacademy.com
I would like to think it’s entertaining and informative and in the end profitable.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Providing Information Instead of Directly Selling (LA 1418) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Happy Friday.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Jack Butala: Today. Jill and I talk about providing information instead of directly selling. I always save the Friday shows for the week. The one that's my favorite.
Jill DeWit: Oh, I like this. This is good. Cool.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWit: Sandy wrote, "When analyzing counties, what is a good substitute for Redfin properties sold for the counties that are not listed on Redfin? Thanks so much." Sandy.
Steven Jack Butala: Great question. Here's how it works. You can get data all over the place. Realtor.com is a great place to go to get visual data. They don't have a good download function at all, and that's for good reason. They just want you to look at it. They don't want you to manipulate it, which is understandable because they own the MLS. The real estate environment in the entire country is made up of about 344 separate little MLS's. So Phoenix has like two and then Arizona, I'm just picking on Arizona because I know, there's, I don't know, eight or 10 more in different regions. And some of them choose to participate with Redfin and some of them don't and inevitably, most of the urban counties that choose to participate. So what do we deal in? Rural real estate. So Redfin doesn't cover everything. Redfin has fantastic data and the download capabilities are amazing. And the data that they share is truly open source. We use it every single day in some capacity, I'm on there looking at analyzing counties or if we're buying stuff, whatever. So, but it's spotty. The coverage is spotty. Zillow has amazing data, but it's also, it's got holes in it. So what do you do? You use them all. And I can almost guarantee, and this is the takeaway on this, that two months from now and certainly a year from now, some other great source will pop up that's downloadable and fantastic. Jill and I are licensed providers. LandAcademy is licensed providers for DataTree, which is an amazing place to get data. It's not entirely free, but I'll tell you, when you get it, it's right. And TitlePro, which is Black Knight. And then RealQuest, the three major professional data providers, the ones that I mentioned before are applications on the internet that are kind of designed for everybody. So in some capacity, I use those all the time. As a LandAcademy member and I'm not selling anything here at all. It's providing information because that's the name of the show. We provide all that. And it's hard to lose when you have that much data power behind you.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. You don't rely on just one source is the point. Even and we do that, like you talked about that often when you're picking counties, that's, I'm sure that's what Sandy is doing here doing the red, yellow, green test. So when you'll pull up this resource and you'll double check it with that resource. And I do that, even with doing my due diligence, I'll look a couple of different places sometimes to confirm what I'm looking at is right.
Steven Jack Butala: When you look at two data sources in general, I'm asking you for real. How often do you find discrepancies?
Jill DeWit: Not very often.
Steven Jack Butala: Me, too.
Jill DeWit: It just makes you feel good.
Steven Jack Butala: And when you do, it's like, "Okay, well there's a problem." There really is a problem.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala: Today's topic, providing information instead of directly selling. This is the meat of the show.
Jill DeWit: Okay. So this is about selling land and I would argue that it shouldn't be this hard.
Why Test Mailers Do Not Work (LA 1417) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Howdy.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about why test mailers don't work.
Jill DeWit: Do you want to describe a test mailer first? Or do you want to ...
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, sure. A test mailer ... Before we get into all of this though, will you please tell me the story?
Jill DeWit: Oh.
Steven Jack Butala: Jill was telling me a story about a deal we're doing, and the seller is ...
Jill DeWit: Oh yeah, I came running downstairs.
Steven Jack Butala: I said, "Save it for the show, save it for the show."
Jill DeWit: Yeah, because this seller ... It's one of those run to the bank deals, but I had a talk with this guy and his background is amazing. I'm like, "I want to get to know this guy." This happens sometimes, you almost make friends with them. I remember one time I had this guy that was bugging me in Orange County, "Come over, my wife will make you dinner." It was so cute.
Steven Jack Butala: So earlier in the week we had shows about building relationships with buyers and sellers, that's what this is.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. So this guy, his name is Ed and he raised ... I don't know how we got on this topic but it happens. He would race motorcycles for 40 years, it was really cool. He was telling me the story about when he stopped racing. He was 60 years old, still racing, if you can believe that. He was of course ... It was his grandson's birthday, and Grandson wanted to race motorcycles with Grandpa. And then Grandma got on the phone too and confirmed this whole thing. And she's just so chill. So it was funny because-
Steven Jack Butala: Got on the phone with you?
Jill DeWit: Yeah, we were all talking on the phone.
Steven Jack Butala: Jill, this is hilarious.
Jill DeWit: It's the cutest thing. So anyway, Grandpa tells the story that he was racing with Grandson and he had an accident. He missed a jump somehow and tweaked his shoulder, but good. And Grandma's like, "Oh, that's just what happens." The reason I brought it up because I ... So we were talking, he's telling me this whole story, and then Grandma gets on the phone, because Grandma's the one who was doing the deal with me but Grandpa had some information. Anyway, Grandma gets back on the phone. I said, "You know what? I understand, because this one, Steven," I said, "My sweetheart used to race superbikes back in the day." And we were talking, I said, "And thank goodness, when kids came along he decided [inaudible 00:00:02:10]. She's like, "Oh yeah, mine didn't do that. No, I live that life." And she's like, "Yeah." And she just tells me, "Yeah, he didn't tell you he was doing it with his grandson because his grandpa wanted to do that with Grandpa on his birthday and that's the day that Grandpa had the big crash. But everybody's okay."
Steven Jack Butala: The big crash.
Jill DeWit: The big crash. And, "Grandpa's fine, but Grandpa took how many months of recovery and surgery for his shoulder."
Steven Jack Butala: Oh geez, surgery?
Jill DeWit: Uh-huh (affirmative). I'm like, "Oh, man." And Grandma's totally chill about it, it's like, "Yeah, this is what happens, that's my life."
Steven Jack Butala: Well, that was ... For every big surgery there's a lot of falling off.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Oh, I can't even imagine, so what kind of life she led. It was so funny, because I'm on the phone with him, I'm looking him up. I'm like, "Wow, there he is." In Motorcycle World, I'm-
Steven Jack Butala: Is he a BMX?
Jill DeWit: No, motorcycle.
Steven Jack Butala: Superbikes?
Jill DeWit: Not superbikes. I want to say off-road stuff.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, BMX.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, okay, is that what that is? So that is not bicycle?
Steven Jack Butala:
A Deal We Killed Yesterday (LA 1416) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from sunny, Southern California.
Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about a deal we killed yesterday. This is part therapy for Jill.
Jill DeWit: Uh-huh (affirmative).
Steven Jack Butala: Because she needs to vent, and an incredible source of entertainment for me.
Jill DeWit: This doesn't happen very often. Usually, I'm killing a deal because we come across just a major title issue, or there're just liens that we miss, and it just now doesn't make sense. Access we thought we had, now we don't. There's usually some property-related reason why we have to kill a deal. It is very, very rarely that it's 100% the person involved in the deal, as in the seller, as the reason why we don't want to do it. I flat-out told this gentlemen-
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question.
Jill DeWit: All right. You're, "Hold it back, hold it back."
Steven Jack Butala: Posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. I can't wait to hear this.
Jill DeWit: Oh yeah. Is this really who this is?
Steven Jack Butala: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jill DeWit: Okay. It's written by-
Steven Jack Butala: It's Steve.
Jill DeWit: It's Steve?
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Steve says...
Jill DeWit: Okay. Steve says, "Happy New Year. We're looking for a few folks who need money partners. We like purchases between $5,000 and $50,000 typical splits. We're getting pretty good at creative financing." Whatever that means.
Steven Jack Butala: It means because they're private lenders or private partners being very flexible to what the person, the deal finder needs.
Jill DeWit: Sure. All right. "We also buy seller finance notes and we'll even lend on performing notes, small shop with deep experience in credit and collection." This is hilarious.
Steven Jack Butala: So please, everybody, whatever you're doing, please stop and listen. I want you to never, ever worry about the money part of this ever again.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Jack Butala: This is this, and then Steve leaves all his information and his cell number and all of that-
Jill DeWit: Hidden in our group.
Steven Jack Butala: Which I, yeah, there are probably a hundred people in our group that are like this and maybe 500 more that are lurking that are not part of our group, dying to finance our fund, your deal, starting with us.
Jill DeWit: Beautiful example, today is Wednesday. The show that I did, the Facebook live and YouTube live show that I did eight days ago, we led the show with a survey about how many of you here are looking for money or how many are here to lend. And it was funny, because it was 100% the people that completed the survey were a 100%, I'm looking for money. And then halfway through the show, in comes all the lurking people. They didn't want to answer the question that I'm here to lend money. But when they heard someone had a good deal, here comes people's phone numbers, emails, contact information, "I'll help you, I'll help you, I'll help you." Just like Steve here.
Steven Jack Butala: Many people are very shy.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: They won't stand up in the front of the room. They'll stand up in the back of the room.
Jill DeWit: That's where they are.
Steven Jack Butala: But they will not stand up in the front of the room and say, "We would love to be your partner." They just don't. That's not their personality.
Jill DeWit: They want to hear about the deal first.
Steven Jack Butala: That's exactly right. They don't want to hear how great you are and how shiny your shoes are or any of that. They want to look at a deal. They want it to be presented easily and they want it to be an awesome deal.
Building Relationships with Buyers and Sellers (LA 1415) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny, southern California.
Steven Jack Butala: Today Jill and I talk about building relationships with buyers and sellers.
Jill DeWit: And more. I threw in there and escrow agents and money partners, because it's all tied together.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Thank you. You need to have them all on your team.
Steven Jack Butala: This is quite possibly the single most important thing to get deals done, or really anything done in life that I can think of. The data part of this, I'm a what I think as a pretty good data person and a pretty good statistical person.
Jill DeWit: You're getting there, babe. I love, you're trying to be so, not have a big head and I appreciate that, but you should have a big head.
Steven Jack Butala: But it would all be wasted if we couldn't sell anything. And every single one of the people that I know that are real good at this, every single one of the advanced members, the Land Academy advanced members, they can either do both data and sell, or they have partners like us and a situation like us.
Jill DeWit: I think most of them have partners.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, they do.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala: Actually most of them-
Jill DeWit: I'm trying to think of one. Can you think of one? Maybe one that can do both, but even he is not as good on the personal part of it as he thinks he is.
Steven Jack Butala: You know what, Jill? There's a couple I can think of, but I think they have lot of people surrounding them. No, there is none. There are no people ...
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala: They either have a partner or they have a staff already ...
Jill DeWit: Right. Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala: ... that handles it, like a built-in sales staff from another company that just sells dirt.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWit: Brian asks, "Quick version. Is a higher or lower ratio of land postings like on Lands of America, et cetera, do total properties in a county preferable when identifying target county markets?"
Steven Jack Butala: No. What he's saying is if there's a lot of properties for sale, tons of properties for sale, and then there's a bunch of properties that exist in that market-
Jill DeWit: In that county.
Steven Jack Butala: ... is it better if that ratio is higher, that there's a lot of property for sale? The answer is hell no.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Jack Butala: Go ahead.
Jill DeWit: And then the longer version, he said, "Longer context, in Land Academy 1.0, chapter three," I love this, "while Jack and Jill don't go into a great detail on this, they seem to heavily imply that a higher land posting total property ratio is a positive sign, since they format the four chosen counties in green with higher percentages. And then they offer two cities with lower percentages formatted in red is what you don't want to see."
Steven Jack Butala: And he goes on and on and on here. This is an incredibly intelligent question.
Jill DeWit: This is Jack's red, yellow, green chart that he ...
Steven Jack Butala: Yes. So, what Brian's saying is how do I pick a county or how do I pick a zip code to choose mail? We have a, Jill and I, well, I devised this system a lot of years ago for myself and now it's in our programs of this three, it's a red, green and yellow test. It's three statistics that involve percentage of property that's for sale versus the universe of properties in that county, land properties. And you want that to be very low. All right. So, he's going through Land Academy 1.0 and asking questions.
How to Get a Seller or Buyer to Perform (LA 1414) Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from kind of sunny southern California.
Steven Jack Butala: Not really, not sunny at all. You know what's good about when it's not sunny, though?
Jill DeWit: Tell me.
Steven Jack Butala: The lighting's great.
Jill DeWit: You know, I got this. I will make sure on recording days, this is it, because we need it just like this. This is perfect.
Steven Jack Butala: If you've ever shot any video, if you have a show or ever done a YouTube, even one YouTube video, or if you shot family pictures, it's a huge challenge to shoot into glass, and then into the outside.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Jack Butala: And then on top of that, the ocean is reflecting the sun.
Jill DeWit: It's awful.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, so it's really in the morning right now, and it's a little bit overcast. And I'm enjoying some pretty good lighting.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala: It has nothing to do with real estate.
Jill DeWit: Correct.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, well, today Jill and I talk about how to get a seller or buyer to perform.
Jill DeWit: We didn't already say that?
Steven Jack Butala: I don't know, maybe I did.
Jill DeWit: I don't know.
Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWit: Buck wrote, "The buyer of one of my owner finance deals is asking what happens if he dies." You know, I was thinking about this. Let me pause for just a second. You know, I was explaining to someone in one of my ... I was in, I think I was in an accountability group. I was a guest on somebody else's accountability group the other day. And I was talking about the number of deals we've done. And I've pretty sure, you think you've had it all, right? You think that you've heard everything with the volume and the thousands of deals that we've completed, I feel good. But every now and then, something comes up when I'm like, "Wow, I actually have not had that one yet." And I actually have not had anybody say this to me. Maybe you have, but I have not had this conversation.
Steven Jack Butala: I've had people die during a deal.
Jill DeWit: Yes, I have had that.
Steven Jack Butala: During an acquisition and a sale, but never owner finance.
Jill DeWit: Well, and like pre planning it, like, "I'm in bad health," or something. I don't know.
Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: So, "Does his paid interest in the land become part of his estate? And his estate can continue making payments? He wants to make sure his wife and kids don't lose anything. Thanks for your help, Buck." I just think it's how he sets it up. I don't know what I would tell him what to do.
Steven Jack Butala: Totally, you nailed it.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, I would say, let's just to make sure all the documents read, you know, buyer, as joint attendance with right to survivorship of his wife, and everything along the way. What all, I'm trying to think what other ...
Steven Jack Butala: Well, if it's in a trust, then it's ...
Jill DeWit: That, too.
Steven Jack Butala: If the contract is in a trust ...
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Jack Butala: Because you don't get deeded. There's two ways to do this.
Jill DeWit: That's true.
Steven Jack Butala: I'm sure Buck's doing it the right way, which is just a land contract where the payments get made, the payments get made, nothing gets recorded until all the payments are made, and then the entity owns it. And the key word here is entity. So if the guy, the buyer, it's all in his name, there's going to be estate issues. But if Buck sells it at asset to the trust that he sets up, as long as the trust keeps making payments,
Failing Repeatedly is First Requirement to Stay on Course (LA 1413) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny southern California.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about failing repeatedly and how it's the first requirement to staying on course.
Jill DeWit: This is clearly a Jack topic.
Steven Butala: In hindsight, it could have been a different title, but what it really means is this. You got to be comfortable with the fact that some stuff's going to go wrong and sideways. It does with everything in life. And if you just get through the parts where it's not working, it's not working, eventually it's going to work. If you try hard enough at it, or either decide that it was not for you. I talk about this really early on in the Land Academy years about I will never play the guitar. I just won't. And it's not because I can't learn how to do it. It's just that I don't enjoy the process. The end, it doesn't justify the means and all kinds of stuff. It's not that I'm not smart enough. I just don't, for whatever reason, make it a priority.
Jill DeWit: On that note, if you look on OfferUp right now, you'll see four left-handed guitars for sale.
Steven Butala: Yeah. It's true. Yeah, just because I bought a cool guitar doesn't mean I really know how to play it at all.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. I know where you can get a great price on a guitar right now.
Steven Butala: And I tried and failed and tried and failed and decided nope.
Jill DeWit: Not for me.
Steven Butala: You know what? I tried and failed in my land career, too. Tried and failed, tried and failed.
Jill DeWit: Well, that sung to you.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: That made sense.
Steven Butala: But I decided I was still going to try because I want to do it.
Jill DeWit: Okay. Let's talk about this more than the show because this will be a fun thing to talk about, things that we thought about and then we didn't pursue. Okay.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWit: Jessica F... Hello, Jessica, wrote, "Hello all. I'm wondering what kind of due diligence you do related to the neighborhood the property is in? Do you analyze, if at all, if the property is in a nice neighborhood versus a not so nice one? How do you know where the desirable areas of town are outside the prices of houses sold? Are there specific indicators you look for, either good or bad, that can tell you more about a neighborhood beyond just the numbers of properties listed and sold?" Thanks.
Steven Butala: I can tell you that with extreme confidence, I don't look at this at all, not a single bit. And here's why, because if I look at days on market, if I look at date DOM, days on market, in a place, let's say, the Rust Belt is famous for having... I'm from Detroit. So there's terrible neighborhoods in Detroit. There has been since the 60s. But if the days on market in those markets was within a range where we actively invest, I would be buying there. I don't care why people buy property or don't buy property or what they're looking for. But if 50 properties sold in the days on market in any market, there were 50 properties... You have to take all the three statistics from the red, green, yellow test, and look at them together because... But I'll tell you what, if you don't have time to do that, or you don't have the interest or whatever, days on market is going to smoke it all out for you.
Jill DeWit: So what I think you're saying is the numbers speak for themselves, which is I like this.
Steven Butala: This is for land only. For houses it's a little different,
Jill DeWit: Well, I was actually going to put it on houses a little bit too, because follow me on this here.
Understanding Money in Life (LA 1412) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about understanding money in life. And no, this is not going to be a lecture.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Butala: Jill said yesterday she's concerned this is going to be a lecture, no, it's not. This title came up for me, and it obviously made it to the light of the show because people ask me stuff, all the time, and I have been walking around the planet incorrectly perceiving a couple of things for quite some time. And I think it's funny that I've been misconceiving this, so we'll talk about it in a minute here. I think people understand accounting, just because I have an accounting background, and I think people understand real estate, and it's just not correct. People need to understand, or I need to be more clear, I guess I should say.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Butala: Are you taking notes?
Jill DeWit: I am.
Steven Butala: About what?
Jill DeWit: Not about that. No, I'm just taking notes and thinking about some things I want to talk about with this.
Steven Butala: Nobody understands money better than Jill, and I mean that. Most of the people I've ever had any type of relationship with are true cost center, and Jill is truly a walking profit center, and I'm amazed by her all the time. Whether it's at the grocery store, or buying a primary residence, or buying a trailer park, she just gets it.
Jill DeWit: Thanks.
Steven Butala: And I don't think there's any better compliment, well, there's probably some better compliments, but-
Jill DeWit: Yeah, thanks.
Steven Butala: For a former accountant, there's no better ... it's hard to find a person like that.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvesters.com online community, it's free.
Jill DeWit: For the record, I think I learned ... there's some stuff that you taught me along the way, and really helped with, so thank you. I don't get all the credit, you helped. You're good, you're awesome. All right, James wrote-
Steven Butala: This is a repeat question.
Jill DeWit: Oh.
Steven Butala: I made a mistake. It's actually from last Tuesday's question.
Jill DeWit: Let's sub it with a different question. Or make up a question.
Steven Butala: Yeah, make up a question is what I was going to say.
Jill DeWit: Okay, let's make up a ... if I were going to read a question today, want to just read this one?
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Okay, I'll read this one.
Steven Butala: Okay, sorry.
Jill DeWit: Okay, Luke M. wrote, "Hey guys, I hope everyone had an amazing Christmas. I'm looking into Landmasters for helping me with mail merging and data scrubbing. I want to hear everyone's input if they have experience with them, or any suggestions on another VA service with these features to help me with the data part of the business. I've heard Jack and Jill mention outsourcing what you aren't good at, and focus on the strengths to be more productive. I suck at the data side of the house, and I was curious if anyone had a better company for these components, or if anyone's had a bad experience with Landmasters' services. Thanks so much, and happy new year." I want to add one little thing first real quick, don't worry anybody about mail merging, because O2O, offers to owners, will automatically do that for free. Now, that's-
Steven Butala: Landmasters, here's the story of Landmasters. It's a group in the Philippines, run by an amazing person named Jillian. And she and her group, they contacted Jill and I years ago, at least two years ago, right?
Jill DeWit: Oh gosh, more like four or five years ago. Four, I want to say.
Steven Butala: And so, at first, I'm like,
Value of our Thursday Deal Review Webinar (LA 1411) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about the Value of our Thursday Deal Review Webinar.
Jill DeWit: Webinars.
Steven Butala: We just did some math, Jill and I, before the episode, and we calculated that between 2016 and 2020, once a week, we do between an hour and a half, usually two to sometimes four hours of webinars with our members. And the vast majority of it is taken up by us playing out the scenario called would you do this deal? And so there's just 500 hours of this in there.
Jill DeWit: You're explaining the whole show. Should we [crosstalk 00:00:53] show?
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWit: Tom wrote, "We'd like to find the right accountability group with a good fit on pace and goals. I have preconceived ideas of my strengths and weaknesses,-
Steven Butala: So do I, Tom.
Jill DeWit: - but I may find out differently in practice. Excited to get going." Isn't that true? You don't know until you get in there. You don't know about any of those till you get in there. You're like, "Oh, I'd think I love to do this. No, I hate to do this" or, "Yeah, I'm good at paperwork. Oh my God, I suck at deeds."
Steven Butala: I'm great at being single, not so much at being married.
Jill DeWit: Anyway...
Steven Butala: I have some preconceived ideas of my strengths and weaknesses, too.
Jill DeWit: I'm good at practicing getting pregnant. I suck at being a mom. Just kidding.
Steven Butala: Oh, my God, Jill.
Jill DeWit: I'm just kidding.
Steven Butala: Where does that come from?
Jill DeWit: Not me. [inaudible 00:01:46]. You were giving some wild-
Steven Butala: The perceived ideas about yourself.
Jill DeWit: Oh, sorry.
Steven Butala: Not in judgment of other people. Wow, that took a right turn.
Jill DeWit: No, I [inaudible 00:01:59]. All right, everybody erase that. Okay. Yeah, there's no do-over button here, is there?
Steven Butala: We're not going to edit that out, no.
Jill DeWit: I know that. I'm well aware of that. You know what the last time you edited something for me, it's probably been over a year.
Steven Butala: Yep, it's true.
Jill DeWit: I was probably crying. There was probably something that made me cry. I was having a really bad day.
Steven Butala: I have to say... And I'll tell you, you're right, edited out... probably a year.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Definitely a year.
Steven Butala: But we have had to start and stop over several-
Jill DeWit: You know what it probably was... truth time. I'm sure you and I were getting into it. I think the last time I said, "Oh, we got to do this over," because you and I were getting in to it about something, [crosstalk 00:02:44]. Nobody's going to want to hear this, including me.
Steven Butala: I listened to a podcast once... I think it was with you... about two people trying to have a podcast together, and they were married [crosstalk 00:02:54] and probably not married anymore actually.
Jill DeWit: They were getting into it. Yeah, I have to-
Steven Butala: I have to say that was a lot of fun to listen to.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. So next time I promise we won't cut it. We'll just let it roll. So if we get into it, you decide... If you think we're getting into it, you're the judge.
Steven Butala: It's always fun to watch or listen to other people failing at stuff. So it makes you just feel better about yourself. That's what the whole premise of reality TV is I know I'm I got some weird things going on with me, but I'm not as bad as that guy.
Jill DeWit: That's very true. Like those hoarder shows... I'm like, "It will never be me."
Where Do I get the Money and Who is Going to Teach Me (LA 1410) Transcript: Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Good day.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala...
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about; where do we get the money? And who's going to teach me? Came directly out of Jill's mouth-
Jill DeWit: Why?
Steven Butala: ... without any editing or without any polish.
Jill DeWit: Thanks.
Steven Butala: It went like this, "Hey Joe, what should we talk about today?" Well, somebody just asked me, "Where do we get the money? And who's going to teach me?"
Jill DeWit: Yeah. There you go. It happens a lot. I see new investors, I alluded to this a little bit yesterday on the show, new investors in multiple forums, all kinds of social media accounts and these are the two big things like, "Do I get lending? Do I get financing? Do I take a loan on my house? Do I run up my credit cards? Do I sell something? Do I sell a child? Whatever it is, where do I get the money to get this started?" I'll talk about this more, but, "Who's going to teach me?" and they just throw it out there like you're just going to say, "Who will teach me?" And there's going to be a flood of mentors. That's the funniest thing too, but we'll talk more.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWit: Paula says, 'Hi, all. I keep hearing investors say they won't touch a deal unless they see a potential for at least a hundred percent ROI, return on investment. Is there any reasoning to this other than just about maximizing profit within a range that will still accomplish high velocity sales, as in is this strategy directly related to my 1031 exchange in any way? Thanks."
Steven Butala: No, it's not related to any 1031 exchange concept in any way. A hundred percent margin or return on investment in ROI, there's no direct association with that at all, but here's where it comes from. Very early on, I wrote a blog, ended up a little piece, a video piece on, "A 24 Month Millionaire." That's what I called it. As with everything, you do 20 of these things and one of them really stands out, well, that one stood out. I've gotten a lot of people over the years have asked me to do it again or talk about it more. So here's a total Cliff's notes version. You buy property for $4000 bucks. You sell it for eight. You buy two for $4000 and eight becomes 16, and 16 becomes 32 and if you do everything wrong under this scenario, you'll have about a million bucks in the bank profit, pure profit.
Jill DeWit: Why do you say wrong?
Steven Butala: Well, if you do everything wrong because in my- [crosstalk 00:02:57]
Jill DeWit: Because you can't do better?
Steven Butala: Yeah. No, it's just because it's so easy, I think this kind of stuff. That's what kind of desert property, which we don't talk about that much anymore because it's too easy to on a couple of deals the way Jill does these days to make a million bucks anyway. So at that return on investment, that arbitrary, it's doubling your money is where it comes from. In real estate, that's almost unheard of. Just don't do it. So the reason I included this, Paula, is because there's several people in Land Investors forum that are really, for whatever reason, I think they were bored this holiday season or something and they're just really active in it.
Jill DeWit: That's true, by the way. I'm sure, "Hey, what do we usually do?" "We go to the mall." "Can't go there." "Hey, let's go to this outdoor activity." "Can't do that. That's closed too." Let's go to a movie." "Nope." That's why.
Steven Butala: What it's become for me and Jill too, I'm sure I can speak for Jill is let's look at two simple deals. I buy a property for $10000. I sell it for $20000.
Why a Small Percentage of People Accomplish Their Goals (LA 1409) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Happy new year.
Steven Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land, investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewit, broadcasting from sunny, Southern California.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about why a small percentage of people accomplish their goals. And I thought this was appropriate because it's January, well, it's the first real show in January.
Jill DeWit: Well, it's the fourth. This is one of those rare occasions where we're recording on the actual day.
Steven Butala: The same day. Why? Because we just got off of, like everybody, having some fun during the holiday season.
Jill DeWit: Well, here's what's funny too. Last week was supposed to be with my ladies, Land Academy ladies group on Tuesday, which is the 29th or something. We were going to talk about work-life balance. And because I respect work-life balance, I needed some more life balance and not work balance. So I canceled our thing. So tomorrow we're going to pick up where we left on work-life balance. So this is partially why we're recording today too. We needed that work-life balance.
Steven Butala: Awesome. Today's topic. Oh no... Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWit: You're out of your mojo, out of your groove. Aren't you?
Steven Butala: We haven't recorded in quite some time.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. It's a week and a half. It's nice. James wrote, "Hello and happy new year. Transitioning military member signing up and excited to get started. The member guide appears to focus on the tools first, but I assume we should review the videos, which are the same thing as reference, the YouTube courses also references DVDs."
Steven Butala: Yes. That's how long we've been doing this.
Jill DeWit: Yes. You're right.
Steven Butala: Used to be in DVD form.
Jill DeWit: We did. And they provide the basics. "I have some of my family working with me and my initial thoughts about how to organize to take care of the most important responsibilities would be useful. Like step one, build a list, tutorial, step two, sort the list, et cetera. Noted we need a name and a website but we didn't understand the purpose of the website upfront. Is the purpose of the website to list on the mailer so sellers have a website with all your information and documents? Question. Thank you."
Steven Butala: So this is a very, very popular question that usually Jill and I don't answer it, but I think everybody can benefit from it. We have a pretty substantial number of new members that signed up over the last 90 days. So it's really important to watch the programs, Land Academy One and Land Academy Two. And the Cash Flow From Land, the original program from 2015. And if you follow it step by step, all this stuff will get answered. And you will, at the end of it, have a comprehensive plan and a calendar, or you should anyway, from which to start at that point. So you don't want to build lists or whatever you mentioned in this, I'm not even sure what that means. Because we use database driven data, not lists. So the best thing you can absolutely do is follow the programming in order.
Jill DeWit: Well, that's great. That's great, Jack. Let me answer your question, James.
Steven Butala: Really?
Jill DeWit: Yes. What's the fucking point to the website? Yes. I do want you to go out and spend a couple hundred bucks. Even if you need to do it on... Pay $200 and get something on Fiverr to get your website, pick a name. And you could spend, don't spend a week on this, but spend a day on it and make sure you find a name you like.
Steven Butala: Yeah, but it's [crosstalk 00:03:32]
Jill DeWit: Short as possible-
Steven Butala: It's addressed in the program.
Jill DeWit: I know, but I'm helping the planet right now.
2021 Mindset for Success (LA 1408) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWitt: Hi.
Steven Butala: Welcome to 2021 and welcome to the Land Academy Show.
Jill DeWitt: Yay.
Steven Butala: Entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWitt: And I'm Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from sunny southern California.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about the 2021 mindset for success.
Jill DeWitt: I'm excited.
Steven Butala: We made it.
Jill DeWitt: We did. Happy New Year. Oh my goodness, glad that's behind us.
Steven Butala: What a year.
Jill DeWitt: I know. I can't wait. I have some things I'm going to talk about what I think ... I want to talk about first what I think everybody should do, and then let's talk about unique things for us, because I think that'd be fun.
Steven Butala: Just a year packed with irony. In our case, it was a very good financial year, but a very sad one. It's sad to watch this happen to our world.
Jill DeWitt: And our friends, and their businesses, and our community.
Steven Butala: Right.
Jill DeWitt: I agree.
Steven Butala: It taught me personally a lot of humility and a lot of compassion. It's not just about money. For a lot of years, for years and years for me, it's just been about making sure my family's good, and making a bunch of money, and accumulating equity, and making good business decisions, but I'll tell you, what a new component that all was.
Jill DeWitt: Right.
Steven Butala: I can say was now. How weird is that?
Jill DeWitt: Exactly.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWitt: John says, "Hi guys. I was curious if anyone's using a CRM to manage their mailers that they would recommend. I'd like to move away from Google Sheets if at all possible. Thanks, John."
Steven Butala: Yeah, if you're using Google Sheets, John, it's time to move away.
Jill DeWitt: Yes, it is, like today.
Steven Butala: It's funny that you say that, and it's 2021. We are actively developing a dashboard that will help you organize everything. It's not going to come out overnight by any stretch, but we're working on it, and it will be the solution. Between now and then, I would highly recommend a CRM like Airtable, which is real easy to develop. It's not free, but it's pretty inexpensive. It'll get the deal flow correctly in there. I think Jill did it.
Jill DeWitt: They actually have a free version. You can start with that and see if you like it. Yeah.
Steven Butala: Didn't you do a webinar on this or something?
Jill DeWitt: Not yet. No, but there is a free version that's pretty robust. You could test it out and see. It's pretty phenomenal. We love it. It's really good to manage everything from the properties, as you move them through the whole system, from the acquisition, to the engineering, to the sales. There's places in there you can keep track of customers, and keep track of title agents, keep track of documents. We use it for everything, so I would do that. Having known all that now, like what you're saying, John, so now we also know its limitations. Here's what I would tell you. Get the free version of Airtable right now. Use it, and be ready for what we're going to develop because it'll solve all your problems.
Steven Butala: Yep. Today's topic, the 2021 Mindset for Success. This is the meat of the show. What do you think, just without thinking about it too much, because I know you took a bunch of notes for this, what do you think is just the difference between people that just have the right mindset to get something done, to become successful at something like this, or don't?
Jill DeWitt: What's the difference? They have an innate drive that they won't stop.
Steven Butala: Me too.
Jill DeWitt: It's nature more than nurture.
Steven Butala: I agree.
Jill DeWitt: That's the thing.
Steven Butala: I can write volumes on this,
2021 Market Update (LA 1407) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt, broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I really may... Not Jill, give you a 2021 real estate market update.
Jill DeWit: Here's the reason. When we were sitting, writing the topics, I asked for this topic. I said, "Babe, we talk a lot in the confines of our bathroom," early in the morning when we're getting ready, which is very true. Fortunately, we have a large bathroom. It's not like a closed door situation. Don't worry about that.
Steven Butala: Fortunately, Jill has a large bathroom that she lets me into to talk to her, once in a while.
Jill DeWit: We have a large bathroom. No. And there's actually places to sit in the bathroom, which is very nice. So often one of us is getting ready, usually it's me, not him and he sits down with his cup of coffee and we have these really great in-depth conversations. And lately, as I'm sure you are probably doing this also... I can't wait for 2021.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: What do you think is going to be possible? What do think is going to happen with this, X, this kind of real estate and these situations and all of that? So I said, "Babe, can we move the bathroom discussion to the podcast," which we are doing now and I'm lovingly calling it The 2021 Market Update by Steven.
Steven Butala: Boy, that's like truth time effect.
Jill DeWit: It is.
Steven Butala: That's the most true thing I've heard with great detail.
Jill DeWit: Yes. Do you want me to describe our bathroom more?
Steven Butala: If you need to.
Jill DeWit: Okay. It's Okay. All right. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on The Land Investors, online community. It's free. Pete asks, I'm new to Land Academy but not new to real estate or investing.
Steven Butala: Good. Good for you.
Jill DeWit: I sent out my first 10,000 piece mailer... Nice... last week, and I'm waiting for the calls to come in. I'm in the middle of setting up my processes for when that does start happening next week. In a lot of businesses, I know that most of the money's made in the follow-up not the initial contact with a prospect. In this business, the money's made when you buy it at the right price. Of course. Buy it right, what we say. So it makes sense to me that my focus should be on acquisitions and I'm confident that the rest will fall into place much easier. Is it typical for most of the sellers to agree to a deal on their first phone call, or is there a lot of, let me think about it.
Steven Butala: These are good questions.
Jill DeWit: And then you never hear back from them. If the latter is true, I'm thinking of having an extensive, automated follow-up campaign that were really help. By this, I mean putting these automated tools in place, emails, texts, ringless voicemails, Facebook retargeting ads, triggering them to visiting my website that I advertise on my offer letters. When I get a seller that's not ready to commit right away, I would just drop them into my CRM and the rest would be completely automated until they respond again. It's not too hard to build up something like this that will follow up for a year. It would focus on a lot of contact within the first two weeks, then gradually get down to about one contact attempt a month. Has anyone built something like this out and does it bring a lot of deals that you may or may not have happened? Thanks in advance. Dying to know, did anybody comment on this yet?
Steven Butala: Oh, there's a bunch of comments on this but I'll tell you, I just had this conversation with my tech team, like three days ago, that these tools are becoming prevalent, where somebody calls you, it goes into a CRM. You either took the call, hopefully. Jill and I just had in the bathroom,
Offer Campaign Saturation Fact of Fiction (LA 1406) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy show entertaining land, investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill De Wit broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about offer campaigns. Is it a saturation? Is it fact or fiction?
Jill DeWit: I-
Steven Butala: What is offer campaign saturation?
Jill DeWit: Well I think it's both. Hold on a second. The fact and fiction, is that fair? Can I say that?
Steven Butala: Yeah. It's not fiction on our part.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: Well, I'm going to give the facts.
Jill DeWit: Okay, yeah. Yeah.
Steven Butala: And then you're going to decide whether or not it's fiction.
Jill DeWit: Okay, wait. There is a number to the properties, kind of. People always say they can't make more property, but you could subdivide, but we're not going to get into that. I'm not going to start a little argument about that, right?
Steven Butala: Me either.
Jill DeWit: Okay. Thank you. And there are countries that are making more land, like Holland. We're not even going to go there. That doesn't count. But so there is a fact to the numbers. But when you really take a step back and look at how many of us are doing it and doing this well, and actually doing mail and sending things out and buying property, the number gets smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller. So, do I worry and panic about it, is kind of the fiction for me.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: So, that's where I'm at. We all have life insurance. We all have all kinds of insurance. I have fire insurance. I have flood insurance. Look where we live, you guys. By the way, I have to get tsunami insurance because of what's behind me. It's the weirdest thing. We're technically in a tsunami zone because of the water behind me. Do I really worry that I'm going to use a tsunami insurance? No, but I have it. So it kind of ties into this too, you know? I'm like, all right fact, or fiction? Fact, I have to get tsunami insurance. Fiction, is it really going to happen? Probably not, hasn't happened yet.
Steven Butala: I don't think it's ever happened here.
Jill DeWit: I know.
Steven Butala: Is there ever been a tsunami in Los Angeles?
Jill DeWit: No, but we're in a tsunami zone. We have to call it that.
Steven Butala: So if there's never been a tsunami-
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: Off of LA's coast, wouldn't it be awesome if you were the insurance company who sold insurance?
Jill DeWit: I want that job. Yes.
Steven Butala: That's something that's probably never going to happen.
Jill DeWit: New business model being formed right now.
Steven Butala: That's what side of this thing you're on.
Jill DeWit: Yep.
Steven Butala: That's what side of this real estate mailing thing that we're all on.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Butala: We're on the blackjack dealer's side.
Jill DeWit: Ooh, I like that.
Steven Butala: The odds are way in our favor that it's going to go the way we want it.
Jill DeWit: But the blackjack player still thinks they're going to win.
Steven Butala: That's right. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWit: That was a really good analogy, by the way. I like that. That's good. Leonard wrote, "Hello, Land Academy members. Most of what I've heard about from the weekly calls in regards to improving property follows the thinking. "Don't look at it, don't touch it. Don't breathe on it," in quotes. Then occasionally Steve suggests dropping a mobile home on it. How is this possible? When researching comps for some acquisitions in California, all of the realtors asked about if the lots had wells and if not, could I get one installed, suggesting that the property price would increase 60 to a 100% just because there is a well on the prope...
3 Levels of Employees (LA 1405) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Happy holidays.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about the three levels of employees. Jill's going to talk about building her dream team.
Jill DeWit: Yup. As we are counting down the days that we can all kiss 2020 big, fat, whatever goodbye. I'm trying to be politically correct here. I want to say some stuff about 2020, but there might be children around, so I won't say how I really feel about 2020. But as we're looking forward to 2021, this might be something that you're working on. I know a lot people are in our group. We talked about the side hustle yesterday, and when Jack ended the show yesterday, talked about, if it all goes well and you're into it, your side hustle is probably not going to be your side hustle anymore. At least you could make the decision. If you want it to be a side hustle or you want it to be your full-time gig. We have a lot of people in our community that... It seems like every month, it's fun, because I'm revisiting this information. Every month there are people meeting that level and they're like, "Uh-oh, now I'm taking it. Now this is a company. Now this has been paying our bills for a long time. Now I'm ready to build a team and a staff, and make this even more than just a small family business." So that's what I've been talking about in our women's group, and I'm happy to share this with you here.
Steven Butala: I've long said, "This is for me, the hardest component of having any company is building staff."
Jill DeWit: It is hard.
Steven Butala: Jill's going to make it easy for us, I think. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWit: It is hard, but at least I can tell you what you need and put you in the right direction and give you a lot of help.
Steven Butala: Yup.
Jill DeWit: Again, boy, I wish I had us. That's okay. That's why we're here. Jeff says, "I'm closing on a deal to buy a nice six acre lot with great access next to a highway. I sent out a photographer and the lot has a lot of junk going on, like old tires and a destroyed mobile home. I think I could sell it as, buy this great property for an extra low price, because there's a bit of cleanup to be done. Or perhaps just hire a company to clean it all up for me. I don't feel like I want to pass on the deal, but I wanted to get some opinions. It is in blank County blank, which doesn't have many comps, but seems to support a greater than $20,000 sales price. Maybe even higher, because it's a unique position right along the highway." I'm excited. I know what I would do.
Steven Butala: Go ahead.
Jill DeWit: Not clean it up.
Steven Butala: Me too. Why?
Jill DeWit: Someone's trash is someone else's treasure, sorry.
Steven Butala: There's a million titles that come to my head, like, buy some land and a built-in garage sale also. Or somebody's trash is your treasure or finder's keepers. There's all kinds of stuff.
Jill DeWit: I know.
Steven Butala: And I'll tell you what, the fact that it's on a highway, it needs one or two signs, at least where it can say, "This trash heap can be yours. Give me a call."
Jill DeWit: Right. I'm wondering too, you never know what you're going to find on somebody's property. There could be a classic car under a tarp in the back.
Steven Butala: Yup.
Jill DeWit: That is dreamy and awesome for somebody [crosstalk 00:03:37]
Steven Butala: There's all kinds of-
Jill DeWit: Like this one.
Steven Butala: So I'll tell ya. I mean, anything and I mean, anything that separates your piece of property with the other five that are for sale that are just vacant land or they have trees on them or something is positive,
What's Possible Land Side Hustle Math (LA 1404) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: And welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala ...
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about what's possible in your land side hustle, specifically the math.
Jill DeWit: Oh.
Steven Butala: Like these shows.
Jill DeWit: You didn't tell him it was going to be math class today. I did not prepare for that.
Steven Butala: There's going to be some math in this. Not going to be math, it's just going to be ... You don't have to do any math, you just have to listen to the-
Jill DeWit: All right. Good thing I have a notepad and a pen.
Steven Butala: Listen to the good and the bed and the ugly about what's possible and what's not possible. I'll tell you, here's a hint though, it all starts with getting a mailer out.
Jill DeWit: You want to know something realistically? I loved math in school.
Steven Butala: I know you did.
Jill DeWit: Did you like math?
Steven Butala: Did I like math?
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Did you know that about me?
Steven Butala: Yes, I did.
Jill DeWit: Okay. How did you know that?
Steven Butala: I'll tell you Jill, you're a pilot and you have that natural ... I don't think we ever sat down and said, "Hey, how'd you feel about math in high school?" How boring would that be if we did that?
Jill DeWit: I did like math. My favorite teachers were my math teachers. Math and physics, I loved those. What was your favorite subject?
Steven Butala: Math, physics. I liked home economics a lot, because-
Jill DeWit: Is that where the girls were?
Steven Butala: Yes
Jill DeWit: Oh.
Steven Butala: You know what? I liked all. There's not a class that I didn't like.
Jill DeWit: I'm trying to think. You know what was one of my least favorite classes? That I did it, and I went through the whole thing and I was even president of the club at the end, it's a French club.
Steven Butala: Oh, you know what? I don't like languages either.
Jill DeWit: There we go. That was hard.
Steven Butala: I can get through Spanish, because it was a requirement. I like it now. I like speaking it or trying to speak it.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, you're good at it.
Steven Butala: I think I'm great at it after two beers, but ...
Jill DeWit: You are.
Steven Butala: But I think I'm great at a lot of things after two beers.
Jill DeWit: Don't ask me to speak French.
Steven Butala: No, I don't even ... I can't count to 10 in French. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free.
Jill DeWit: Herbert S, "Hello all, I'm seeking information/guidance on what I should do with the first deal that I have here. I bought this lot with a very old dilapidated double-wide fixed mobile home on the property that has been there for more than 30 years. According to Steve and Jill, this is normally a good thing, but I've been having troubles trying to sell it because I purchased it without having title to the mobile home and many of the buyers calling in would like to have that, which is understandable. We purchased this lot in an attorney state and did not have any problem buying it without the title. Has anyone dealt with this kind of situation in the past? What would you say are my options?"
Steven Butala: Yes, so let's take two steps back. Herbert, you're in a great situation. There are two components to buying a mobile home on a piece of land. The land real estate deal, like we're all very used to, and then the personal property aspect of buying a mobile home, which is in most of the states, maybe all states, the exact same as buying a car. It has a ... You go to the DMV, it's all ... I think Texas might be different. There's one state, in fact, it might be California. But the vast majority of states, again,
Getting that First Customer (LA 1403) Transcript:
Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Merry Christmas.
Jack Butala: Yeah. Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Jack Butala: Today jill and I are talking about getting that first customer. If you're listening to this on Christmas, congratulations, you are dedicated.
Jill DeWit: I got a pain in my eye real quick there. Sorry about that. It was really weird.
Jack Butala: It's being in relationship with me pain in my eye. It's from lack of entertainment, lack of laughing and lack of...
Jill DeWit: I have these sharp pains all over my body.
Jack Butala: ... familial happiness.
Jill DeWit: Just kidding. Oh, that's hilarious. You're funny. All right. Getting that first customer. This is-
Jack Butala: Well, before we get into it, I know you have a pain. Let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWit: I have a pain, and it's not the kids.
Jack Butala: Big, huge pain to your left.
Jill DeWit: Yes, I do.
Jack Butala: You know how it is.
Jill DeWit: My eyes are burning. Okay. Kathy Roe, "We have a property that has many people looking in the first weekend." Wait, "We have a property that has many people looking in the first weekend."
Jack Butala: I think she has a property for sale on Zillow.
Jill DeWit: On Zillow. Okay. Does anyone know if it's possible to have people bid up, if a few offers come in and if so, what do you say to get people calling? Okay, she doing Watchers, I guess you put in Zillow and you could see-
Jack Butala: Savers.
Jill DeWit: ... people who save it, or like it, or whatever that thing is, and then you want to... Okay. I'm a first come... I don't want to play games with people. Let's back up. First of all, congratulations. You got a property. You got it on Zillow. It's there and you got people interested. Yay. Now, do I need to have you reach out to them and talk them into something? Mm-mm (negative), because if you are like us, Kathy it's priced right, and I want you to be there, and available to... You're not liking my answer.
Jack Butala: No, I love your answer. I have some stuff to say.
Jill DeWit: Okay, and when they call-
Jack Butala: I love your answer.
Jill DeWit: ... or reach out, you're just ready to go and make it easy. And, if you have any people that are tire kickers, get them off the phone, number one. The real people that are interested are going to... You'll know they're interested. Like I said, it's a first come first serve. Here's the price. When you're ready to go, let me know, and if you're ready to go right now, let's do it.
Jack Butala: Please remember that, as a property's for sale in any venue, except eBay, as you go, and as you're getting questions, and stuff's happening, you got a lot of whatever, you can change the title. You can change the description specifically the first sentence of this description. I would say something like, "We now have..." Right in the first sentence so that you can see it without clicking on the whole thing. "We have 480 people watching this, and we're sure it's going to sell this weekend. First come first serve. We haven't gotten a full price offer yet, but that's what we're looking for, and it's all cash, so call this number, and it can be yours." Make it a call to action.
Jill DeWit: You want to put it in the posting?
Jack Butala: Yeah, or even in the title. You can change this stuff as the-
Jill DeWit: You could say, "Hot property, checkout views."
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Hot property.
Jack Butala: Or all kinds. You can do all kinds of stuff.
Jill DeWit: You know what, some of the sites will even do that. Have you ever looked on Zillow, and seen on the map? It does say, "Hot."
Jack Butala: Right. That's not good enough. I think that you should really...
So You're a Land Academy Member Now What (LA 1402) Transcript:
Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show. Entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I am Jill Dewit, broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Jack Butala: Today. Jill and I talk about, so you're a Land Academy member now, what's next?
Jill DeWit: It's beginning to look a lot Christmas. You don't like that, I'm sorry. It's Christmas Eve.
Jack Butala: I mean, I just said there's the reason there's two of us.
Jill DeWit: All right. One of us is in vacation mode.
Jack Butala: One of us is a happy person in general and one of us is not. You guess.
Jill DeWit: Goodness. I promise I will take this topic seriously. I wrote down five notes. I have things I want to cover, but I thought just for a moment, I wanted to celebrate that it's Christmas Eve. Can I have that?
Jack Butala: Do you think that all our kids are going to get what they want?
Jill DeWit: Oh my gosh. Yes. I know they are.
Jack Butala: Have they ever not?
Jill DeWit: Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure. But usually they get what they want. It always works out.
Jack Butala: You think any of them are in therapy over their parents?
Jill DeWit: Oh, I'm sure. Yes. That is a gift that keeps on giving. Okay, this year kids we're giving each of you a bundle of 10 therapy sessions to the counselor of your choice.
Jack Butala: Can you buy that? I will buy that. If you can't buy that I'm going to start a company for that, ready for next year.
Jill DeWit: Prepaid therapy for your children, for your spouse, for your best friend. Whoever's driving you nuts, buy them therapy. This is a Saturday Night Live skit.
Jack Butala: You can buy a subscription legal advice like this. Why not therapy?
Jill DeWit: Yeah, why not? Hey, we're doing it for Land Academy stuff now. We're doing bundle, work and bundle consulting things. We're just going to roll in counseling.
Jack Butala: That's what this is anyway. A lot of it.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. That's awesome. Okay.
Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of, which won't top Jill's comments there, posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWit: Anthony wrote, "My understanding is that raw land qualifies you or qualifies for a 1031 exchange."
Jack Butala: Any type of real estate does.
Jill DeWit: Thank you. "Anyone here ever use this?"
Jack Butala: Yes.
Jill DeWit: "It seems like you could roll up some very expensive ranch or something and delay the taxes owed on the flips that you've got there." And then John wrote, are there more than one comments or just one?
Jack Butala: No, it's just John because he answered the question perfectly.
Jill DeWit: So I'm sure there's plenty in there, but we picked you, John. John wrote, "We've done a ton of 1031s, but mostly in the apartment space. The basics you need are define a 1031 intermediary. You have 180 days to close on the transaction, 45 days to identify and then 135 days to close. And there's a specific way you have to identify the properties."
Jack Butala: That's right.
Jill DeWit: "When you 1031, you need to have a whole intermediary hold the funds. You can never touch the money or it will blow up the exchange." At the end of the day, it's more complex than this, but it can be a great tool for deferring taxes. They do have costs associated, so depending on the profit or may or may not make sense. You can always reach out= if you have any questions. That was very nice of John to share.
Jack Butala: At least 1031s, I haven't done one in a lot of years, they cost at least $1,500 to do. So here's the idea, you buy up, in Anthony's case, you buy a ranch, you take $200,000 out of your savings and you buy it and you sell it for 400,000. You don't want to pay taxes on that $200,000 gain at all. So you do a 1031, you identify another ranch and now your money's...
Reframing Your Money Making Mindset (LA 1401) Transcript:
Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Howdy.
Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWitt. Broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about reframing your money making mindset. I think everybody's got a preexisting condition about money, like a healthcare pre-existing condition. And some people can get out of that if they make some changes in their life, eat better, exercise, whatever. You can change that mindset and go on and-
Jill DeWit: Like learn to save money.
Jack Butala: Yeah. I mean, that's part of this. Not really, but okay. That's why I want to hear your perception though. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWit: For the record, I didn't learn to save money until I was an adult. Way into being an adult. I would save up whatever money I had and then blow it all on a fun concert weekend and then start saving up again to do it over and over and over again.
Jack Butala: I'm going to honestly argue I think you're supposed to live your childhood.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. My account would go from $600 to $20 and like whatever. And where I sat at the concert was just a direct relationship to how much money was in my account. I can afford these tickets. I can't afford those two goods.
Jack Butala: I think you're supposed to do stupid stuff when you're a teenager like that. That's what you're supposed to do.
Jill DeWit: Sure. And by the way as a girl, even though I could only afford those tickets, don't think I didn't end up down front.
Jack Butala: I don't even want to know how you got down there.
Jill DeWit: Okay. Joys of being a girl. Okay. Thomas wrote, "I'm buying a property right now. And my title company sent a 14 page for sale by owner document for me and the seller to complete. A fellow investor asked why I'm doing that. And he's never done one before through a title company. Is the title companie pushing off their work on me to do? I'm already a month into this deal possibly. And I just want some progress. It's a large well-known company, so I just assume this is normal and that they know what they're doing, but now I'm not sure."
Jack Butala: May I?
Jill DeWit: Please.
Jack Butala: What they're asking you to do is sign a purchase agreement that's non real estate agent driven. And so the purchase agreement that we use for all of our deals and everybody in Land Academy uses is a single page. I want to buy it. You want to sell it? Here's the price. Here's the timeframe. There's a few conditions in here. If I change my mind or you changed my mind before it closes, the deal's off. So why that document needs to be 14 pages Thomas baffles me as much as you. The reason is it's not the baffling part. There's a bunch of lawyers got involved with the national association realtors and made this complicated for everybody. And it's been accumulating since the fifties in this country and the contracts Jill and I are doing a large deal right now through a realtor, which is unusual for us. A few of them actually, but one in particular, on a very urban area, there's a document after document after document to sign, and it gets worse and worse and worse as time goes on. Our way's better. Our Land Academy way is the best way to do this.
Jill DeWit: Here's usually what happens Thomas. Betty, 20 years ago, learned to do this somewhere. It's usually how it goes, right? And then she'll never change the way she does it. Nevermind, the person sitting at the desk over for her at the same office doesn't require that document. Betty might. There's a little things like that that just happened because that's the way they learned them. So here's what I do. So what do you do? You could either say, "I'm not doing that." And they might say,
People Who Create Change are Overwhelmingly More Content (LA 1400) Transcript:
Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Happy holidays.
Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Jack Butala: Today jill and I talk about the people who create change are overwhelmingly more content. I read an article a couple of days ago. I don't know if you call it article anymore. What do you call it? A piece.
Jill DeWit: That's true.
Jack Butala: It was by a pretty ... It was like CNN or something.
Jill DeWit: I think it's still an article.
Jack Butala: It was a credible source that somebody did a study and I'll talk about it more in the content of the show, but people who make some serious change in their life end up happier, a lot happier. And what better time to make change when the world's on fire, right?
Jill DeWit: That's true. Oh, boy.
Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of the members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWit: Lucas wrote: Hi folks. Land Academy posted an ad on Instagram today about assessed value. I have a question about the usefulness of assessed values when pricing a mailer. I understand that the assessed value doesn't reflect the actual retail value of a property. However, does it make sense to use the assessed value as an indicator when the property doesn't fit the normal data?
Jack Butala: Yes.
Jill DeWit: For example-
Jack Butala: This is a very good question.
Jill DeWit: Imagine a scenario where a bunch of properties have an assessed value of 30 to $40,000 with retail values close to $100,000.
Jack Butala: Excellent example.
Jill DeWit: Most of them are wooded and undeveloped. Then I see one property with an assessed value of $400,000. When I check it out, I can see that it's cleared, there's a road, and it's in a high-end neighborhood with an excellent view. This makes me think that the assessed value can at least help me distinguish between the extreme spectrums of a given county, very valuable versus very useless. So I'm thinking, can I use this column to manage the outliers in my dataset and hopefully get more accurate and a precise mailer. Does this make sense? [inaudible 00:02:11] Lucas.
Jack Butala: Lucas, you're 80% of the way there.
Jill DeWit: Great.
Jack Butala: So let me clarify what he's saying. You take a dataset, it's got, what did he say, 30 to $40,000 retail values. Let's say there's a real consistent assessed values of 30 to $40,000 with retails of 100,000, right? This is long after we've gone through the process of collecting data on for sale and sold property in the area.
Jill DeWit: And picks the county and now we're going down.
Jack Butala: Yeah, in a perfect world, the assessed values would be consistent with the price for acres and you would look down a dataset of let's say, I don't know, I'm going to just use an example of a thousand lines of data and everything's peachy. It's like, oh, it all ties. It's great. And then at the top, there's properties that have an assessed value of zero, a bunch of them. Why? Because they're probably non-profit properties. And then at the bottom, there's assessed values. I'll use his numbers of 400, 500, 600,000. But they're all at that same county, same APN scheme. What the hell? They're outliers. They're data exceptions. In the world of data, that's what they call it. So what do you do? Do you increase your price per offer in that like he suggests? No. What you do is you lop them off your data set because it's screwing up your averages. If you have in a thousand unit data set, if you have 25 to 50 with zero on the top, and then at the bottom, you have, let's say 50 or 80 that are in the millions or the hundreds of thousands or the 50,000 even, it's going to throw your data way off. So you terminate them.
Scraping Data for Mailer Pricing Pros and Cons (LA 1399) Transcript:
Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Ho, ho, ho.
Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill De Wit, coming to you this Christmas week from sunny Southern California.
Jack Butala: Today. Jill and I talk about scraping data for mailer, for your mailers, the pros and cons.
Jill DeWit: You're all business and I'm all into the holidays.
Jack Butala: Yep. For the last decade, that's how it's been.
Jill DeWit: Yep.
Jack Butala: I think holidays-
Jill DeWit: Careful.
Jack Butala: ... disrupt-
Jill DeWit: Oh.
Jack Butala: ... revenue streams.
Jill DeWit: Well, in the old days, this would be a high retail year and it would make revenue streams.
Jack Butala: There's something about this holiday at the end of the year, it just becomes a two week thing. Versus, I don't know, whatever other holidays that you're into, Easter or Thanksgiving. It's that day, and maybe if you're a cool employer like us, it's you take the day off after that so it becomes a long weekend. But this just, it's a two week thing. Jill's right, it starts right about now.
Jill DeWit: You know the good thing is? If you haven't experienced before in our business flipping land, when people are home on their computers with nothing to do and they're tired of their family, sometimes they spend money on dirt. Just saying.
Jack Butala: Yeah, well.
Jill DeWit: It has happened.
Jack Butala: Okay.
Jill DeWit: It has happened.
Jack Butala: December is not historically our best month by any stretch.
Jill DeWit: It has done okay.
Jack Butala: Today's topic. Oh, we already talked about it. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWit: Ellen S. "Hello, everyone. On a recent episode of the land Academy podcast, Jack mentioned something about how investors shouldn't be buying land in Apache County, Arizona. Would he or anyone else be able to give some more information about why? I'm a virtual assistant, one of my clients is a land investor."
Jack Butala: Okay, hold on.
Jill DeWit: This is funny. Do you want me to keep going?
Jack Butala: She, Ellen, is a virtual assistant for one of the land investor or Land Academy members.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Jack Butala: She handles sales and ... Go ahead.
Jill DeWit: Okay. Okay. "I handle sales and marketing for him. I've been doing this for almost a year and a half [inaudible 00:02:16] success selling his properties in another state, but I struggled with selling these in Apache County."
Jack Butala: Okay, one second.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Jack Butala: Ellen has success selling properties for the person that she works for. So if you need a virtual assistance that's successful at selling property, why not contact Ellen? She's right there in landinvestors.com.
Jill DeWit: May I continue?
Jack Butala: This is how you use land investors. It's not just like a newspaper.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Jack Butala: It's huge resourcing.
Jill DeWit: Listen, Captain Obvious. Okay. "They're in Holbrook, right by the Petrified Forest National Park. I've never been to the area."
Jack Butala: Good for you.
Jill DeWit: I would appreciate any tips on how to sell these properties here, and I would love to know why Jack doesn't like it. Any help is appreciated. Also, I love the podcast." That's funny and cool and sweet.
Jack Butala: If you apply the red, green, yellow test, like we talk about in our education programs, and you look up Apache County or Navajo County, you will see that it doesn't in any way pass the red, green, yellow test. There's three components to it and it doesn't pass any of them.
Jill DeWit: And once upon a time it did.
Jack Butala: Yes.
Jill DeWit: So that's a point here, so there's still leftover properties. I probably have some leftover properties.
The Right Questions to Ask (LA 1398) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Good day.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny southern California.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about the right questions to ask versus the wrong ones.
Jill DeWit: Can I give a few examples? Is this a good question? I can't find the Land Academy dashboard.
Steven Butala: I will let the listener answer that to themselves.
Jill DeWit: How do I price waterfront property?
Steven Butala: That's a good question.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Steven Butala: That's a great question.
Jill DeWit: Okay. I wanted to give a little good one ...
Steven Butala: That's the right question to ask.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Steven Butala: Does Land Academy work at all? Great question.
Jill DeWit: Do you recommend my mom quitting her job to answer my phone at night?
Steven Butala: That's not a question I can answer for you. Is that a good question?
Jill DeWit: I don't know.
Steven Butala: First of all, here's what Jill's getting at: you know this whole thing about, there's no such thing as a stupid question. [crosstalk 00:01:19] I am here to tell you, there's absolutely such thing as as stupid question. In fact, probably 70 or 80% of the questions in life that get asked are stupid.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: And could be answered ... what's the definition of that? It can be answered by yourself. You can answer that yourself.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: Or with a tiny bit of research. You know what? Every single answer to every single question, with very, very few exceptions, is in your pocket or in your purse right now.
Jill DeWit: I told this couple I had a call with a week or so ago, they said, "How do I know if I hired the right person?" I said, "You're going to know real fast. Real fast, based on the questions that they ask you and if they repeat the same questions, if they're getting it or not."
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community, it's free.
Jill DeWit: That's Jack's way of moving this along.
Steven Butala: I'm going to be the let's not watch Jill deteriorate moderator today.
Jill DeWit: Why? Oh.
Steven Butala: Because of this-
Jill DeWit: Because I can go into a dark, dark place?
Steven Butala: Yes. When I'm the voice of reason in this relationship, watch out.
Jill DeWit: That's funny. Yeah, I can go dark.
Steven Butala: It's not going to be [crosstalk 00:02:33].
Jill DeWit: But she seems so nice. Not this topic. Nope, nope, no. She's done. She got worn down. Okay, Rich wrote, "This is mostly a mindset question. As I am still trying to"-
Steven Butala: Then it's a good question.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Butala: I think.
Jill DeWit: Okay. "I'm still trying to learn to buy and sell vacant land using these tools, not homes. A friend of mine just sold his house in Phoenix and is buying one in Idaho." Gee, interesting. Him and how many other people?
Steven Butala: The whole Western part of the country is all exchanging houses right now.
Jill DeWit: Totally. That's exactly what's happening.
Steven Butala: Some are moving north, some are moving south, most of them are moving east, not west.
Jill DeWit: You know what, everyone should've just got into their cars, and then in Nevada, Vegas or so, just toss each other the keys. That would've been a lot easier.
Steven Butala: Yeah, cut the real estate agents out.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: Just change houses.
Jill DeWit: Meet there and hand keys and move on. That would've been so much easier.
Steven Butala: That's hilarious.
Jill DeWit: Thank you. Okay. "When I look at the house in Idaho on Neighbor Scoop, I can see the owner bought the house in 2017." Rich, you're like me. This is how I ... I'm liking Rich.
No Such Thing as a Failed Mailer (LA 1397) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about how there's no such thing as a failed mailer.
Jill DeWit: What?
Steven Butala: Yep.
Jill DeWit: What?
Steven Butala: I really think this taps into a lot of people's concern about their capability of pricing mailers and there's all kinds of things that can happen after you send a mailer out. I've only ever had positive experiences, including, "Wow, nothing really came from that," but I know I'm never going to mail that state again.
Jill DeWit: Oh, that's a positive too. We did that just recently.
Steven Butala: That's what I'm saying. We'll talk about it in a second.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free.
Jill DeWit: David asks, "Hey, all. I was wondering what key metrics you all find most important and are useful to monitor and run your land business for acquisitions, sales, profitability, whatever you think are the most important ones." Thanks very much. I know what mine is.
Steven Butala: Go ahead.
Jill DeWit: I monitor our bank balance.
Steven Butala: You know what? I used to do that way before you.
Jill DeWit: I do.
Steven Butala: I think that's dangerous.
Jill DeWit: I know, but I do know if it's going to the right direction or not.
Steven Butala: I was fully prepared and I'm going to answer the question the way I was going to answer it anyway, but I didn't know how much money I'd make. I have an accounting background, so I tend to complicate things just like, "Yeah, there's a lot of money in there. More than yesterday. I'm going to go have some fun now."
Jill DeWit: Exactly. I think we're doing okay.
Steven Butala: In this business, like a lot of businesses, but in particular this business for some reason, there's this relationship between how much cash you have, like Jill said, and how much real estate you have. And they're constantly going up and down. What's the value? So I'll directly answer your question, David. I look at the number of properties that we own based on have we spent the money on. So if they're in escrow and we've already purchased them, but they're not yet purchased, so there's cash that's out. So how much cash is out and what's the sale value of the real estate that we own? So right now, Jill and I own literally about $2 million, this is sale value of property. And we have generated this year so far ... I don't know what the numbers are, it doesn't matter. A lot, millions of dollars in sales, sold property, and how much money did we make on it? But I really, really focus, hyper-focus. If I'm in a hurry I only look at one thing, how much property, what's the sale value, the whole sale value of the property that we have already paid for? And then I can sleep at night, because I know there's a million dollars worth of property in there, it's constantly being cycled through. And then secondarily, I look at what's under contract, which means in layman's terms that pipeline's jammed full enough so that we've got a million dollars for sale property, we've got a couple million dollars of property that's being worked on. Not all of it's going to close for a lot of reasons, I'm sleeping good. What I don't look at, and I probably should after Jill just made that comment, is how much cash that we have in reserves or ... I'm not happy when there's too much cash.
Jill DeWit: I know, that's true, but I do keep track of that. On the first of the month I write it down. What I don't look at is, I look at the big picture, I don't look at the number. I don't have a bottom number, like I have to buy 10, I have to buy the good ones.
Great Marketing Generates Sales (LA 1396) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWitt broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about how great marketing generates sales. As I said yesterday, at the end of the show, marketing for regular people was unattainable until around 2009, 2010. You had a choice of print marketing, radio or television, and it was crazy expensive. It was unreachable and unattainable for regular people like us. And so everything changed from a marketing standpoint from 2010 until nowish. Maybe there was some opportunity before that, mostly because of Facebook.
Jill DeWit: I think people are still using those billboards along the freeway. I just thought about it. I don't even notice them anymore. Is that still a thing?
Steven Butala: It is a thing. It is and I think it is what it is.
Jill DeWit: What?
Steven Butala: No, I mean signage. I think we did a show recently about putting a sign on your land, it really works, but there's no replacement for Facebook marketing to a very specific group or a specific zip code about a piece of property that you have in, I don't care, I'm just going to say central Arizona, that the property's good for fill in the blank, recreation, building a cabin, taking a dune buggy or a sand rail or whatever. And I think those specific groups are extremely isolated and quantified, especially when they're geography based, and it's Facebook. We have an incredible amount of success both through the Facebook backend business marketing and Facebook Marketplace, as do a tremendous number of our members. And I also think, and I know, that the way the MLS does now, the multiple listing service, used to be in a book like a phone book and it would come out every month. And you would find out way after the fact, if a property was sold or not sold, but selling property on the MLS or places like Zillow or Land And Farm is extremely affordable for people like us. And you hit the right people.
Jill DeWit: Sweet.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, we did really pretty much right then. Let's take a question posted by one of our members on landinvestors.com online community, it's free.
Jill DeWit: Jessica asks, "Hi, I mailed a row of parcels owned by different members of one family. One by one, I've received three contracts now. Two parcels are side by side, and I'm going to sell them as package. The third parcel is separated from the other two by one vacant parcel. Would you attempt to sell these three parcels together or just sell the third lot separate by itself? Thanks." I know what I would do.
Steven Butala: Go ahead.
Jill DeWit: I would mark them individually and then also say as a package. I would put each one would have three different postings, a little bit unique photos, make them look a little different from the views. And then I would say in the posting, "By the way, this is one of three available. Here's the one directly next door. And then here's the one over here too." And just have a visual showing all three parcels and let them know it's priced this way for a single, this way for a double, and if you want all three of them, this price. And it should go down, the more they buy it should be a little bit less to entice someone to go, "I'll just buy all three."
Steven Butala: Perfect synopsis.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Steven Butala: All right. I couldn't agree more. I will tell you this, in my however many years and 16,000 deals, I have never, ever in a single circumstance, made more money because I consolidated property. Never. If you buy these properties right, you're going to sell them individually to three happy people. Is it going to be harder? Yeah. Are you going to make more money? Yup. Sometimes twice as much. This notion of consolidating property,
How Accountability Groups Work (LA 1395) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land, investment talk. I'm Steven, Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt, broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about how accountability groups work. Seems like a basic thing doesn't it? It's not at all.
Jill DeWit: Accountability.
Steven Butala: It's incredibly-
Jill DeWit: We know what that means.
Steven Butala: ... confusing. The feedback that we're getting from members and non-members alike is either the people are either dramatically requesting it, like, "Wow, where's your accountability group? How can I join one? What's the deal?" Or they're saying, "What's an accountability group?"
Jill DeWit: Or, "Don't pick me because I can't be held accountable."
Steven Butala: Or I just think... At my age, accountability just went along with being a-
Jill DeWit: A grown-up.
Steven Butala: Growing up. I don't know how old Jill is for real, but I'm guessing it's the same with her too.
Jill DeWit: Nice.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWit: Age, it just changes every day, doesn't it?
Steven Butala: I don't understand this whole age thing.
Jill DeWit: I know.
Steven Butala: But I'm not going to talk about it.
Jill DeWit: It's a girl thing. Come on. Guys have a thing.
Steven Butala: What's a guys thing?
Jill DeWit: Probably bank balance.
Steven Butala: That's for sure.
Jill DeWit: Okay, there we go. We can put that to bed now. Herbert wrote, I would like to join or create an accountability... Gee funny, you found this in our thing... slash, mastermind group to grow and learn faster with some individuals.
Steven Butala: To grow and learn faster. I'm going to pick that apart in a minute.
Jill DeWit: If you're part of one now and are looking for another member to bounce ideas off of, let me know. Also, if you're interested in creating one, let me know. Thanks.
Steven Butala: So like a lot of things with social media that I am completely unaware of-
Jill DeWit: Social media in general?
Steven Butala: ... this thing trickles up to me. I know all about [crosstalk 00:00:02:03].
Jill DeWit: I'm just kidding. I'm joking.
Steven Butala: It's not that bad.
Jill DeWit: I know. I'm teasing you.
Steven Butala: It trickles up to me. I'm sure that the prevalence on this topic is probably... Maybe even in regular school, they're having accountability groups. I don't know. It's just it's a new name for something that's been going on with successful people forever. So you know what? Let's just go right in.
Jill DeWit: This is a study group.
Steven Butala: Yeah. The answer to this, it isn't a topic, so I'm just going to do this here. Today's topic, how accountability groups work. This is why you're listening. So let's take a look at some of the oldest most successful, been around forever, accountability groups. There's three of them. Jill mentioned the first one. A study group. "Hey, I can't study on my own. I'm in school, high school, college," whatever. "There's three other people in my group that seemed to be interested in getting a good grade. Let's all meet at the student union at 8:00 every Tuesday, right after the class and get all of our stuff done." Hopefully some of the people of the opposite gender are attractive because that's a great way to meet people. Then I'll leave it at that.
Jill DeWit: Was that the point of the study group?
Steven Butala: Sometimes.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Butala: Note two: Alcoholics Anonymous. Everybody sits in a circle or at least they do in the movies. "Hey, did you drink today?" "No, I didn't. Did you?" "Nope. Tell us a story." Okay.
Jill DeWit: I like the Weight Watchers version.
Steven Butala: And number three is Weight Watchers.
It's not about the Money But it's about the Money (LA 1003) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Happy Friday.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny, southern California.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about how it's not about the money, but it's really about the money.
Steven Butala: Hey, today's episode of the Land Academy Show is brought to you by LandTank.com, where you can get your stuff financed.
Jill DeWit: Where'd that come from?
Steven Butala: Oh, and we happen to own the company. I know it's not in the script.
Jill DeWit: Oh.
Steven Butala: I'm trying something new.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Butala: Try and sound professional.
Jill DeWit: Well I have one at the end. Today's ... I have a different announcement for a different company.
Steven Butala: Well we can do it at the end too.
Jill DeWit: The extra will be sponsored by a different person.
Steven Butala: These are all sell sponsorships.
Jill DeWit: Different companies. These are all our companies. So my thing about your “It's not about the money, but it's about the money”, this is a total Captain Obvious moment. That's what I have to say. You know? I don't want you to learn this lesson, kid, but I want you to learn this lesson, kid.
Steven Butala: Well, you know where it came from. For me as ... There's just people, a lot of people that say, “Look. You know, I'm really not doing this for the money. I really enjoy it, and it's my ... Okay. It's my hobby, and I'm putting all the-” It's about the money, man. Okay?
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a quick wait a minute, Steve. You could say that about Land Academy. What are you talking about? You're talking out of both sides of your mouth again. Oh, you always say Land Academy's not about the money. You know what? It's not about the money, but I'm not going to write a check every month for it either. So it's a little bit about the money.
Jill DeWit: I understand.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWit: You know how nice it is, actually? It's times like this where I don't have to say anything, you're having a conversation with yourself. And you actually cut yourself off, you actually correct yourself, you actually kind of scold yourself. It's kind of nice. I can just kind of sit back and watch.
Steven Butala: Sit-back-and-watch-your-man-fail.com.
Jill DeWit: It's like the devil on one shoulder and the angel on the other shoulder.
Jill DeWit: Okay. Jason asks, "I'm new, and in the process of getting reading to send out my first mailer, and I'm trying to tie up all the loose ends before I do so. I have decided that I will hire a phone service to take my calls, as I'm looking to scale this and would rather allocate those resources elsewhere. My question around this is, should I take the calls for the first couple of mailers, so I can get a better feel for things? Or start out right away with the phone service? I feel there's a value in taking those calls, but I also feel that there's a value in consistency. I would rather start with one number on the first batch, and always have that phone number moving forward. Please let me know your experience as I'm hoping to mo...
Keeping up with Internet Technology in Real Estate Acquisitions and Internet Sales (LA 1002) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Good day.
Steven Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny southern California.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about keeping up with internet technology in real estate acquisitions and sales.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Steven Butala: That was take four, in case you wanted to know, and Jill's like, "Thank you for getting it right [inaudible 00:00:30]."
Jill DeWit: I'm glad to do this topic, actually. This is important. You know what's funny? Surprisingly, being the chick here, this technology discussion is important to me.
Steven Butala: Oh, man.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Steven Butala: Learning how to read from a homemade teleprompter's important to me today. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our LandInvestors.com online communities. It's free.
Jill DeWit: If it was a homemade ... It's funny.
Steven Butala: Here's what it is-
Jill DeWit: If it was a homemade teleprompter, be our children holding up poster board. It's not that.
Steven Butala: It's a medical monitor for people that are hooked up to stuff at home, like later in life, on a Chinese Glide Gear. I mean, it all works great, and it's not ultra-cheap, but it's not a $40,000 teleprompter like in a TV studio. I only remembered this because, like Jill said, I sent a list of equipment to somebody once ... Shit, recently. Because they asked me like, "What equipment do you guys use?" And I started thinking about it. I'm like, "How do I describe all this stuff? I taped it all together."
Jill DeWit: There's a lot that, when you really look around this room, there's a lot that goes into this. It's pretty darn funny. Yep.
Jill DeWit: Okay. The question is, Chris asks, "Hi, everyone. I'm about to send out my first mailer, and I'm scrubbing my list for unusable properties. I found several waterfront properties in eastern Tennessee that have oddly shaped parcels extending out into the lake. Is it possible that this is a mapping error, or are these actual properties that, perhaps, used to be dry land at some point? I have come across several of these in scrubbing this list and was hoping for some guidance."
Steven Butala: This is a great question. And I love mapping, by the way. I personally love data. I'm not the biggest fan of sales, but I do love all the mapping that's involved in this. For some reason just as a little kid, I loved maps, and I still go on Google Earth and fly around in that flight simulator thing and all of it.
Steven Butala: Maps, especially on the internet like on Google Earth and like on ParcelFact, the outline or the GPS coordinates on the Earth are not perfectly lined up inch by inch, because Earth is curved. That's one reason. Number two, you mentioned erosion with water. That's absolutely the case. When that partially was subdivided, there was more land than there is water.
Steven Butala: So here's the what you do when this happens. You take the size of the property, let's say it's five acres, with a grain of salt. It might be a five-acre property originally. It might be four now. In some cases ... Jill and I bought a property one time in Washington state that was in a river that was under water a certain part of the year, and then it wasn't.
Jill DeWit: I was thinking ...
Why Land Academy Members are Partners and How We All Win Together (LA 1001) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala-
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Butala: Today, we talk about why Land Academy members are partners and how we all win together.
Jill DeWit: In case you were wondering, we do use Audition because you're looking at it now on your screen.
Steven Butala: I'm going to leave that in.
Jill DeWit: I'm waiting.
Steven Butala: In case you were wondering ...
Jill DeWit: Waiting, waiting.
Steven Butala: In case you were additionally wondering, that's why there's two people instead of one on this show, to catch our errors and make fun of each other.
Jill DeWit: There you go.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWit: You know if it was a bad hair day, I wouldn't have said anything. I would have just let it go.
Steven Butala: Oh you just want to see yourself?
Jill DeWit: Yeah, no I don't want to see myself but I would just let that...that would be really funny to just do a whole show and just show only the Adode Audition surrounding..super funny.
Jill DeWit: Okay here we go.
Jill DeWit: Ben asked, I have a seller wanting to sell a 30 acre property, however, it's part of a 75 acre lot. Contacted the seller and asked where his 30 of the 75 acres are. He tells me that the lot is not devided and just that he owns 30 of the 75.
Jill DeWit: This is hilarious.
Steven Butala: We've all been there man.
Jill DeWit: This is great. So I call the county to confirm and the information and they say "Yeah, he owns 30 but not any specific part of it."
Steven Butala: That's what the county always says.
Jill DeWit: This is great.
Steven Butala: Yep you figured it out. Anything else?
Jill DeWit: Sure yeah. That's great. Even after getting a copy of the plat map and it shows the 75 acre lot with several names on it, but not devided in any way. Also, the seller is the 100% owner of his APN so I would assume that everyone with a stake in the lot would have their own APN. It' great.
Jill DeWit: I have another seller just like this only a different lot size. This is funny, this reminds of the other day like buying property with smart people, in certain areas. Anyway.
Steven Butala: I'm not going to touch that.
Jill DeWit: Is there anything different that can be done with these or should I just move on? Thanks.
Steven Butala: He should move on.
Jill DeWit: This is good.
Steven Butala: Here's why.
Jill DeWit: Did you put this in or someone.
Steven Butala: Well, me and Kevin.
Jill DeWit: Okay, right.
Steven Butala: It's a combination of Kevin's answer and mine.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: Kevin our moderator on the site.
Jill DeWit: Right
Steven Butala: Go ahead Jill.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Episode 1000 - The Story of Land Academy (LA 1000) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from sunny, Southern California.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about episode 1000.
Jill DeWit: What? What? Can you believe it?
Steven Butala: The story of Land Academy.
Jill DeWit: I am so excited. I am jacked. I have been looking forward to this. This is a huge, huge, huge, huge milestone. You know that. Come on.
Steven Butala: I'm amazed.
Jill DeWit: I mean, some people don't even get to show 100, let alone show 10.
Steven Butala: That's the truth.
Jill DeWit: Man, here we are at a thousand.
Steven Butala: This snuck up. I mean, I looked at it, I don't know, less than a month ago. I looked at the numbers and I'm like, how's this possible?
Jill DeWit: Oh, my gosh. Remember back when we used to joke about having, well, you're one of five. Now you're one of 10. Just kidding.
Steven Butala: One of 10 listeners.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Butala: Man, so much has happened since we started this show.
Jill DeWit: I know. I can't wait. We're going to talk about it.
Steven Butala: It's been a life-changing experience for Jill and I. In fact, I'm going to ask Jill right now. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community. It's free. Well, in this case...
Jill DeWit: You put the question in?
Steven Butala: Because I am a-
Jill DeWit: Aw.
Steven Butala: ... I'm an active Land Investors community member.
Jill DeWit: Yes, you are. We still let you participate.
Steven Butala: It's one of the few things I still get to do. I'm going to ask Jill was it all worth it?
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: It was totally worth it for me, too.
Jill DeWit: Totally worth it. Can't believe it. I mean, really, when you think about the early shows and the trials and tribulations of equipment. It was so funny, too. You just had a friend that... One of these things that, Steven has a way of making it look easy and we had a friend that, like, hey, you guys have a thousand shows. So, really, it's not that hard, right? And he's like, hey, what equipment should I go get? And Steven CC'd me on the email and it was a pretty good list of the equipment that we have now to this point.
Steven Butala: Accumulated, really.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, exactly.
Steven Butala: Trial and error accumulated. That camera didn't work. That mic didn't work.
Jill DeWit: My whole thing of just do it right out of the gate, by the way. If you're going to do something like this, don't mess around. Don't use your camera on your laptop and don't use your earbud from your cell phone. It's not how you want to do it. You want to get good stuff and make it good, because your listeners will appreciate that. But, yeah, there's times we had wind and static and all kinds of-
Steven Butala: Oh, jeez. You name it.
Jill DeWit: We've done it indoors, outdoors, different locations. If you've been watching and listening to us for a while, gosh, it was in... We've had home studios.
Data Driven Real Estate Acquisitions Yield the Best ROI (LA 999) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show. Entertaining land investment talk, I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about data driven real estate acquisitions and how they yield the best RIO.
Jill DeWit: This good, this is important. I'm glad we're talking about this. There's lots of other ways to do this, but there's ... the whole point for me is if you can't get onboard with data, you're gonna be left behind, it doesn't really matter what you're doing, you're gonna be left behind.
Steven Butala: Somebody asked me recently, hey give me the elevator pitch on what you guys do, I don't understand it. Jill and I were looking at a boat.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: And the broker said, what are you guys doing at night ... and I said, we buy a lot land and we resell it. And he said, well give me the elevator pitch, I don't understand. People ask this stuff. I'm sure, you're all in land business, too, they ask you some version of this all the time.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Butala: I said, we use data. I'm like everybody, to buy and sell property for less that it's worth at that current moment. And a light bulb went off, and so I decided to make a show out of it.
Jill DeWit: Well I agree.
Steven Butala: Like everything. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free.
Jill DeWit: Jacob asked, has anyone had trouble purchasing land in the Midwest region? It could just be my mailer or price, however I've had more success marketing and purchasing in the south west region, and was wondering what the issue might be. Good question.
Steven Butala: Great question. I have like a really simple answer, you go first.
Jill DeWit: All right. My answer is, no.
Steven Butala: No?
Jill DeWit: I'm sorry. Well, no, because as I'm looking at my inventory right now about, you know like Colorado and Texas property and other ... in the Midwest parts, I'm not having ... I have Ohio. So I don't have issues, so ... I'm ...
Steven Butala: What Jacob means is this, in my opinion ...
Jill DeWit: I'm guessing it's a little bit of a pricing thing. Or ... go ahead.
Steven Butala: If Jill and I are saying the same thing. What he's saying is, I seem to have a lot better luck buying properties at 100 bucks an acre in the south west than I do in the Midwest, and he's absolutely right.
Jill DeWit: That makes sense. Yeah, you do have to change your pricing. Like I was just looking at this Colorado property that we sold, we bought for like 6900 and sell for 36000.
Steven Butala: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jill DeWit: So ... and it was fast.
Steven Butala: Colorado sells fast.
Jill DeWit: It does. I can't remember the name of the county right now, but I was just looking at it. But, yeah, it's not a $100 an acre transaction, it's a much more expensive thing. So spend some time, I'm sure I'm you're gonna say the same thing, spend some time and do all the stuff that you know how to do, looking for, you know what Steven says, looking for those areas where there's consistence and you can kind of figure out some pricing.
Land That Sells Fastest (LA 998) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about the type of land that sells the fastest, and slowest, and medium, and all other types of land where you can make hoards of money on it. It just might take a little bit longer.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Butala: Before we get into though, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the Landinvestors.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWit: Jeff asks, "Hi everyone. For those of you who have a transaction coordinator, I was wondering how much you pay them? Hourly, by the deal, et cetera? And are they in-house or virtual? Thanks." This is-
Steven Butala: I know. I put this in here for you.
Jill DeWit: Perfect!
Steven Butala: And I will preface this, Jill's answer, by saying this. If we had 10 transaction coordinators overnight, magical dust, and they were all good ones that we could work with and work together well with, we would overnight be doing 10 times the number of deals.
Jill DeWit: Ding, ding.
Steven Butala: If you leverage that whole mail system by sending these blind offers to owners, we can times 10 that in a half hour. As far as financing and funding deals, on the back end of acquisitions, times 10 overnight with the people in our group, and with pulling money from different places. The whole problem, the whole bottleneck has always been, for me, and always will be, getting good people to do these deals.
Jill DeWit: So here's the thing. I have not, and I would not do a virtual transaction coordinator. I have had the best luck having them in-house, and in an office. Around me, too, by the way, especially while they're learning. So, that's my first thing. I have tried in the past, too. This is a really good question, very timely, because I'm hiring more right now. I've tested having a transaction coordinator, and then boots on the ground, separately, where the transaction coordinator ... Jeff's in our group. I think I know who this Jeff is, and then we have boots on the ground below them that are out there doing different parts of deals, like really for House Academy. But you can use a transaction coordinator for land or houses. It's great.
Steven Butala: And should.
Jill DeWit: And should. So anyway, I've tested, Jeff, I've tested let's see what the boots on the ground can do on their own, being their own transaction coordinator, because every now and then there's a little bleed over as to who does what, so until they just figure out their roles and figure out how it works. But so I thought, "You know what? One time I'm going to try without a transaction coordinator, give the whole thing to the boots on the ground and see if they can do both." I found that did not work. So I want to save you.
Steven Butala: And vice versa.
Jill DeWit: So yeah. And yeah. You can't have a transaction coordinator in this city doing deals, and two states over without a boots on the ground, because there are-
Steven Butala: Two separate talents, by the way.
Jill DeWit: ... times that they do need that physical presence against this kind of ... Physical presence more for houses than land is really what it is. And that's really where you have a boots on the ground. That's when you need it. So my things are I would hire in-house.
Securing Funding for Good Deals (997) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy show. Entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, and we are broadcasting from sunny southern California.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about securing funding for good deals.
Jill DeWit: I love talking about money.
Steven Butala: I love talking about good deals.
Jill DeWit: Good. We're made for each other.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: I'll get the money, you get the deals. You think I'm kidding? That's how we roll.
Steven Butala: No good acquisition, regardless of size, character, content, should ever go to waste. Ever.
Jill DeWit: Or cost.
Steven Butala: The biggest reason I've seen them go to waste is, "I just don't have the money to do this deal right now. Hey, seller, this is a great deal. I really want to do it. Can you wait until next month because I've got a lot of deals that I'm doing right now, and I don't have an extra 22,000 bucks to buy a piece of land, but I really do want to buy it, so what do you say we talk in six weeks, and I'll let you know if I can buy it then?" That will never work.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Or, the bigger one is, "Hey, you said you own what also, and you want to own all of that? Gosh! Shoot. That totally fits my buying criteria but, God, that's so expensive. I don't know if I can come up with that much money. I'll just buy this little one. Thanks for showing me. Thanks for sharing."
Steven Butala: Before we get into the topic, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWit: Collin asks, "Why does Realtor.com report data for 1,000 counties versus it's 3,142-" It should be 3,144 for all the counties and parishes.
Steven Butala: Why does Realtor report at 1,000 counties than really in reality, there's 3,144 counties in the country. And, here's why.
Jill DeWit: I'm going to write down what I think is the answer and then I'm going to see if I'm right, okay?
Steven Butala: There's two reasons, but the real reason is this. Houses are only really in about 1,000 counties that matter. There's so much more housing data than there is land data because that's what everybody cares about because they have to live there. So, they have chosen-
Steven Butala: Well, Nielsen ratings has chosen those 1,000 counties. That's the second reason. They consider those counties to be the most important and they pour all the- Realtor.com is all about houses. We use it on our show constantly to look at MLS listings for land and stuff, but I'll be honest. That's where they make their dough, buying and selling houses and get in the way of our deals.
Jill DeWit: Can I tell you mine?
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: 100%, I think it's MLS related.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Because I think back-
Steven Butala: You're absolutely right.
Jill DeWit: I think it's still that way. Not everywhere in the country is there a dedicated MLS for that specific area. It wasn't really needed. I'm sure there's some areas that it's still, maybe now not so much, but back in the day, when MLS started, there was a lot of word-of-mouth going around. That's how you did it. Then, they started the MLS and I don't think it caught on everywhere.
Member Andy Barnhart Shares Land Academy Success Stories (LA 996) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny southern California.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk with member Andy Barnhart, who shares his Land Academy success stories. But, before we get into it I have a simple question. Andy, you're sitting right there in that seat. How did you get there? Tell us your story and tell us how you chose Land Academy, and if it's working for you.
Andy Barnhart: Yeah, hello. I'll go way back to when I was a child and my dad was a farmer, a dairy farmer. He would try to grow his operation and buy more land, so he would show me plat maps when I was... So, I was looking at plat maps when I was eight years old. He's like, "Oh, we own this 80 acres, and I'm going to buy this 80, and I'd love to have-" he always wanted a section of land. That was his goal. I knew what a section was, and a quarter and a half section at a young age. After college, I got a job-
Steven Butala: I have to explain to everybody what a section is. A section is a square mile, and it's 640 acres. A half section is 320, and a quarter section is half of that.
Jill DeWit: 160.
Steven Butala: 160, and on, and on, and on.
Andy Barnhart: Yep.
Steven Butala: Anyway, go ahead. So, you're in college.
Andy Barnhart: So yeah, I got through college and I got my first job as an Auditor with the US Department of Agriculture with the Dairy Division. I went right in on my first day, and I had learned Excel and everything in college, and thought I was a whiz kid. Then I get into the government organization that I was hired with, and literally some older guys didn't even have a computer on their desk. They refused to work with a computer. All the programs were written in Lotus 123. So, it was like stepping back in time 30 years.
Andy Barnhart: I was there 10 years, and we converted everything to Excel and all the reports and everything. So, I was very comfortable with... I had the agriculture background, I have Excel background, I have an auditing background. Then yeah, I bought the realtor courses and took all of the courses to become a realtor. I thought that's something I'm interested in, and then got to the end. I did all of the education and got to the end, and I think at that time is when I found your podcast. You guys were, as you are today, dealing with realtors and [inaudible 00:03:22].
Andy Barnhart: You guys have never shied away from talking trash on realtors, so it made me think, "Well, do I really want to be a realtor?" So, I never went to take the test, and then that's when I bought the programs in 2016. Yeah, that's how I got here. I'm in my third year, and yeah still-
Steven Butala: Is it working? Have you done a bunch of deals? I guess, you're on the show so hopefully some of it's working.
Andy Barnhart: Yeah, yeah I didn't start out of the gate with a bang. I was skeptical, and I took it really slow. I wrote down my numbers. The first year, 2017, I did 19 deals, and I still had some other jobs going on, some part-time things. The revenue that year was $62,000.00-
Steven Butala: Awesome.
Andy Barnhart: And then so last year- and I was still doing this all on my own. I did last year 184 deals completed, and then the revenue was $343,000.00. Yeah, I was like, "Yeah, this is-"
Jill DeWit: I'm in.
Andy Barnhart: I'm in. I'm not a skeptic anymore.
What is Title Insurance (995) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about what is title insurance?
Jill DeWit: Oh. We've all wondered that.
Steven Butala: We have. The further you get into your career, the more you wonder, "Do I really need this title insurance?"
Jill DeWit: The more you read the exceptions, you wonder, "What is ... just what is title insurance?"
Steven Butala: We'll cover all that. We promise to make this not boring.
Jill DeWit: All right.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free.
Jill DeWit: Jeremy wrote, "I'm working on gathering data and deciding where to send my first mailer. My plan is to mail three counties with 500 to 600 mailers per county, for a total of 1,500 to 1,800 on mailers going out.".
Steven Butala: So far so good.
Jill DeWit: Right, "However, I have a few questions that hopefully someone can help me with. A couple of counties I'm looking at have a large difference in population density from one part of the county to another part of the county. I thought about sorting by zip code, but the undeveloped land doesn't have a zip code or address assigned. How do I only send mail to the less densely populated portion of the county? How are you pricing counties that do not have a lot of data? I'm looking at several counties, where the total number of properties in the county is less than 10,000. I know these counties fairly well, and I know who my end users likely to be, hunters and timber investors. But, with anywhere from 50 to 100 total listings on land and farm, I'm only seeing 5 to 10 properties on land watch, and similar websites in the Anchorage range I'm looking at sending my mailers to.
Jill DeWit: Do I just base my price off these listings? Or, is there another way people are pricing these areas? Are people just avoiding these counties due to such limited data? Lastly, has anyone had success with subdivision lots in Florida, where there are infrastructures such as roads in place, but the subdivision's still considered rural in the outskirts of the city? I see a lot of these listed on Zillow, and several have sold on eBay for $1,500 to $2,000. However, at those prices it seems like the profit margin is thin after you pay for the data, mailers, etc, even if you're buying at $300 a lot.
Jill DeWit: Thank you for any guidance you can provide."
Jill DeWit: One of our members, Kevin, already piped in. I'm going to read Kevin's answer here too.Kevin Farrell wrote, "Jeremy, all good questions."
Steven Butala: Really good questions.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. "I would not worry about population density differences within the county."
Steven Butala: Neither would I.
Jill DeWit: "Send mail to all the properties in the county that meet your criteria. For example, all the ten acre vacant parcels. Some mail will go to the more expensive areas, no problem. If someone with more valuable land excepts your offer, then you get a better deal."
Steven Butala: That's it.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. "Price should be derived from the lowest comps in that county."
Steven Butala: He's right again.
Why Land is a Good Place to Start REI Career (LA 994) Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Good day.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from sunny, southern California.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about why land is a good place to start your REI career, real estate investment career.
Jill DeWit: It really is, when you think about it. Some people look at these transactions, I think, because some of them, we self-close, and we'll talk about that in a minute, but it's so important to learn that process. I guess it's like driving a stick. You need to learn how to do it one way, because it'll really help you with all kinds of other things.
Steven Butala: We've all been exposed, afar, from real estate deals.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: You watched your parents buy a house or something like that, some version of an example of a deal. You've decided you want to do this yourself. Land is a great place to start, because there's no real lenders. There's no real estate agents. There doesn't have to be an escrow agent if you don't want there to be one. There's just you, the buyer, and the seller.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Butala: And Microsoft Word.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, though, let's take a question posted by one of our members in the LandInvestors.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWit: Jeff-
Steven Butala: And-
Jill DeWit: Go ahead.
Steven Butala: And it's long. And it's good, though. It's good.
Jill DeWit: Okay. Jeff asks, "Hi, everyone. I have six offers accepted and I am awaiting my final decision, but I can't even locate some of them. They are all in Presidio County, Texas. Some of them have a legal description that makes it possible to find the parcel, but not the actual location of the land. For example, number 8238 has a legal description of one, DNP Section 143. Yes, that description leads to a 640 acre parcel, however, this one is only 20 acres. So which 20 acres is it?" This is... Beauty of Texas.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: "If you have some system for finding these, please let me know. I have several others with similar problems. Thanks, Jeff." And then Kevin wrote in-
Steven Butala: Kevin Ferrell, our site moderator, who's also a very successful member answers and he says this, "Jeff, that looks like a difficult county to get data from. I can pull it up on ParcelFacts.com, but the parcel shown on the map may be 600 plus acres. The county has a pretty good GIS system, but when I pull up that account and click on the map, it shows a different APN of that same 600 plus acres and no real explanation given about the 20 acre lot that lies within that parcel."
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: It goes on to say, "Next step: Call the county and talk to the GIS department. Maybe they can explain. Crack the code, though, and you'll be able to do these deals." And another member, Matt Peterson, also clocked in and said, "There will be plat map for all of these properties, section by section by section." And then they kind of go on, so my point in including not only the original question and then a couple of answers from members and the site moderator is this, you can get just about anything answered in Land Investors-
Jill DeWit: Land Investors.
How to Get an Easement in Your Favor Transcript:
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