House Academy Show: Recent Episodes
Steven Jack Butala & Jill DeWit
House Academy Member WebinarHouse Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.The calls are held weekly every Thursday at 2pm Pacific. This is your opportunity to submit questions regarding the educational modules and resources available to you and submit deals for Jack and Jill to review and provide live feedback. This weekly opportunity to get answers from the pros, in real time, is an invaluable resource that we provide in order to offer advice to quickly mitigate any barriers to success that our valuable members may be facing. Oftentimes, Jack and Jill will even offer to fund your deals!If you don’t have any specific questions or deals to review, this is still a great opportunity to learn even more about land investing. Even better, if you cannot attend the webinar during its regularly scheduled time, as a Land Academy member you can catch up on the recordings on landinvestors.com.If you’re not a Land Academy member but want to see how it all works, please send a message to support@landacademy.com for a one-time guest pass!
House Academy Member WebinarHouse Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.The calls are held weekly every Thursday at 2pm Pacific. This is your opportunity to submit questions regarding the educational modules and resources available to you and submit deals for Jack and Jill to review and provide live feedback. This weekly opportunity to get answers from the pros, in real time, is an invaluable resource that we provide in order to offer advice to quickly mitigate any barriers to success that our valuable members may be facing. Oftentimes, Jack and Jill will even offer to fund your deals!If you don’t have any specific questions or deals to review, this is still a great opportunity to learn even more about land investing. Even better, if you cannot attend the webinar during its regularly scheduled time, as a Land Academy member you can catch up on the recordings on landinvestors.com.If you’re not a Land Academy member but want to see how it all works, please send a message to support@landacademy.com for a one-time guest pass!
House Academy Member WebinarHouse Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.The calls are held weekly every Thursday at 2pm Pacific. This is your opportunity to submit questions regarding the educational modules and resources available to you and submit deals for Jack and Jill to review and provide live feedback. This weekly opportunity to get answers from the pros, in real time, is an invaluable resource that we provide in order to offer advice to quickly mitigate any barriers to success that our valuable members may be facing. Oftentimes, Jack and Jill will even offer to fund your deals!If you don’t have any specific questions or deals to review, this is still a great opportunity to learn even more about land investing. Even better, if you cannot attend the webinar during its regularly scheduled time, as a Land Academy member you can catch up on the recordings on landinvestors.com.If you’re not a Land Academy member but want to see how it all works, please send a message to support@landacademy.com for a one-time guest pass!
House Academy Member WebinarHouse Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.The calls are held weekly every Thursday at 2pm Pacific. This is your opportunity to submit questions regarding the educational modules and resources available to you and submit deals for Jack and Jill to review and provide live feedback. This weekly opportunity to get answers from the pros, in real time, is an invaluable resource that we provide in order to offer advice to quickly mitigate any barriers to success that our valuable members may be facing. Oftentimes, Jack and Jill will even offer to fund your deals!If you don’t have any specific questions or deals to review, this is still a great opportunity to learn even more about land investing. Even better, if you cannot attend the webinar during its regularly scheduled time, as a Land Academy member you can catch up on the recordings on landinvestors.com.If you’re not a Land Academy member but want to see how it all works, please send a message to support@landacademy.com for a one-time guest pass!
House Academy Member WebinarHouse Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.The calls are held weekly every Thursday at 2pm Pacific. This is your opportunity to submit questions regarding the educational modules and resources available to you and submit deals for Jack and Jill to review and provide live feedback. This weekly opportunity to get answers from the pros, in real time, is an invaluable resource that we provide in order to offer advice to quickly mitigate any barriers to success that our valuable members may be facing. Oftentimes, Jack and Jill will even offer to fund your deals!If you don’t have any specific questions or deals to review, this is still a great opportunity to learn even more about land investing. Even better, if you cannot attend the webinar during its regularly scheduled time, as a Land Academy member you can catch up on the recordings on landinvestors.com.If you’re not a Land Academy member but want to see how it all works, please send a message to support@landacademy.com for a one-time guest pass!
House Academy Member WebinarHouse Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.The calls are held weekly every Thursday at 2pm Pacific. This is your opportunity to submit questions regarding the educational modules and resources available to you and submit deals for Jack and Jill to review and provide live feedback. This weekly opportunity to get answers from the pros, in real time, is an invaluable resource that we provide in order to offer advice to quickly mitigate any barriers to success that our valuable members may be facing. Oftentimes, Jack and Jill will even offer to fund your deals!If you don’t have any specific questions or deals to review, this is still a great opportunity to learn even more about land investing. Even better, if you cannot attend the webinar during its regularly scheduled time, as a Land Academy member you can catch up on the recordings on landinvestors.com.If you’re not a Land Academy member but want to see how it all works, please send a message to support@landacademy.com for a one-time guest pass!
House Academy Member WebinarHouse Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.The calls are held weekly every Thursday at 2pm Pacific. This is your opportunity to submit questions regarding the educational modules and resources available to you and submit deals for Jack and Jill to review and provide live feedback. This weekly opportunity to get answers from the pros, in real time, is an invaluable resource that we provide in order to offer advice to quickly mitigate any barriers to success that our valuable members may be facing. Oftentimes, Jack and Jill will even offer to fund your deals!If you don’t have any specific questions or deals to review, this is still a great opportunity to learn even more about land investing. Even better, if you cannot attend the webinar during its regularly scheduled time, as a Land Academy member you can catch up on the recordings on landinvestors.com.If you’re not a Land Academy member but want to see how it all works, please send a message to support@landacademy.com for a one-time guest pass!
House Academy Member WebinarHouse Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.The calls are held weekly every Thursday at 2pm Pacific. This is your opportunity to submit questions regarding the educational modules and resources available to you and submit deals for Jack and Jill to review and provide live feedback. This weekly opportunity to get answers from the pros, in real time, is an invaluable resource that we provide in order to offer advice to quickly mitigate any barriers to success that our valuable members may be facing. Oftentimes, Jack and Jill will even offer to fund your deals!If you don’t have any specific questions or deals to review, this is still a great opportunity to learn even more about land investing. Even better, if you cannot attend the webinar during its regularly scheduled time, as a Land Academy member you can catch up on the recordings on landinvestors.com.If you’re not a Land Academy member but want to see how it all works, please send a message to support@landacademy.com for a one-time guest pass!
House Academy Member WebinarHouse Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.The calls are held weekly every Thursday at 2pm Pacific. This is your opportunity to submit questions regarding the educational modules and resources available to you and submit deals for Jack and Jill to review and provide live feedback. This weekly opportunity to get answers from the pros, in real time, is an invaluable resource that we provide in order to offer advice to quickly mitigate any barriers to success that our valuable members may be facing. Oftentimes, Jack and Jill will even offer to fund your deals!If you don’t have any specific questions or deals to review, this is still a great opportunity to learn even more about land investing. Even better, if you cannot attend the webinar during its regularly scheduled time, as a Land Academy member you can catch up on the recordings on landinvestors.com.If you’re not a Land Academy member but want to see how it all works, please send a message to support@landacademy.com for a one-time guest pass!
House Academy Member WebinarHouse Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.The calls are held weekly every Thursday at 2pm Pacific. This is your opportunity to submit questions regarding the educational modules and resources available to you and submit deals for Jack and Jill to review and provide live feedback. This weekly opportunity to get answers from the pros, in real time, is an invaluable resource that we provide in order to offer advice to quickly mitigate any barriers to success that our valuable members may be facing. Oftentimes, Jack and Jill will even offer to fund your deals!If you don’t have any specific questions or deals to review, this is still a great opportunity to learn even more about land investing. Even better, if you cannot attend the webinar during its regularly scheduled time, as a Land Academy member you can catch up on the recordings on landinvestors.com.If you’re not a Land Academy member but want to see how it all works, please send a message to support@landacademy.com for a one-time guest pass!
House Academy Member WebinarHouse Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.The calls are held weekly every Thursday at 2pm Pacific. This is your opportunity to submit questions regarding the educational modules and resources available to you and submit deals for Jack and Jill to review and provide live feedback. This weekly opportunity to get answers from the pros, in real time, is an invaluable resource that we provide in order to offer advice to quickly mitigate any barriers to success that our valuable members may be facing. Oftentimes, Jack and Jill will even offer to fund your deals!If you don’t have any specific questions or deals to review, this is still a great opportunity to learn even more about land investing. Even better, if you cannot attend the webinar during its regularly scheduled time, as a Land Academy member you can catch up on the recordings on landinvestors.com.If you’re not a Land Academy member but want to see how it all works, please send a message to support@landacademy.com for a one-time guest pass!
House Academy Member WebinarHouse Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.The calls are held weekly every Thursday at 2pm Pacific. This is your opportunity to submit questions regarding the educational modules and resources available to you and submit deals for Jack and Jill to review and provide live feedback. This weekly opportunity to get answers from the pros, in real time, is an invaluable resource that we provide in order to offer advice to quickly mitigate any barriers to success that our valuable members may be facing. Oftentimes, Jack and Jill will even offer to fund your deals!If you don’t have any specific questions or deals to review, this is still a great opportunity to learn even more about land investing. Even better, if you cannot attend the webinar during its regularly scheduled time, as a Land Academy member you can catch up on the recordings on landinvestors.com.If you’re not a Land Academy member but want to see how it all works, please send a message to support@landacademy.com for a one-time guest pass!
House Academy Member WebinarHouse Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.The calls are held weekly every Thursday at 2pm Pacific. This is your opportunity to submit questions regarding the educational modules and resources available to you and submit deals for Jack and Jill to review and provide live feedback. This weekly opportunity to get answers from the pros, in real time, is an invaluable resource that we provide in order to offer advice to quickly mitigate any barriers to success that our valuable members may be facing. Oftentimes, Jack and Jill will even offer to fund your deals!If you don’t have any specific questions or deals to review, this is still a great opportunity to learn even more about land investing. Even better, if you cannot attend the webinar during its regularly scheduled time, as a Land Academy member you can catch up on the recordings on landinvestors.com.If you’re not a Land Academy member but want to see how it all works, please send a message to support@landacademy.com for a one-time guest pass!
House Academy Member WebinarHouse Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.The calls are held weekly every Thursday at 2pm Pacific. This is your opportunity to submit questions regarding the educational modules and resources available to you and submit deals for Jack and Jill to review and provide live feedback. This weekly opportunity to get answers from the pros, in real time, is an invaluable resource that we provide in order to offer advice to quickly mitigate any barriers to success that our valuable members may be facing. Oftentimes, Jack and Jill will even offer to fund your deals!If you don’t have any specific questions or deals to review, this is still a great opportunity to learn even more about land investing. Even better, if you cannot attend the webinar during its regularly scheduled time, as a Land Academy member you can catch up on the recordings on landinvestors.com.If you’re not a Land Academy member but want to see how it all works, please send a message to support@landacademy.com for a one-time guest pass!
House Academy Member WebinarHouse Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.The calls are held weekly every Thursday at 2pm Pacific. This is your opportunity to submit questions regarding the educational modules and resources available to you and submit deals for Jack and Jill to review and provide live feedback. This weekly opportunity to get answers from the pros, in real time, is an invaluable resource that we provide in order to offer advice to quickly mitigate any barriers to success that our valuable members may be facing. Oftentimes, Jack and Jill will even offer to fund your deals!If you don’t have any specific questions or deals to review, this is still a great opportunity to learn even more about land investing. Even better, if you cannot attend the webinar during its regularly scheduled time, as a Land Academy member you can catch up on the recordings on landinvestors.com.If you’re not a Land Academy member but want to see how it all works, please send a message to support@landacademy.com for a one-time guest pass!
House Academy Member WebinarHouse Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.The calls are held weekly every Thursday at 2pm Pacific. This is your opportunity to submit questions regarding the educational modules and resources available to you and submit deals for Jack and Jill to review and provide live feedback. This weekly opportunity to get answers from the pros, in real time, is an invaluable resource that we provide in order to offer advice to quickly mitigate any barriers to success that our valuable members may be facing. Oftentimes, Jack and Jill will even offer to fund your deals!If you don’t have any specific questions or deals to review, this is still a great opportunity to learn even more about land investing. Even better, if you cannot attend the webinar during its regularly scheduled time, as a Land Academy member you can catch up on the recordings on landinvestors.com.If you’re not a Land Academy member but want to see how it all works, please send a message to support@landacademy.com for a one-time guest pass!
House Academy Member WebinarHouse Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.The calls are held weekly every Thursday at 2pm Pacific. This is your opportunity to submit questions regarding the educational modules and resources available to you and submit deals for Jack and Jill to review and provide live feedback. This weekly opportunity to get answers from the pros, in real time, is an invaluable resource that we provide in order to offer advice to quickly mitigate any barriers to success that our valuable members may be facing. Oftentimes, Jack and Jill will even offer to fund your deals!If you don’t have any specific questions or deals to review, this is still a great opportunity to learn even more about land investing. Even better, if you cannot attend the webinar during its regularly scheduled time, as a Land Academy member you can catch up on the recordings on landinvestors.com.If you’re not a Land Academy member but want to see how it all works, please send a message to support@landacademy.com for a one-time guest pass!
House Academy Member WebinarHouse Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.The calls are held weekly every Thursday at 2pm Pacific. This is your opportunity to submit questions regarding the educational modules and resources available to you and submit deals for Jack and Jill to review and provide live feedback. This weekly opportunity to get answers from the pros, in real time, is an invaluable resource that we provide in order to offer advice to quickly mitigate any barriers to success that our valuable members may be facing. Oftentimes, Jack and Jill will even offer to fund your deals!If you don’t have any specific questions or deals to review, this is still a great opportunity to learn even more about land investing. Even better, if you cannot attend the webinar during its regularly scheduled time, as a Land Academy member you can catch up on the recordings on landinvestors.com.If you’re not a Land Academy member but want to see how it all works, please send a message to support@landacademy.com for a one-time guest pass!
House Academy Member WebinarHouse Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.The calls are held weekly every Thursday at 2pm Pacific. This is your opportunity to submit questions regarding the educational modules and resources available to you and submit deals for Jack and Jill to review and provide live feedback. This weekly opportunity to get answers from the pros, in real time, is an invaluable resource that we provide in order to offer advice to quickly mitigate any barriers to success that our valuable members may be facing. Oftentimes, Jack and Jill will even offer to fund your deals!If you don’t have any specific questions or deals to review, this is still a great opportunity to learn even more about land investing. Even better, if you cannot attend the webinar during its regularly scheduled time, as a Land Academy member you can catch up on the recordings on landinvestors.com.If you’re not a Land Academy member but want to see how it all works, please send a message to support@landacademy.com for a one-time guest pass!
House Academy Member WebinarHouse Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.The calls are held weekly every Thursday at 2pm Pacific. This is your opportunity to submit questions regarding the educational modules and resources available to you and submit deals for Jack and Jill to review and provide live feedback. This weekly opportunity to get answers from the pros, in real time, is an invaluable resource that we provide in order to offer advice to quickly mitigate any barriers to success that our valuable members may be facing. Oftentimes, Jack and Jill will even offer to fund your deals!If you don’t have any specific questions or deals to review, this is still a great opportunity to learn even more about land investing. Even better, if you cannot attend the webinar during its regularly scheduled time, as a Land Academy member you can catch up on the recordings on landinvestors.com.If you’re not a Land Academy member but want to see how it all works, please send a message to support@landacademy.com for a one-time guest pass!
House Academy Member WebinarHouse Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.The calls are held weekly every Thursday at 2pm Pacific. This is your opportunity to submit questions regarding the educational modules and resources available to you and submit deals for Jack and Jill to review and provide live feedback. This weekly opportunity to get answers from the pros, in real time, is an invaluable resource that we provide in order to offer advice to quickly mitigate any barriers to success that our valuable members may be facing. Oftentimes, Jack and Jill will even offer to fund your deals!If you don’t have any specific questions or deals to review, this is still a great opportunity to learn even more about land investing. Even better, if you cannot attend the webinar during its regularly scheduled time, as a Land Academy member you can catch up on the recordings on landinvestors.com.If you’re not a Land Academy member but want to see how it all works, please send a message to support@landacademy.com for a one-time guest pass!
House Academy Member WebinarHouse Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.The calls are held weekly every Thursday at 2pm Pacific. This is your opportunity to submit questions regarding the educational modules and resources available to you and submit deals for Jack and Jill to review and provide live feedback. This weekly opportunity to get answers from the pros, in real time, is an invaluable resource that we provide in order to offer advice to quickly mitigate any barriers to success that our valuable members may be facing. Oftentimes, Jack and Jill will even offer to fund your deals!If you don’t have any specific questions or deals to review, this is still a great opportunity to learn even more about land investing. Even better, if you cannot attend the webinar during its regularly scheduled time, as a Land Academy member you can catch up on the recordings on landinvestors.com.If you’re not a Land Academy member but want to see how it all works, please send a message to support@landacademy.com for a one-time guest pass!
House Academy Member WebinarHouse Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.The calls are held weekly every Thursday at 2pm Pacific. This is your opportunity to submit questions regarding the educational modules and resources available to you and submit deals for Jack and Jill to review and provide live feedback. This weekly opportunity to get answers from the pros, in real time, is an invaluable resource that we provide in order to offer advice to quickly mitigate any barriers to success that our valuable members may be facing. Oftentimes, Jack and Jill will even offer to fund your deals!If you don’t have any specific questions or deals to review, this is still a great opportunity to learn even more about land investing. Even better, if you cannot attend the webinar during its regularly scheduled time, as a Land Academy member you can catch up on the recordings on landinvestors.com.If you’re not a Land Academy member but want to see how it all works, please send a message to support@landacademy.com for a one-time guest pass!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are 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,
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are 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.
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
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!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
Housing Market is Back and so is House Academy (HA 1278)
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-
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
House Academy Member Webinar
House Academy Webinars are provided as a FREE resource to our House Academy 1.0; SFRs program holders.
The calls are held on Thursdays from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Pacific time. The calls are open to all and recorded copies are made available here.
The purpose is to answer questions, share stories, and get some deals done. Steven and Jill are there live on every call!
If you enjoy the weekly calls, make sure you are listening to our daily podcast and be sure to leave us a review. We thank you and read them all.
Glad you are here!
What Makes a Successful House Wholesaler (HA 081)
Steven Jack B.: Jill and Jack here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Jack B.: 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 sunny Southern California.
Steven Jack B.: Today Jill and I talk about what makes a successful house wholesaler.
Jill DeWit: I would like just to point out something. The way you just started the show just had a nice ring to it.
Steven Jack B.: Oh, because you're first now?
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack B.: You know what we decided?
Jill DeWit: I was first there, but I wasn't first on the names. Maybe we should-
Steven Jack B.: You know what we decided?
Jill DeWit: Are we easing into it?
Steven Jack B.: And it's been this way all along, but it was brought to our attention, my attention recently that, "Hey Jack, it's not about you, man. Hey Jill, it's all about you."
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Steven Jack B.: "You're just a sidekick. You're just the guy who's standing there trying to make everybody look a little bit more intelligent, just trying to."
Jill DeWit: The one who's doing the math, the man behind the curtain.
Steven Jack B.: The other thing too is that Jack and Jill sounds like we're selling nursery rhymes.
Jill DeWit: Exactly, so we thought we'd go with Jill and Jack.
Steven Jack B.: So yeah, it probably confuses the hell out of everybody.
Jill DeWit: It makes you think. I hope it does, we'll see. We'll find out.
Steven Jack B.: Before we get into it let's take a question posted by one of our members on the houseacademy.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWit: Aaron asks, "What exactly is SPS," which is a Smart Pricing Service, "from offers to owners? Have any of you used it?" And I see someone's already weighed in and answered here. Kelly said, "Is that an abbreviation for Smart Pricing Service?" Yes. "If so, yes, I've used it for a big list and it's definitely worth it." So without getting too into it and too brainy, can I-
Steven Jack B.: I got some instructions today about how the show should go, how we should record the show. Here's the instructions.
Jill DeWit: Oh no.
Steven Jack B.: "Hey Steve"-
Jill DeWit: Jack.
Steven Jack B.: "Can you tone it down and just stop making this so brainy and so really nothing interesting?"
Jill DeWit: Well, I'm right on the interesting part. We like the brainy part. That part's good.
Steven Jack B.: So I'm going to sit quietly and listen today.
Jill DeWit: No, that's not the truth. Okay, so here is the deal. One of the things that we do when we're doing our pricing, we all come up with our own ... We have our own way of valuating these assets, looking at what's available, but let's take a step back. We all know ... If you don't, you should and you do now ... that Zillow, Trulia, Redfin, Realtor, DataTree, all these companies spend a lot of money to put together their own unique algorithms for pricing properties. That's why when you go on something like realtor.com it gives you it's value. It's not a made up number. It's looking at comps, what's available, what's sold, probably square footage. I'm hoping the size of the lot's in there, three bed, two bath, whatever it is. I'm sure they all do a version ... I don't know all the details and I don't need to get into all the details here now, but they do some version of informative, elevated, smart pricing. So what we do is-
Steven Jack B.: It's an algorithm.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, it's an algorithm. Do you want to continue it?
Steven Jack B.: Yeah. So if you'll notice if you look up your home address on Zillow, Trulia, Redfin, DataTree, it's all different, but they're all not crazy, crazy different. One's not $500,000 and one's $1.2-
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Jack B.: In very rare cases, that's the situation.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Steven Jack B.: So they all have the different take on what's in that algorithm. The ones that are my favorite lean heavily on recent sales or recent listings, not so much on the asset itself.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Jack B.: And then they look at the lot size and square footage. So is one better than the other? I don't know. But we don't judge. We just line them all up next to each other and take the average, and so it's a lot of work to look up all those properties. And we're working on automating that so that you just hit a button and it goes out and brings all that data back into the spreadsheet in the correct format. But until then a human has to do it, and we choose our virtual assistant team in the Philippines.
Jill DeWit: Right, so we saw that on offers to owners. You can go in and you could put it ... I don't care if it's 10 units or 10,000 units. We hit them with 20,000 and then they'll work on it. Depending how many it is, it might take hours, it might take a day-
Steven Jack B.: It's never taken longer than 48 hours and we do some 20,000 unit plus mailers-
Jill DeWit: Exactly-
Steven Jack B.: Often.
Jill DeWit: And they sit and look up all those numbers and put them in for you and send it right back. And then it's great because then from there Jack still does his magic, if you will. And he uses that as a tool to price our offers.
Steven Jack B.: Exactly. And it's very, very accurate. It's way more accurate and more fun than the values that we come up with to buy land.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Jack B.: That's more of an art.
Jill DeWit: It's true.
Steven Jack B.: This is more of a science.
Jill DeWit: It's very true.
Steven Jack B.: Today's topic, what makes a successful house wholesaler? This is the meat of the show.
Jill DeWit: You go first. What do you think?
Steven Jack B.: After I get my keyboard thing up.
Jill DeWit: Okay. Is everything working okay there?
Steven Jack B.: Before we say ... We talked about what a successful wholesaler is, let's just define it. What is a house wholesaler? Oh go ahead, yeah, sure. I want to see if our answer's the same here.
Jill DeWit: If you didn't see that, for those of you that are not watching I raised my hand. And no, I wasn't always that kid in high school that always had an answer for everything. Usually in high school by the way, I was in the back going, "Please don't pick me. Don't make eye contact."
Steven Jack B.: Me too.
Jill DeWit: Even if I know the answer, just let somebody else go. It's too much work. I'm over here doing my thing. I'm only here because I have to be here. So anyway-
Steven Jack B.: This morning Jill and I were having breakfast together and for whatever reason we were talking about when we were little kids and how our parents reacted to stuff, and how as parents we are. Jill and I just walk around and say, "Gosh, we're the coolest parents there ever was." All parents probably say that. Anyway I said, "What was it like when you were a kid?" And she said, "I broke a lot of glass."
Jill DeWit: I said, "My dad was, "Really?"
Steven Jack B.: Did you really-
Jill DeWit: It's so funny-
Steven Jack B.: Break a lot of glass?
Jill DeWit: Hold on a moment. Yeah, my dad was pretty chill. My dad's like, "Just come on, can you get your act together here?" My mom was not that way, no. And so for some reason I seemed to drop glasses a lot and my mom would always have a fit. Whether it was emptying the dishwasher or just getting them from the table to the kitchen, I have no idea why. Actually, I do think I know why. You know what, this is Jill therapy.
Steven Jack B.: I want to hear this, too.
Jill DeWit: You know why? I have been and forever will be someone who wants to make less trips than more trips to and from the car-
Steven Jack B.: Me too-
Jill DeWit: To and from the kitchen, to and from anywhere. So what do I do? Oh, I load up man.
Steven Jack B.: Overload.
Jill DeWit: And so I'm sure that's why. I was probably balancing 16 things because I thought I could do it in one trip and I was willing to risk it, to try. So what happens is I'm always dropping something, that's why.
Steven Jack B.: When the kids were little I was trying to be a better parent, so I was read these books about parenting. And one of the things that stuck with me forever was this person who wrote this book, I don't remember even what book it was, they said, "There's a really big difference between telling your child that they made a mistake and telling them that they're stupid." It can be psychologically damaging forever.
Jill DeWit: Oh my gosh. What if somebody says, "You made a mistake, stupid?"
Steven Jack B.: You drop a glass, it's not that Jill's a ... doesn't make her a bad person.
Jill DeWit: No.
Steven Jack B.: She just made a mistake.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Jack B.: And my parents did not know the difference between that.
Jill DeWit: Oh ... oops, sorry. No, I got in trouble for the incident, not for being an idiot. It's true. Nevermind, I was an idiot.
Steven Jack B.: My parents whole take on the thing was, "This is just another incident that confirms what we knew all along."
Jill DeWit: "You're not that bright."
Steven Jack B.: "A long, long list of examples that you continue to add to. This is the most recent one."
Jill DeWit: Nice. "Check, we knew that was going to happen." Oh gosh. Okay, so back to what is a successful wholesaler?
Steven Jack B.: What is a wholesaler? A wholesaler is not what you see on HGTV. That is a rehabber. We don't want any part of that. Our group is packed full of people who have long thrown their tools away. We want to buy an asset for 70% of what it's worth-ish, mark it up 10 to $50,000, let's say ballpark, and sell it to the person who's going to clean it up or rehab it. We are wholesalers.
Jill DeWit: It's the easiest thing. I love it. And imagine this, because you're only dealing with other investors. You're not dealing with the realtor who has the couple in the car, who wants to drive by and look at it and then bring the kids and maybe even have a picnic there to see if the view's that good. You never know.
Steven Jack B.: Occasionally we hit an asset, we buy an asset that looks great, and we decide incorrectly to retail it-
Jill DeWit: Or to do a lipstick flip kind of thing.
Steven Jack B.: Yeah, we maybe change the carpet out or something and that's it.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Jack B.: And every single time we do that, we regret it.
Jill DeWit: We kick ourselves.
Steven Jack B.: It hasn't happened much this year. We did one last year, but we made a hundred grand on it but-
Jill DeWit: We have to catch ourselves.
Steven Jack B.: It took four or five months to sell it, I think.
Jill DeWit: So much more work.
Steven Jack B.: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: A lot of talking-
Steven Jack B.: A lot of phone calls, a lot of real estate agent contact. So if you listen to this show at all you know how we feel about that.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. You know, the thing is too when you're dealing with people who are just like you in the like mind, you bought it for cash, they're coming in with cash. They love that you had the inspection, you hand it to them. All I need to do is walk it once and they're done. I mean that's really it. And that's-
Steven Jack B.: And if you do it right you're selling to the same person over and over again too, for the same five, eight, 10 people per market.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. So I think we're describing not only what a wholesaler is, but what a successful wholesaler is.
Steven Jack B.: That's a wholesaler. "So that's great, Steve. Thanks for the definition."
Jill DeWit: "I could've done this myself online."
Steven Jack B.: If you're actually still listening, here's the topic. The successful wholesaler is data centric. The asset itself is merely the results of the manipulation of assessor data and how you've utilized it and looked at it and looked at the market.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Jack B.: We are data people that happen to buy and sell real estate. We could be data people that happen to buy and sell stock.
Jill DeWit: It's true.
Steven Jack B.: We know people that are like that, very successful people.
Jill DeWit: We could be doing this with cars-
Steven Jack B.: Extremely successful, yeah.
Jill DeWit: Boats-
Steven Jack B.: But it's data first. So that's in my mind what makes a successful wholesaler. But I'm the acquisition guy and I designed all this, put this whole thing together from scratch. I came up with it somehow, I don't know why. Really because I didn't want to talk on the phone. Jill, once the mail gets out, if you listened to yesterday's show or whenever it aired, the most recent show before this, I'm done when the mail goes out. I'm done. What makes a successful wholesaler then is Jill. Every single person in our group who does very, very well is on the phone all day, all day. That's what this business is. And so I don't want ... I think there ... The ones who are great-
Jill DeWit: You mean getting inbound calls?
Steven Jack B.: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Okay, yeah, yeah. I'm not outbound calls, it's inbound calls.
Steven Jack B.: Inbound calls, responding to the mailer.
Jill DeWit: I want to make that really clear. Do you know what, that's what's interesting. I'm going to just say real quick, we talked about this the last show too, we're just with a couple last weekend who thought they knew what we do and realized they have no idea what we do.
Steven Jack B.: Which we don't talk about it anyway, we're out having fun.
Jill DeWit: And it was so cute. Yeah, trust me, we don't bring this up.
Steven Jack B.: They didn't make a mistake-
Jill DeWit: No-
Steven Jack B.: Is what I'm saying.
Jill DeWit: Oh no, no, no. But what's funny is people ... and I can see where they get this, they think this is a cold calling environment. It's not, there's no outbound calls.
Steven Jack B.: The whole concept is-
Jill DeWit: It's all inbound.
Steven Jack B.: We send out thousands and thousands of letters and then if you can envision these people opening their mail, all of them simultaneously sitting at their kitchen table ... there's only going to be a handful of them that have chosen themselves as a potential seller now. You just kind of rattled the cage. Then they've said, "Wow, this is perfect timing. I do want to sell this. I was just talking to my wife a couple of days ago. We need to sell this house."
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Jack B.: "We need to move back to Boston. We need to," fill in the blank.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Jack B.: So they choose you, we don't choose them.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Jack B.: And so 20 or 30 people are going to identify themselves as a seller, per mailer, and maybe three, four or five of those people, the deals actually make sense all the way through, from a financial perspective and a location and all that stuff.
Jill DeWit: Right. Those numbers apply to a how many unit mailer that went out?
Steven Jack B.: For houses?
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Jack B.: Oh, those numbers ... Let's just back it back into it this way. I feel very safe in saying that between 1200 and 4,000 people ... you want to answer this on the air?
Jill DeWit: You want me to answer this?
Steven Jack B.: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: All right, I'm going to answer real inbound. This is a seller calling me back. Who knows what this is going to be. Ready, here we go.
Jill DeWit: Hi, this is Jill.
Speaker 3: Okay, I called this morning. I got one of your ... What are they called, purchase price things?
Jill DeWit: Yes.
Speaker 3: Okay, and I called you this morning because I want this name to be taken off your list.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Speaker 3: Paul Romberg at 1435. Well, after the family did a little bit of research they want to make sure that you do that because it's really worth three times that much. Because when you send things out as you know, it's the seniors that you probably research sometimes.
Jill DeWit: I don't-
Speaker 3: And they go ahead and agree.
Jill DeWit: No.
Speaker 3: How are these done?
Jill DeWit: You know what, I'll tell you. Here in Southern California it's tricky because it's based a lot of it ... There's a lot of stuff that goes into it. The way things are valued here in California and what they're really worth sometimes are very different, I totally understand that. And it's a good thing because we all know that you don't want to run down right now to the assessor and say, "Hey, I'm paying you too little in taxes. You all think my property is worth less." We like it that way, so that's part of the thing. So the bigger question is ... And I know sometimes they're off and I apologize, I did the best I can. But if that price doesn't work and you do want to sell, what price would work and I'll sure look at that.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, they've already done that. They're not selling.
Jill DeWit: Oh, okay. So it doesn't matter what. I could have offered you three times what you really think it is and you don't want them-
Speaker 3: He's 92 and he's not dead yet, so they're not selling.
Jill DeWit: Okay, nobody wants to sell?
Speaker 3: We don't want to get any more things like this because we don't get them very often.
Jill DeWit: I understand-
Speaker 3: And it's disturbing because if someone isn't here to open the mail then it creates other problems.
Jill DeWit: Okay-
Speaker 3: And confusion.
Jill DeWit: No problem.
Speaker 3: And so that's another thing. If you have a grandfather or a grandmother-
Jill DeWit: I do-
Speaker 3: Or something and they go, "Oh, this sounds good," and they sign papers-
Jill DeWit: Oh no, we would ... Oh no, I wouldn't let it get to that point too, by the way. I would make sure and do my homework and make sure everybody's on board, and exactly. Don't even worry about that.
Speaker 3: I just want it clear that it's taken off because I don't think they're going to sell it.
Jill DeWit: That's a whole different thing-
Speaker 3: [inaudible 00:16:33].
Jill DeWit: Well you know what though, save it and who knows? Someday if something changes and you do want to sell it, let me know. And you can call back and say, "Hey Jill, I know I got this crazy offer from you two years ago, but we do want to sell and here's the price. And you said you'd do it quick and fast. I might be interested." So just let me know.
Speaker 3: [inaudible 00:16:59] the file.
Jill DeWit: Okay. Alrighty, thank-
Speaker 3: I wanted to know what was what because otherwise I'd be thinking about it and going, "What?"
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Speaker 3: But thanks for explaining what you're doing and-
Jill DeWit: No problem. I appreciate it-
Speaker 3: [inaudible 00:17:12] real estate, so-
Jill DeWit: Yes.
Speaker 3: Thanks very much, Jill.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Speaker 3: No problem.
Jill DeWit: Take care. Okay, bye bye.
Speaker 3: Bye.
Jill DeWit: You never know.
Steven Jack B.: That is how you take an inbound phone call.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Steven Jack B.: Jill, in a very firm and very respectful tone turned that call all the way around.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Steven Jack B.: She was mad. You could hear it in the beginning. At the end she was thanking Jill, and that is what it takes.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Steven Jack B.: I'm just going to go out on a limb here because I know I say stuff on these shows sometimes and you're like, "God."
Jill DeWit: Go ahead.
Steven Jack B.: If that is not in your skillset, what you just saw and heard, this business is going to be very hard for you.
Jill DeWit: Right. And you have to say that with these people. You'd be surprised how many phone calls that I have taken in the last 48 hours that I got a number out of them. They're like, "Oh, okay, well let me tell you, if it was this much money I would be interested." Okay, now we know. And so then I go back and we do our work and then sometimes it works-
Steven Jack B.: Exactly-
Jill DeWit: If it's still a good number.
Steven Jack B.: But to finish my thought ... Absolutely Jill-
Jill DeWit: Thank you-
Steven Jack B.: To finish my thought, I don't have that talent that Jill has. I have it if I ... It's in here, I just don't want to do it. That's the truth. So I stick to the data piece and all that. Chances are you're either like me or you're like Jill. And if you find a partner that's the opposite, you're going to do just great.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Jack B.: I've said this a million times on the air since 2015; when I teamed up with Jill, our revenue quadrupled-
Jill DeWit: Thanks-
Steven Jack B.: That week because she does what it takes on the phone with these buyers and sellers and gets them to do what she wants them to do. It's classic Dale Carnegie stuff, and they don't even have any idea that it's happening. I live with her and she does it to me all the time.
Jill DeWit: I don't even think it's that. It's not manipulation, it's just figuring out if they really want to sell or not. What's going on? It's not manipulating anything, it's getting to the bottom of it.
Steven Jack B.: Its helpful. That's how I look at it.
Jill DeWit: And you know what, and if she doesn't want to, she doesn't want to sell. I'm not going to beat her up, who cares? But someday they might. She just told me the guy's 92. Well you know what, he might not make it to a hundred. I'm not trying to be mean or anything but hey, that doesn't mean I'm a bad person. My offer was off, who flipping cares?
Steven Jack B.: For the record, we don't target-
Jill DeWit: I don't target-
Steven Jack B.: There's no age, or there's no way to look at that in assessor data.
Jill DeWit: We don't look at the obituaries. Could you imagine?
Steven Jack B.: We just send it-
Jill DeWit: We don't do that. We don't do back tax properties.
Steven Jack B.: Price per square foot analysis-
Jill DeWit: Exactly-
Steven Jack B.: That letter just happened to get to somebody who was older.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Jack B.: That's it. The next one-
Jill DeWit: The 20 year-old down-
Steven Jack B.: The next one got to a millennial-
Jill DeWit: The block got one too. Just bought his first thing. He got a letter too, so that's exactly right. He probably just bought it six months ago, who knows? That property is zoned and priced the way we wanted.
Steven Jack B.: Exactly.
Jill DeWit: I think we covered it. That was good.
Steven Jack B.: We know your time is valuable. Thanks for spending some of it with us today. Join us next time for another interesting episode.
Jill DeWit: And we you answer your questions posted on our online community that you can find at houseacademy.com. It is free.
Steven Jack B.: You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill DeWit: That was kind of fun.
Steven Jack B.: I think that was incredibly informative.
Jill DeWit: I hope so.
Steven Jack B.: I was hoping when it rang that it would be a deal.
Jill DeWit: I know.
Steven Jack B.: Because that'd be cool.
Jill DeWit: That'd be good. Well I'll keep doing this on these shows now and then. When the call comes in I'll just answer it. I think it helps everybody.
Steven Jack B.: I think it's great.
Jill DeWit: You got to get over it, and a lot of people are afraid of those calls. You've got to get over the hurdle and it's okay. Well, you know, I had a great call today earlier too. I had one that turned out that she didn't want to sell. She's a buyer, I could tell because she's already down the process of doing their own ... We hit another investor who's already redoing the property. She's thinking she's going to sell to me now and then when it's done. That's not what I want. Slash however, now I can cue up deals to her. She's a buyer, it's really good. The House Academy Daily Show remains commercial-free for you, our loyal listener. Wherever you are watching, wherever you are listening, please subscribe and rate us there.
Both: We are Jill and Jack.
Jill DeWit: Inspiration-
Steven Jack B.: And information to buy undervalued property.
What is House Academy (HA 034)
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi again.
Steven Butala: Welcome to The House Academy Show this time.
Jill DeWit: It's been a while.
Steven Butala: It's an investment talk, oh I'm sorry, entertaining real estate investment talk. This is The-
Jill DeWit: See? Its been a while.
Steven Butala: ... House Academy show. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about this topic, what is House Academy? I have to tell you, this is a perfect timing. The recording of this show is perfect because Jill and I have some two plus year friends who are asking us last night over some beer, “What do you guys really do for living?” We've never talked about it. So we had to explain it to them as if, well, they are, they have just, they came in cold. They have no idea of what kind of a real estate operation we have, really what we did for a [crosstalk 00:00:52] living at all.
Jill DeWit: They don't understand. It was really funny.
Steven Butala: So we had to, I guess it was a rehearsal for this show, so we had to explain it to them.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Butala: So we'll give it our best shot here.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, and in case you're wondering, no, we did not break into an abandoned home because you see caution tape behind me. It kind of looks like when you broke into something that's like under construction, it's about to be demolished in a day, but no, this is Halloween stuff, so we're actually recording this a few days before Halloween.
Steven Butala: The kids went nuts with the Halloween decorations. I thought they were too old for this, but nope.
Jill DeWit: Nope, Nope. They can drive. I gave them $150, and sent them off to get decorations and it was fun.
Steven Butala: They spent all of it too.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, exactly.
Steven Butala: Doesn't include the candy.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the houseacademy.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWit: That says, G Man, is that correct?
Steven Butala: This is for real.
Jill DeWit: Okay, G Man asks, “Hi everyone. Do you split your mailer up into several smaller mailers and paste them out, or do you send them all at once, and deal with a flood of calls?” Well, it looks like somebody already weighed in here, which is really cool. Lisa said, “My experience with land is I get flooded with calls if I send out a few thousand mailers. With houses, it seems relatively quiet.” I have some things to say about that.
Steven Butala: It's not quiet at all for us.
Jill DeWit: Not for me. “Thinking I could have doubled down on the house mailers and been just fine. I was afraid I'd missed some calls, but that's not what I'm seeing. Guess I will know better for next time.” Should I share our experience?
Steven Butala: Go Jill go.
Jill DeWit: All right, so we just sent out in LA County about 17,000-
Steven Butala: 17000.
Jill DeWit: ... units. I can tell you exactly it hit on Saturday. I know that for a fact, and I know people immediately as the mailman was walking oh down at the steps of their front door were picking up the phone to call me, and to share with me how they felt about my offer. What's really funny though is it's not, so think about this. 17,000 units, I got about 30 phone calls on Saturday. That's not bad. That's manageable-
Steven Butala: It's first day [crosstalk 00:03:07].
Jill DeWit: ... and then Sunday, I think it's a Sunday, they didn't want to deal with it. I got about 10 I'm going to say, so.
Steven Butala: Yes, we work on the weekends.
Jill DeWit: We do work on the weekends. So, but I like these calls, and it's important to answer their calls, so that's my thing. You'll know very quickly what you can handle. For some people, 30 is too many. I didn't care. On Saturday, I'm fine with it. But you can space them out. What's funny is the first wave is always a blast of the unhappy people, and then after a few days, it starts to settle.
Steven Butala: They talk to their spouses.
Jill DeWit: Right, and then the real calls start coming in. So like even today, a couple of days in, I've got a buyer that just called me. I've got a sweet little old lady who told me what's really going on in her area, and that she'd hang on to my letter. I'm like, “This is fantastic.” I got invited over for tea the other day. This lady just said, “Can we be friends?” It was the cutest thing. “So I don't want to sell, but I really like talking to you.” I'm like, “Yeah, thank you.” It was really cute.
Steven Butala: That's nice.
Jill DeWit: So it was very nice. So it's important to get the call.
Steven Butala: It's the Jill effect.
Jill DeWit: Thank you. That's what we call jillifying it. It was really good. That was classic. I mean I'm going to share some of these again because we record them.
Steven Butala: I just sit here as Jill's guest.
Jill DeWit: Oh, today? Oh sorry.
Steven Butala: No always.
Jill DeWit: Oh welcome to the Jill and Jack show. We'll talk about that too. Anyway, so I just, I wanted to share that. What do you want to add?
Steven Butala: There's a famous John F. Kennedy quote, he and Jacqueline Kennedy during his presidency, he went to Paris. Do you know this?
Jill DeWit: No.
Steven Butala: He came back, and he got in front of the camera, and he was interviewed, and he said, “I was the man who accompanied”-
Jill DeWit: Oh yes.
Steven Butala: ... “Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris.”
Jill DeWit: This is yeah this is Kennedy. That's so funny. That's good.
Steven Butala: Which I think is exactly how it should be.
Jill DeWit: That's cute. Thank you.
Steven Butala: Today's topic is called, What is House Academy? This is the meat of the show.
Jill DeWit: Okay. So my goal here is to explain this in a way that doesn't make your head hurt. How was that?
Steven Butala: Yeah, I really think we need to bring this down to fourth grade today, let's say eighth grade.
Jill DeWit: I don't want to get technical. I don't want to get all detailed.
Steven Butala: She's talking to me now, not you.
Jill DeWit: Okay. That's exactly right. I don't want to get technical. I don't want to get all detailed. I want to make this very clear and easy for everyone to understand, because when people come along, and they go, “Wait a minute, I've been buying houses for years and doing them and yeah, it started to dry up. That's why I'm here right now.” This is really usually how it goes. “I have to wrap my head around this, and it sounds easy, but there's a lot to it.” So I don't want to get bogged down in the details. So do you mind if I just keep going with this for a minute, or do you want to dive-
Steven Butala: I will emcee your comments here if I think it gets out of order.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Butala: What I think is imperative to understand House Academy and Land Academy for that matter, they're the same thing. It's just a different product is that to explain this in order of how it goes. Think in terms of doing a deal-
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Butala: ... and start right from the beginning.
Jill DeWit: Okay. Well then you start, how about you explain your part, and then I'll explain my part?
Steven Butala: Okay, oh good. So yeah, I'm acquisitions and Jill's sales, and that's been that way from day one. We didn't set out to have it that way. We just naturally fell into those roles, which makes us pretty good partners, I think. Well, it's been a lot of years, well, 10 years and about 16,000 deals later.
Jill DeWit: 11 years.
Steven Butala: Oh is it 11?
Jill DeWit: Thank you for not remembering. It's okay. Going on 12, but that's okay.
Steven Butala: The very first thing I do, the big picture overview here is we send out blind offers to owners of houses that are about 70% of the value of the actual house that the day we do the mailer. How do we know what 70% is? Through the algorithms and Zillow, and Trulia and all that, but let's not get into it. That's what we do, and a very predictable percentage, and a consistent percentage of people will sign the offer and send it back even at 70%. In the case of land, it's closer to 30% it's that much less than the actual current value. Why? Why the heck would anyone ever sell their house for less than it's worth? Why Jill?
Jill DeWit: Because they're done with it. There's some reason. So I just talked to a sweet little lady just right before we sat down to record this show who called me and said, “Look,” and the offer by the way, because it's pretty low was not what makes sense to her, but she also knows she doesn't want to do retail. So what she just got off the phone with me and told me, “I've gotten many offers. Many people, let's put it this way, many people have reached out to want to buy my property, but I've never gotten an offer and nothing like what you just sent me.” So she's said, “I had to call you”-
Steven Butala: We get that comment every single time.
Jill DeWit: ... “and find out what's going on.” So it's true to form, even here in our own backyard, people are doing it and not getting the response that we get. It's amazing. So she's like, “Well how do you get this information?” I just said, “Well, you know what, it's actually just public assessor information.” She goes, “Oh, okay.” Then she goes, “Well where'd you get this price from?” I said, I do the best I can with all the information. I just kind of gloss over the top. I don't want her to know how strategic we get. She doesn't need to know the formulas, or anything like that. I know what I sent her, I want to make her feel good kind of thing. I just, “If that doesn't work for you, what price does work for you?” That's how it goes, and it just goes from there. This particular lady, I could tell she was older, and she has two duplexes side by side, by the way. This would be phenomenal so-
Steven Butala: Oh really?
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative) exactly.
Steven Butala: Wow.
Jill DeWit: She says, “I'm not ready to sell now, but I will hang onto your letter.” She was really nice. She said, “I'm happy to talk to you.” So I said, “Yeah, call me back in a year from now, or whatever it is. When the time is right, let me know. We'll see what we can do.” So that's just what you do. But so many of these people, so what happens is you did your job, the mail it out.
Steven Butala: Let me start from the beginning, okay?
Jill DeWit: Okay good.
Steven Butala: Long before, the very, very first thing I do, “Well how do you know where to send mail? There's 150 million properties out there, Steve. Where do I start?”
Jill DeWit: How many counties, right?
Steven Butala: I break the whole environment down by zip code. There's about 16,000, 16 to 20,000 zip codes in this country. I think there's actually 26,000, but a lot of them are Air Force bases and stuff, and hospitals, or universities. So there's some number like that. I'm going to get a million emails correcting me on that one. I do this to myself every show. So I start, and I look at a zip code, and I go on to Redfin Data. We have this thing in our House Academy Membership Group called Equity Planner. It asks you to go to Redfin, and let's say you want to send out, let's say you like for whatever reason Mesa, Arizona. You like that community. You think it's a good flip market for whatever reason because you're just, you're watching, you're going out on the MLS on realtor.com, and you see a bunch of totally renovated houses, and you see what they're selling for, and so you decide, or you live in Mason, because it works everywhere.
Steven Butala: It's just a matter of pricing. So you take the five or eight zip codes that are in Mesa, Arizona or wherever, and I call it pitting them against each other. You line them all up in Redfin data, you pull all the real estate data out of Redfin, and you look at which zip code is performing the best, the one that has the lowest days on market, the one that has the lowest number of listings in that zip code. Of those five or eight zip codes, every single time two of them just shine. Again, Jill wants to keep this at the eighth grade level here, and that's true, but I won't go into or why, but there's statistics that very clearly say, “Hey properties are moving in this area over this other zip code over here” for whatever reason. So it's not like I throw a dart at a board.
Jill DeWit: [crosstalk 00:11:09].
Steven Butala: We know it's going to happen before it happens.
Jill DeWit: Exactly, and that's the beautiful thing about House Academy. It's a lot easier than land-
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: ... because we have that information and we know, you know what's going to happen with a house. It's going to happen especially if you're hitting a zip code area with days on market, or less than 30 days.
Steven Butala: Yeah, that's right.
Jill DeWit: You can very predictably say, “Huh, if I find an asset, a house that's 70% of the value, and I mark it up and solid at 80% of its value, I'm probably going to sell it pretty fast because that whole area is less than 30 days on market.” That's it. That's-
Steven Butala: We try to make between 30 and $80,000 a house.
Jill DeWit: That's it.
Steven Butala: That's dollars, not percentages. So however that works out, but then great, I have two zip codes in Mesa. Jill and I are licensed providers of the three major assessor data syndicators nationally, RealQuest Pro, Data Tree and TitlePro247 [inaudible 00:12:03], all separate entirely separate companies, and we pit them against each other too. So I go out into Data Tree for houses, and I pull every single SFR that doesn't have a mortgage on it so that they actually, this is my flavor on it. We have a lot of House Academy members who don't care about that. They love to send properties to houses that are highly leveraged. That's just what we do. So I pull all the assessment data-
Jill DeWit: Someone was just calling me right now, by the way [crosstalk 00:12:33].
Steven Butala: ... pull all the assessment data, price it out. We send it. We have this product called Smart Pricing where we send, let's say you've got a universe of 5,000 properties in this mailer, in these two zip codes in Mesa, send it to the Philippines, our virtual assistant group there, and they do what we call smart pricing.
Jill DeWit: Can I?
Steven Butala: Zillow, Trulia, Redfin, Data Tree, all-
Jill DeWit: Can we take it up a notch? A little more on the top, because we're not-
Steven Butala: Sure.
Jill DeWit: ... going to get very far. I want to save stuff for other shows.
Steven Butala: Let's forget about, Jill's right. Let's forget about how.
Jill DeWit: I want to get details.
Steven Butala: 70% of what we think the house is worth today we put it in the spreadsheet, and we sent it to Offers 2 Owners, which is a company we own, a bulk mail printing company, and send them out. We send out every [inaudible 00:13:23] like I just said, 5,000 offers and I'm done.
Jill DeWit: Thank you. Okay, so-
Steven Butala: Jill takes over.
Jill DeWit: ... the phone rings just like that. I answer the phone. I work with the sellers, we close quickly with cash. What we do with them too is we are buying these, we tell them too our offer price, whatever we agree on in the end, maybe they say, “Hey if you add 10 more thousand you got a deal,” and you know what? In some areas, 10 thousands it's like nothing. I'm like, “That's totally fine because I know how I came in.”
Steven Butala: The Los Angeles market's nothing.
Jill DeWit: I mean for those people they might say “Add $200,000,” and I might go, “All right I can do that. I have that much wiggle room in the deal” because I know what's going to happen. So and I tell them, this is part of the attraction is I'm real, I'm credible. They can look us up, we're very transparent. I'm not here to gouge anybody. I'm trying to make a good deal for them, good deal for us, and our offer prices net to them. I pay all the closing costs, I deal with the inspection, I don't charge them anything. That's it. They know that we're going to close in two weeks or whatever it is. It's going to happen exactly as we say. Oh-
Steven Butala: Hello.
Jill DeWit: Hello, and that's it. Then so House Academy is finding it, buying it, owning it, and then we even talk about, we even share and help you in our whole thing. This show, it's going to unfold more on the show, how do I sell them? How do I build a buyer's list? What do I do with them? That's going to go on, and that's what we do too. We take it all the way to the end, and again, it's very predictable, easy.
Steven Butala: Consistent.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, and you know how fast it's going to go.
Steven Butala: Exactly. One of the reasons this works so well is because we don't sell, typically do not sell the property to the end user. We sell it to a person who's going to renovate it-
Jill DeWit: Yes.
Steven Butala: ... most of the time-
Jill DeWit: That's true.
Steven Butala: ... which is a real wholesaler.
Jill DeWit: That's what we love.
Steven Butala: It's so much easier to deal with somebody in the industry. They're not talking about window treatments and stuff.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Butala: They're just looking at price per square foot because they're going to rip it all out anyway and make it gorgeous.
Jill DeWit: Right. That's our perfect scenario, exactly. Some of our members do both though. Some like to retail. We have members in our group that are doing exactly what we do, or they'll wholesale to flippers who come in and make it great. Some of them do the work themselves, all levels of work, whatever you want to do. Many people in our group too actively own construction companies, they are in the business, they are flippers and their deal flow is drawing up. They're like, “God, the ways that we used to go find these deals is getting hard.” No kidding.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: I got to tell you right now, you know what's happening to me right now? My phone is blowing up. So they're like, “This is the greatest thing on the planet.” The money that they spend, once you learn it, the process of learning it and getting the offers out there in the mail, that's really, that's the secret I think. Because then the people call back, “I do want to sell, or I don't want to sell. I like this price, I want this price.” Whatever it is, they're reaching out to you, and that's the beauty of the whole thing.
Steven Butala: We have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of successful members, and they say stuff like this. I get an email like this once a week at least, “I can't thank you enough for this tiny amount of money that you asked for the education. I have my own business now.”
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: “I just completely started my own business in three months.”
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Butala: “We're buying and selling houses every week now. You're right, it's predictable and incredibly inexpensive.” To do a 5,000 unit mailer costs a couple grand total, and you're making 30 to $50,000 per deal. So if you do everything right on a 5,000 unit mailer, you should do a couple of deals. You're making a hundred grand on what costs, what 2000 bucks for a data and mail.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. I was going to point out to a lot of people in our community are realtors.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: This is a way for them to either acquire properties or corner listings.
Steven Butala: Get listings.
Jill DeWit: That's a great thing too.
Steven Butala: I've been saying this since day one with Land Academy, the people that do the best in our group, they learn first how to do it, the basic mechanics of everything, and then they have their own twist on it.
Jill DeWit: Yep.
Steven Butala: So yeah, real estate agents for whatever reason are really making this work.
Jill DeWit: Yep. I know this is a big thing so and I'm excited to talk more about it on our next show.
Steven Butala: Hey we know your time's valuable. Thanks for spending some of it with us today. Join us next time for the episode called What Makes a Successful House Wholesaler?
Jill DeWit: We answer your questions.
Steven Butala: This has nothing to do with phrasing a sentence, I'll tell you that.
Jill DeWit: No, that's okay, and we're going to answer your questions posted on our online community at houseacademy.com. It is free.
Steven Butala: You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill DeWit: Feels good to be back.
Steven Butala: You know what we didn't talk about is the mailer that we just did. Listen to this. We have a guy in our group who has access to a lot of buyers that are very specific buyers in Los Angeles for very specific asset type that you can see in the data by its zoning, so go ahead.
Jill DeWit: No, I think we should talk about this in the next show because that ties into that.
Steven Butala: All right, sure.
Jill DeWit: Is that okay?
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: All right. Thank you. Wherever you're watching, or wherever you're listening, please subscribe and rate us there.
Steven Butala: We are Steve and Jill.
Jill DeWit: We are Steve and Jill.
Steven Butala: Information-
Jill DeWit: And inspiration-
Steven Butala: to buy undervalued property.
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 with member Bei Zhang, who shares her Land Academy success stories and maybe some potential failures. Well, let's see what we talks about.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: Bei, am I pronouncing your last name correctly?
Jill DeWit: Bei Zhang.
Bei Zhang: Yeah, Zhang. Exactly right. It sounds like Jong.
Steven Butala: All right. Awesome. Tell us a little bit ... In the pre-show, Bei, you were talking about how you just got back from China. That's super interesting. Tell us what happened.
Bei Zhang: Yeah. Well, this is a special trip and me, my mother-in-law and [inaudible 00:00:42], my nine-year-old daughter, and then also our nephew, we all come together to Beijing to meet my parents' side. So spent two weeks there and visited the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, those parks ... It's fabulous. Yeah. It's fun.
Jill DeWit: Wow. I'm jealous.
Steven Butala: So it was all just a social fun trip. No work?
Bei Zhang: Yeah. I tried to cut off my workflow. I try to forget there has work, just fully enjoy my trip. So customer who leave the voicemail to me, I feel bad. I never really returned a call. Yeah.
Jill DeWit: You have to do that sometimes. That's okay.
Bei Zhang: Yeah, sometimes.
Jill DeWit: That's not your norm. I know it. You have to really ... We have a trip coming up actually soon. By the time this airs, we'll be back from the trip, but ...
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Actually, we'll be on the trip. I don't even know.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Anyway, we're going to go to Santa Barbara, and I'm really trying to orchestrate it so I don't have to do that much. There's always something I've got to check on, a few little things, but if I could do an hour a day, then it's perfect. I'm okay with that.
Bei Zhang: Yes.
Steven Butala: How does real estate work in China these days?
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Bei Zhang: I think it is highly regulated by the government. So the government, they're really involved in the lot of those policies, so I think you have to have a very deep relationship with someone in that industry, in the government, to help you. It's not like everyone has an equal opportunity. That's how I feel.
Steven Butala: Okay.
Jill DeWit: Wow.
Bei Zhang: Yeah.
Steven Butala: I just read that Chinese individuals buying residential real estate in this country dropped off this year by like 30%, and everybody wants Florida because it's inexpensive.
Jill DeWit: Really?
Steven Butala: But for some reason ... I don't know if it's the local economy there. Do you have any insights on that?
Bei Zhang: I think it just like the price are very high in those cities. [inaudible 00:02:43] ridiculously high. You think about how much you earn versus your salary and then housing price, the ratio is really high. Not like in the U.S. Your salary, you add together in the middle class, probably, I don't know, six years. Assume you don't spend anything, you can pay off the whole house in a middle class type of house. But in China, it just like ... Well, 30 years it's just like a mission impossible. I feel the ratio is too high versus how much you earn, how much the house price is. It's ridiculously high. Yeah.
Steven Butala: Oh. So you think it's rooted in not an earning to spending ratio, which I guess all residential [inaudible 00:03:24] is?
Bei Zhang: Yes. I think when people, they traveled to the U.S. They see the price. They're like, "What? That is ridiculously low. I have the cash." The thing is they have a lot of cash. They're trying to looking for the investing opportunities. Then they just feel like, "Hey, let's just buy five houses one time." A lot of people do like that.
Steven Butala: I see.
Bei Zhang: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Yep. I swear it was a big deal when I was in New York like two years ago. Everybody know who bought the Waldorf. All they kept saying was, "It was the Chinese." Some investors, like you're saying, maybe had a lot of cash and they just bought that whole thing.
Steven Butala: Yeah. I've been doing this for a long time, and over the years we've sold tons of real estate land to people who are out of this country and shocked and amazed at how cheap it is.
Jill DeWit: True. And how easy it is to transfer it, you know?
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Bei Zhang: Yeah, exactly. Even this time when I meet my friends, and I think they immigrate to Canada, and then they're thinking about how much I paid from my own house, and they're like, "What? We pay at least 10 times more than what you paid." They just cannot understand why the price here is so good here. Yeah.
Jill DeWit: That's interesting.
Steven Butala: You're in Indiana, right?
Bei Zhang: Yes. I'm in Indiana. Indianapolis, yes.
Steven Butala: Did you fly to Chicago? How did you get to China?
Bei Zhang: Fly to Newark, New Jersey, that airport. Then, yeah, fly from there. I think it's like 14 or 13 hours of flight, so it's a long trip. Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. That's super great.
Steven Butala: Right into Beijing?
Bei Zhang: Yeah. Right to Beijing, the Capital Airport. Yes.
Steven Butala: Excellent.
Jill DeWit: Awesome.
Bei Zhang: Yeah. You should go visit someday.
Jill DeWit: I want to. Maybe next time you're on your way, I would love to go with you, Bei. We'd have a good time.
Bei Zhang: Yeah.
Steven Butala: Yeah. You guys should-
Bei Zhang: Yeah. I can be your tour guide to stop someone rip your off. Yeah.
Jill DeWit: That would be so fun. You should tell how we met.
Bei Zhang: Yes. Yeah, I think that's a good ... Yeah, we talk about this. So basically again, China, I grown up. Then I think I just in my corporate world, towards the end of 2016, I just don't really feel happy. Then I connected with one of the investors in the Land Academy. Then so he introduced me to meet us in person, and I feel so bad that day. I was like ... I didn't really know. "They sounds like really cool, Jill and then Steve, but I haven't really know anything about them or their program," I kind of think. But after I talk with you guys, I feel like it's so positive.
Bei Zhang: Then when I go back to work on Monday, I start searching your podcast. I started doing a lot of research and try out listening. I'm like, "Oh, this is so you. I cannot wait to take actions." Then your podcast, for me, is almost like a treat when I drive to the corporate world, drive to the office, and back to the office. I just feel like, "Why they're so happy, and they make everything sounds so easy? Why I have to feel like sad every day?" I was looking for a new journey and life experience. So I just want to be like you, as well. Be happy. That's the first thing I want to be. So when mind feel calmed down, I feel like, "Hey, I can focus on what versus how." You know corporate world always focuses on how.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: That's a nice compliment. People ask us a lot like, "Are you guys really that happy, or is it a big act?" And here's my answer, "Jill wakes up happy every single day. Me, not so much."
Bei Zhang: Oh, no. I don't believe you.
Jill DeWit: That's good. I love our story. It's so funny. Yeah, the you had the first time Bei met us, we're buying her beer, and she's like, "Who are you guys?"
Steven Butala: Yep.
Jill DeWit: Then here you are now how many years later?
Steven Butala: I think you were in Scottsdale for like another different event.
Bei Zhang: Yeah. Yeah. Another program. Then I just feel like I like to know the how part, exact how, to do it.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Bei Zhang: Then I think the data is the key thing is my bottleneck. I just cannot figure out, "How can I scrap the data? How can I get the data?" So the other investor, his name is Steven, he said, "Yeah, I know you'll like Land Academy. They really have the data program." So I'm like, "Hey, that's what I really need." Then I really liked your style. I feel like every day you're just so real. Then you always ... Seriously. When I drive to my corporate world, I was like, "Oh my God, I got six meetings back to back for eight hours. How can I go through that?" Then when I listened to the podcast, I'm like, "Hey, that make me feel so positive."
Bei Zhang: Then I start doing the deals. I think it ... Because we meet at, I think April, 2016, so I start ... My first deal actually is July, 2016. So that year I probably did 12 or some deals. [inaudible 00:08:30] pretty big. I have no idea why I get those good experience. Then 2017, I just feel like, "Hey, I'm ready to [inaudible 00:08:30] my corporate world." So I just doing it full-time, so it very good experience.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. How many deals did you do in '17, do you think?
Bei Zhang: I think '17, I probably did somewhere close to like ... I think it's 48 that [crosstalk 00:09:00]
Steven Butala: 48 deals?
Bei Zhang: Uh-huh (affirmative).
Steven Butala: [crosstalk 00:09:04] that's great.
Bei Zhang: Last year, I think 2018 was 58, I'm thinking. Yeah. Not a huge [crosstalk 00:09:13]
Steven Butala: That's fantastic.
Bei Zhang: And this year I did some research for this show I've just reviewed just now. I think so far as of today I did 56, something like that. Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Oh.
Steven Butala: I got the wrong impression on our webinars, because we talk about that one deal that was giving you trouble.
Bei Zhang: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jill DeWit: Oh, she's doing a lot.
Steven Butala: We didn't talk about all the great deals you're doing.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. And you're usually doing the bigger dollar amounts, aren't you, Bei? You went right at it.
Bei Zhang: Yeah. The very interesting ... The first deal I brought it. It's so funny. It's a title company right of away [inaudible 00:00:09:49]. So I start with the title company with the first two or three deals is all title company. They teach me a lot, and then I start doing a little bit smaller deals. And I feel like it click a little bit better with the larger dollar amount of deal versus the very tiny one. I don't know why it ... I don't know why. Maybe there has [inaudible 00:10:14] power. This is a harder question. I don't know.
Jill DeWit: Love it. I think it's the bigger return on the bigger deals, for me.
Steven Butala: I mean, you've obviously made this work for you.
Jill DeWit: Yep.
Steven Butala: So what can you attribute that to?
Bei Zhang: What is the question? I don't quite understand.
Steven Butala: You've obviously made our program and land investment itself really work to your advantage.
Bei Zhang: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven Butala: And honestly, you're ... I'm telling the truth here, because I guess it's the spirit of telling the truth, you're a very unlikely corporate success candidate for Land Academy. So I'm wondering if you can share with us what it is about land and what it is about you that's making this work.
Bei Zhang: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for explain that. Elaborate. Yes. I think is probably the personality. I think the personality decided your life a lot of the times. I'm more like a person looking for experience versus the security. Because 15 years ago I come to the US. It's a huge journey for me for go to business school. Then I work as a marketer for years, working with agency side and working for the client side, and all kinds of the industry, like a customer products, medical device, health care, pharmaceutical. I think probably just like I keep jumping here and there. I just trying to feel what I like, because I don't want to waste my time. I think that life is short. Why are we have to worried about the retirement money? We're [inaudible 00:11:50] to trade your golden years, or just the later year when you're 70. So that's how I keep looking.
Bei Zhang: Then I like to control my life. In the corporate world, I think it's fancy, because my last role is as a brand manager for a top 10 pharmaceutical company in the world. So to manage one of their cancer drug for lung cancer, I think at first you would thinking about it's fun as glamorous, that kind of feeling. But I just feel in the corporate world that you probably hard to control your schedule, your life. You're kind of like flat, go with the flow. Then, again, people ... They really focused on doing the how part versus the what part, where you're using one meeting to prepare another meeting and just do the how [inaudible 00:12:40]. But nobody really worried about what's the project lead us to? And I feel like that's waste my time.
Bei Zhang: So what I'm looking for is I don't like politics too much, because I think that's a waste of my time. I just want to find a area I can control who I want to work with, what I want to work with, and when I want to work. So that's the three part I like to find.
Bei Zhang: Then to [inaudible 00:13:05] I got a book ... I think as Rich Dad Poor Dad, the famous writer Robert Kiyosaki ... really make me think about if you want the working bee hard toward the investor that hard, and how the money flows. That just opened my mind. So there always have something in my back of my head like where I should find this opportunity.
Bei Zhang: So I'm so glad I connected with Land Academy. You guys teaching me tons, of tons, of tons of things. Then the last two years I feel like I learned from Land Academy, from my peers, from you, Steven and Jill. And then from my customers, from those sellers, from those county persons, all those lawyers, and that kind of thing. I feel like I'm just like learning. I'm so happy about I'm not wasting my time, and I could be very flexible. So I guess it's just entrepreneur experience, you know?
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Bei Zhang: My spirit kind of lead me to here.
Jill DeWit: That's so great.
Steven Butala: You have such a good attitude.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: It's amazing, actually.
Jill DeWit: It's huge. I think at our first live event, you were the very first one. [inaudible 00:14:18] I remember I loved it. And I'm pretty sure, I think I saw you on the list for this October, right?
Bei Zhang: Yes. Uh-huh (affirmative). Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Okay, good.
Bei Zhang: Yeah. I just feel like connecting with people in our community just ... You feel lonely every day sometimes. You want to have some feedback, right? And then my family, they could give me some level of feedback, but their feedback is so ... The mindset is different.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Bei Zhang: So I appreciate that, but I want to see the feedback from you and from the other peers. I want to see how other people doing.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. I love it. It's going to be fun to fast forward a year. We should talk about that, actually, at this event. It'd be fun to talk with everybody, maybe at the end. Talk about where we've all grown from last year to this year, because from what I've been hearing, it's astronomical.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: I'm excited.
Steven Butala: I know you're in our advanced group. What do you think of that and those webinars that we hold on every Thursday?
Bei Zhang: I think we're talk about more specific questions. Maybe they're more specific, especially focus on acquisition part versus the general full call. Probably, you get all kinds of questions. This advanced group is more, I think, for people who've had some experience, and then they are looking for some other niche aside. Then some of the thought process is interesting. I like to listen. Yeah.
Jill DeWit: I do, too.
Bei Zhang: Yeah.
Steven Butala: You two women are role models for young girls all over.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Bei Zhang: Oh.
Steven Butala: Absolutely. Taking life and careers and just made it work for you guys.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. I was stuck in that corporate role too, you know? I remember thinking, "Why am I working so hard for somebody else? I'd rather work this hard for me."
Bei Zhang: Exactly. Exactly. I just feel corporate ... If you want to push in one things, it's so hard. Too many cooks in the kitchen, I would say. Then, right now, as an entrepreneur, I know like Steven, Jill, you guys have different little mini corporations, different project. That, to me, so fun is you get to figure out what you want to do and where you want to go. So really, that's your baby. You get to decide how the baby grow.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Butala: Of all the ways to describe those little other corporate projects that we have going on, fun is not how I describe it at all.
Jill DeWit: That's where we differ. That's one of the many ways that we differ. Bei knows.
Bei Zhang: I think just after you ... Because every day I think just a little tiny things, it will influence my mood. Sometimes even the hate call where some people, they have some ridiculous request, or county say, "You violate this." It just is a little thing where make your feel kind of like, "Eh," down. But once you just get up, and like Jill, you always say you reset yourself. I take that notes. I think that's good advice. So I reset myself and I just feel like when you have a different mood, you treat the same thing differently. So when you [inaudible 00:17:37] feel like, "Hey, that's nothing. I made it, so it was fun in the way."
Jill DeWit: It is. I do. I still look at these challenges. We're working on bringing back TitleMind, and we have a new partner in our office, and we're doing stuff with him. He's going through all the steps, and he hasn't done it at this level, I think, before.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: And he's had other companies, but not like this and has not seen this many hoops and this much vagueness, too. It's really kind of funny. And I talked to him about it the other day. I said, "You know what, Ken? This is one of those things that every time I get into it and I see this many issues and this many problems and this many things we've got to get past, I cheer because I'm like, 'How many people just dropped out because of that?' There's going to be ... That's where we're going to do it and other people can't."
Steven Butala: Yep.
Bei Zhang: Yes. [crosstalk 00:18:30] I think our business model is very simple, but simple doesn't mean easy.
Jill DeWit: Correct.
Bei Zhang: I always feel almost like if you only have one child and get pregnant, that's easy. But if you have 10 children there and you're pregnant with twins, it's just so hard to take care of each of those little project. That's how I feel. It's simple, but it's not easy.
Jill DeWit: Isn't that true? You present it pretty funny, but I'm sure you've had this too, Bei. Even like you're traveling or talking to relatives, and you explain what you do, and they think, "Oh, it's just so easy. I could do that." And you're like, "Hold on a moment. It's not that ... There's a lot of moving parts, and you can't be afraid of a lot of things like data."
Steven Butala: So Bei, what do you mean simple, but ... You said it's easy. No, simple but time-consuming.
Bei Zhang: Not easy.
Steven Butala: Is that how we describe it?
Bei Zhang: Yeah. I think because just like when Jill talk about there has a lot of moving parts, the concept is really easy. You find the deals, and you just flip the deals, right? How easy is that? But there has a lot of ... the process. How do you make the process when you operate that? I think the operational excellence, that's the challenge.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Bei Zhang: How do you save your time? How do you manage your team? How do you using other people's strengths to help you? Then how do you think about the process? I think it's about the process. How do you [inaudible 00:19:57] work? How do you create a system? I think these are the things that not easy. You have to make certain deals to fully understand how do you talk to the customers and that kind of thing.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Butala: That's our biggest single challenge, what you just described. Getting the right people in the right place, systematizing everything, and then really kind of ramping it up.
Jill DeWit: Yep.
Steven Butala: So we conquered it with land a long time ago, but when it comes to companies like ParcelFact or TitleMind.com, like Jill mentioned, that we haven't released yet, it's like starting all over again.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Bei Zhang: Yeah. Maybe after you make some mistakes, a couple of a hundred deals like you did for land, your other little company, you understand what's the flow should be, so that-
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Bei Zhang: Yeah. You're going to make some mistakes there to learn.
Steven Butala: People-
Jill DeWit: [crosstalk 00:20:50] I have a question.
Steven Butala: Go ahead. Go ahead.
Jill DeWit: Do you outsource any of this? And if so, what do you outsource and where?
Bei Zhang: Yeah. I used to outsource quite a few like marketing. I think marketing is the [inaudible 00:21:0 I'm a marketer. I know it. I just don't want to do the repeat work. So I go to ... You know Upwork.com, right? So you can find those freelancers. Then I outsource these. There has a woman. She worked with me probably for over two years just help me with my customer services or the basic emails and then with some hosting.
Steven Butala: That's great.
Bei Zhang: Yeah. Other data input. Then I used to want to hire some like assistants, but I think it's really hard to find a assistant, because you have to buy the time. Then, basically, probably I'm in the learning process, also. I'm still learning how to manage the freelancer, and then like win-win situation, because sometimes they just don't want to do those work or, I don't know, the relationship is hard, especially for remotes.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: That's such another challenge for us, too. When you hire somebody, even if it's outsourced, how much time is it going to take to get that ... your time to ... Because now you can't do that job anymore. You're hired this person. So there's always this ramp-up period where stuff's not getting done that you hired the person for. So I'm famous for like waiting too long to hire the person, and then it's not the right person, so you got to hire them again. And it's a big challenge.
Bei Zhang: I had thoughts, Steve. You talk in one of your podcasts ... You mentioned about, "Well, just let that person get the things done, even though that's not you." I think you made really good comments. I'm like, "Okay, I'll let [inaudible 00:22:42], even though it's not my way to do it, but to get things done." So, yeah.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. Exactly.
Steven Butala: All right. I'll take my own advice.
Bei Zhang: Yeah. You have to go back, think about your good advice. Yeah. So Jill and you both give me really good advice.
Jill DeWit: Thank you. What are your goals for this year? Is it a deal goal? Is it a money goal? Whatever you want to share would be awesome.
Bei Zhang: I think my goal, probably just overall, I want to do somewhere close to 100 deals, more like the number of the deals. Then the size, I want to make those deals a little bit higher dollar amounts, a little bit higher. But lower is fine, also, as long as they earn money. I just go with the flow but focusing on a little bit higher. I think the key thing is you got to buy more property, that way you can keep selling more.
Bei Zhang: So at first, I'm very happy whenever I sold a property in year one and year two. Then once I sold out all of them like, "Oh, what shall I do?" Then, Steve, you mentioned when you get excited is the time when you purchase a property in the right price, so now I get that.
Steven Butala: Good.
Bei Zhang: I am happy when I make a good acquisition, because I know lot of times when I sell property, I really don't really lower the price or I really don't push or chase these people. I think it just price, the value of sale. So I just market there and the people just bought right away, so I know if I do my research right about a good price, and then I win. Yes.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Butala: Good.
Jill DeWit: That's good. All right, so over a hundred deals. You're coming to the event. And is this it for you now? I mean, you're in it, man. This is your career and just going to grow this business forever? [crosstalk 00:24:46] property tax.
Bei Zhang: Yeah. Basically, I think ... Yeah. I joined the House Academy early.
Steven Butala: Oh, good.
Bei Zhang: Yeah. I think it's probably last two months were ... But I haven't really get a chance to learn yet before my China trip, but I'm going to look. I think it just opened up more window. Definitely, I think real estate is very fun. There has different sub-category of real estate, so land, house, even mobile home. I'm kind of open to learn. But I think real estate will be where I like to go. I feel happy. When I feel happy, you heart is a harmony level and when you do things, you enjoy your life. So that's what I'm looking for. Yeah.
Jill DeWit: That's so [inaudible 00:25:30]
Steven Butala: She's really taking a spiritual approach to this. A feeling approach. I think that's great.
Jill DeWit: It is. it makes a difference.
Steven Butala: It's really refreshing for me, because I'm all numbers and angry, you know?
Bei Zhang: No. You're funny. I don't think so.
Jill DeWit: I think, maybe too for women, we might talk ... You guys may not even know that you feel that way, I don't think, because you guys don't talk like that. We will be open and share it. But I think you know ... When I say you, I mean men. You have a sense of accomplishment. You may not go back and reflect on it like we do.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: So you get it.
Steven Butala: Right. I mean, it's good. It's good to ... I didn't know I could have feelings.
Bei Zhang: Don't get womens wrong. We like numbers, also. We like to [inaudible 00:26:18].
Jill DeWit: That's true. That's true. That's true.
Bei Zhang: [inaudible 00:26:23] checking all my numbers, and I'm like, "Oh, good. [inaudible 00:26:24]
Jill DeWit: Good point. Yeah, Bei's [crosstalk 00:26:26] her way through every deal.
Bei Zhang: Yeah. It's so funny. Like this time we traveled in China, and then people try to rip you off in certain markets, so we try to negotiate the price. Every time whole family from the U.S. side, they asked me to negotiate the price, and then they're, "Oh, you're such a harsh negotiator." So when I buy property or when I sell, I do put the negotiator role there. So, yeah, that's important. So I do look at the number, make sure that they're right, and then spiritual.
Jill DeWit: Because you know what's funny about that, Bei? You just said something that Steven has said about me. He will go back and look at some of the deals that we're doing and ones that I have approved and not approved. He's like, "You're a little tougher than I am on these guys." Like he would have said, "I would accepted that. It's fine. It'll work out." I'm like, "Nope."
Steven Butala: She's tough.
Jill DeWit: "I need to buy it at this, and then I can [inaudible 00:27:20]," you know?
Bei Zhang: Yes.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. So we're a little [crosstalk 00:27:21]
Steven Butala: And it happens. It ends up actually the deal happens, you know?
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Bei Zhang: Yeah. That's how I feel. Jill, you are tougher than Steven for that part. I can read you pretty well. That's how I feel.
Jill DeWit: Thank you. Thank you.
Steven Butala: She picked up on it.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Bei and I connect. We're good. And look at us. We're happy and laughing and smiling all the way through it.
Bei Zhang: Yeah. Yeah. You're inspiring me. I just feel like whenever I feel lonely, I just listen to more of the podcast.
Jill DeWit: Thank you. I'm glad.
Steven Butala: Oh, good.
Bei Zhang: Yeah.
Steven Butala: Bei, are you the translator everywhere you go?
Bei Zhang: To talk in China?
Steven Butala: Yeah, just constant translation?
Bei Zhang: Yeah, mostly I'll do that. And my husband, he know a little bit, very tiny bit, and my ... I have a nine-year-old daughter, and she can say pretty well, but she's not fully competent for that if people speak fast. Yeah. It was fun.
Steven Butala: Great.
Jill DeWit: That's great. That's cool.
Steven Butala: I'm sure that plays all into this. She's like the role model/leader, you know?
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Bei Zhang: Oh.
Jill DeWit: What a good example. You, too. Bei, I mean, he's right. I mean, look at what you're teaching your daughter about what's possible. And the changes that you've made in your life and leaving the corporate world, and a very, very good paying job, by the way, to do this for yourself, and then just kill it.
Bei Zhang: Well, what I happy about when I go back to China, I connected with some of my like 20-years-old friends. We used to work together, whatever. And I just feel they're still in the same area. I mean, good for them, because they feel stable. But I feel like, "Hey, within those 15 years, I learned so many things," you know? Even someday when I'm turning 90-something, when I look back what I did, I feel happy. I didn't waste my time. That's all I'm looking for. Yeah. The biggest thing, I cannot bear is wasting my time to do something repeatedly again, again. Yeah.
Steven Butala: People ask Jill and I what we're going to do in retirement, and I say, "We're going to go back and buy and sell real estate," because it's about 10% of what we do right now, and I long for the days when ... Remember when we started out?
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: We're in that back bedroom-
Jill DeWit: Just deal flow.
Steven Butala: ... and just like I was buying, and she was selling it. We were just counting the money.
Jill DeWit: That was it.
Bei Zhang: Yeah. I don't really perceive you retire or anything. I think you're just probably make the flow slower a little bit and make the products more focused. That's all. And then it's just like do not need a lot of operational help, just flow come in and the money come in right away.
Jill DeWit: That's a good plan. I like that.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Do you have any questions for us?
Bei Zhang: A question. At this point, I don't have any question. I just feel like I'm so glad to connected with you and to see you in person. Almost feel like that I look forward, we can see each other probably another two months-ish.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Bei Zhang: And I cannot wait to meet other peers, as well, and then to exchange ideas and connect within that group. Yeah. Very positive.
Jill DeWit: Me, too. Us, too.
Steven Butala: Great.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Steven Butala: Hey, we know your time's valuable. Thanks for spending some of it with us today, anyway. Join us next time for another interesting episode.
Jill DeWit: And we answer your questions posted on our online community at LandInvestors.com. It is free.
Steven Butala: You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Steven Butala: Bei, I can't thank you enough.
Jill DeWit: That was fun.
Steven Butala: It was really funny of you.
Bei Zhang: Yes.
Jill DeWit: It's nice. I feel like we just got to have a nice little quick girly chat on the phone and connect, but we just happened to share it with everybody.
Bei Zhang: Yeah. This is a casual talk almost, but it was fun. For me, it's a good experience. Thank you for your time interview me for this one hour. This is my treat. Yeah.
Steven Butala: Yep.
Jill DeWit: Thank you very much.
Steven Butala: We'll see you soon. Thank you.
Bei Zhang: See you. Take care. Bye-bye.
Steven Butala: Bye.
Member Nick Sliger Shares House Academy Success Stories (HA 031)
Steven: Steve and Jill here.
Jill: Hi.
Steven: Welcome to the Land Academy show, entertaining land investment talk. Today, we have Nick Sliger. I think Nick, you've been a member for since when?
Sliger: About two and a half years. I think I joined in 17, or maybe ... I think I joined in 16 right at the end of the year.
Steven: And I'm pretty sure you were at the last last live event, right?
Sliger: I was. I'm coming back again and I'm looking forward to it [crosstalk 00:00:26].
Jill: Exactly.
Steven: Give us a little background on how you found us and maybe what you did before you started buying and selling land? And tell us why it's working or not working?
Sliger: All right, cool. I was in the fitness industry. I have a background in kinesiology. I was a sprint coach for awhile and worked in health clubs. And I guess the story goes, I was looking at how bad food was. It got me into gardening, which got me looking into wanting to farm, which took me to wanting to figure out how to buy some farmland.
Sliger: Watching some YouTube videos came across a guy that bought this cool little farm from a back tax over the counter sale from a county. I started looking into that. I joined another program. Did that educational one, but I was still looking for some more information. And as I was looking around trying to learn, I came across you guys. It was back when you guys were giving away a free acre in Cochise County with a signup.
Steven: That was a long time ago. You've been with for quite awhile.
Sliger: And I signed up and got that one and that was my first one. I followed your guys advice. I did the $1, no reserve, 30-day Ebay. $3.99 doc fees. I sold it for $4.20. I got $8.19 out of it.
Jill: Perfect.
Sliger: That was pretty cool. One to get me going.
Steven: Was that your first deal?
Sliger: That was my first one. I didn't technically buy it by source in any mailers or anything like that but I got it with the program and I sold it. And that was my first one. [crosstalk 00:01:55]
Steven: My first deal. You remember the first girl you kissed.
Sliger: Exactly.
Steven: And the last one. You recouped almost all of the purchase price for that program, right?
Sliger: Yeah, a huge amount. And I remember listening to your podcast back then you were always saying that, "Don't quit your day job until it's costing you money." Well, I was in between jobs right then and I was actually looking to start a little farming business. But I put that on hold and I started this land business. But I started to go through and buy some more properties it pretty quickly ate up all my acquisition funds.
Sliger: And as I extrapolated where my money was going, I had determined that I needed to go back and get a regular job or I was going to spend through all my capital just paying bills. I went back and I got a job, just a couple months after I started, and I've been working that though the whole time driving a truck. But my goal is to quit that here soon. Hopefully, within another property or two I'll be in a position to end that.
Jill: You're close.
Sliger: I want to join the 33%.
Jill: Yay. That's so good. I'm so glad.
Steven: I'm so glad it's working out for you.
Jill: Well, I'm glad that you did the right thing. You went back and said, "All right, I want to do this right. And if I have to get a day job for a little while, fine. It'll pay the bills." And you can breathe and have acquisition funds. And so if you're getting that close to that, that sounds to me like you probably have money set aside that you're trying to .... Am I right? You're wanting to reach a certain threshold and then you're like, and now I'm out.
Sliger: Exactly. I had a little bit of debt I wanted to pay off. I still have a little bit of student loan that I'm trying to knock out as well. And then I just wanted to build up enough capital that I can live for about a year and have enough for acquisitions for a little bit. I mean, I constantly burned through it. Go down to zero and filled it back up. But as soon as I sell a property it's like, "Well, this money is in my account." And then a couple weeks later I spend it all.
Jill: Exactly.
Steven: We've been doing this for decades and we go through the exact same thing. We rip through capital constantly.
Sliger: It is fun to see that equity build.
Steven: It's really just a catch 22. It's like, I think when we have too much money, I'm like, "Man, we need to place. We need to place this.
Jill: Exactly.
Sliger: Otherwise, it's just sitting around in the bank.
Jill: Exactly. And I love it too because now that you ... I mean, when you say it Nick, and you know, and you put it out there it's going to happen. I bet if you picked a date and wrote it down on a sticky note you'll probably hit the date. It's weird how that stuff happens but it does.
Steven: How much mail do you send out a month ballpark?
Sliger: I really wanted to start off with a 1,500 but over time whether it be I run into a little hiccup here or there. I don't get them out that frequently. Maybe it's more closer to every two months or three months trying to send out 1,500 letters. I have a schedule that tries to do it, but I often times don't stick to my schedule the way I'd like to. It's there but it doesn't always happen. I'm right now, I actually just got together a house mailer because I'm also on House Academy.
Sliger: And my sister moved up to Minnesota so I'm helping her try to find a place. I was up and visiting her last weekend so we drove around and looked at some of the zip codes and tried to zero that down. I didn't find as many homes as we wanted to sell. Because when you start putting in the square footage, and no pool, and this many bedrooms, and that many bathrooms, the more criteria you put in smaller the list gets. I came up with a 1,058 I believe. But I just sent that off to Offers 2 Owners this morning. And they're going to hopefully get that data back to me because I'd like to just scrub that out and send it out by the end of the week.
Jill: That's great.
Steven: How great is Data Tree?
Sliger: It's awesome. I mean, the information in there is really cool. But I remember seeing it at the live event when you were showing us the infill lots. We all had access to it as far as being able to see how many homes were in a county to do that process. But it's nice to have all the access to be able to pull it down and go through it. I've been playing around with it a lot. And one thing I found was a little interesting was trying to figure out how to get the one ... My sister had some specific requirements. 1.75 bedrooms, or bathrooms, excuse me.
Jill: You're like, "Really?"
Sliger: When I put that in it, I don't know, it came out as 1.5. But I'm just going to roll with it. I mean, there's so much to do in there.
Jill: That's got to be pretty fun. I want to hear how this plays out. When it comes down to it and you're ... When you get it down and you have three dream homes for her to choose from or something. That's a show. We talked about that. That would be a whole ... That could be an HGTV show. You know? Wouldn't that be funny.
Steven: Did you hear the ... Go ahead.
Jill: That's some House Hunters and they narrow down the thing. We do it. It's the data hunters. Who cares about the flipping wallpaper.
Steven: Did you use smart pricing?
Sliger: I just sent that off today. This morning. I'm waiting to get that back and then I'll go through and try to figure it out. And see if I want to do price per square foot or do just the straight margin. Or, I also thought about putting in another category for percentage and just seeing how all those fan outburst with each other.
Jill: How are the days on market in that area that she wants to buy?
Sliger: They are really low. I did the red, yellow, green test and across they didn't all come out green and some of them even came out red as far as the number of properties for sale versus the total number in the area. But the days on the market are less than 30 for a lot of them.
Steven: How about the average sale price?
Jill: That's great.
Sliger: It varied. I wish I had the sheet up in front of me. I turned off my other computer so my phone didn't ring through it. The average sale price and what we're going for is right around let's say 285 to 320.
Jill: That's great. [crosstalk 00:08:09].
Steven: We're going to use this on House Academy, this interview. Actually, I'm going to air it this Thursday.
Sliger: All right. Cool. And she's going to do the boots on the ground role.
Steven: Excellent.
Jill: You might get a couple. You know what, and by the way, all her rejects that she doesn't want to move into or buy you could submit them to me for deal funding.
Steven: We have a House Academy deal funding so rip it through there.
Jill: Exactly.
Steven: We're doing a purchase right now.
Jill: You guys could make some money to put towards the one she does buy.
Sliger: That'd be awesome. That was my plan. Anything that she doesn't want I just submit it to you guys and then possibly house tank if it's up by that point.
Steven: Summertime in Minnesota too. This is the time to do it. Minnesota ... it's Minnesota you said, right?
Sliger: It is. I was just there. And it was nice but I realized living in Arizona I don't really like the humidity.
Steven: I miss Arizona.
Jill: And mosquitoes maybe. There's other things.
Steven: I miss the people in Arizona. Not the weather so much.
Sliger: Half the year it's just beautiful out here, but the other half it's pretty miserable.
Jill: Exactly.
Steven: I can't remember. You're in Queen Creek, right?
Sliger: No, I've lived all over. I'm in Mesa right now.
Steven: We just tore through Mesa. Oh, you saw the program. We bought and sold and bunch of houses in Mesa.
Sliger: It's funny. I live in the 85201 zip code.
Jill: Good to know. We have an emergency backup eyes that can go look at a property that's right there.
Steven: Hey, do you have any interest in being an Arizona BOG?
Sliger: Yeah. I actually did submit it. I heard you guys talk about it and mentioned me on the last House Academy call.
Steven: Done, done, and done.
Jill: You did. Aaron has another list that we're running. I got to make sure that I get that in there.
Steven: You're in West Mesa, right? That's what that zip code is.
Sliger: Yeah. It's northwest Mesa. Pretty much where the 202 hits the 101. In that area.
Steven: We still have a place in Old Town Scottsdale it's right by the mall. Next to it. That's on the edge of Scottsdale, right?
Sliger: Yeah, it is. It's just kitty-corner to South Scottsdale. And I grew up in the Scottsdale area. I lived in Phoenix, and Mesa, Tempe all over.
Jill: I know.
Steven: We might have to do a Nick Sliger specific BOG mailer.
Jill: We could.
Sliger: That'd be cool. I'm happy to map it to travel.
Jill: Cool. Good. Help him get rid of that job faster.
Sliger: It'll be another incentive to quit the job. I could probably quit it now, I just don't want to quit too early. But I got one foot on the boat, one foot on the dock and I'm just waiting.
Jill: Exactly. Hang out a little bit longer and then you're going to, "Oh, yeah. It'll be good. You don't want to stress.
Steven: Awesome.
Sliger: But hopefully, I'll be doing a lot of land. As far as I've had a lot of successes as far as increasing my capital and really growing. I'd like to be able to spend full-time on it. But I have this other obligation for the time being. When I'm off work, I pretty much spend all my free time that I have working on land things.
Jill: Have you ever done LandTank? Because one of the great things too, while you're doing this because you know what you're doing, you could just mail away and use somebody else's money for a while to fund them and get there faster too.
Sliger: I really need to. I'm just sometimes I feel like I'm always catching up on the work that I need to do for my own business as far as the advertising, I mean, I probably spend more time advertising than anything. Posting things everywhere. I'm posting on my website, your website another land website. The lands dashboard, LandHub, Land Century, Facebook, my own page, the market, the marketplaces. I'm doing Zillow and Trulia, and Craigslist in about 10 cities. That just takes forever even though I can just copy and paste to keep up all of that. Make sure you refresh it. Try to bump to the top. That's probably one of the first things I want to arm out to someone else in the future.
Jill: Perfect.
Steven: I mean, the group in the Philippines that works with us, they're intimately familiar with how that goes. At three or $4 an hour, it's worth it.
Sliger: Definitely. I'd do it all over. I built my own website, I answer the phone for the sales, and the buyers, and just everything across the board.
Steven: You're from Arizona and you do stuff yourself.
Jill: Exactly.
Sliger: Pretty much.
Steven: Unlike most the people in California.
Jill: Silly. It's not as bad as some areas that we talked about. There's some areas we want to bring back. I mean, that's one of the things we ... Right now we're working on bringing back TitleMind. I know you know. But Listing Gopher or some version of that, that we can do that for people and post properties that is ... I want to do that because we all need it.
Sliger: What would you pay, speaking of Listing Gopher? What would you pay to have your property posted everywhere? A flat fee. What do you think would be a reasonable price?
Steven: I don't really know off the top of my head. I haven't really spent much time pricing it. but, obviously, the lower the better for me, but I don't really know to be honest with you.
Jill: Some days I'd pay $1,000.
Sliger: Man, that's true. For the amount of time, it'll free up.
Jill: That's fine. I'll just roll into the deal.
Sliger: Well, I currently have two properties that I'm selling together in Arkansas and I've never had a title company take so long. I think we're stretching on into a month and a half. And they don't seem to be in any hurry. The buyer doesn't seem to be in any hurry. I'm calling them a couple times a week but try not to drive them nuts, but it's driving me nuts. But, at this point, all I can really do is be patient and let them know that I still want them to get it done and I'm available to do anything on my end that'll expedite it.
Jill: That's good.
Steven: I don't mind that. Turtlemine will solve that problem for you overnight.
Jill: Well, the nice thing is you're in communication with the buyer. And it's not like if you wanted to camp on there this weekend, you can say, go for it. It's not like you can't use it kind of thing. It's cool.
Steven: Exactly. Hey, back to this farm thing. Farms and Arizona usually don't mix. Was it in Arizona this farm business?
Sliger: It's actually, it's a glorified farm. It's my backyard as one big huge vegetable garden. But I incorporated as an LLC because if you've been farming for three out of the last 10 years, then you're eligible for really low-interest-rate loans on farm property through the FSA, which is the farm service agency. But at one point, I had learned about this before I had joined Land Academy but I thought that might be one viable way for me to actually be able to get some property because farm land is pretty expensive. But I don't really want to buy laser level farm field where you need a big $300,000 combine. I want to do more fruit, nut, edible trees, stuff like that. Run animals, chickens, cows. A piece of property that I'd want to live on. I thought about ...Oh, sorry, go ahead, please.
Steven: Are you selling the product?
Sliger: I do. I sell a product but it's not a big moneymaker for me. I just sell it to the mostly friends and family and then sometimes because the LLC is a different legal entity than Nick Sliger himself, I just sell it to myself. Then I give it away I account for it.
Jill: Perfect.
Steven: Do you get any property tax breaks?
Sliger: No, because I'm renting.
Steven: But I mean, would you be eligible for that?
Sliger: You would. I think definitely if you ... I'm not sure if you have to rezone the property agricultural if it's a residential zone but I'm pretty sure that you do. I'm not exactly sure what that whole process would be though.
Steven: I have a friend out here and they, he has nothing to do with farming, but he grows a lot of lavender and property taxes are zero.
Jill: And the winery. He's got it all.
Steven: But in California, that's a big deal.
Sliger: That's one way that I've heard that people that are trying to get into ... Sometimes people are trying to get into farming. They find a large landowner and make that proposal to them. "Hey, let me farm your land and we'll bring down your property taxes."
Steven: That's all right.
Jill: Exactly.
Steven: That's the name of the show. How to bring down your property taxes?
Jill: Exactly.
Sliger: That would be a good one.
Jill: A little patch in our front area. I could plant a few things there. Let's see what I could come up with. Wouldn't that be funny.
Sliger: Exactly. Because farming technically is just the buying and selling of agricultural goods, so they don't say how much you have to grow or sell.
Jill: There we go.
Steven: Awesome. Everybody's wondering how you started from nothing and ramped your business up to the point where you're contemplating quitting your job. Can you share it with us?
Sliger: Definitely. The free property didn't hurt. Add a little bit of capital saved to get into it. I didn't get into it with no money but my initial investment was about 5,000 bucks. And I was buying properties cheap ones, 500 bucks, selling them for 1,000. Selling them for 1,500. On a couple like that, I kept building up. Bought properties for 500 sell them for 3,000.
Sliger: But after about 10 of those I realized that I just wanted to go bigger. I started buying 20-acre properties for about 6,500 bucks. Selling those for about 15 to 20. And then it moved up to some forties and some eighties. But one thing I realized was although it's the same amount of work, in fact, it's often less work when a title company does it for you as opposed to you closing yourself. They just don't sell as fast.
Sliger: And I don't want to sell on terms. Probably 85% of my inquiries are people that want to sell on terms and I just let them know that, "Hey, I can take your credit card, you can finance it, or I'll send them a link to a couple of websites that do funding for things like that." But they don't, for whatever reason, they want me to fund it.
Sliger: Because I think I told this story may be at the live event, but the one time I did sell something on terms, I sold it on terms. The guy defaulted after four payments, had it in my name the whole time. I sent them what I thought was the proper paperwork and then about two months later I resold it. But when the new buyer went to the property, he found the previous buyer squatting on it.
Steven: Oh, man.
Sliger: I had to refund his money. But it was at a bad time where my personal account and business account were pretty low. I had bought some 20 acres up in Washington that had some title problems so I went back to the seller, renegotiated down what I thought it was going to cost me to do a quiet title action. That was a couple of months previous. But when I got that check in the second time for the property cash, I wanted to pay off the attorney. But I wrote that check.
Sliger: But then now the buyers coming back to me and he needs his money back. And I can't in good conscience, not refund him because it's not his fault to deal with this third-party maniac. I pretty much wiped out of all my money in my business account, my personal account. And went to my sister and borrowed some money. Those were a couple tough months. I was running a one-man Ponzi scheme of sorts, just like taking money from one account, balance it back and forth just trying to keep my finances and everything alive.
Steven: And you're officially now a real entrepreneur. If you borrow money from family you're an entrepreneur.
Jill: That's perfect.
Sliger: A couple of things that I've learned even though I've done well on some stuff with no access. I don't think I'd buy another property without access again. I have one that's just beautiful but I can't sell the darn thing and I got it priced really low with that access issue. Because I really disclosed it in my ad and I just can't sell it for whatever reason. The other ones I sold were to adjacent landowners so it was a lot easier.
Steven: And did you quiet title successfully quiet title the Washington properties?
Sliger: I did. I did two. And I probably wouldn't do it again unless it was a much higher price point. That was probably about ... There are two properties so they varied a little bit. But let's say 6,000 and 7,500 into them each. And then turned around and sold them for 15 to 18. But the amount of time it took and how much of my percentage of capital it wrapped up during that time, it wasn't worth it. I'd do it again if there was a big net to be had in the end. But, otherwise, it just eats up too much time.
Steven: What were the legal fees?
Sliger: I got a good deal. I paid about 1,750 to 2,000 per properties.
Steven: That's great.
Sliger: But I had to do some negotiating with the guy. He was a nice guy but typical lawyer. They come back and they always want a little bit more. I really had to hold him to his original agreement with me because he thought it would be less work than it was.
Steven: How long did it take?
Sliger: Six months.
Steven: That's about right.
Sliger: I don't think I'd do it again like I said unless there was a lot more a net to be had in it.
Jill: When you're buying for 12 and selling for 50.
Steven: I did this in Arizona on a bunch of 40-acre properties in Maricopa County. I bought it for 21,000 for ... It cost 2,500 to foreclose on it, and we sold it for $1.8 million.
Sliger: Those are the sort of nets that I would do it again for.
Jill: That works.
Steven: You know that shrimp farm out there?
Sliger: No. Where is that?
Steven: On the way to ... If you drive to San Diego from Phoenix on the eight. Right behind that shrimp farm. Right by the prison down there.
Sliger: Oh, all right. Nice.
Jill: Almost to Juarez.
Steven: This is a lot of years ago actually.
Jill: Exactly. Cool.
Steven: Nick, it was great talking to you. Do you have any questions for us?
Sliger: No. I got one more quick story though if you guys want to hear it. All right, cool. I'm on a property, I got this 40-acre in Washington. Got the title, insurance. Bought it from a gentleman hadn't been there in about 10 or 12 years. And he told me that there was a gate but it was just dummy locked you could push right by it. I'm like, all right. I hire a photographer to got out there, he's a drone photographer so he doesn't bother going to the property he just flies his drone over.
Sliger: I get thinking about the gate. I'm like, I wonder what the story of that gate is. I hire another photographer that I'd used before and it's a coded gate. You can't get through the sucker. And so then I went and looked at all the title stuff. I see there's another road. I send her on that one it's a little perilous. She gets stopped by some down trees. I called the fire department, the police department. The mail is wondering how I got there. The mailboxes are outside the gate. The police department it's always a civil issue for them.
Sliger: But, fortunately, she found someone on the other path that is in the area was talking to them. Got their number for me. I talked to them. Got the backstory on when that more bigger gate went up. Come to be that her husband is a UPS driver and his friend has that route. Hopefully, I've got fingers crossed. They're going to call me today and furnish me with the gate code so that I can call back about five or six people that are waiting to go see the property that really-
Jill: That's awesome. I just see the gate code.
Steven: We never cross the line.
Jill: That's good. You have to do that sometimes. I'm glad.
Steven: What are the economics of that deal?
Jill: That one in for 14,300 with everything so far and should be out of it in 40.
Jill: Nice.
Steven: Those are great numbers.
Jill: That's good.
Steven: That'll be one of my better ones.
Jill: That's really, really good.
Steven: That's awesome. Nick, it was a pleasure talking to you. I'm glad you're with us, man. And I'm glad this is working for you.
Sliger: I love the group. I think it's awesome.
Steven: All right, pal. We'll see you soon. And thanks again for being on the show.
Sliger: Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. Take care guys.
Steven: Bye.
Sliger: Yes, bye.
Perfect-Time Line for a House Flip (030)
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven 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 sunny southern California.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about the perfect timeline for a house flip and I can guarantee you that we have different opinions on this.
Jill DeWit: I know. Right before this show, I said, "Hey, hold on a minute, Steven. I would like to share with you my timeline just to make sure we're on the same page," and Steven replied with, "It really doesn't matter. We can get into an argument right here if you want to." I'm like, "Okay," because I know I have my timeline and you have yours.
Steven Butala: I sure do.
Jill DeWit: You know what's funny, is I think people would probably guess that mine is more forgiving and I think they would be surprised.
Steven Butala: Yeah. Before we get into the topic, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the houseacademy.com online community, it's free.
Jill DeWit: Mary asks, "I just received a 22 unit rental house group of houses from a mailer. Rental house group. Does this happen to you and how should I proceed?" Go back. What a 22-
Steven Butala: I think she means ... she means that she sent a mail campaign out and somebody responded and said, "Hey, not only do I want to sell you this house, but I have 21 other houses that are all rented out. How about you just buy all of them and get me out of this nightmare landlord position I've created for myself?"
Jill DeWit: Now that makes sense. All right. How would you recommend she proceeds?
Steven Butala: Well, you know, those things can be ... The good news is that you generated the deal. You didn't go on the MLS and try to undo it, so you got there first. That's the good news. But I personally ... We get these probably every month and I've never done one because there's always real good houses in a portfolio and real bad ones and that's just not our business model.
Steven Butala: We have a real specific acquisition criteria and a real specific business model and we just churn it constantly. So there's a small chance that 22 ... There's 22 houses this guy has that are rented and they're reasonably priced and they don't need a ton of work. There's a small chance of that, but my experience has been landlords either stay in the business and they work it out or they don't.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: So I'm not knocking it and I would actually-
Jill DeWit: And they're usually jumping for a reason.
Steven Butala: If I've got a 22 unit deal in, and we just got one that was eight units in just recently, I looked at them all, I analyzed them as if I was going to buy them and we didn't get into the inspection point because half of the portfolio was in a really bad neighborhood. So, I just said ... And he didn't want to separate them out, which is typical. I understand that.
Jill DeWit: I have one that was so funny too. Well, I had one like this where the gentleman, he knew that there were problems and he kept saying, "Are you sure you want to buy?" What's funny is I didn't pick up on the red flags and his hesitation. He knew we were going down this path and he knew darn well I wasn't going to pull the trigger because I was a professional. Then at the end when I said, "Yeah, we're not buying this," he's like, "I'm not surprised." It was so funny. He's like, "I know. I kind of thought that. I wish you all the best." I said, "Thank you. You too."
Steven Butala: They can work, but you got to be set up for them. I'd rather get 22 single unit deals in. This is the exact opposite with land, by the way. When we get a 22 unit dealing on land, everybody jumps up and down around the office, especially if it's all in one county and the offers are signed. But with houses, they're in all guaranteed different situations. Especially if they're rentals. Today's topic, the perfect timeline for a house flip. This is why you're listening.
Jill DeWit: Smarty pants, I want you to go first.
Steven Butala: Jill and I renovated exactly two houses in our careers investments, before we said never ever again would we renovate, actually physically renovate, or rehab a house to resell it. The first one cash in, cash out took 45 days and we made about $28,000 and I just about wanted jump off a bridge. When you really look back on it, 45 days as smashingly awesome with escrow, in and out. We sold it for cash to this Canadian woman, the nicest lady ever. It was the most atrociously awful experience I've ever had, which is good, you got to have those to devise another system.
Steven Butala: So by anybody's measure, cash in, cash out on a house sake for 45 days, it's great. By mine, it's atrocious. So we do a lot of front end works. I do a lot of front end work to pick a market by zip code or by subdivision to make Jill's life on the sell side really easy, where there's days on market are less than 30 days.
Steven Butala: So the perfect timeline for the wholesale deal that we do is three weeks cash in, cash out, three weeks and we cleared more than 25,000 bucks. That's a perfect deal for us. Do we ever hit those? Yeah.
Steven Butala: We just had a house, it took almost four or five months to sell because we retail it out and we all knew that. We also made 80,000 bucks on it, $70,000 or $80,000. so it depends on the deal, is my answer but if it's a regular, good, take it into possession, wholesale deal for us. Three weeks.
Jill DeWit: We're on the same page.
Steven Butala: Really?
Jill DeWit: Well here's how I broke it down, though. Let me tell you, I went one step further. I wasn't talking about doing a renovation. I'm talking about a flip, the way we flip, which is we don't do anything to it. I don't even sweep. So I want to be cash in, cash out in two weeks, because we've done this, this isn't ... you said perfect, I came up with perfect because we have done this. I want 30 days in a perfect scenario that the offer comes in, to cash out 30, days.
Jill DeWit: Let me tell you how this works. So day one, the sign offer letter comes in, we are on it, we're out there that day, or the next day we get the inspection, we open escrow, we are doing everything perfect. Then on day 15, that's when we're cash in because we're closing on the buy side. So that's when I'm putting the money in. Then a perfect world, day 16 I had an open house-
Steven Butala: Wow Jill, you've got to [inaudible 00:06:13].
Jill DeWit: We've done this, you said perfect, I'm giving you what's possible. So don't please don't beat yourself up if you don't have the exact dates. This is not the norm.
Steven Butala: You're talking to me or the listener?
Jill DeWit: The listener. Please don't beat yourself up listener, if you don't have this exactly. This is the exception, not the rule. We have done it. So okay, so letter comes in, day 15 I close on the buy side, now I'm cash in. Day 16, because I was all ready to go, I knew on day 13, 14, 15 I'm getting this open house ready to advertise and push a button and hold it now fast.
Jill DeWit: I have investors lined up ready to go and show up. So now on day 16, I've had my open house. I've got six investors in there that I've worked with before, or maybe I've haven't worked with them before. I've got six serious investors in though because we've been talking for the last week and a half getting ready for this so I told them what was coming. They're in there, they're walking it, they know time kills deals.
Jill DeWit: So that night I'm entertaining offers, the next day, now day ... So that was 15, day 16, so they're like day 17 let's just say, I'm reopening escrow and then in a perfect world, on day 30 I'm closing on the sell side. Why can I do it that fast? Because I'm working with investors, they are also cash people and I did a hold up in policy so the back side went even faster.
Steven Butala: Two things have to happen. Jill nailed one of them. The person that you're selling it to is a professional real estate investor, they want to have it done as fast as you do because they want to get in there and rip it all apart and get it back on the market all cleaned up.
Steven Butala: Number two, and this is a little more tricky, is you have to have a seasoned escrow, slash title agent, slash closing lawyer on a short leash. That's a little harder to do, but once you're in the market for a while and you've been doing some deals, you should be able to find a perfect situation. Or at some point soon here, you're going be able to use Title Nine to do it.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. Exactly. How's that?
Steven Butala: So thirty days cash in, cash out.
Jill DeWit: No, actually that was ... No, 30 days from the letter coming in and going out. I'm talking-
Steven Butala: Oh okay. So we're saying the same thing.
Jill DeWit: It's like 15 ... You said three weeks, I said two weeks.
Steven Butala: So cash in cash out, for me is three weeks-
Jill DeWit: Cash in.
Steven Butala: ... but it takes a week before you have to put the cash in. When you get that letter, it's ... We're saying the same thing.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. So cash in cash out is less.
Steven Butala: For land out, we were getting reports back from some of our members that they're closing deals in three days with lawyers because with land there's no real due diligence. "Yep. I want to buy it. I can clearly see that this is exactly what I want."
Jill DeWit: Exactly. I don't need to walk in it and feel it and be there.
Steven Butala: We are forever talking about the pros and cons of buying and selling land versus houses forever on both shows. There's pros and cons to all of it.
Jill DeWit: I have to share something which is interesting me, that I had never heard of this before. So it's a long ... This is a shining example of why we want to do it our way versus the other way, like going the long real estate way. I have a really sweet friend who's an agent in our area and she just held a twilight listing, a twilight open house. I didn't even know that was a thing.
Steven Butala: What is that?
Jill DeWit: It's where ... and she hired a band, had it catered and everything. So people could come and view the home-
Steven Butala: She had a party.
Jill DeWit: ... at sunset, to see what is possible in this home. Not just walking through and going, "Yeah, I like it. It's a great view. It's got the bedrooms I want, the bathroom I want, maybe I'm going to change the carpet," whatever. No, it was a whole twilight ...
Steven Butala: Why didn't we get invited?
Jill DeWit: We were invited.
Steven Butala: Why didn't we go?
Jill DeWit: We were busy, we couldn't go. We had people in town and we couldn't go.
Steven Butala: That's awesome that I don't know any of this.
Jill DeWit: You know what, actually that might've been our move day. Now I think about it. I think it was a move day.
Steven Butala: Thank you for not letting me know any of this.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, you're welcome. Honestly, we were invited. I would have liked to go, but I think it was move day and I couldn't go. I'm staring at boxes and I have Russian men in my living room and a lot of boxes, I can't go.
Steven Butala: You like that?
Jill DeWit: No.
Steven Butala: Oh you don't like to have Russian men in your living room?
Jill DeWit: No, I mean, you know what it's like. Who loves moving day? Nobody loves moving day. Anyway, but the end result of moving day, as you can see, was pretty good. It worked out okay.
Steven Butala: We moved up, not down.
Jill DeWit: But we missed our twilight listing. So my point was though, you want the perfect deal just get in, get out.
Steven Butala: Did she sell the house?
Jill DeWit: It's under contract right now. So yes, that did-
Steven Butala: So did it work?
Jill DeWit: Actually she did.
Steven Butala: It really worked?
Jill DeWit: Yeah it did. I thought I told you that. I'm sorry I didn't share with you.
Steven Butala: I'm sure you did, I'm sure I [inaudible 00:10:36]. Hey, we know your time's valuable. Thanks for spending some of it with us today. Join us next time for another interesting episode.
Jill DeWit: And we answer your questions posted on our online community found on houseacademy.com and it is free.
Steven Butala: You are not alone in your real estate ambition. You know what I heard people also that people do on these high end houses? Is they make a movie.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: Like a short little eight minute movie about ... With characters and stuff in a [crosstalk 00:11:03].
Jill DeWit: Oh, I haven't seen that.
Steven Butala: They shoot all the scenes in the house and stuff.
Jill DeWit: Showing like the beautiful, perfect Christmas morning opening presents around the tree?
Steven Butala: You know, you just wrote the script in your head.
Jill DeWit: All right.
Steven Butala: The ones that I've seen didn't involve houses. It involved having a little dinner party, almost like a little music video.
Jill DeWit: Well she did a version of a dinner party. She did a party like, "Here's what you could have here at this house," and I think I worked.
Jill DeWit: Wherever you're watching, or wherever you're listening, please subscribe and rate us there.
Jill DeWit: We are Steve and Jill.
Steven Butala: We are Steve and Jill. Information ...
Jill DeWit: And inspiration ...
Steven Butala: To buy undervalued property.
Winning Over a Seller (029)
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: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny southern California.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about Winning Over a Seller. It seems like a real simple title, but-
Jill DeWit: There's a bit to it.
Steven Butala: ... there's a lot to it. What I take this title to mean, and maybe you take it differently, is you sent a bunch of mail out. A certain number of people sign it or call you back and say, "Yeah. I'm interested in selling my house, but I'm not sure that price is going work for us." Or, "I'm not sure the time frame is [inaudible 00:00:35]" So you got to win over the seller, win over their trust.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: I think that's what this means.
Jill DeWit: Well, part of it is, too, sometimes now you warmed them up to selling. They might start shopping, too, because we've had that. They might say, "Oh, you sent me an offer. I'm going to see what We Buy Ugly Houses would give me, or So-and-so." And you want them to pick you.
Steven Butala: Exactly.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the HouseAcademy.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWit: Jackie asks, "I've had two sellers change their minds. Is this normal, and how do I manage it in the future?"
Steven Butala: Well, that's kind of what this topic is about, managing a seller or winning over a seller, so ...
Jill DeWit: Stuff happens. It's funny. Even as buyers, we've changed our minds.
Steven Butala: Yes. As buyers, we've changed our minds. Maybe we get the inspection back, and we're like, "Wow."
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: Actually, we had a house recently where the foundation ... This is in Arizona, which is unusual. The foundation for the garage was very uneven for their driveway. We chose to go ahead and purchase the house anyway, and it all worked out with a storybook ending, but-
Jill DeWit: Some of our buyers were not-
Steven Butala: ... we used that. We used that foundational potential issue to get the price that we really wanted, which I would call managing the seller. What it's titled? What's the title?
Jill DeWit: Winning Over the Seller.
Steven Butala: Winning Over the Seller.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: People change their minds for all kinds of reasons. Actually, that's really what this topic is about, so let's just get into it.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. And you know what? I don't really care. Honestly ... No, I'm serious. I mean, I just move on. There's always more deals. All you can do is do your best, and you never want to say ... I want to talk about this for just a second about this question. You never want to say, "Well, you signed a paper," or whatever it is.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Things happen. People change their mind. The best thing you can do is move on, and hopefully you didn't spend money on it getting inspection. Even if you did, that's okay. Stuff happens. I would do my best to work with them and find out what it is, and if you can save it, do it within reason. If they come back and say, "I want retail now," well, that's not going to happen.
Steven Butala: So what's your approach on this? You find out what triggered the change of heart?
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Talk to them.
Steven Butala: And talk to them about it. Can I give you a couple ... Go-
Jill DeWit: Hopefully you've got the relationship with them that they're honest with you and they tell you.
Steven Butala: I mean, let's say-
Jill DeWit: Want to ask me about it?
Steven Butala: ... it's price. It's obviously ... Let's say, "You know what? I talked to my sister, and she's like, 'The house is worth $50,000 more than that.'" What do you say?
Jill DeWit: Is she going to ... "I talked to my sister. The house is worth $50,000 more." "You know what? This is my offer. This is what I prepared to pay, and I can close on Tuesday. I'm not even going to discuss it. Is she going to buy it from you?" "No, but she thinks I can get more." "Well, I wish you well." I mean, I don't really have an answer.
Steven Butala: I do.
Jill DeWit: I mean, that's part of like ... What is your answer? I would keep moving through the process quickly.
Steven Butala: My answer is it depends on the markets. Because long before we send mail out into a market, I know what the days on market is. I know all the stats.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: So if it's a soft market, meaning it takes a little bit longer to sell, my speech is always, "Well, good luck with that, because do you want $252,000 in your checking account on Thursday or not?"
Jill DeWit: That's what I'm saying. Yeah.
Steven Butala: So, "You can take your chance to get 310."
Jill DeWit: "You could sure try, but you got a sure thing right here."
Steven Butala: Yeah. That's right. Bird in the hand.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Butala: So there's lots of reasons that people change their mind.
Jill DeWit: Well, I always think about the one that happened to me recently, too. Not recently. Like a year or so ago, where the guy was ... It was a good lesson for us about due diligence and following up quickly. Back then, we didn't have a team that was so accessible. I think that would have made a difference if we like powered on through and really had a quick timeline. But he had time to shop his deal with We Buy Ugly Houses, or somebody like that.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: They came out, and here's what happened. They talked him into signing an agreement, which we already had a signed agreement, too. But they like coerced him-
Steven Butala: That's right. I remember that.
Jill DeWit: ... and hardcore sold the guy and had the guy freaked out scared that if he went to us. And I'm like, "Dude ..." And it was like a difference of $2,000 or something really minimum. Like, "If that's all you want to get out of it, I would have given you $2,000. I don't really care. It would have been a lot easier."
Steven Butala: I remember that deal.
Jill DeWit: I felt bad, because I know the guy was kicking himself later on in the end, going, "I wish I would have ..." I don't know how it all played out, but I'm pretty darn sure they weren't as nice and easy and good to work with as us. Because they're obviously ... Again, they were like hardcore scaring the guy, and that's not cool.
Steven Butala: It was a difference of opinion between husband and wife. I remember that. The wife wanted to close with the Ugly Houses, and the husband wanted to close with us.
Jill DeWit: Well, and I hadn't had a chance to talk to her, and that's fine. But you know what? In the end, we all know how it works out. We all know how that went.
Steven Butala: Would you rather do business with Jill or some Ugly Houses guy who's angry? I know which one I'd like.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Steven Butala: Today's topic, Winning Over a Seller. This is why you're listening.
Jill DeWit: Well, that ties into this, too, with the We Buy Ugly Houses thing. It's like shopping with a local store versus a big chain. We all know it's different, and that's what we bring to the table. And that's what you would bring to the table as an investor, and that's why our whole House Academy community is successful. We are real people, too. I can't go on We Buy Ugly Houses and look up the guy's Facebook page, and see what he does, and make sure he's a good guy.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: It's very different, and I think ... I know we are. We're going to pass them. We are all individually doing more deals ... I'm sure of it ... than they are. And I don't want to be that. I like being a small, individual company where I can make the decisions. I talk to my team about that, too. That's one of the beautiful things working for a company like us, that you don't have a time clock. You don't have all these rules and regulations. We can do our own thing.
Steven Butala: Here's a fact. We send out these offers, and we purchase houses and land at very predictable and consistent rates. So if somebody comes back and says, "I changed my mind," in the end, really what should happen is, "Okay. Thanks very much. But please don't come back to me when the deal falls through on the next one." Or, "If you do come back, it's going to be a lot more. The price is going to be less." Because somebody's going to sign an offer and send it back, and next day, it's going to be on your desk. That's the truth of it, so there's no reason to fret.
Jill DeWit: Mm-mm (negative). Just send out more mail. It's not a big deal.
Jill DeWit: So I was going to say about the topic, so winning over sellers, I have four points. One is listen to their stories, and trust me, they have them. That's whoever of the things that I've found is that people, they get our offer. They call us. We connect with them. They feel good about it. They have no reason to call anybody else. They feel good about the price. They're happy they don't have to do anything. We make it easy for them, and we get to know them. I can tell some of the stories that have got to me about So-and-so's son. "My son needs to come from New Orleans."
Steven Butala: It's a personal story.
Jill DeWit: "He's going to help me pack, and here's the reason why. Here's why he lives there. Here's why I'm selling, because now it's just me rattling around this great big house." All those things. Listen to their stories and get to know them.
Steven Butala: That's it.
Jill DeWit: It's important to build this relationship.
Jill DeWit: Number two, talk to them like they're family. That's what they want. That's what you want. You don't want someone bulldozing over you, and neither do they. They want you to go, "All right ..." For example, the back tax thing you brought up on the show yesterday. Halfway through the process, we've had a like, "Oh, shucks. We were off by a couple thousand dollars on the back taxes." We worked it out together. In that situation, I think we ate it, as a matter of fact, I think we just said.
Steven Butala: Yeah. I know we did.
Jill DeWit: You know what? This is what, for me, is why we're here and makes a difference. We promised them a net to them price. We found out we were off by a couple thousand dollars on back taxes. That's on us, not on them. Sure, I let it be known that, "Hey, by the way, we're off. I just wanted to you to know that we're eating it, because we really want to get this deal done, and we made a promise." And that's [crosstalk 00:08:55] follow through.
Steven Butala: You know what happened in that deal? Very specifically speaking, taxes. I don't want to wreck your train of thought here.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Butala: But on that deal ... It's because it's valuable. We looked up the back tax amount, and it was X. I think it was like $8,000. It was a lot. We said, "Great. We factored it all in. Yep, there's no problem." When escrow went to go pay off the taxes, they said, "Oh, yeah. It's 8,000 bucks, but it's so far back, that there's all these admin fees and punitive fees."
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: So it ended up costing us 2,000 bucks more.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: Even us. Of all the deals we've done, you still can't predict exactly what's going to happen.
Jill DeWit: It happens, so you have to roll with it.
Steven Butala: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jill DeWit: It's okay.
Jill DeWit: My third point is winning over sellers is you need to simplify the escrow/closing process for them. Don't turn around and use the same verbiage that the escrow company or the closing person used with you, because your sellers don't ... They don't necessarily understand all that. They haven't closed a deal since 30 years ago, traditionally, when they bought the house.
Steven Butala: Before the internet.
Jill DeWit: They're not in the same level with you, and they don't really understand, so simplify it as much as you can and make it really easy for them. This is one of the things I think a good real estate agent should do. I don't think all of them do that, and I wish they would.
Steven Butala: Yeah. All of this stuff is really the behavior that real estate agents should have, and you're taking over that role and managing it.
Jill DeWit: It's true.
Steven Butala: I think people value customer service. That's what this is. You're putting yourself in a customer service role and making sure they're happy.
Jill DeWit: Yep.
Steven Butala: They didn't chose you because of their price. Price is not the first ...
Jill DeWit: That's true.
Steven Butala: Price is not their first priority. If price was their first priority, they would call a listing agent. They would get their act together, clean the house out, maybe put some flowers out or whatever happens when you have an open house, and take that route. And many, many, many people do, and they get our letters, and they throw them away, and that's fine. But it's all built into our back end numbers.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: They're calling us, because they have something that they need to deal with. They don't want to show their house. There's some garbage in the basement. Who knows?
Jill DeWit: Right. Or they need it fast and easy.
Steven Butala: Whatever it is, we're there to solve it for them.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jill DeWit: Then my final thing is, for winning over sellers, always deliver as promised. One of the fastest ways to mess up a deal is for them not to trust you, because you say you're going to call, and you don't call. You say you're going to do something, and you don't show up. You say you're going to have this, and you don't. Then they doubt you, and you can't have that. So even if there's a delay, tell them, "You're not going to believe this, but my home inspector got in a car accident." Not to say ... But tell them honestly, and say, "I've got his second in command coming, and he'll be there at 4:00. It's not going to be noon. Does that work for you, or do you want to do the next day?" Be in communication. Don't just let it happen.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: That's my list.
Steven Butala: That's a great-
Jill DeWit: Do you want to add more?
Steven Butala: No. I think that just be a human being, you know?
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: When we started Land Academy in 2015, and now House Academy, we're trying just look straight into the camera and tell you like it is.
Jill DeWit: Like right now.
Steven Butala: That's the whole model. That's it. We're not here to upsell anything or sell a product. We're just telling you how these deals go. If you treat a seller that way, that's all anybody wants, you know?
Jill DeWit: Yep. Exactly.
Steven Butala: Hey, we know your time's valuable. Thanks for spending some of it with us today, anyway. Join us next time for the episode called, The Perfect Timeline for a House Flip.
Jill DeWit: And we answer your questions posted on our online community found at HouseAcademy.com. It is free.
Steven Butala: You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill DeWit: That was good. I liked the way you wrapped that up.
Steven Butala: That's what everybody wants out of everything in life.
Jill DeWit: I know. That's the thing, too. Now with House Academy, I'm telling people, too, "Be a real person. They're going to look you up. They're going to look up your LinkedIn. They're going to look up your history. They're going to look at your Facebook page. And you want to make sure that you're presenting yourself well, and you show that you're an investor. Then they're going to trust you and want to sign it and send it back."
Steven Butala: As consumers, we're just so set up to be disappointed constantly. Like even when you're a kid, you see a commercial on TV for like a toy. Then you get it, and it's like, "Yeah. It doesn't do anything like that. It doesn't fly at all."
Jill DeWit: It breaks after one use. That's true. That's kind of sad, but you're right.
Steven Butala: You don't want this to be that way.
Jill DeWit: No, you don't.
Jill DeWit: Wherever you're watching, wherever you are listening, please subscribe and rate us there. We are Steven and Jill.
Steven Butala: We are Steve and Jill. Information ...
Jill DeWit: ... and inspiration ...
Steven Butala: ... to buy undervalued property.
Our In-House Title Escrow Company is COMING SOON (028)
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven 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 sunny southern California.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about our in house title escrow company and how it's coming soon.
Jill DeWit: Oh yep.
Steven Butala: Actually it's been around for a while.
Jill DeWit: Yep.
Steven Butala: It was so popular we had to turn it off.
Jill DeWit: Yep.
Steven Butala: Jill's going to explain it all.
Jill DeWit: Yep.
Steven Butala: We're bringing it back. House Academy is not that old. We're bringing it back. It's the single most requested tool that we have. Where is Title Mind? Where is it, what happened?
Jill DeWit: Title Mind is what it is. It's coming.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the HouseAcademy.com online community, it's free.
Jill DeWit: Stacy asks, what are acceptable closing costs for a $250000 house?
Steven Butala: What do you think Jill?
Jill DeWit: $2000
Steven Butala: Wow, just boom.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: The answer is, it really depends on the market you're in. There's some markets where it's very inexpensive to close on a house. Texas is one of them. There's some markets, as you would imagine, like California where it's a lot more. Some of those costs are not real costs, they're actual prorations for taxes. Taxes are real high in Texas.
Jill DeWit: That's not including that. I'm just talking closing costs. That's all I'm talking.
Steven Butala: So what you need to know in this venue is there's HUD-1 and I heavily encourage you to look up HUD-1, just look at, there's a million HUD-1 on Google. Just look at the price of the house, what the seller proceeds went to on the buyer and seller. It's debit and credit thing, like an accounting thing. It's not complicated at all. You've got to look for line 1400. Is it 1100 or 1400? I think it's 1400. And that's where escrow companies love to jam cost-centing, $45 for FEDEX.
Jill DeWit: I'm including all that in there.
Steven Butala: I know.
Jill DeWit: So that's like, for our deals that we've done, we've done several in that price range, and that's the sweet spot.
Steven Butala: That's what to plan for. It could be less, could be a little bit more.
Jill DeWit: Sometimes I can get a little bit less. I'm lucky and get it down to 1400 or 1200, but just to give you a gauge, if you're spending 2000 it's not crazy. That's everything in there. They'll pad their notary fees, they'll pad their mail fees. You just have to be, they do. It's ridiculous.
Steven Butala: Got to watch them.
Jill DeWit: Then sometimes it's just the way it is. They don't back down. That's partially why Title Mind is coming back. We can explain more about that here.
Steven Butala: Today's topic, our in-house title escrow company is coming soon. This is why you're listening.
Jill DeWit: This is one of the reasons why we're doing this.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: I'm tired of it. I'm tired.
Steven Butala: That's my girl. Mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore.
Jill DeWit: Gosh. If you've not been through this, you're lucky and it's coming. But I tell you, these escrow companies, they charge $150 no matter what. They're sending something with a $0.49 stamp or a $6 postage, we're like, you know what, sorry. Every deal we put in $150 for all the mail to go back and forth for signing, things like that. I'm like, you've got to be kidding. It costs all of $40, and they're sorry that's just the way it is. They also do this with notaries. This one's a good one too. We all know the notary costs $50 or $75, but no, it's $150. Like, okay fine. There's nothing you can do about it. Or what you can do though is what we're doing. Open your own title company.
Jill DeWit: What it is, is Title Mind. We opened it a while back as escrow only, even thought Title is in the title, it's a little confusing. So phase one is going to be what it was back then, which is escrow only. There's a lot of us doing transactions that are small enough, easy enough, no one's going to build on it. There's several reasons they need to do it quick and easy and fast. They only need escrow at this point. If you've ever tried to find a company that will only do escrow for you, which is basically being an unrelated third party, close the deal for you, prepare the deed, get recorded, handle the passing of the money, it's very hard to find that. I know, I can't think of one right now off the top of my head even that will do it.
Steven Butala: I can't either. I don't know of anyone.
Jill DeWit: They can't process that. So many of the deals that we're doing, I might be closing myself. So what we've been doing here, it's started with the land business where we were self closing deals and that's where we brought up Title Mind. So now what we're going to do, what happened was, it got over, we got overwhelmed. The day we opened the door and basically took the curtain down on the website, we were flooded with transactions. So much so, we couldn't complete our own deals, let alone keep up with everything, with the volume.
Steven Butala: That was our thought. We're doing our own deals anyway. We've got a staff of people that are closing our deals, hey why not, let's just put up a website with a little form on it and we can do your deals too. It was a beautiful theory and we're certainly capable of doing that, but we got 35 orders or something.
Jill DeWit: It was hilarious. Couldn't keep up. There's a little bit of work. What the process is, this is really more for land and I'll tell you how it's going to relate to houses in a minute, but for a land buyer, say you're buying a property for $4000 and you're going to sell it for 12 or 10, something like that. It's straightforward, the guy has owned it forever, never built on it. There's situations like that, I don't really need title, it's only for hunting or camping, the guy is not going to do anything with it like that. So instead of self-closing it, which is a person doing their own deed, like me going out writing my own deed, arranging my own notary, lining up the signing, over nighting it to the guy, my seller. Him signing it, my notary handing him the payment, which I put in an envelope for him with instructions. Then it's coming back to me, now I'm getting it together and sending it in to be recorded and then come back to me, now I'm ready to sell it kind of thing.
Jill DeWit: We took that over and we're doing it for everyone and that's why everybody loved it. They're like wow, I can just call Title Mind and I just negotiate the deal, I call Title Mind, they process the rest. Awesome.
Steven Butala: Think of it like this. You send a mailer out, you get 10 deals back that you want to do. You've got the money for it and you're convinced that everything is pretty good on the deal and you just want to keep being a deal maker. That's what you want. You want to be a deal maker, you don't want to be a paper pusher.
Jill DeWit: Now you're bogged down with doing a deed and a notary and everything.
Steven Butala: Just shove it all to us.
Jill DeWit: That's what it is.
Steven Butala: Shove it all to our staff and they process it and we get paid out of escrow. I don't know exactly how it's going to go. We take a little bit of money up front to make sure everybody is serious and then all the actual costs get paid out of escrow on the acquisition.
Jill DeWit: Well still do the escrow thing too. Here's what's going to happen. That's perfect. The point you just made, which I love is you don't want to get bogged down with these, which is true. The deal is done, you should be moving on your next acquisition and posting this one for sale and making sure that happens. The paper part in the middle is where a lot of us are, it takes some work and we don't need to do it. Somebody else can do it. What's going to happen now, I'm going to tell you, we're going to bring back Title Mind, it's probably several weeks away, just so you know, we're working on the escrow part as well. We're going to bring it back. Phase one will be a version of what we did before, which is escrow only where we're basically the transaction coordinator doing the deeds, getting it recorded, sending the mail, arranging the notary, everything to take it off your plate. Then phase two will be a traditional in house title company.
Steven Butala: Exactly like First American Title.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: Same situation.
Jill DeWit: Where you can call us with land or houses.
Steven Butala: It's better service, probably a little bit cheaper.
Jill DeWit: It could be, yeah. And you know what my note was? Here's the thing I think we should think about, we haven't even reopened the site yet or really got back into it yet, but I was thinking, what's different about us is its by investors for investors. Nobody but us really knows what we need. You as an investor, you don't need the fluff. You don't need to be padded. I'm not going to pad these fees. I'm so mad about it, you can probably tell. I am adamant about passing through directly what the costs are. We'll get paid for our time and doing the transaction in the middle, but there's not going to be any fluff. I'm going to make sure of that.
Steven Butala: For you out there, you experienced investors, you know how frustrating it is to wait on title. It happens all the time. You know how refreshing it is to get, let's say, a closing attorney or a really good title agent that's Johnny-on-the-Spot about it. Investors specifically know what they're doing. For us, honestly they're the easiest people to deal with because they understand our language. It's the retail people and the home owners themselves and the home sellers that are going to do this once or twice or three times in their whole life that are the problem. We remove all that. You don't want to deal with that. Let us deal with it. We've been doing 16000 deals ago we learned, here we are.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. I'm excited.
Steven Butala: I am too. I really am actually. It was, of all the products we've released like Parcel Fact and Counting Wise and all of them.
Jill DeWit: O2O
Steven Butala: Offers to Owners. This one has got the best response and just buried us.
Jill DeWit: I know people are, [inaudible 00:09:52] here's my only thing, the minute we said it, like this show, the day this show airs, I know you guys are going to be holding back, saving that one, saving that one for Title Mind. Saving that one for Title Mind.
Steven Butala: Please don't do that.
Jill DeWit: Get them closed because we're a few weeks/months away, but we want you to know it's in the works. We're bringing it back. We all need it.
Steven Butala: We know your time is valuable. Thanks for spending some of it with us today. Join us next time for the episode called Winning Over a Seller.
Jill DeWit: And we answer your questions posted on our online community found at HouseAcademy.com. It is free.
Steven Butala: You are not alone in your real estate ambition. I'm real excited about Title Mind. This industry, here's the truth.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: This industry is just run over with publicly traded companies that some actuary sits in an office somewhere and says, hey we should charge $25 more for all, across the board, for notary services and it should be mandatory that we have to send one out. You know how this goes.
Jill DeWit: Totally.
Steven Butala: We're going to make $16 million more tomorrow.
Jill DeWit: Yep, just by doing that.
Steven Butala: I'm excited.
Jill DeWit: I am too. I can't take it. Wherever you're watching, wherever you're listening, please subscribe and rate us there. We are Steve and Jill.
Steven Butala: Information.
Jill DeWit: Inspiration.
Steven Butala: To buy undervalued property.
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Bonjour.
Steven 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 sunny, southern California.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about the ins and outs of babysitting a house sale. If anybody is qualified to talk about this topic, it's Jill.
Jill DeWit: Oh, I would say it's us.
Steven Butala: Jill is a great ... I'm very good at generating these house sales economically, and jill is fantastic at putting the money back in the account after it comes in.
Jill DeWit: You know what's funny about this? Parenting comes in. You have to set goals and boundaries and check in, and there has to be rules, and a lot of communication.
Steven Butala: It's totally true.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. I can share more on that in a minute.
Steven Butala: If you're considering being a parent, do a couple house sales and see how you like it.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, you might change your mind.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on thehouseacademy.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWit: Andrea asked, "I've set up my first mailer and I'm getting a lot of response back. Maybe too much response." That's good. "What are your average numbers for your mailers?"
Steven Butala: Okay, good. Excuse me. Great question. On the outbound, you can expect this: for every 1800 to 3500 letters that you send out on their own, you can expect to buy a house. Some of our really experienced house academy members, us included, do a little bit better than that, but I'm not comfortable telling you that sending out 800 mailers is going to get you a house, which is realistic after four or five years of doing this.
Steven Butala: In your head, if you're new, just keep the 3000 number in your head. So you're going to spend about $1500 on mail and data in general to generate between $10 and $80,000 in profit for yourself. Those are pretty strong numbers by anybody's measure.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: So those are the outbound numbers. On the inbound numbers, what does it cost to close a deal? So a title costs, inspections is $500. Title probably costs, let's just say $1500.
Jill DeWit: Close a deal, I'm going to say it's about a $2000.
Steven Butala: That's what I figure. I always put between $2 and $3000 in my head.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: There's some marketing costs like fixed price MLS. So your data and mail should cost about $1500, and your closing costs should cost around $2500. So $4 to $5000 to close a house and own it.
Jill DeWit: I want to talk back about her question about the numbers. She's asking about what are the numbers when I sent out the mailers? What should I get back?
Jill DeWit: So when you say, buy a house, that's at the very, very bitter end. So keep in mind, I think it's Andrea, so keep in mind, Andrea, that you're sending out mailers. You're going to get maybe 10-20 that you're going to review to buy one or two.
Steven Butala: Oh, I see.
Jill DeWit: That I think is her numbers question.
Steven Butala: 20 houses?
Jill DeWit: Well, 10. Let's just say 10. If you look ... when we say all these offers, I mean, there's a lot that come back. There's a lot that come back that are not in our ballpark, right? So we throw those out right away. Maybe they do want to sell, but they're like, they want retail. That's still a response. So we take them all in. We log them all, we track them all, and keep an eye on them. Some of these people, too, it may not be right now. It may be six months from now. So I just want to point that out. It's not that you send out, let's just say an average of 3,000 offers. You have one person that calls you back and you buy that one house. It's not like that.
Jill DeWit: There's more than one that call you back or respond to you or sign it. Then you do your due diligence and you decide which you want to buy.
Steven Butala: So my summary numbers are what I said. I think ... I mean, Jill is a little bit closer to it on the sale side than I am. I think it's closer to maybe three or five to one. The five people you talk to on the phone that come back.
Jill DeWit: That's what I mean. We're saying the same thing.
Steven Butala: Okay, good. I thought you said ten to one.
Jill DeWit: So we're saying the same thing. You know, we could look at the sheet again. It's probably a good idea. We should keep a running total and we don't keep a running percentage.
Steven Butala: Some of our members report back to the cent, like to the 841 mailers to everyone and I've been doing it for 18 1/2 months and I've sent out ... I mean, the detail is amazing.
Jill DeWit: Well, what screws it all is you have a mailer from two years ago that comes in. It's like, do I go back and redo my percentage?
Steven Butala: No, i don't think they do.
Jill DeWit: See, that's the thing.
Steven Butala: So there's a lot of accumulated good will with these mailers. They never go away. They get your offer, and the way that it's written, it's an actual offer unlike everything else that they did. They put it in a file. Everybody who owns a home over the age of 30 has a paper file on it somewhere, and I'll tell you the truth is, after they pass away, their kids find this file or they get the tax bill. They start digging through all this stuff.
Jill DeWit: And see an offer.
Steven Butala: They see an offer and they call you.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: It happens to us every week.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Butala: From years ago, when we sent a letter back. Yeah, those never hit our statistics.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Butala: So it's good. It's a conservative number. Base topic, the ins and outs of babysitting a house deal. This is why you're listening.
Steven Butala: What's the first thing that comes to your mind, or what's the first thing that you do when a seller calls back and they say, "I got your letter and I talked to my husband, and we really are thinking about selling." What's the first level that the babysitting starts at that moment?
Jill DeWit: I want them to say they are ready to sell. So let's assume it's that. [inaudible 00:05:42] "We got your offer. We're ready to go. What do we need to do next?" They very first thing we do is get eyes out there, get the signed purchase agreement, and get someone in that house and get some photos so we really see what we're working with. We want to make sure it's still standing, there wasn't a fire on Tuesday. That's why they're calling us. We joke about that.
Steven Butala: [crosstalk 00:06:01]
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Butala: There's no house there.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. It just got demolished. Who knows what happened. So we want to get out here and just get a quick idea. Make sure they weren't using it for a lab and there was an explosion in the garage, you know?
Steven Butala: Which happened to us.
Jill DeWit: Right. So we want to get eyes out there real quick. You're starting the process and you're doing this because you don't want the deal to go away. You have to keep them going because time kills deals, and if you always have a next step, a next step, and next step, it keeps them in the loop and it keeps this moving forward, and they know what's happening.
Jill DeWit: So that's the very first thing is get out there, take some pictures, and at the same time, while you're sitting at the coffee table and getting the sign purchase agreement and they're filling you in on anything they need to fill you in on about how much time they need to pack up the garage or, "Are you sure it's okay? I don't need to remodel the kitchen," kind of thing. "Yeah, we want it just as it is."
Jill DeWit: At that point, then you're sitting at the inspection. I want to have my inspector come out and what, "Is Tuesday good? Wednesday good? What's good for you guys?" And get that process going. It's tons of ... I was going to kind of talk higher level first, and if you want to ask me some detailed questions, I'll bring it down to this level.
Jill DeWit: So things about babysitting a house deal is if you could afford a transaction coordinator some day, that's the goal. It's awesome when you can do that. So for years, we were the transaction coordinators. I was a transaction coordinator at a time, and so were you. Until we got to this level now to have a dedicated transaction coordinator, we were doing it. So I'm overseeing all these little things and there's a lot that goes on, and I wanted to give you some tips and help you right now.
Jill DeWit: Number one, tons and tons and tons of communication, especially in the beginning. It really doesn't stop, I got to say. You got to be in the loop. What are you doing with your communication? You're doing two things. You're holding the hand of your seller. With one hand, you're holding it and you're helping your seller, letting them know how easy this is. "Hey, do you have any questions? Yep, we're right on time, on schedule. Did you get your movers scheduled? Great, that's perfect. Okay, you're good. I'll talk to you tomorrow. Or did you turn in what the title agent needs? Great. We're good. I'll talk to you tomorrow."
Jill DeWit: Then on the other hand, you're over here talking to your title agent like, "Hurry up. Remember? We said we're closing on the 30th. Do you have everything you need? What do you mean you didn't hear from them? Okay, hang on. I'll call you back." "Hi." That's really what you're doing. You're doing a lot of ... as you're doing this, I want you to think about making it as easy and simple as possible for your seller while you're pushing and keeping on track your title company or your attorney, whoever you're using to close this deal, kind of thing.
Jill DeWit: What I want you to think about, too, is when you get off the phone with your escrow company and they say, "Hey, we need such and such affidavit of this form, explaining X, Y, Z," you should be hanging up with them and quickly making it a simple, "Hi. They just need a little letter from you. Email is fine, saying you paid off that bill and you have a receipt to show it's done." Something like that.
Steven Butala: Better than that, even write the letter for them. Just ask them to sign it.
Jill DeWit: If you want to, you can go that, but you want to make this as simple for your seller because they don't know the process. They don't know the steps, and that's why you're here. So that's a thing.
Jill DeWit: I wanted to make sure, too, that you're providing anything anybody needs, you got to be on it, and you got to be quick because you don't want to slow down your own deal, by the way. Like I was saying, too, about goals, you got to set real clear closing dates and goals. This is one of the things that I've learned and I'm constantly ... every time I'm bringing in a new staff member, I'm telling them, "Hey, these title reps work for you. You don't work for them." So when you're calling and setting up and starting the process, you've met with your seller and you guys have an agreement that you're going to close in two weeks. They need that money. They're ready to go. That's part of why they chose you. So now your job is to pick up the phone and call ... maybe it takes six until you find one title company that you connect with. Say, "We have to close in two weeks. The money is all lined up. It's all ready to go. Nothing's needed. There's no contingencies. It's cash only. Can you do this?" Get their commitment, and then stay on them.
Steven Butala: In some cases, it's better to even do it with a real estate specific closing attorney.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: They can get it done really fast.
Jill DeWit: They might be faster and easier.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Butala: Nothing holds up a deal like a title agent. So you're going to have to go through a lot of them to find one in the market that you're in, and then use that person over and over again. You can just communicate with them.
Jill DeWit: That's it.
Steven Butala: You should have a home inspector out there within a day, maybe two days. The title agent should have everything done, depending on the market, in twelve to fifteen days. When people own houses for a really long time, like 60-70 years, the title plan ironically is harder to get because it's hard to go back that far.
Jill DeWit: You'd think it would be easier because you're like, "It didn't change hands. So what's the problem everybody?"
Steven Butala: So if they've owned it for five years, a young couple and they're just moving up or something, somebody did a title report five years ago on it, and it's easy to pick that up and find out what happened.
Jill DeWit: That's true, in the last five years. Yeah.
Steven Butala: It's ironic.
Jill DeWit: Yep. You're right. My last point is, when you find a good one, like a good title agent, because that's what a lot of this is about.
Steven Butala: Oh, I stole your thunder.
Jill DeWit: No, it's okay. Treat them. Treat them well. I have sent them treats. I sent them $150 worth of Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory apples.
Steven Butala: Did you?
Jill DeWit: I did.
Steven Butala: That's great.
Jill DeWit: I did.
Steven Butala: This one we like [crosstalk 00:11:57]
Jill DeWit: Yes. I told her I want to hire her and I would hire her, but she's out there. I need her out here. So yeah. She's good.
Steven Butala: All these real estate deals, every single house deal that there ever was, not so much land, but every house deal, something goes wrong and your goal in babysitting your seller is to kind of plan for that one thing that goes wrong where they start to get a doubt and they're like, "What? What do you mean X, Y, Z?"
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: If you've done your job as a babysitter up front, you're going to be able to solve that. They're going to be able to trust you and they're going to pick up the phone. You're going to sooth that concern they have. It might be something as silly as, "You know, I really do ... I talked to my sister and I need to keep the appliances. I told you guys we were going to include the appliances but ..." So you just need to be prepared for that and not be an adversary. You really need to be on their team.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. Make it known that you are. Then they'll call you. I've had this, too. I've had title agents ... or not title agents. Sellers call me, literally on a Friday afternoon saying, "The title agent said something that made me concerned that we're not going to close on Monday. Are we okay?" I'm like, "Of course we're okay. Don't worry about it." We had that relationship that she was comfortable to call me and make sure. I'm the buyer. I'm really the buyer.
Steven Butala: Exactly.
Jill DeWit: She's like, "Okay, we're good."
Steven Butala: You know, if you do this perfectly, money is not the first concern. It's just being treated right and not being disappointed. There's so many ... consumers have so many disappointments throughout their regular day. An idiot clerk at Walmart, just getting double charged on a gas bill, on and on and on. So you don't want to be that kind of person. You want to be on their team and win some stuff because a little bit sideways. Let's not make it about money. Let's say, "Yep, you know what? You didn't tell me there was a bunch of back taxes on this property, and I didn't catch it. What are we going to do here?"
Jill DeWit: Exactly. Work together.
Steven Butala: Yeah, work together.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Steven Butala: Hey, I know your time is valuable. Thanks for spending some of it with us today. Join us next time for the episode called our in house title escrow companies, coming soon.
Jill DeWit: And we answer your questions posted on our online community, found at houseacademy.com. It is free.
Steven Butala: You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill DeWit: This is one of those topics that I could really go on and on and on.
In and Outs of Baby Sitting a House Deal (027)
Steven Butala: I know. I noticed.
Jill DeWit: Oh. You said take notes. I did.
Steven Butala: You know what, Jill? You're an expert at it. You're an expert. You could teach a whole class and have a whole thing on how to close a real estate deal.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Steven Butala: You know, you probably should.
Jill DeWit: In my spare time. No problem. Wherever you're watching, wherever you're listening, please rate us there. We are Steve and Jill.
Steven Butala: We are Steve and Jill. Information.
Jill DeWit: And inspiration.
Steven Butala: To buy undervalued property.
How to Hire a House Inspector 101 (026)
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: And I'm entertained. And I am Jill Dewit, broadcasting from sunny southern California.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about how to hire a house inspector one-on-one.
Jill DeWit: I love it.
Steven Butala: I hesitated because for five years we've been doing the Land Academy Show.
Jill DeWit: I know.
Steven Butala: And just recently we started, this is episode 26, recently started the House Academy Show, and it's a difference for us.
Jill DeWit: I can't believe we're on number 26.
Steven Butala: I can't either. Actually I added them up a couple of days ago and it's like 1,150 or some number-
Jill DeWit: All of them?
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Well, this feels like 126 right now.
Steven Butala: You mean with the new studio and all?
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: Me too. We're there, though.
Jill DeWit: We are.
Steven Butala: Before we get into the topic, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the houseacademy.com online community. It's free.
Jill DeWit: Jay asks, "I'm new to house wholesaling and need some advice. Where do I start, and how? I'm having trouble taking the first step." Well, funny because I just covered that in the webinar that we did last week. So Jay I don't know if you saw that. You could go on YouTube or Facebook and watch that where we talked about what you need to do to get started. So my first thing is if you haven't already done your really serious hardcore research, I want research. I want time spent. I don't want you to dive into this cold. I want you to come into this having a real good feeling for what it is. I want you to have a budget. I want you to think about getting educated, and it might take six months before you really pull the trigger and that's okay.
Steven Butala: Here's some real simple one liners advice to everybody who purchases and sells houses for a living out there, regardless of where you are in your career, from an old guy like me. We've done over 16,000 transactions. Number one, if it's on the MLS, you're way too late. Leave real estate agents entirely out of your process of buying a house. Selling it? Not so bad. Fixed price listings, there's a lot of options. But leave real estate agents out of it.
Steven Butala: In fact, this is kind of timely for this topic because there are a few people that you really do need and you need to befriend and pay them well. One of them is the house inspector, actually. But if you're just starting out, it's kind of like the karate kid. You got to wax on, wax off first for quite some time until you're like, "When am I going to actually get to do this?" You need to do a lot of research, spend a lot of time online, join Bigger Pockets. Join the houseacademy.com and probably landinvestors.com, and ask a lot of questions-
Jill DeWit: Our online forums in there.
Steven Butala: Yeah, our online forums. Ask a lot of questions and befriend a lot of people online and ask them the mistakes that they made. If you're brand new and younger, I would spend six months on this without ever spending a dollar.
Jill DeWit: That's what I think.
Steven Butala: You'll find out where people failed and where they succeeded. And if anybody says, "Oh yeah, the first year I did was great and my sister's a real estate agent, and we did awesome and it's all peaches and cream and roses out there in the house investing world," run the other way.
Jill DeWit: I love it.
Steven Butala: Because it's not reality.
Jill DeWit: That's true.
Steven Butala: The reality is you need to go find these properties on your own. We do it through direct mail offers, blind offer campaigns and it works very well, very consistently, and that's how we manage to do it. There's other ways so ... it's worth it. It's worth your time. There's a lot of things in life that you get done with it and you're like, "Man, that wasn't worth it at all."
Jill DeWit: Like one, I know you always have one ... don't say parenting.
Steven Butala: Oh no, you said it.
Jill DeWit: Sorry.
Steven Butala: Parenting maybe. I was thinking about all the-
Jill DeWit: Depends on the stage-
Steven Butala: Relationships, all the relationships you've ever had with a female until the one that you have right now probably wasn't worth it.
Jill DeWit: There we go. Good example.
Steven Butala: This topic, how to hire a house inspector one-on-one, this is why you're listening. Hiring a house inspector, like hiring a title X escrow agent, is cumbersome and time consuming, and extremely rewarding at the end. And my big advice here is, Jill will get into exactly what you need out of a house inspector, but my big picture advice is about house inspectors and title agents and the team that you kind of, outsource team that you surround yourself with, you're going to have to go through a few people, through several people probably until you find one that clicks with you.
Jill DeWit: Right. You want one that works with you, not against you. And they're out there. You know that. If you've never done this before, when you're going through this process, you'll find there's house inspectors are gonna walk around and like you just said, you will click. And there's others that will walk around trying to find every flaw and make it fatal when we all know they're not fatal.
Jill DeWit: So there might be, you want to make sure they are working with you. A good house inspector is really there just to point out things so you know you're making a good acquisition. That's it. You want them to uncover hidden things that you didn't do in your walk around. As you're going through this process, what I've learned too, a couple little tricks, pay them fast because they're working as fast as they get paid.
Jill DeWit: If you're slow paying them, they're slowing down your job. It's really silly, but it's true. So the minute our guy sends an invoice, we pay him immediately and he knows that. And that's the way we operate now and what the end result is, when you find a good guy and he has worked with you and he does connect with you, and he knows that every single time you pay him so fast, you better believe that when the phone rings and it's you, he jumps on it. He moves people around to accommodate us, to get our things done first. And it does take several to get the right one. Like you just said, going through it, going through a title agent, it's the exact same thing.
Steven Butala: So once you get back, when you look, I would if you're brand new at this, I would go over, go on the internet and just try to get copies of pdf sample house inspections. And what you'll notice about this, and the same thing with the title report, is 50 to 80, 70% of it is all templated crap. It's that 20 or 30% that you really want to review that's specific about the house and you should see things ... Look, this guy's either going to try to kill your deal or he's going to help you.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Butala: Help you get it done. And he's going to like a real person, like a brother would say, "Hey, you're my sister and you're buying this house. This is good, this is good, this is good. But I really do have some concerns about this water heater, which is no big deal. It's gonna cost you x, y, z. Deal with it in the deal how you want to, but you are going to need a new water heater relatively soon. Air conditioning works great. It's only two years old."
Steven Butala: So you need to have that kind of relationship with the house inspector and he needs to be fast and honest and straightforward, and he should never ... house inspectors a awhile ago got in a lot of trouble for this. I'm old enough to remember when house inspectors were the contractors that would sell you on doing the repairs.
Jill DeWit: Oh.
Steven Butala: And now they've separated all that.
Jill DeWit: Right. Plan on spending a couple hours too. This usually is our process. We don't go out and do that, but this is one of the things that our boots on the ground does, and they go out and meet them and they walk them, walk the property with them the whole time. So they're right there knowing what's going on and having a conversation about it. And it takes a while. It's three or four hours, is what you need to plan on. And then another, usually it's three to four hours say in the morning, and then in the afternoon they can compile their photos and-
Steven Butala: Same day.
Jill DeWit: Then often, yeah, at the end of the day you will have your report.
Steven Butala: So in a long list, well on a short list of due diligence that we talked about in that, actually in the Land Academy show this week, we talk about it. In a short list of due diligence you're going to order a house inspection and it happens here. You send a bunch of mail out, some purchase agreements come back or the sellers call you and they say, "Yeah, we do want to sell our house." And it passes all your tests, the financial tests, and it passes your test about who owns a house.
Steven Butala: Yes, I'm talking to Sally Jones on the house. Yep, she's the owner of record. Yeah, she's selling it to me for at least a hundred thousand dollars or $50,000 less than I can resell it for immediately. Check, check, check. And then you ask yourself this question: is this house a pile of junk or is it tenantable? And that's when you order an inspection. By the way, you order an inspection on every single deal. So what you're doing is saying, I really do want to do this deal and I hope this inspection comes back not too critical. And then that's it.
Jill DeWit: And it's usually for most of our deals it's around $400, what I found. It's kind of the sweet spot, and it's money well spent. Because sometimes I know people like, "Shucks, I don't wanna spend $400 if I'm not going to buy it. All this, I wasted $400." No you didn't. You spent $400 to save you from wasting a couple hundred thousand dollars if you find something in there. It's money well spent.
Steven Butala: For us by the time we get to the home inspection point in the due diligence period, we've already raised the capital. I mean, we want to do the deal. So what we're looking for is glaring issues. In California, the foundation issues are a big deal. In Arizona, not so much. In Arizona heating and cooling and roofing and stuff because it's so hot, is real critical, whatever's on the roof. But it's got to be real critical for us to not.
Steven Butala: And then the big benefit too is, and I'll close on this unless you have anything else to say, the real huge benefit is now you've got a pdf or a piece of paper, an inspection that's passed your tests and you own the house now and you're handing that over to your buyer who's going to either renovate the house or rent it out. And that's very valuable. And you can say, you're knowledgeable enough to talk to your buyer and say, "You know, I'm most concerned about this, this and this. So if you want to work out on the price, I know it needs a new water heater. The HVAC's brand new, roof should have 10 years left on it." Now you're a knowledgeable buyer. You're not just an idiot wholesaler who's emailing APNs around like we all get.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. And you save them a lot of time and a lot of money.
Steven Butala: The world is full of idiot wholesalers. Don't be one of those guys.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Butala: Join us next time for the episode called ... the ins and outs of babysitting a house deal.
Jill DeWit: Now we answer your questions posted on our online community found at houseacademy.com. It is free.
Steven Butala: You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill DeWit: You know one of the things I didn't mention I was going to add here is that, get the termite too. You always want to do that. I mean, I don't think there's any part of the country that is magically termite free.
Steven Butala: Yeah, I talked to a termite inspector once and he said this quote. He said, "There's two stages that a house is in with termites everywhere in the country. You don't have them or you will have them. You don't currently have termites, but you're on your way to having termites."
Jill DeWit: You will have them, or you have had them.
Steven Butala: Yeah, or which stage is this house in?
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Butala: You can see termites if you look it up. It's pretty simple.
Jill DeWit: It's kind of yucky. I don't want it. Wherever you're watching, wherever you're listening, please subscribe and rate us there.
Both: We are Steve and Jill.
Steven Butala: Information-
Jill DeWit: And inspiration-
Steven Butala: To buy undervalued property.
Using Boots on the Ground to Expand in New Markets (025)
Steven: Steve and Jill here.
jill: Happy Friday.
Steven: Welcome to the House Academy Show, entertaining real estate investment talk, I'm Steven Jack Butala.
jill: I'm Jill Dewitt broadcasting from sunny southern California.
Steven: Today Jill and I talk about using the boots on the ground to expand in the new markets. So if you haven't been with us this week, all week we've had our friends and professional colleagues here from Phoenix, our Phoenix boots on the ground, explaining how this whole process works. It wasn't by accident because the number one question we get in House Academy, no maybe not the number one, it's in the top five for sure is, what the heck is it with this boots on the ground thing that you guys keep talking about? Please explain it. So we decided to do a whole week on it. So, if you haven't seen the earlier episodes this week, check them out.
jill: Mm-hmm (affirmative). It's good. This is Ken and Kristie [Mah 00:00:49], I wanted to just introduce them in case you just found us today and you're trying to figure this all out. I love two ... one of the things to piggy back on that, with Land Academy this is a program that we are and will expand. It's so many of our members, provably even more so now with House Academy because you really know what's going on, that if you think this is a good fit and you're in a city that we could all work together, we want to do this, too. I know we're going to talk about that here.
Steven: Yeah, that's really what this show is about. Before we get into though, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the HouseAcademy.com forum, it's free.
jill: Mark asks, what is your biggest challenge flipping houses?
Steven: Perfect, I mean-
jill: Yeah, what is your biggest challenge?
Steven: Coming up, I'll tell you what-
kristine: We should all do one.
Steven: Okay.
jill: That's good. All right, you want to start?
kristine: Okay.
jill: Think of a biggest challenge.
Steven: My biggest challenge flipping houses is finding quality boots on the ground. That's the truth.
jill: Oh.
Steven: Here's the exact opposite, I know exactly how much mail to send out to generate exactly how many deals. I've got that down to a science. I know where it's going to work, where it might not work, where the pricing needs to be and all every last detail. It's a very big... We have all the money we could ever use. The issue is getting quality people to understand how to complete these transactions at the boots on the ground level.
jill: Cool. My biggest challenge is I'm impatient, once we own it to when we sell. It. I want to make that little window even smaller. I want it to be hours, man.
kristine: Now my biggest challenge is when you acquire a property and you know the return on investment for the buyer side. And so it's like, "Okay. If we just ... For us, as investors, if we just invest maybe 20 or 30 grand, I could feel this even more."
jill: Right. You want to keep it.
kristine: But then, when I have Jill, it's like, "No. We've got a short window. We've got to get rid of it." And it seems like, "No. Here's the numbers." So, I think it's my biggest challenge is just like knowing that, you know, potentially leaving one on the table. But at the same time, you're looking at volume wise. So, it's the right decision to do. So ... yeah.
jill: Exactly.
ken: I think mine is the unknowns of what we're acquiring from the seller. You know? Things that we've all experienced.
Steven: Like cracked foundation.
ken: Yeah. Stops. Yeah, solar. Just any hiccup, stuff that we may not catch until we're into the transaction of it.
Steven: That's a good. I like this.
jill: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven: I didn't know that. With you guys, I didn't know that at all. I never knew that. So, yours is a ... Is it all physical plan stuff? Are you worried about chain of title or any paper driven?
ken: Not so much that. I feel like, once again ... I mean, there's a little bit of unknown there for sure, right? But I think it's just more of, you know, when you think you've seen it all, you get that curve ball. And it's like we started, we had the solar one, then the HOA stuff. You know, there's always kind of something. It's just that nuance. So, that's the kind of stuff.
Steven: You know, that's exactly why I don't want to renovate houses, [inaudible 00:04:00] your thing, because of that unknown things that you find. And it's not because you opened a wall up and found something there. It's ... The houses that we've renovated, and we don't do it anymore ever, is because ...
Steven: It all starts like, "Well, if we move that wall and we put a chandelier over there, then maybe we could ask for this." And it's all this nebulous unknown non draft map driven what the hell. So, we could retail some houses.
jill: We should do that once a month because I personally enjoy that. Could you imagine? You two toss Kristine and I one and let us have a little fun over here.
kristine: Yeah.
ken: And then, how many wholesale deals would we miss in that time period?
jill: No no no. Everything else still goes on as norma.
kristine: We got this.
jill: We got this.
ken: Oh. So you guys want another job.
jill: Yes!
kristine: A pet project. We could have another project, a little pet project.
ken: So you want another job? Then okay.
jill: Yeah. We got this.
kristine: And then, in the return, we'll just go directly to the CNI.
jill: That's right. Hey! That can be a whole nother show.
kristine: Whoa!
Steven: This is exactly how renovations go. Oh yeah, and we should buy a bank too.
kristine: Okay. We're just kind of talking, right?
jill: Right. Right.
kristine: Here we go.
Steven: Today's topic, using the boots on the ground to expand into new markets. This is why you're listening.
jill: Or new products.
kristine: Right.
jill: Or new shows. Or new projects.
ken: The greatest thing, and it was a total unintended consequence when we started this, is ... We will ask and haven't asked them yet to find and train other boots on the ground. And so, I never anticipated that. Did you?
kristine: Oh yeah.
ken: Because I don't even feel qualified sitting next to them for me to go train new boots on the ground. They just have a knack for it, like in the line of fire.
kristine: Oh, I was never questioning it.
ken: I never questioned it either. But I just assumed we would have to train in like let's say we go into Minnesota or wherever the next market is.
kristine: Well, who better?
ken: Yeah.
kristine: They've been through it all. That's the thing. You guys can really sit down and you will be a valuable resource for future boots on the ground when they go, "What the heck do I do now?" And you're going to go, "What tools are you carrying?"
ken: So, new markets for us, the theory is we have this running functioning operating business in Phoenix with these guys. It's very simple for us to get another one in Las Vegas. Our investors that might be behind us ... us, as investors and data people have access to all the data in the whole country. So, it's just squeezing one out. Like I said earlier, the only thing that's stopping us is quality people that are representing us in that local market.
kristine: Right.
ken: So, that's how ... My job is to look at it that way at the 35,000 foot level and say, "We could make this times ten pretty quickly, pretty easily, without a lot of more additional work on our part, leveraging our time and our talent." It gets even better if you guys can train 'em.
jill: I'm excited.
kristine: Absolutely.
jill: I think this is the value of House Academy. We watch this happen with Land Academy. We watch. We're now doing deals together. And we could all do more. And I know as House Academy gets built up and growing, we have more members, they're going to come to us with DLs. It's going to be big in other cities, and I'm excited.
Steven: I knew this would be a short episode. No. Actually, do you guys have any good advice for ... there's a lot of people that ... House Academy is a month old. Probably 50 percent of the new members that we have taken on are also Land Academy members. And I know you guys are familiar with Baltic. Do you have any advice for new Land Academy members?
jill: For House Academy members.
Steven: I mean, sorry, House Academy members.
jill: Go ahead. You go first.
kristine: I love talking.
jill: That's good.
kristine: It's my strength.
ken: I depend on you to talk.
kristine: Oh, very good.
ken: That's the secret.
jill: There we go. One thing is get a talker, have a good ... well, I'll say partners, partners.
ken: I mean, learning data. What's the role of that versus ... I don't know. What we teach in the program is you really should be your own boots on the ground for the first few deals in a market that you really know so that you can understand, like you guys understand. And we did that. I mean, we've bought and sold houses in the Phoenix market, several of them. All of them we renovated by the way. So, that's my advice is do your own deals for a while so you can teach it.
ken: Definitely, I mean ... you know, we had a great day yesterday examining a ton of data. And it's such a confidence booster even just sending your mailers out and so forth. You feel confident in what you're ... you know, you're excited about what's going to come in because you feel like you just can't ... you can't lose, I think. But as far as ...
ken: You know, Kristine and I, we've bought and sold houses throughout our lives. And we have different experiences. It helps to just keep an open head. And you never know what you're going to run into in these deals. But just be prepared, you know? Be prepared.
Steven: Is there any question your mind that this works or that it's-
ken: Oh not at all.
kristine: Not at all.
ken: Yeah, not at all.
Steven: Me too. Because that was a big challenge for us when we started Land Academy. The challenge was, "Who the hell are you guys?" Sending these ... it was very foreign. We spent a year trying to ... this works, it works, it works. So, that no longer is an issue in any way. It's not. And so, at House Academy, there's no question whether or not this works, I don't think, with anybody. I don't get that question, "Does this work?"
Steven: The questions we get are, "How do we raise enough capital to do it?"
jill: Right. That's it, exactly.
Steven: The pricing issue has been removed entirely. That's stopped.
kristine: Yeah. I think for ... Kind of stepping back, looking in from the outside, the transition between Land trans ... or excuse me, yeah, the transition between a land transaction and a home transaction is that, I'm sure everyone can attest, 99 percent of the time, you don't have a human aspect as far as somebody living there. It totally changes it up for you. And again, your approach ... tailoring your approach, it's there's not a one size fits all. So, just create yourself a cheat sheet of [inaudible 00:10:40] that you've experienced. And then, here's all the gotchas that you've experienced, and continue to build your confidence, leverage resources locally, to help you understand.
kristine: At a very minimum, if you were to walk into a property or if your boots on the ground was to go to see a property, what are the key things they should look out for? So, you don't have to have all this experience in home building and home construction. You could just ... What are the key things that you need to look out for that anybody off the streets can go right in and quickly assess, "Is this a good transaction or not for you?"
jill: Like if I step over a gap like this to the front door from on the foundation, that would trigger something.
kristine: Yes. If that home, by the way, is only three years old and it's got gap that big-
jill: Yep. There, it triggers a no.
kristine: Versus something that's 30 years old, that's totally different.
jill: Yes.
kristine: Yeah, so creating a checklist for yourself.
Steven: One of the things that we've never had issues with with you guys is having you try to convince us to do a deal that's bad, because ... And that's ... I talk about it in the program, but I have never talked about it with us. You guys aren't putting a dollar in. So, every single deal that we would send to you, that we do send to you, that comes in from a mailer, you have a lot of motivation to just get it done like a real estate agent does, like, "Yeah. It's a terrible deal. But I'm going to get my six percent." You know? "Yeah. It's a terrible deal. But I'm going to get 20 or 30 percent of it."
Steven: So, that's good. It's hard to find people that aren't going to behave that way. We have a deal funding, Jill and I have a deal funding effort out of both companies. So, we get deals every day to get funded. And once in a while, people throw in deals that are on the MLS just because they want to get a cut of it. They don't have to pay any money. They have nothing to lose. And it destroys ... like they get put on to this blacklist. Really. We have a blacklist. It's like if you're so short sided and so ... you know, we just don't have any of those issues with you guys. So, it's hard ... I would assume it's hard.
Steven: We knew you guys before this fall, so we trusted each other before then.
jill: Yeah.
Steven: So, it's good. Join us next time for another interesting episode. And ... oh!.
jill: And we answer your questions as posted on our online community, found it, Healthacademy.com, it is free.
Steven: You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
jill: Okay. Double announcement. Check out parcel fact. So, just a nice little thing. If you haven't seen it before, go check it out. Fact, F-A-C-T dot come. You can get in there. You can zero in on a property, see every last detail about that property, click on all the neighboring properties, and just update it with version 2.0. My team want to make sure that everybody knows about this. So, make sure you check it out. It is awesome. And wherever you're watching ... wherever you're listening, please subscribe and rate us there. We are Steve and Jill
Steven: We are Steve and Jill. Information.
jill: And inspiration.
Steven: To buy undervalued property. Thanks guys.
jill: Thank you. Good week. Awesome.
Steven: Let's have some fun now.
What do Boots on the Ground Do for Us or Investors (024)
Steven: Steve and Jill here.
Jill: Good day.
Steven: Welcome to the House Academy Show, entertaining real estate investment talk. I am Steven Jack Butala.
Jill: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny southern California.
Steven: Today Jill and I talk about what do the boots on the ground do for us as investors.
Jill: What do they do for us?
Steven: I'd like to think it's mutual.
Jill: It's true. I hope, yeah, I hope we do stuff for you, too. So, good.
Steven: Here's our roles in all that. Well we should take it... Go ahead, Jill.
Jill: So I'll let them to introduce themselves this time.
Steven: Yeah.
Kristine: I'm Kristine.
Ken: And I'm Ken Bond.
Jill: Yes, and we are the Bond Family.
Ken: The boots [crosstalk 00:00:39].
Steven: Bond boots on the ground.
Jill: Right. Exactly.
Steven: Before we get into it let's take a question posted by one of our members on the houseacademy.com online forum. It's free.
Jill: John asks, "How do you know if a house is tenantable before you buy it?"
Steven: That's a real fancy way of saying is, "How do you know the house is not a pile of crap?"
Jill: And the water works.
Steven: And you can't... yeah if the waterworks and someone can actually live there. Tenantable is a legal term which quite simply means, from a legal standpoint, can somebody move in and live there.
Jill: Right.
Steven: And Jill just said it. Does it have running water? Does it have electricity? Is the roof in reasonable repair? Just regular stuff. So how do you know if it's tenantable? You don't. You can ask the seller. It starts with that, but until you get in there... It's actually a very timely question for this topic today. Until you actually get in there with houses, you don't know, and that's the truth.
Steven: Us as investors together, although we have different roles, we have different versions of requirements for that. Everybody does. We just got done, in between recording shows, talking about a property where none of us would have ever moved in.
Jill: Right.
Steven: We bought and sold it, and did great. It was a property that we thought we were going to wholesale out, and ended up that these guys secured a buyer that had a bunch of kids, and thought it was okay to build a dirt bike track in the back of the house, and...
Jill: Not renovated at that time. We all thought it needed that. It needed the work, because it had been empty for what, ten years or something?
Kristine: Yes, a really long time.
Ken: Yeah.
Jill: And she was moving in, and hope she wasn't still using the same fridge.
Kristine: Yeah. It did have it, yeah I built it, yeah I did.
Jill: Oh my god.
Steven: Is that house tenantable?
Ken: To my standard, absolutely not. You know...
Steven: Did the water run at all? Did the electricity work?
Ken: Yeah, water ran, and there was [inaudible 00:02:39] gas, I mean everything was there. I don't know about the air conditioner. I don't remember about that.
Kristine: No. Yeah, I think the septic, there was a [crosstalk 00:02:46] questioning on the septic system and stuff.
Jill: There you go. Well that's too, before we buy it to follow up with this question. Would you get a full inspection on our own, and we pay for it? That's important to find out.
Steven: Yeah. That's the answer.
Jill: Now, every property that we are considering buying we still get a full inspection, and we might not buy the property, and it's never money wasted.
Steven: That's right.
Jill: I always feel good about it, it doesn't matter. Just roll it under the cost of doing business. You need to do that.
Steven: Today's topic: What do the boots on the ground do for us as investors? This is why you're listening. If you don't want to listen to the whole show, I'll answer this in two seconds.
Steven: What they do is allow us to not be physically present in a house flipping deal. That allows us, in turn, as investors, to generate a lot of deals in very different geographical markets with lots of different sets of boots on the ground, and turn real estate deals quickly. I don't think you could ever successfully do this without a physical presence in front of a seller and buyer for the local market.
Jill: Correct.
Steven: So that's what the real huge benefit is. That's how, that's the text book version.
Jill: Right.
Steven: There's a lot of other benefits because other businesses come... We'll now start talking with you guys about starting other businesses, and there... that can, will work for your personality types, maybe even better than this. I think that there's a huge... This is what happens in our live events. You start to co-mingle with people and establish a personal relationship, and find out that they're really good at something you didn't even know. Like I'm learning on this little vacation we're having, even though we're working, that Ken's very good at certain parts of computers. Way better than me. That gets my wheels turning.
Jill: Exactly.
Steven: I mean that's the short answer.
Jill: Well I was going to say, too, the thing for me is, you didn't have a presence. There's obviously got to be someone there, taking pictures, recording some things, getting keys, you know whatever it needs. You could, theoretically, use an agent for this.
Steven: That's what a real estate agent's supposed to do.
Jill: Right. Slash however. We have found out it doesn't go that way.
Steven: They're never going to do what these guys do.
Jill: Exactly.
Steven: Not even close.
Jill: So this is a whole different thing. What we do as... They're part of the investment team. They're basically co-owners in these transactions, so it's all legal, and correct. We do it all the right way, but it's just differently. You don't, and this is some of the things that I still run up against with people, and maybe you listening, and watching right now you don't know this, you don't have to be an agent. We're not licensed, we are investors. We're all investors here. We're finding assets, buying them, not representing anybody, we're representing ourselves, and in turn selling them to somebody else. It's seamless now for us. It's fantastic.
Steven: Right. I mean do you guys see some useful value? Tell the truth.
Ken: On record?
Jill: Yeah, right?
Kristine: Yeah, nobody's going to listen to this.
Steven: I mean essentially what we're doing is creating a real estate deal that wasn't there before.
Kristine: Right.
Steven: And then you guys are picking up the ball off the field and trying to get it to [crosstalk 00:06:14].
Kristine: Right.
Ken: Yeah, I mean, there's so many value points that I think... You know I've got a story. I was thinking of a story as you were talking. So I'll share the story.
Ken: Here's a scenario, you know. We bought a house. We're having the inspection done. We have to get all of the utilities turned on at this house so we can test things like the gas, furnace, whatever. In this particular, this is Phoenix, in this particular house, we have the gas man coming over to turn on the gas, and he's going around, and he's got his meter, and he's, "Oh, there's a leak somewhere, there's a leak somewhere, so I can't turn you on." So, what's that going to do? That's going to back up all our stuff. Our inspection can't happen, we're going to lose time.
Ken: I had to be there for the gas guy, that's just how they roll. He goes, "Yeah, here's your leak. It's coming out of this tube out of the wall," blah blah. We go in, "Oh this is illegal, I can't turn on the gas." Whatever, blah blah blah. I said, "Hold, let me go to the car." I come back with a Chrysler wrench and I undo all this stuff. I said, "Look, boom. The hose is out of the wall. It's gone." He goes, "I'll turn on the gas."
Ken: So the silly things, even like that, you know?
Jill: That's beautiful.
Ken: Yeah.
Kristine: Yeah. So it goes back to the eyes on the ground.
Jill: And no one... I can't think of a single agent that I know that would know that or do that.
Steven: There's no way.
Ken: It's the silliest thing.
Jill: Whole different thing.
Steven: And the agents... Go ahead, Kristine.
Kristine: I was going to mention, you mentioned... You made a comment about strengths. I think that's what it is, of going back to establishing the trust and the relationship that we have, and once the four of us is... Also, leveraging our strengths across the team. Steve most of the time keeps us honest, you guys are way overzealous on what that number looks like, and Jill keeping us straight as far as the engagements with the, interactions with our sellers and our buyers. Ken having a lot of the knowledge when it comes down to the home remodeling. Just strengths [crosstalk 00:08:12].
Jill: And tools everywhere he goes.
Kristine: Yeah. And he would say my strength is probably nonstop talking as he's [crosstalk 00:08:18] on the brakes.
Jill: That's good, though!
Ken: That's what it is. She gets hot.
Jill: But you love it.
Kristine: So yeah. The bond that we have, and how we help each other leveraging our strengths, I think is a good thing.
Jill: Exactly. It's the bond Bond.
Kristine: [inaudible 00:08:35] ice cream. Remember the little bonbon ice cream?
Jill: Oh yeah, there we go. Except add a D. I love it.
Steven: Well it's a pleasure working with you guys. Seriously. I see us expanding in some way. Tomorrow's topic: expanding in new markets. There's only... We'll talk tomorrow probably about having-
Jill: What's possible.
Steven: A very successful boots on the ground, teaching other boots on the ground and different markets to report to them, so it becomes more a hierarchy thing than it does just a flat, this way.
Jill: Exactly.
Steven: So we'll talk about that, though.
Steven: Hey, we know your time's valuable. Thanks for spending some of it with us today. Join us next time for the episode called, Using the Boots on the Ground, like I just said, to expand in new markets.
Jill: And to answer your questions post it on our online community at houseacademy.com. Go there, it's free.
Steven: You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill: Yeah, I'm finally remembering the name of the show.
Steven: I still can't get it straight.
Jill: I use to say house investors, land [inaudible 00:09:37] and I'd throw it all over the place. I'm just making up stuff.
Steven: We have another show called the Land Academy Show. You should check it out.
Jill: Exactly.
Steven: We can't keep it straight.
Jill: I know. We have, I don't know what, three, four, five episodes over there? Quite a few.
Steven: More than a thousand.
Jill: A lot. Wherever you're watching, or wherever you're listening, please subscribe and rate us there.
Steven: We are Steve and Jill.
Jill: Information.
Steven: What happened?
Jill: I goofed. You want to do it again?
Steven: Sure. We are...
Jill: Okay, ready? Three, two, one... We are Steve and Jill.
Steven: We are Steve and Jill. Information-
Jill: And inspiration-
Steven: To buy undervalue property.
What do Boots on the Ground Do for Buyers (023)
Steven: ...memorize these dumbass lines.
Jill: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven: We've only done a thousand shows.
Jill: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven: You ready, love?
Jill: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven: Steve and Jill here.
Jill: Hello.
Steven: Welcome to the House Academy show. Entertaining real estate and investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill: And I'm Jill Dewit broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven: Today, Jill and I talk about what do the boots on the ground do for the buyers. Yesterday, we talked about what the BOG does for the sellers. At length, actually. If you didn't catch it, the episode before that, the day before, we really defined what the boots on the ground are. This episode might have more meaning if you go back to the Monday episode about, what the heck are these guys talking about, BOG boots on the ground every other word.
Jill: Right. [crosstalk 00:00:49]
Jill: [inaudible 00:00:51] over here with our Phoenix, I'm not saying boots on the ground, Kristine and Ken Bond. And well, yes we are wearing the same shirts that we wore yesterday and the day before in case you are wondering, we don't just live in this.
Steven: We are here during the Fourth of July break together and we're filming five episodes back to back.
Jill: Yup.
Steven: But they're just, they're airing daily.
Jill: Exactly.
Steven: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the houseacademy.com online community. It's free.
Jill: Stanley asks, "What are the biggest and smallest deals you have ever done?"
Jill: I kind of want to answer this too.
Steven: Well these are house deals, now. So...
Jill: Oh, okay. I'm like... Bring it.
Steven: We have a house transaction here in California in the works right now. We had position prices about 750 and, or 760-ish and the sale price will be about a million bucks, maybe 1.1 so, that's, as far back as I can remember, the largest house deal I've ever done. Or we've ever done. And the smallest is, man, really tiny. I bought a cabin on Prince Edward Island in Canada for $22,000 one time from a bank really quickly and sold it for $120,000. Like I said, that's a pretty large spread, but, smallest and largest. There's a lot of stuff in between and, quite honestly, I can't remember.
Jill: Exactly.
Steven: That's the answer.
Jill: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven: But a typical deal for us, more importantly, is probably what acquisition price $200, $210 to $300, sale price $360 to... we try to make between $40 and $100,000 split three ways.
Jill: Mm-hmm (affirmative). That's good.
Steven: Good question.
Jill: Yeah.
Steven: Today's topic: What do boots on the ground do for the buyers? This is why you're listening. So we talked about the sellers. Kristine got us to the point where we own the property.
Kristine: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven: By the way, we haven't put any money into this thing yet. And won't because our investors did. So we own the property. What do we do next? How do we help the buyers?
Kristine: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven: The potential buyers.
Kristine: Yeah, as we were in the close process we are also starting to create the profile sheet. The listing profile sheet for that particular property. So we're pulling information, the specs about the house. That's in the works and getting that all developed. At that point, we're also starting to list it and we've used a couple of, for example, Congress Realty and the online listings. We're also listing it there and starting to, the whole marketing aspect of the property.
Kristine: Yeah.
Jill: I'm sorry. I realized I need a tissue.
Steven: You know what, Jill, there is never a dull moment with you.
Jill: Can I have a tissue please?
Steven: So one of the reason that the four of us get along is because we have type triple A personalities. Jill, Kristine's telling this perfect, dutiful story about how these deals go and how we make hordes of money. And Jill's, I think, a little bit bored with it. [crosstalk 00:04:18]
Steven: It's just too slow for her. It's a little too slow for her.
Jill: No.
Steven: So she's thinking about her nose and her body temperature and the fact that she needs some kleenex.
Jill: No, sorry. My nose just started to run.
Kristine: What's great is I can sense that something was going on so I'm like is everything okay?
Steven: It's good news for me because usually when she writes and flips the script over and writes notes it's usually stuff like: Steve, slow down. Steve, you suck. Geez, Steve, you're not smiling enough.
Steven: Fortunately, I'm not in trouble right now so that's good.
Jill: Okay.
Steven: I'm sorry, Kristine. Go ahead.
Kristine: This is truly unscripted if you can't tell.
Kristine: Okay. So where was I?
Kristine: Now, we've listed the property...
Ken: On the MLS.
Kristine: ...on the MLS and we're starting to get calls. So this is where the fun begins. As we were mentioning in the previous episodes, the range of the calls you get, it's drastically different. We get calls that hey, my offer is $150,000 less than what we were posting out there. And then you have some that have, you get offers in via email that say listing your post and how they're going to contact you, and then we finally narrow it down to okay, this is one that seems to be a legitimate offer. What are the next steps with that, with the buyer?
Kristine: And so-
Steven: Before we get to that, Jill, you should really talk about building a buyers list in a new market.
Jill: I was just thinking about that.
Kristine: Yeah, great idea.
Steven: Building an open house and some of the stuff that has to happen on the first few deals when you get into a market.
Jill: Yeah.
Steven: To develop. So that's a great description of the retail, selling a property retail.
Jill: Right.
Steven: We don't like to do that. That's not our first choice and in fact, most of the deals-
Kristine: Good point.
Steven: The most recent one we did was that way.
Ken: Yeah.
Steven: It went longer than we thought. It didn't go exactly how we thought. That's why it's stuck in our minds, I think. But, what we typically do, go ahead, what do typically do here?
Jill: Well, our goal is to have a really good buyers list and never have to list a property.
Steven: Yeah.
Kristine: Yeah.
Jill: Everybody wants an off market deal. We have off market deals, but when you're new in a city, in a place, for some reason, they don't know you yet, you don't have a reputation yet, so, just saying you have an off market deal and emailing it to a bunch of potential buyers, in our case, usually, it's other investors, it's not quite enough. So, we have found that we put in the MLS, have an open house and start to collect these buyers, meet them.
Steven: Investors, really.
Jill: And get to know them. Investors only open house, exactly. And build up a good group of people then they're like, okay now we know you guys are legit.
Kristine: Yes.
Jill: And then as time goes on...
Steven: Yeah.
Jill: We do have a good buyers list and I really don't have to put in the MLS. I really can just email them and we have several that are all on a first name basis.
Kristine: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jill: That we all know, I know what they're looking for, they know how we work, it's just a perfect storm, if you will. One of the things, like Steve was saying we do, in a new market, and we'll do it right away. This is a goal, the goal here is to sell it fast. I don't want to hang on to it for a long time. I want to be cash in cash out, escrow and everything in days or weeks. Not weeks and months.
Steven: Days.
Jill: And I might go also find another cash investor like me who's trolling that neighborhood...
Steven: To renovate.
Jill: ...who's already right by the dumpster a block over and he already knows the area, he's got the architect, he's got his designer, he's got his crew ready to roll. He just wants to move them over here. And he wants this deal too. So this is great. How you get started is, traditionally we put in the MLS and we start getting ready, as we're getting ready to close, we're all getting ready to post it. Because the day of it's recording, we want to hit that button and have it out on the MLS and that first weekend after or whatever day we pick, have a nice open house and be ready to start showing it and get those guys coming in.
Steven: Yup.
Jill: And they do. Especially with investor special. We put our silly little sign out in the yard that's like a for sale by owner, investor special with our phone number. They call it.
Steven: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Kristine: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jill: One thing I would say too is, a good tip is we've learned, once you have it and it's under contract and being sold, keep that stupid sign in the yard. Because they're still calling you and you're going to keep building up a good investor list.
Steven: Build that list.
Kristine: Yes.
Jill: Because we do have 20, 30 people in just this one small area that we just quickly can blast it out to them every time we get another one.
Steven: Really helps to hand that inspection that you... the inspection passed our acquisition process, physical inspection, it's easy to hand that to the next buyer and say look, this was done three weeks ago. And we had no one step foot in the house. Everything holds here, hope we can save some time.
Jill: Save some time and money.
Steven: You know, actually...
Jill: So we do that. We send it as an attachment. If we're emailing them we'll send as an attachment and the MLS, we can put it in there too.
Kristine: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven: And they all get their own inspections anyway.
Ken: I noticed that.
Jill: Well, one time it was a goof because they didn't see ours. Because it wasn't posted correctly by the MLS.
Steven: I think it's a guy thing maybe.
Jill: Maybe.
Steven: Like people just want to get I don't trust that guys inspection. Cost a couple, few hundred bucks just to get my own guy out there.
Ken: Yeah.
Kristine: Yes. Yeah. We've seen that.
Steven: But it says you're serious if you just hand them something.
Kristine: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jill: Yeah. We just did it, here you go.
Kristine: Yeah. The full transparency. Again, it's up front. This is the property, this is what you're getting. But I do agree it starts with what is the strategy for that property. Is it the quick, and I know I'm starting to forecast, but you believe you buyers going to be?
Kristine: Because there's been times where we actually were forecasting. Oh it's going to be an investor and actually we find out it was a-
Jill: It was an end user.
Kristine: Yes. [crosstalk 00:10:08]
Jill: It was a mom and her kids.
Kristine: Right. Which they had all intentions to remodel...
Jill: Are they living in that?
Kristine: Right. Yeah so I've just seen that strategy.
Kristine: The open house is great. It starts to establish within that local area a buyer's list. Leaving the sign out, what we've found is, as they call in, we'll tell them that house is under contract. They immediately will ask, do you have anything else?
Ken: Yup.
Jill: Yup.
Kristine: Anything available?
Jill: They're on my list now. [crosstalk 00:10:36]
Kristine: We get that all the time.
Ken: Yeah.
Kristine: Yeah.
Steven: Bought a house, right. Selling it's easy, especially to wholesalers.
Ken: Yeah.
Steven: When you buy the house right but you mark it up a lot, like we recently did, on a retail thing, it always works we made a ton of money on the deal, almost a $100,000 bucks. But it took a long time.
Jill: Yeah.
Steven: I think it took 90 days.
Ken: I remember that.
Jill: Yeah.
Kristine: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven: It felt like 20 years.
Jill: Yes it did.
Steven: And it shouldn't because it's not even our money.
Kristine: Right.
Steven: Did it sell yet? Did it sell yet?
Jill: Exactly.
Steven: So I'd like to think that the role or the difficulty level or time commitment for the BOG on the sell side is a lot less than the buy side if we're all doing it right.
Jill: Yeah.
Ken: Yeah.
Steven: I think the hard work's in the acquisition. It's just like land. You make all your money when you buy it not when you sell it. I hope that's true, do you think it is?
Kristine: Yes. I agree.
Ken: Yes, I absolutely do. Absolutely do.
Kristine: Because at that point you're, the emotional aspect at which we've found in a number of cases on the seller side, you don't have that anymore. We own the property and we want to sell it as quick as we can. We're entertaining all offers, reasonable offers I would say, definitely at times. But yeah, I would agree.
Jill: I'd like to point out something here that I think a lot of people do this differently. We own the asset. We bought it, paid for, our name is on the deed. [crosstalk 00:12:00] It's not an assignment, it's not a contract, I'm not out shopping a contract or something and I think, I hope for you all, I'd like to hear your take on it, when you're talking to other investors it's probably like oh, really? It's kind of weird. Everybody thinks oh great, you're just passing off the contract or the option. You're like no, we own it.
Kristine: Yes. And that's a good point. And again, they take you serious. Yes, they take you serious. And they know that absolutely we have a vested interest in trying to sell the property as quick as we can. But yes, I agree. I would say that has helped all of the conversations. Informing them that we own the property and we can close. Oh, by the way, if you want to close tomorrow or if you want to close two weeks from now, we're good to go. Let's just make the deal.
Jill: Right. Isn't that great? I love too, our whole philosophy is we're trying to make this much because we want them to make this much. Because then they'll keep coming back. We want these investors. We're not getting greedier. We have our numbers that we're hitting but we want our investors to just come in, make it beautiful and kill it and then all their going to do is come back and go all right I need five more of those.
Kristine: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jill: That's the goal.
Steven: This is really, really important. The person that you sell this house to whose going to renovate it and sell it out retail needs to make more money than you and if that's not the case, you're asking too much for their property wholesale.
Jill: Yeah.
Steven: You never want to maximize price on an asset sale in a wholesale environment. Never. And it goes against everything that we've ever learned about real estate our whole lives. That our parents have taught us. Maximizing sale price is an international error in my...
Jill: You're right.
Steven: If you go to some bazaar in India, the seller wants to maximize the price for a piece of silver jewelry that you're buying for some reason and it's just human nature and I don't... that doesn't work here.
Steven: It does it when you're the end seller in retail but it doesn't, in my opinion, wholesaling anything. You should be cheaper. Sam Walton built Walmart on that concept. When he bought stuff cheaper he sold it cheaper and he built an empire based on that. We have a little tiny empire version of that I guess.
Jill: Might be tiny now but it's not going to be later.
Steven: Hey, I know your time's valuable. Thanks for spending it some of it with us today. Join us next time for the episode called What Do Boots on The Ground Do For Us as Investors?
Jill: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jill: And we answer your questions posted in our online community found at houseacademy.com. It is free.
Steven: You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Steven: Do you have announcements?
Jill: I don't.
Steven: Good.
Jill: None. [crosstalk 00:14:45] Did you guys get everything out that you wanted to say about the...
Kristine: The buyers?
Jill: ...about the buyers?
Ken: Yeah, I think so.
Jill: Okay.
Steven: Did you ever have a problematic buyer?
Kristine: Yes.
Steven: Let's hear it.
Jill: Give us one.
Kristine: It goes back to... Again, there's the buyers that know the process and then there's the buyers that do not know the process. The example where we shared, the profile we were anticipating was going to be an investor and it ended up being the actual family that wanted to live in that home...
Steven: Oh yeah.
Kristine: ...it completely changed our approach with that transaction. Because that was, we never thought in a million years it was going to be the end user, the family, who lived there. Because it needed some work.
Steven: That house was pretty banged up right?
Ken: Yeah.
Steven: How did they get a loan on it?
Ken: No clue.
Kristine: I don't know. I don't know.
Steven: I was worried about that.
Ken: Yeah.
Steven: I remember that deal.
Kristine: I don't know. Absolutely. And then we were hearing that they were going to completely change their backyard into a race track.
Jill: A race track.
Kristine: A moto-race track. We were just like oh geez.
Steven: That's the other thing. We have a wholesaler in the Phoenix market, I mean we have a person who buys land from us in the Phoenix market and he's extremely professional and so are we. And as soon as I have a land deal in that metro Phoenix market come in, I send him a text with the APN. It's a series of numbers and that's it. And then within a minute he sends me either a Y or an N. That's the kind of deal I like doing.
Jill: Yeah.
Ken: That's great.
Steven: APN and price and then he takes the deal from there. I don't know about it. He just sends me the money.
Jill: It's perfect.
Kristine: That's awesome.
Jill: Wherever you're watching or wherever you are listening please subscribe and rate us there.
Jill: We're Steve and Jill.
Steven: We're Steve and Jill. Information.
Jill: And inspiration.
Steven: To buy undervalued property.