Land Academy Show

Jill Friday - How to Talk to a Seller (LA 1682) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill K DeWit: Happy Friday. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about ... Well, it's Jill Friday. She's going to talk about how to talk to a seller. Sounds trite and silly, especially to a data person like me, because people like me ... How to talk to a seller? This is how you talk to your seller. Steven Jack Butala: "Hello." Jill K DeWit: "What do you got?" Steven Jack Butala: "I'd like to sell ... Yes. I got your letter, and wondering if it's legit. Yeah. Come on. You're talking too slow. Let's go." Jill K DeWit: "Hurry it up." Steven Jack Butala: That's not how you talk to sellers. Jill K DeWit: "I sent out 3,000 offers today. Hurry up, ma'am. Hurry it up. Come on, lady. Get to the point." Steven Jack Butala: "You want to sell or not? Going to the bar. I'm on my way to the bar. Want to sell or not?" Jill K DeWit: "Just sign it and send it in, would you?" Steven Jack Butala: That's not how you do it. Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it. Let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. What's so funny? Jill K DeWit: It's just really funny. There's a reason why we don't let you talk on the phone. It's totally true. Jill K DeWit: Wait, wait. Truth time. Our phone ring in our office, back when we had an office, and I get excited. I'm like, "Let me answer." Steven's like, "Get me away. Is it still ringing? Why am I hearing ringing?" Steven Jack Butala: That's my exit. Jill K DeWit: Steven's like, "See ya." Steven Jack Butala: You've clearly forgotten to subscribe to the Land Academy YouTube channel, but please do so now. Comment on the shows you like. Jill K DeWit: Right. You would also sneak over and go ... Close my office door. Here they go again. Steven Jack Butala: I have 30 minutes of peace. Jill's talking to a seller. Jill K DeWit: That's funny. Jill K DeWit: All right. [inaudible 00:01:47] I was sharing yield data with another member here. I can't remember who. We figured out that his yield was so far off because he was using an employee to handle the incoming calls. Steven Jack Butala: Ding, ding. Jill K DeWit: I'm set up differently from him in a lot of ways, but I still worry that handing off my least favorite part of this could ruin it. Steven Jack Butala: Yep. Jill K DeWit: Jack and Jill talk a lot about the benefits of doing this as a partnership, but I'm not looking to give away half of the pie. Steven Jack Butala: I did. Jill K DeWit: I would only consider having the Jill work done by a paid employee or a VA. That's okay too. Steven Jack Butala: This is all you. Jill K DeWit: Oh. Steven Jack Butala: Honestly, I got pure luck with Jill. Jill K DeWit: Well, we didn't have to make this a partnership. You chose to do that. There's probably people ... There's lots of people out there that would ... The way it worked out, yes, we are partners in every way you can imagine. "Mommy, what does Miss Jill mean by that?" Steven Jack Butala: "Mommy, I want a partner." Jill K DeWit: "Can I have one like Miss Jill?" Anyway. Oh no. Steven Jack Butala: The kids are in the back seat. Jill's imitating them. She doesn't talk like that at random. Jill K DeWit: Could you imagine? No. That's true. All right. Jill K DeWit: I understand. Yeah. I would not go into this with that intent myself. If I didn't know you ... Let's back up. I'm this person. I'm not that good on the phone. I need someone that's good on the phone. Or I'm doing it, and I'm okay on the phone, but I could be better on the phone, and it's something I don't like to do. I would be searching and finding someone. Steven Jack Butala: So would I. Jill K DeWit:

Jack Thursday - Tranche Your Land Deals (LA 1681) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill K DeWit: Hi. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show. Entertaining land investment talk. I'm Stephen Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jack Thursday. And I'm going to talk about traunching your land deals. Jill thinks for some reason, this is some highfalutin concept, but I'm not sure. I don't think I agree. It's pretty simple, actually. Buy a bunch of property. Jill K DeWit: I wonder how many people are Googling this exact phrase right now. What do I want to do this week? I want to traunch my land deals. This is good. Steven Jack Butala: Traunching is used. It's a French word. Meaning- Jill K DeWit: I know. Steven Jack Butala: Separate and gather, or it's not just separate. Jill K DeWit: I always thought it was more, I thought it was grouping them together more than that. Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. That's a little bit. The American use of the word, especially in finance, is a little bit different than the strict translation. I researched all this before I went [crosstalk 00:00:53] Jill K DeWit: Well, good, because like you're making me need to do the research. That's the whole point. If we have a show that I got to actually, excuse me, I need to Google this for a moment. [crosstalk 00:01:01] Make sure I'm right. Steven Jack Butala: You've heard people in the stock market or in finance markets traunching their portfolio and you know- Jill K DeWit: Bundling them up, right? Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Yeah. Jill K DeWit: That's how I think of it like- Steven Jack Butala: Buying and selling in traunches, which means not just taking a certain asset and selling it. It means bundling it up, putting the good with the bad. We heard the word traunch a lot in 2010 where they were taking home loans. Jill K DeWit: Houses. Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. AAA rated home loans and bundling them with non-performing C minus loans. Jill K DeWit: Putting a few crappy ones in with the good ones and just kind of sliding them under the rug that way. Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Well not under the rug, but here's a portfolio. Take it or leave it. There's some golden here and there's some terrible stuff. Jill K DeWit: Got it. Steven Jack Butala: Like every garage sale. Let's say. Jill K DeWit: Thank you for not associating it with dating. Steven Jack Butala: Oh my God. You could buy- Jill K DeWit: Or marriage. Steven Jack Butala: Buy partners in traunches. I think that's a felony. Jill K DeWit: Yeah, oh my gosh. Wow. I didn't think we were going there, but it is Jack Thursday. He can do whatever he wants. Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it. Let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill K DeWit: Here's what's going on right now for some of you, "Mommy." This is from the back seat, "Mommy. What did Mr. Jack mean when he said that?" Steven Jack Butala: I hope that's not true. Jill K DeWit: Exactly. Somewhere. Steven Jack Butala: Poor kids. Jill K DeWit: Somewhere in the minivan, this woman is quickly turning off our show. Steven Jack Butala: Poor children have to... All you children. I'm sorry. Jill K DeWit: Who are stuck listening to this. Steven Jack Butala: Your parents make you listen to this. Jill K DeWit: This is their nap time. Fall asleep. Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, yeah. Jill K DeWit: Thank you everyone because you put my kid to sleep every afternoon at three o'clock like clockwork. That's awesome. Better than Dr. Seuss. All right. Peter wrote, "I am slowly scaling up my land business and would love to hear about the anatomy of bigger deals. I presume we all start small, usually under $10,000 purchase, and then we, or 20 to $30,000.

Learn More About House Academy Here House Deals Made as Easy as Land Deals (LA 1680) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala:Steve and Jill here. Jill K DeWit:Hello. Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to the House Academy Show. Entertaining real estate investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun. Steven Jack Butala:Today, jill and I talk about house deals, made as easy as land deals. Is there really, such a thing? Jill K DeWit:Yep. You know what's funny? I'll share one story with you now. And then I have another story for in a minute. Well, first of all, happy Career Path Day, for those of you who are with us and joining us in Career Path, today is day one day. One of the rest of your life. Steven Jack Butala:Jeez, that's cheesy. Jill K DeWit:I know, isn't it. Steven Jack Butala:Something's probably cheesy. Jill K DeWit:It's stupid. I know. Steven Jack Butala:Who else walked up to me and said, you are cheesy. Some people have said a lot of stuff to me. Jill K DeWit:I'll do it. Steven Jack Butala:A lot of crazy stuff to me, but not you're cheesy and fake and this doesn't work. Jill K DeWit:Well, I never say you're fake, but sometimes I say goofy. I do. I did call Aaron a goofball the other day. So anyway, it was funny, because this whole show is, house deals made as easy as land deals. So last week, and I was talking to one of the attendees who's in Career Path with us, starting today. He was talking about how, two or three years ago, I think that they were three years in now. He's adding land to his portfolio, but they were doing all houses. Started year one doing one house, year two was six houses. And then year three was 145 houses. Well, here's what the difference was. And the money was so much better. But year one, they were doing it all wrong. They were doing the renovations themselves. Steven Jack Butala:Yeah. Jill K DeWit:And they got one done. Year two, he and his partner got six done, because again, they're doing renovations. And then they realized, why are we doing this. Year three, they transitioned to what we're about to talk about today. And they're like, "I'm not doing any renovations. I'm buying it, selling it quickly, and moving on", kind of thing. And that's how they went from six to 145. He's like, "And this year we want to do 250 or something like that." And it's a small crew, but they've got it. Steven Jack Butala:Yep. Jill K DeWit:It's good. Steven Jack Butala:Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com, online community. It's free, and don't forget to subscribe, seriously. Subscribe on the Land Academy, YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill K DeWit:Luke wrote, "If I have a signed purchase agreement and the owner gets a better offer in the mail for other land buyer. Do I have any recourse?" I think we covered this question last week. Steven Jack Butala:I think we did too. Jill K DeWit:So I'm just wondering, this is funny. So let me think of a different question that I can sub in here- Steven Jack Butala:About houses. Jill K DeWit:Real quick, that can solve our little typo. Steven Jack Butala:God, whoever produces this podcast really needs to- Jill K DeWit:Get their act together. Steven Jack Butala:Yeah. Geez. Jill K DeWit:Wonder who that is. Steven Jack Butala:Come on, podcast producer. Jill K DeWit:All right. Here's a house question for you. I'm going to say, Jill asks, "What would be a fair dollar amount that I should expect to get on a house flip. I understand the way you guys do it. You buy houses, you mark it up. You sell it to another investor. What dollar amount makes sense to you? Steven Jack Butala:Between 50 and $100,000, if you're funding it yourself. Here's an example. Buy in a market that, where, it all done, it's $600,000 let's say, five to $600,000. You're buying a house for 200, because it needs a lot of work. You buy it for 200, 250, sell it for 300, 350.

How to Buy Your First Parcel of Land (LA 1679) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill K DeWit: Good day. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land, investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about how to buy your first parcel of land, the ever present question. Jill K DeWit: Yeah. People watch, they hear us, they see us. They're like, "I can do this. Okay. What do I do? Ready, I'm here. I showed up. What do I do? Is there a list somewhere? Do I just pick from them?" Steven Jack Butala: Keep going. This is great. Jill K DeWit: Do I just, I don't know, go online and pick one that looks good to me and just call the person, just call the agent? Is that the best way? And they just handle it all. I just write a check. Steven Jack Butala: I'll tell you a hint, and we're going to obviously cover this all in just a few minutes here. The secret to buying your first piece of land is in our ebook. If you haven't downloaded our ebook, even if you're a long time Land Academy member, it's like 10 or 15 pages, I think. It's just blow through a read, but it tells you how to get your first land deal done fast. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Please don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill K DeWit: Steven wrote, "Hope the holiday preps are going well for everyone." So this is obviously from a couple weeks ago. "A question I'm curious about. When listing with a flat fee MLS service, do you provide for the buyer's agent commission?" I have lot to say about this. Steven Jack Butala: I know you do. It's perfect. I'm going to zip it here. You go for it. Jill K DeWit: "I have had some horrible experiences with unprofessional realtors. The problems have been with the poor quality of the listings they prepare." Steven Jack Butala: Unprofessional. Jill K DeWit: I know. And in parentheses he wrote, "Why don't you use the pictures I gave you?" Steven Jack Butala: Unprofessional realtors is a- Jill K DeWit: I know, we could talk for a whole nother month. Steven Jack Butala: That's a redundant sentence, unprofessional realtors. Go ahead. Jill K DeWit: "Use the pictures I gave you, the ignorance of marketing outside the MLS." I know. Steven Jack Butala: And out and out laziness. Jill K DeWit: "And the out and out laziness. If you get an offer on my property, forward it the same day, not the next week. I could go on and on. I like the flat fee"- Steven Jack Butala: I wish you would. Jill K DeWit: "I like the flat fee because I can control the listing details. I've been offering buyer's agents the full 3%. No problem paying that if they bring a buyer. Do you guys think it makes any difference on the sales end to give the realtors their cut on the flat fee listing?" Okay. So here's what- Steven Jack Butala: I like fat fee listing. I like your way better. Jill K DeWit: Thank you. So Steven's talking about companies like Broker Direct MLS, and we've had other local companies that we've used. So what the heck are we talking about? Well, there are a number of places, brokers that say, "Hey, look for a flat rate fee, I'll put it on the MLS for you. You're doing the work. I'm not getting commission, but you can use my licensure and everything. This is all legal and legit. And through me, by paying me, I don't have to get a commission. I'll just take a flat rate. I'll put it on the MLS for you." Steven Jack Butala: It's a tech company. Jill K DeWit: And some of them, they might help you with the work. I'm sure there are people out there that do that. Most of the ones I work with, and this is the way I like it anyway, they just say, "Here's the paperwork. Fill it out how you see fit,

Are You Smart Enough for Land Academy (LA 1678) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill K DeWit: Hi. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today Jill and I talk about are you smart enough for Land Academy? Who came up with this topic? Jill K DeWit: I know. Did somebody put that in Discord? Steven Jack Butala: No. And all kidding aside, this comes up every once in a while it comes up about, excuse me, geez. It comes up at the live event. It's come up and it just comes up in general. It's not so much, I decided to be really straight about it in the title. Jill K DeWit: Which we always are straight. So we'll talk about that. I have some notes here and there's always exceptions, but we want to talk about it with you, because we want for the right, well, how about this? You're all the right people. We want you to know, we either want to calm down your fears and or we want to be really honest with you and let you know what you're getting into. Steven Jack Butala: I titled this intentionally, but it could be titled, are you interested enough in doing this? Jill K DeWit: That's a good way of saying it. Steven Jack Butala: That's really what I think is happening. Jill K DeWit: That's brilliant. Steven Jack Butala: But people don't, they don't say it that way about themselves. Before we get into it let's take a question posted by one of our members on the Land Investors.com online community, it's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill K DeWit: Andy wrote, "If I have a signed purchase agreement and the owner gets a better offer letter in the mail from another land buyer, do I have any recourse? Just so weird that the week we were going to close, another offer letter would hit. They're wanting to take the higher offer, which is four times my offer price. Has this happened to anyone?" That's really not cool by the way. Steven Jack Butala: It's not cool at all. Jill K DeWit: By the seller, that is. Steven Jack Butala: This sparked a lot of interest in Discord. Jill K DeWit: I bet. What were the general responses? Steven Jack Butala: Let's answer the question first. The answer, it's the same how we're going to answer all of it. Your question is, do you have any recourse? Probably not. You might, but it's not worth it. It's generally not worth it to go down that path. My big comment is, do they really have an offer? Do they? Jill K DeWit: Yeah. Or are they changing their price last minute on you? Steven Jack Butala: Are they having second thoughts about the price? Jill K DeWit: Or selling? Steven Jack Butala: There's a lot of stuff going on. Jill K DeWit: Maybe they changed their mind and they could say that, that's true. That's a very, very good point. Steven Jack Butala: I've heard you on the phone many times in this situation and you know what she says, "You should take the offer." Jill K DeWit: That's what I do. I'm like, "So let's just go through, let's walk through the process. Shall we? You just got this offer in. You and I are going to close on Tuesday and you're going to get $18,000. And you're saying you got an offer for 40. Well, is there really? Let's just see. They haven't done any their due diligence. They haven't vetted this. You haven't even talked to them yet. Do we know that it's legit? Do we know they have the money? Do they know they're standing by? And after they do their due diligence, are they still going to want to pay that money? I'm sitting here right now. We are all done. You're about to get a check, a wire into your bank on Tuesday. Do you want to stop that and take the chance and or do you want a sure thing? We're done." And usually they go, "Oh yeah, hadn't thought about that." Steven Jack Butala:

Jill Friday - Enthusiasm (LA 1677) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill K DeWit: Hi. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show. Entertaining, land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today Jill and I... Well, it's Jill Friday and she's going to talk about enthusiasm. One of my most favorite attributes about you. I mean it. Jill K DeWit: Oh, I thought you were going to say one of your most valued attributes, yours. I'm just kidding. Steven Jack Butala: I don't understand. What do you mean? Jill K DeWit: Well, you have enthusiasm. How about this, on a scale of one to 10, how do you rank yourself as, enthusiastic about life? Steven Jack Butala: Probably, six. Jill K DeWit: Child raising? Steven Jack Butala: Two, keep going. Jill K DeWit: Having fun on the weekend? Steven Jack Butala: 10. Jill K DeWit: Riding your bike around town? Steven Jack Butala: Nine. Jill K DeWit: Taking the RV out? Steven Jack Butala: 10. Jill K DeWit: Hiring and training staff? Steven Jack Butala: One. It's a little impromptu game. Jill K DeWit: Wait, wait. Taking me to dinner? Steven Jack Butala: Nine. Jill K DeWit: Oh, taking me to a Mexican restaurant? Steven Jack Butala: Seven. Jill K DeWit: Okay. You get where I'm going here. We're going to talk about that, because I just threw out a bunch of different things. I have three main things I want to talk about, for you to be aware of, your enthusiasm in your life. That's one of them, and we'll talk more. Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it. Let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com, online community. It's free, don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy, YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill K DeWit: Okay. So Troy wrote... Did you just get questions from the same two people all week? Because all I could see, is the same names. Steven Jack Butala: No, is it Troy again? Jill K DeWit: Yeah. There's a Troy, there's Luke twice, Troy. Steven Jack Butala: Maybe I did the names wrong. Jill K DeWit: I'm like, okay... Do you just have favorites? Steven Jack Butala: No, somebody that's just active. There's active people in discord and there's not. Jill K DeWit: Okay, all right. So- Steven Jack Butala: Or I did it wrong. Jill K DeWit: Or, that too. Troy wrote, "My $80,000 dream buck, picture." There's a picture, there? Steven Jack Butala: A picture of a buck that he got with a bow. Jill K DeWit: Oh wow. And then he said, "I bought land for $80,000, arrow to buck, three days before closing." Oh wow. "And then sold it for $210,000 cash. Thank you, Land Academy, for making dreams come true." So he bought the land, was without loving and using it while he was selling it, and then gave it up. Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. He tripled his money. Jill K DeWit: Aw. And got his dream buck. Steven Jack Butala: It's January. Jill K DeWit: That's pretty cool, actually. Steven Jack Butala: So, that could be his whole year. He could be done. Completely done. Jill K DeWit: Yeah. I can live off that. Steven Jack Butala: $150 grand. Absolutely. Jill K DeWit: Yep. Thank you. Steven Jack Butala: So could I. Jill K DeWit: Totally. Steven Jack Butala: Today is Jill Friday. She's going to talk about enthusiasm. This is the meat of this show. Jill K DeWit: So I'm trying to remember why this came up. Why did this come up? Do you remember? Steven Jack Butala: Because I think enthusiasm... Here's why, I think. The message that I think this show is about is, that you send a bunch of mail out and, let's just assume that you do it correctly, which most people do. Especially if you use concierge data, you send the mail out, and then people are calling back. And Jill genuinely, honestly has enthusiasm for answering the phone and talking to these sellers. Even if, they're angry. Jill K DeWit: Right.

Jack Thursday - Welcome to Your Comeback (LA 1676) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill K DeWit: Hello. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy show, entertaining land, investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting for the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jack Thursday. And I'm going to talk about, welcome to your comeback. Jill K DeWit: I like this. I love that title. Steven Jack Butala: This came from two sources. So Jill and I went to a Christmas party recently with some people that we've known for a lot of years. And they're real good personal friends of ours. And the host walked up to me and said, "Amazing comeback." Because when we met, he said that to me personally. He said that to me because we all met each other during the great recession in real estate... The real estate depression in 2010 when Jill and I basically had nothing. Steven Jack Butala: We had to sell our house. We had to move into a house that we had bought from a bank that was much smaller. And fortunately, we had a bunch of land that was paid for like we do now, like hopefully many Land Academy members there have accumulated land where we pay cash for it, and sold it. And that's what kept us alive through that period before we could start really doing acquisitions and sales again like we were used to. Steven Jack Butala: So that really brought a lot of memories, like we did come back. We didn't- Jill K DeWit: Big come back. Steven Jack Butala: So I know there's a lot of people out there, things change in their lives. That's what this show's going to about. You can come back. Jill K DeWit: Exactly. Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the land-investors.com online community. It's free, and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel, and comment on the shows you like. Jill K DeWit: Troy wrote, "Anyone here having experience with RS-10 zoning in mixed commercial slash residential growing cities? I'm looking at 18 acres I can buy for $63,000. And the broker says I could sell it for $150,000 on the low end. And even at a real quick sale of $125,000. My experience is in rural areas and would like another set of eyes on it if possible. Has a few cons, but no real deal breakers that I can see. I can PM more details. Thanks. Would consider partnering as well." So how'd that go? Steven Jack Butala: Well, it's a smash hit. So my whole point, and it's Jack Thursday so I can do what I want here... My whole point is- Jill K DeWit: Every day you can do what you want. Why is today different? Steven Jack Butala: My point in putting this in here is that Discord is an amazing tool, and this is how it was intended to be used. I've got this great deal. It's a little bit out of my comfort zone. Hey, other Land Academy members, if you have a bunch of dough... Love to do the deal with you. Our 10 has means residential 10,000 square feet. So if you take 18 acres and divide that by 10,000 square feet minus 10% for roads and stuff, that's an amazing property from a financial standpoint. Put in the right hands of a person who's going to develop it, which is not us. Buy for 60, sell for 150 is for us. Jill K DeWit: Yeah. Steven Jack Butala: So that's what Discord's for. That's what Land Academy's for. Steven Jack Butala: Today is Jack Thursday. Welcome to your comeback. I don't care where you are in your life. I don't care. I don't care if you're in your 50s, and you lost a dream job that you thought you were going to retire with, which happens to way more people than we know about. You can come back. It's not hard. Steven Jack Butala: You just have to get your head together and really want it. Steven Jack Butala: Jill and I professionally, got put to our knees in 2010. We were happily making tons and tons of money. We had a yacht, buying and selling land and selling it on eBay and on the internet.

Learn More About House Academy Here Renovation Nightmares (HA 1675) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala:Steve and Jill here. Jill K DeWit:Hi. Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to the House Academy Show today. Entertaining real estate investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala:Today, Jill and I talk about renovation nightmares. Jill K DeWit:Is this not a show? This should be a show. Steven Jack Butala:I think it might be. Jill K DeWit:If not, it should be. Steven Jack Butala:You mean just like a title on HGTV? Jill K DeWit:It should be. That would be cool. Speaking of which, I have one of my notes here is the first thing I was going to share is when we have done renovations, it does give you nightmares. That's a real thing. Steven Jack Butala:I'm going to really press [crosstalk 00:00:40]. Jill K DeWit:Documented. Steven Jack Butala:When we get into the topic here, I'm going to give you a mathematical example of all the things you can do with an asset that really make you money, a real estate asset, and all the things that are setting yourself up to fail. It's basically a roulette situation when you renovate a house. Jill K DeWit:Understood. Steven Jack Butala:Before we get into it, let's take good question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Understood. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Where does that come from? Do you feel like you're in the military when we do this show? Jill K DeWit:Sometimes. Steven Jack Butala:Where do you rank? Jill K DeWit:Yes, sir. Steven Jack Butala:Do you rank higher or lower than me? Jill K DeWit:Oh, I'm way lower. Pretty far down there. Steven Jack Butala:Oh, that's strangely attractive. I don't know why. Something's wrong with me. Jill K DeWit:Yes. Yes, sir. All right. Luke wrote, "Responding to tire kickers on Facebook is exhausting. I've developed a system that works well for selling houses with owner financing on Facebook. It could be used for land as well. So it goes like this. Ad goes up on the marketplace. Regardless of who responds via Messenger or what questions they ask, I respond with a couple paragraphs about the price, address and what the house needs, if work is needed, and then instruct them to drive to the house and call the number on the sign in the yard. When they call me at that number, I know they follow the instructions and are sitting in front of the house. Then I get them inside. Most won't even do this step and they aren't serious buyers anyway. So it doesn't matter if I piss them off." That's good. Steven Jack Butala:This is brilliant. Jill K DeWit:I saw this. Steven Jack Butala:Here's why. There's an old rule in sales. Not that I should really be talking about sales at all, because that's just Jill's thing. But if you want to vet people, ask them to do something. It's a legal thing too. It's customer service more than anything. Jill K DeWit:We do it for hiring. Yeah. Steven Jack Butala:With customer service, if someone just calls livid about whatever you're selling or why they're your customer and why they're upset, your response can be, "I really understand that you're upset. Please do this, this and this, and we will rectify the problem for you." And virtually nobody does any of that stuff. Jill K DeWit:I do. Steven Jack Butala:As a customer? Jill K DeWit:Yeah. Oh, I'll do both. Steven Jack Butala:Well, that's because if you get mad, there's a real reason. Jill K DeWit:That's true. Steven Jack Butala:So I think this is brilliant. Go to the house, sit in front of there, call me on the number and I'll get you inside, and we'll talk about ... So probably that avoids probably 90% of the garbage. So I think this is brilliant, obviously because I put it on the show. Jill K DeWit:That's awesome. Steven Jack Butala:Today's topic, renovation nightmares.

Everyone I know is Killing it in the Land Business (LA 1674) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill K DeWit: Howdy. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, Entertaining Land Investment Talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the Valley Of The Sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today Jill and I talk about how everyone I know is killing it in the land business. This topic came from- Jill K DeWit: A quote. Steven Jack Butala: A talk that Jill attended I think- Jill K DeWit: I was on. Steven Jack Butala: Clubhouse. Jill K DeWit: I jumped. I now and then just have some free time and I'm trolling Clubhouse. If I find a real estate-based or women in business community that sounds interesting, I'll just jump in the room. This was a real estate one and they were talking about getting financing, financing for deals. I'm like, "All right, let's hear how you guys go about it," and it was comical. That's a whole other show. Jill K DeWit: Anyway, I do not agree with the first hit up all your friends and family. That's not what we do. Anyway, this was a quote. I jumped in and I gave some advice on how we do it. Three people jumped in after me and said, "Hi, Jill. We're so happy to talk to you." They said, "Oh my gosh, everyone that we know that does land is killing it right now." Then, I'm going to go on in the media show here and tell you how the rest of the conversation went. Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members. I can't wait by the way. Jill K DeWit: Thank you. Steven Jack Butala: I love this kind of stuff. It's so funny to see people in social media spouting off all this stuff that they know nothing about- Jill K DeWit: It was good though. Steven Jack Butala: By one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community, it's free and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill K DeWit: Steven wrote, "Thank you at." Do you want me to say that? Steven Jack Butala: No, just thank you investor. Jill K DeWit: Thank you. Steven Jack Butala: Thank you investor. Jill K DeWit: "Thank you other investor for working with me on my first funded deal." That's awesome. "You were very cool and collected and helpful. You really did make this happen. This is a great way to start the year. This was a double lot like an infill lot with a double close. I had assigned a property to this buyer in the past and knew what his criteria was." Jill K DeWit: "The deal came from my first mailer and I had written off the seller as a tire kicker, but a checked back with them every five weeks to see if they were interested. They wanted a more formal looking purchase agreement. That was all it was. So when you provided me one and told me about the availability on some site," who knows what that is? Steven Jack Butala: Jill, you're really interested in the site. Let me start it. Jill K DeWit: I'm not sure what I'm supposed to share and not share. Steven Jack Butala: Steven says, "Thank you, funder, for working with me on my first funded deal. You were very cool and collected and helpful. You really did make this happen for me. This is a great way to start my year. This was a double lot infill with a double close. I had assigned a property to this buyer in the past and I knew what his criteria was and that he was capable of closing." Steven Jack Butala: "The deal came from my first mailer and I had written off the seller as a tire kicker, but checked back with them every five weeks," which is something Joe would do, "To see if they were interested. They wanted a more formal looking purchase agreement. So thank you, funder, again for providing me one and it made them obviously feel comfortable to the point where they closed. I followed up with them." Steven Jack Butala: "I had to followup with them repeatedly every step of the way, signing the purchase agreement,

Truth about Taking on New Employees (LA 1673) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill K DeWit: Good day. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the valley of the sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about the truth about taking on new employees. Jill K DeWit: I'm excited. Steven Jack Butala: This is a requested topic by one of our really active members. And it's very timely because we just took on a new employee and it's actually going really well. That's not always how it goes. Jill K DeWit: It's true. Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill K DeWit: Okay. Luke wrote, "Do you pull out any recently bought properties from your list?" So in the mailer I'm about to send, I noticed some I've just sold in the past three years and the buyer paid at least three times what we're offering. And this is good because you have a couple comments that you added in here. So one of them is... Is it just one comment or more than one? Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, just one. Jill K DeWit: Okay. So another person chimed in and said, "Oh, here's what I think." So Aaron comments, "Results will vary. But a few months ago I bought five acres from a guy who bought only two years ago with his now ex-wife. They just wanted out and to split the proceeds and go separate ways. They got back almost what they paid for it. And that was a buy for 12,000 and sell for $39,000 for me. I wouldn't scrub too hard." I believe that too. Steven Jack Butala: Don't scrub too hard. Here's the math on scrubbing too hard. You're going to sit down and do a mailer, or you're going to have Concierge Data do it. You're going to spend the money and the time and the energy, you're going to do the red, green, yellow test and all of that. And then at the very end or very close to the end, right before you price it, are you going to go in and take out 25% of the mailer, which is just a tiny little cost when you look at the actual cost and the time. It's hundreds of dollars on a multi thousand unit mailer. Hundreds of dollars that you're trying to save for what? That could be the diamond in the whole mailer, just like just what happened here. So I've been saying this for years, years and years, don't scrub the data too hard. Just send it. Jill K DeWit: I agree. And you never know what happens. Like we talk about this often. It could have been a transfer. Maybe dad just passed on and the attorney put it in the kid's name. And three months later, your kid gets your letter. And you wouldn't have known what the situation when the kid is so ecstatic, that you reached out to buy it, because he was trying to figure out what to do with it. You can't assume. Steven Jack Butala: So please... Jill and I have been saying this for years, what you're buying is a situation. In this case, Aaron bought unfortunately a divorce liquidation situation and he bought for 12 and sold for 40. And so you can't tie that, in the data, you can't know what that is. You have to just blanket it out and see. Jill K DeWit: And it's so funny. It's like the whole back tax thing. If you're not sure about it, try it and watch. We've been doing this now for, golly, decades combined. You decades, me a decade, in this business and by taking stuff out, you never know what you're missing. That's the main thing. And like you said, just let it rip and see what happens. Steven Jack Butala: This whole business of decades thing makes me think. Jill K DeWit: Uh oh. Are you feeling old? I'm sorry. Steven Jack Butala: No, no, not at all. It's not that. I never feel old. That's not it. It depends on where you are in your life.

Jill Friday - Waking Up Tomorrow a Land Investor (LA 1672) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill K DeWit: Hello. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today is Jill Friday. And she's going to talk about waking up tomorrow, a land investor. Jill K DeWit: So this topic came up, we were talking about how many people... Well, first of all, it's very interesting when you think about all the people that we have in Land Academy and the professions that they come from. Jill K DeWit: And some are really established careers; pilots, engineers, finance positions. What were you going to add? But for some reason either they wanted to do this to supplement their income or pay for something else, or they just wanted to do something different. Steven Jack Butala: We've been doing this for how many years? People join Land Academy. It's not that hard to figure out. People join Land Academy primarily because they want to make a change. Jill K DeWit: True. Steven Jack Butala: And maybe they're looking at different types of ways to make money on the side, or different types of ways to make money from your desk, that are pretty low risk. But I'll tell you that we have a really good group of people. If you ask these pilots, corporate politics suck. And so I swear corporate politics is our greatest recruiting tool there ever was. Jill K DeWit: That's true. Steven Jack Butala: I don't care how smart you are, how great you are or what your job is, ask anyone; the number one thing they hate about it is their boss or the politics in the office, or the craft that they have, the paperwork they have to fill out. So it's really interesting if you have little kids, or even kids that are teenagers, when they're thinking about going to college and doing something as a career. Steven Jack Butala: It's just heartbreaking to have to break it to them that it's really probably 30 or 40% of what you're actually going to do. And the other 50% or so is dealing with people's crap at work. Jill K DeWit: I understand. Steven Jack Butala: On that positive note. All right. This is Jill Friday two, I'm wrecking the show already. Jill K DeWit: Talk about motivating. God, wait. Everybody right now is in their car going, "Ah, that just hurts." Just kidding. Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.commonlinecommunity. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill K DeWit: Johannes wrote, "Hi there, I'm looking for a partner, primarily a Jill, i.e, someone who calls back leads, et cetera, but also someone to strategize with. My philosophy; focusing on raw vacant land, but on the higher end, working together with a deal funding partner and on the sell side with agents. Jill K DeWit: I could invest a couple thousand per month in mailing. Looking forward to hearing from people who might be interested. If you're interested, please contact me at [blah 00:02:56], this is my email address. No day was this in Discord or... Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Jill K DeWit: Okay, land investors. I wasn't sure where you polled. Sometimes we poll things and there's a lot of communication in landinvestors.com and then there's within, which is the plan A. And then within our Land Academy community, both places, there and Discord. So this is great. I'm sure they got some feedback. Steven Jack Butala: Oh, yeah, tons. Jill K DeWit: I'm sure they got [inaudible 00:03:19] that said, 'Yeah, I don't really..." Because there's people that come to us saying... scraping together the mailer parts a little bit right now. And they like to do the talking part and they strategize. So I'm sure [inaudible 00:03:30]- Steven Jack Butala: It's like,

Jack Thursday - 2022 Land Budgeting and Goals Made Simple (LA 1671) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill K DeWit: Hello. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jack Thursday. And I'm going to talk about 2022 land budgeting and goals made simple. Jill K DeWit: Did you see my nail polish? Because I put it right around here. I figure this is the perfect opportunity to touch up my nails, and I don't know where I left it. Sorry. Steven Jack Butala: It really is simple, and it's not as boring as you think. Jill K DeWit: Oh, good. Oh, good. Steven Jack Butala: But it's necessary. Jill K DeWit: Yeah. Steven Jack Butala: What were you just saying on... We were recording another show, and you said, "People just do this stuff, they put flooring in the garage." Jill K DeWit: Oh, because it's on sale. Steven Jack Butala: There's no real plan. Jill K DeWit: Oh, yeah. No, I'm like, "This is the paint. We should buy extra of this, or extra of that." Hold on, everyone. Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Just buy what you're going to use. Jill K DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel, comment on the shows you like. Jill K DeWit: Before I forget, I have to say this little... I didn't want to interrupt you, because you launched into that, which is beautiful. But I wanted to say this one little thing, because you'll love this, why don't you let the stores be your storage area? That's it. Steven Jack Butala: Well, I think if you do all the math, and I'm sure there's been studies. If you only buy what you're going to use, even if it's more expensive, you end up saving a ton of money. Jill K DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Love it. Okay. So Jessica wrote, "Happy New Year, everyone. I'm currently thinking about my goals for 2022. I would love to hear what kinds of goals you set, like your deal count, profit for deal, et cetera. And then what specific goals you hope to hit?" That's- Steven Jack Butala: Excellent. Jill K DeWit: ... awesome. What did everybody say? Steven Jack Butala: Well- Jill K DeWit: Was it all over the place? Steven Jack Butala: Sure. No, it wasn't all over the place. Jill K DeWit: Oh. Steven Jack Butala: There was some really good... [inaudible 00:01:55] got involved. There's some really good, really direct answers to this. And I'm going to try to be real direct today too about it. Jill K DeWit: That's cool. Steven Jack Butala: Because I think people get flustered about this, and I don't think that's necessary at all. It really just takes finding some quiet time, a pad of paper and a pen, and giving yourself about a half hour to an hour, and you're going to find out how your 2022 is going to go. I really believe it's that simple. So I'll tell you how I do it. Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jack Thursday, 2022 land budgeting and goals made simple. This is why you're listening. For me, it starts with a plan. So a lot of you have decided to join Land Academy because you want to buy and sell land. That's the beginning of your plan. I don't budget anything unless I have a basic plan first. Steven Jack Butala: And for me, and this is like a truth time deal, I'll take a blank spreadsheet, a blank Excel sheet, and I'll start taking notes. "I want to buy and sell land because I know it's profitable. I'm going to find a group, get some education, get a bunch of free education. And then if I think it's a good idea, maybe try to buy and sell some property myself. Realize that it works." So this is my me jotting down my thoughts, kind of stream of consciousness thoughts in a spreadsheet to see if it works or if it's something viabl...

Learn More About House Academy Here 5 Things That are a Waste of Time Flipping Houses (HA 1670) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala:Steve and Jill here. Jill K DeWit:Hello. Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to the land... I'm sorry. Welcome to the House Academy Show, entertaining real estate investment talk. I'm Stephen Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit:I'm Jill Dewit, broadcasting from The Valley Of The Sun. Steven Jack Butala:Today, Jill and I talk about five things that are a waste of time when flipping houses. Jill K DeWit:I'm excited. Steven Jack Butala:Me too. Jill K DeWit:So we each wrote down our top five, and then I want to do... You want to do yours that way too? I'm doing the order like the Dave Letterman top five lists and countdown. Steven Jack Butala:Sure. Jill K DeWit:Okay, good. This is going to be fun. Steven Jack Butala:Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill K DeWit:I wonder where we are on our YouTube channel, by the way. I kind of stopped looking in the last week. Steven Jack Butala:We hit goal. Jill K DeWit:Oh, yeah. Steven Jack Butala:We hit 10,000 subscribers. Jill K DeWit:That's awesome. Yay. Luke wrote, "One of the counties I'm researching has a large recreational lake and has a lot of gated communities." I'm assuming is in an HOA. "Should I avoid this county or continue the research?" Let me go back. Large recreational lake. Lot of gated communities. I would avoid the county but I would search outside of that area. Steven Jack Butala:This is a popular topic. A lot of people had a lot of things to say. Most of the comments in Discord are the same as mine. Yes, you should avoid it. Jill K DeWit:Hey, if it's 90%, maybe that's it. Doing your research, if it is a lot of HOAs, because that will be hard to uncover and dig out. You're not wrong. When you pull the data, it's not always accurate about HOA or not HOA. So it would be easier just to put one county over. Steven Jack Butala:I included this on the House Academy Show for a reason because it's the same with houses. HOAs [crosstalk 00:01:49]. Jill K DeWit:[inaudible 00:01:49] deals. Steven Jack Butala:It's harder to see a variant. Number one, it's harder to see a variance in HOA community from pricing standpoint. It's real easy to see and get away with a real good price variance on the buy side versus the sell side, in a non-HOA, non master plan community. You can see one house that was built next to another house built at the same time, completely different style, different square footage. So you can justify buying one for 200 and selling the next one for 400. Jill K DeWit:I understand. Steven Jack Butala:So in a master plan, HOA community, the same for land, it's all pretty much cookie cutter. Everything's priced the same. Jill K DeWit:I understand. Steven Jack Butala:Today's topic. Five things that we think are a waste of time when flipping houses. This is the meat of the show. Jill K DeWit:All right. I don't care who goes first. Steven Jack Butala:I would love for you to go first. Jill K DeWit:Okay. Here's my personal top five list of waste of time things, when you're flipping houses. Number five, spending days slash weeks on a home equity line of credit or credit cards calls trying to borrow money. Steven Jack Butala:Yeah. Jill K DeWit:People do that. Steven Jack Butala:Boy that didn't make my list, but that's true. Jill K DeWit:That's a waste of time. Don't start the process by "I need to put some money together. Let's see if we can take out of line of credit." Hold on a moment, everybody. That's not what you should be spending your time on. And I'm glad you like that. Number four, pre-purchasing windows, doors, or carpet or paint since they're on sale in January. Steven Jack Butala:What? This is a Jill joke show. Jill K DeWit:This is kind of funny,

How to Work Smarter in Your Land Business (LA 1669) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill K DeWit: Hello. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land, investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about how to work smarter in your land business. Jill K DeWit: You would think we'd be doing this every day. Steven Jack Butala: We have... Yeah, this is a whole string in Discord. Jill K DeWit: I'll tell you one way we don't work smarter is like right now. Steven Jack Butala: What do you mean? Jill K DeWit: Like, it's Tuesday and we're recording for Tuesday. We kind of never do that. Talk about cutting it close. That's not very smart. Steven Jack Butala: Jill and I were just talking about it. We are still reeling from the holidays and reeling from 2021. Jill K DeWit: Mm-hmm. It was a good year. Steven Jack Butala: We moved states. We had a great year, great year financially and socially. We moved. I don't have to file a California tax return this year. Jill K DeWit: Right. Steven Jack Butala: So it's all positive. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill K DeWit: Zola wrote, "Seeking advice. I have an agreed price to buy a piece of land in Virginia. And I already have a buyer, which is a neighbor. I want to transfer the property directly to the neighbor and not take possession to avoid closing fees. I'm thinking of using a transferable contract. Any advice? Or better yet, a purchase agreement template." Steven Jack Butala: What would you do? Jill K DeWit: I hate this. Steven Jack Butala: So do I. Jill K DeWit: I don't like this. Steven Jack Butala: I'm right there with you, Jill. Jill K DeWit: This just gives me such a bad feeling. Steven Jack Butala: I totally agree. Jill K DeWit: It's like a wholesaler's... That's what it's... Not to pick on you, Zola. It's just, I'm not comfortable with it. I always feel like if I believe in the deal, I'm not going to take an assignment or a fee, but that's kind of what you're doing. I would buy it. So I wouldn't even, as far as the purchase agreement template, you could just... There's so many out there you just copy or just add on there or assignees kind of thing, as far as who's going to take ownership. And if you're going to go through title, I mean, you can go through title. Everybody's going to see what it's purchased for. And everybody's going to see your chunk of money in the middle of what you're taking out of it. And then everybody's going to see what the new guy's buying. And it might not leave them with a good feeling. Steven Jack Butala: One of our jobs here at Land Academy is to undo bad advice that we've all received in real estate and in real estate investment. This is bad. This is not a good idea. There's a... The concept of assigning contracts and wholesaling has become abused and has now a stigma, a negative stigma. So here's what you do. It's going to cost you maybe $1,500 to $2,000 to close this deal and buy it. And that's it. Buy the property and then resell it immediately. Have a hold-open binder with the escrow agent and resell it for whatever the numbers are to the new buyer, the neighbor. If you don't have the money, this is what [crosstalk 00:03:02]. Jill K DeWit: ... deal funding. Steven Jack Butala: This is what Land Academy is for. Just posted. Thank you, Zola, for putting this in Discord. That's the best thing. I'm glad you did this. Somebody will step up and help you- Jill K DeWit: They'll fund it. Steven Jack Butala: ... fund the deal. Take a small percentage, in this case, because you already have it sold. Maybe 10 or 10% ish. Jill K DeWit: That's easy.

Blast From The Past: What's Possible Land Side Hustle Math (LA 1668) Transcript: Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Hello. Steven Butala: And welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala ... Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny Southern California. Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about what's possible in your land side hustle, specifically the math. Jill DeWit: Oh. Steven Butala: Like these shows. Jill DeWit: You didn't tell him it was going to be math class today. I did not prepare for that. Steven Butala: There's going to be some math in this. Not going to be math, it's just going to be ... You don't have to do any math, you just have to listen to the- Jill DeWit: All right. Good thing I have a notepad and a pen. Steven Butala: Listen to the good and the bed and the ugly about what's possible and what's not possible. I'll tell you, here's a hint though, it all starts with getting a mailer out. Jill DeWit: You want to know something realistically? I loved math in school. Steven Butala: I know you did. Jill DeWit: Did you like math? Steven Butala: Did I like math? Jill DeWit: Yeah. Did you know that about me? Steven Butala: Yes, I did. Jill DeWit: Okay. How did you know that? Steven Butala: I'll tell you Jill, you're a pilot and you have that natural ... I don't think we ever sat down and said, "Hey, how'd you feel about math in high school?" How boring would that be if we did that? Jill DeWit: I did like math. My favorite teachers were my math teachers. Math and physics, I loved those. What was your favorite subject? Steven Butala: Math, physics. I liked home economics a lot, because- Jill DeWit: Is that where the girls were? Steven Butala: Yes Jill DeWit: Oh. Steven Butala: You know what? I liked all. There's not a class that I didn't like. Jill DeWit: I'm trying to think. You know what was one of my least favorite classes? That I did it, and I went through the whole thing and I was even president of the club at the end, it's a French club. Steven Butala: Oh, you know what? I don't like languages either. Jill DeWit: There we go. That was hard. Steven Butala: I can get through Spanish, because it was a requirement. I like it now. I like speaking it or trying to speak it. Jill DeWit: Yeah, you're good at it. Steven Butala: I think I'm great at it after two beers, but ... Jill DeWit: You are. Steven Butala: But I think I'm great at a lot of things after two beers. Jill DeWit: Don't ask me to speak French. Steven Butala: No, I don't even ... I can't count to 10 in French. Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free. Jill DeWit: Herbert S, "Hello all, I'm seeking information/guidance on what I should do with the first deal that I have here. I bought this lot with a very old dilapidated double-wide fixed mobile home on the property that has been there for more than 30 years. According to Steve and Jill, this is normally a good thing, but I've been having troubles trying to sell it because I purchased it without having title to the mobile home and many of the buyers calling in would like to have that, which is understandable. We purchased this lot in an attorney state and did not have any problem buying it without the title. Has anyone dealt with this kind of situation in the past? What would you say are my options?" Steven Butala: Yes, so let's take two steps back. Herbert, you're in a great situation. There are two components to buying a mobile home on a piece of land. The land real estate deal, like we're all very used to, and then the personal property aspect of buying a mobile home, which is in most of the states, maybe all states, the exact same as buying a car. It has a ... You go to the DMV, it's all ... I think Texas might be different. There's one state, in fact, it might be California.

Jill Friday - New Years Land Investors Resolutions (LA 1667) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill K DeWit: Hello. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy show entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala- Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun on New Year's Eve. Yay! Steven Jack Butala: I can't believe it. Jill K DeWit: Yay! Steven Jack Butala: We've been doing this show, this is show number 1,600- Jill K DeWit: And 67. Steven Jack Butala: Amazing. Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I, well, it's still Friday. She's going to talk about New Year's land investor's resolutions. Jill K DeWit: 1667. That sounds like a year. Like, "I wonder what happened in 1667?" You know? It's kind of funny. Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Jill K DeWit: Yep. Cool. I have some good notes. I came up with a cute little... Don't read my notes. All good. Get with a cute little saying that I'm going to share too about this. Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on thelandinvestors.com online community, it's free and don't forget to subscribe on The Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill K DeWit: Jessica wrote, "How do you find someone to put a for sale sign on the street for you? In my workflow, the photographer is long gone and he lives a long way from the property, anyway. Suggestions on how to find someone local, especially in a little town that doesn't have a Craigslist nearby." Jill K DeWit: That's funny, that would be my first thought. There are some companies out there though, like WeGoLook, does that still exist? Steven Jack Butala: There's a lot of people who had a lot of things to say about this. Yeah, WeGoLook said- Jill K DeWit: Okay, good. Steven Jack Butala: One other persons said they have, which I know you use all the time is, the Nextdoor app. Jill K DeWit: Oh, that's true, Nextdoor. Oh, that's a good one, you can put in the zip code and see who's there. You need to have them take a picture. You know what it looks like now as you can ask them to take a picture of it and send it back to you with their sign on there. Jill K DeWit: I don't know, I would even... You could call a church, offer somebody 50 bucks. Steven Jack Butala: 20, I was going to say. Jill K DeWit: Whoever the janitor is at the church or something like that, who you can get on the phone and to say, "Hey, I know this sounds..." Jill K DeWit: I might even call Home Depot and say, "Hey, you know one of those signs on a stick, I'll pay you 50 bucks if you go buy it for me and put it and send me a picture." Steven Jack Butala: Any of that. Jill K DeWit: Be like, "All right-" Steven Jack Butala: At the student- Jill K DeWit: "That's kind of weird, but okay." Steven Jack Butala: And then again, The Drone, the best person to have them is pay a The Drone person who is going to do the drone shots. Jill K DeWit: Yeah. Steven Jack Butala: $20 more. Jill K DeWit: And then, you know here's a nice thing is, was this Jessica, I think? Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Jill K DeWit: This is the only time that you'll forget this. You only have to do it this one time because from now on you'll remember every time to have the photographer do it ahead of time. So that's the positive thing here. Steven Jack Butala: But you got to put one on there at all costs. Jill K DeWit: It does help, especially if there's a traffic area. Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Jill K DeWit: You know, it really does make a difference. Don't put a price on there. Never put a price because A, it changes and B, you want them to call you. So just seems to be a for sale investor special and your phone number. That's really all you need, when the little red sign on a stick doesn't need to be a fancy broker billboard. Steven Jack Butala: The less fancy it is, the better. Jill K DeWit: It's true. Steven Jack Butala:

Jack Thursday - We are Zip Code Lucky (LA 1666) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill K DeWit: Hello. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from The Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jack Thursday and I'm going to talk about how we are all, or nearly all of us are very ZIP code lucky. The way that we send out mailers is very ZIP code-based now and there's tons and tons and tons of information that's broken down by the census and all kinds of other organizations that's free out there about what's going on in any given ZIP code. And the way that it's all organized and orchestrated, you can compare it. There's tons of amazing tools online, especially now because 2020 passed, which is every 10 years they do a census so we got real good, fresh data. Well, I'll get into it in a minute here. Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community that It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on The Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the show as you'd like. Jill K DeWit: Dan wrote, "I am comfortable sending mail with a little higher percentage of listings on LandWatch and Land and Farm, like two to five percent, if the days on market are low and/or I know the area very well. There's one county with 13% listings on LandWatch that I killed it in. It's very rural and I know the area very well. My sales prices are low because I bought super low and now I have a few people that email or call every few weeks to see if I have anything else there. I would not mail a county with a high percent of listings if I didn't that special knowledge of the area or the days of market were not ridiculously low. I also try to diversify a bit, meaning I will stick to the red, yellow, green test on three or four mailers. And then I diverge a slight bit on one of four in a niche area. At least this is what my personal comfort level is for the properties that are 10 to 60 acres of rural land that I target." Jill K DeWit: I love it. Perfect. I've got nothing. Steven Jack Butala: This is crossing over the line into being a professional land investor. When you're starting to do things that make sense to you and you're going off of the exact Land Academy education, the way that we orchestrate all these mailers and all that. And you're going off into your own thing. Steven Jack Butala: But I will tell you personally every mailer I do, I do some wacky stuff like this. And I only send in markets that I really know well and I know what's going to happen. So I think this is fantastic and I put this question or statement on Jack Thursday for a reason, because I think it's really- Jill K DeWit: Brilliant? Steven Jack Butala: Yep. Jill K DeWit: You're doing it right. Steven Jack Butala: It's approaching brilliance, yep. Today's Jack Thursday and I'm going to talk about how we are all very ZIP code lucky. This is why you're listening. Jill K DeWit: I'm going to just sit back and chill here. Steven Jack Butala: So during the red, green, yellow test, which can be ZIP code-based or county-based or really any geography that you delineate, but I always use ZIP codes. I think most people do. I look at what's going on from a days on market standpoint, how many properties are listed for sale versus the universe of properties there. We've got all these matrix or measurement spectrums that either make it red or yellow or green. What's not in there and what I've been staring at for years and done nothing about until recently is all the other stuff that's going on. Steven Jack Butala: Which led me to even further thinking, "If you spend a lot of time in a really nasty ZIP code and you can find out which ones are nasty because the census data shows it where the incomes are really low and crime is really high.

Learn More About House Academy Here At Some Point the Sales Price is Just Too High (HA 1665) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala:Steve and Jill here. Jill K DeWit:Hello. Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining real estate investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala:Today, Jill and I talk about how, at some point, the sales price of a house is just too high. Jill K DeWit:Yeah. Every Wednesday, we shake it up here. We're doing house academy, because we've been looking at numbers, I'm sure you have, too. It's hard not to walk around and just know what's going on in real estate. You go to the grocery store, you see signs, you know there's stuff happening. Steven Jack Butala:This was prompted because there are some communities in the metropolitan area of Phoenix and really all over the country that are experiencing five to 10% purchase price, sale price growth in a community, a month. So at some point, it cannot just continue to go up because the pool of buyers will evaporate. Steven Jack Butala:Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill K DeWit:Kim wrote, "Hi, I'm in the process of purchasing a piece of land, but the seller's deed from 2002 has two properties on the deed. One is their acreage with their house and the other is a parcel I want to purchase. This is a small $1,500 purchase, and I'm hoping to avoid to pay any title agent work outside of the tools we use. Am I safe to purchase this land only and create a deed for the smaller tract? But then the first deed remains in effect for their house. Will my new deed supersede the 2002 deed that remain in effect for the house?" That's kind of a repeat there. Jill K DeWit:You know what? The answer is yes. Here's what's so funny. People don't know that you can buy from somebody five pieces of property on one deed. It has to be the same grantor, grantee, you know what I'm trying to say. Let me back up. It's coming out all jumbled. Let me- Steven Jack Butala:I can answer it. Jill K DeWit:Well, no, I want to answer it. I want to say. The answer is yes. Steven Jack Butala:In a very positive way. Jill K DeWit:You just make a new deed- Steven Jack Butala:You answered- Jill K DeWit:... with only the legal description of the one that you're buying on it, and that's all that you need to do. You don't have to recreate a new deed, too, by the way, for the other one. There's no reason that they have to do two new deeds. The other deed is there for the one property that they still own, so that is correct. Jill K DeWit:When we buy properties, I love it. My favorite scenario is when I buy multiple properties from one person in the same county. I can buy 20, depending on what the county will record at one time. Sometimes they have a limit like 10 or 15 or something. They'll say, all right, we can't have more than this many on one deed. Steven Jack Butala:Really? Jill K DeWit:Yeah. Sometimes they do have limits. Steven Jack Butala:I've never heard of that. Jill K DeWit:Mm-hmm (affirmative). They do. Because it's cheaper and easier, too. So if I have the same seller, everything's all in the same name, I'm buying 10 properties from them, it's one deed, it's one recording fee. And it all happens at the same time. And then when I go to sell them, I just then just sell each one individually just like normal Steven Jack Butala:In a great way, you answered your own question here, the- Jill K DeWit:I did. Steven Jack Butala:Yep. Jill K DeWit:Yeah, you were right. Steven Jack Butala:Yep, you were right. Today's topic, at some point the sales price is just too high on some of these houses. This is the meat of the show. This is all interconnected. There's a lot of things that are at play when somebody buys...

I Have 10 Thousand Dollars What Should I Invest In (LA 1664) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill K DeWit: Hello. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Stephen Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today Jill and I talk about, well, I have $10,000. What should I invest in? Jill K DeWit: This is so funny. So here's where this came from. We're sitting here thinking about out what's going on at the end of the year. We want this last week to be really valuable, some good information for you to ponder. And there's a lot of people on Facebook that have this exact thing. Like, Hey, I've got some money saved up. It's the end of the year. Going into 2022, what should I do? So I wrote down some real answers and some of them are like, what the heck? It's funny. So I will share those, and we'll talk about what we think you should do if you're in this situation. Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into the topic, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill K DeWit: We forgot to look that up. We don't know where we are right now, do we? Okay. Steven Jack Butala: I can look it up while we're- Jill K DeWit: Okay, got it. All right. While I'm talking? Steven Jack Butala: Sure. Jill K DeWit: You're good. Peter wrote, I got a call back on a piece of property that is largely in a flood zone, and some of it is in a regulated flood zone. The original offer price was $8,000 for three acres. And I was thinking about turning around with a revised offer of $1,000. What are the major considerations you all keep in mind when repricing an offer due to flood issues? Thanks for any thoughts. Steven Jack Butala: This is very, very, very common and not so specific to the flood issues, but stuff comes up. Jill K DeWit: Yeah. Steven Jack Butala: A deal comes back. You look it up. Usually on NeighborScoop. There's some flaws. Hopefully they're not fatal flaws like access. Jill K DeWit: Right. Steven Jack Butala: And so you go back to the seller with a revised offer. In my opinion, Jill's the one who does this, so she'll tell you the way she does it, but this is all how it's handled. And so if you just say all this property sucks, and I know we talked about 8,000, but I'm going to you a thousand because there's flood zone issues. That's not going to work. But if you make a little video, a screen video of you rolling through Google Earth, a screenshot video and narrating why and how the property, where it sits and why the flood issues have dramatically reduced the usability of the property when you price it at 8,000, they're going to take you seriously. And here's why, because whoever buys the property's going to have the same issues. So you're just kicking the can down the road. Jill K DeWit: I'm going to have to disagree. Steven Jack Butala: No, really? After all that? Jill K DeWit: I don't need no stinking video. Steven Jack Butala: Really? Jill K DeWit: No I don't. You know what? So here's- Steven Jack Butala: Throw Jack under the bus week actually. Jill K DeWit: No it's not. There's plenty times, Buddy, when you go, "Nope, this is what you do." This is my turn. Because you know what really, I am dealing. I'm on the front line a little more in this scenario. Not that you're not, and you haven't done this for decades, but. Jill K DeWit: So here's how it goes now. Number one, do you even really want it? So here's my thing. Is my buyer's pool going to be so darn small, and I'm going to be running around trying to make $3,000 off of my $1,000 when I can just move on. So there's really got to be some other redeeming quality for me to even care. If my 8,000 is now 1,000, now I'm scratching my head going,

Taking Action (LA 1663) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill K DeWit: Hello. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today, jill and I talk about taking action. Jill K DeWit: That's it? Steven Jack Butala: That's it. So the new year's is coming up and nothing happens on its own. And I got to thinking nothing happens, forget about land for a second, nothing happens unless we take action. We're talk about that in just a minute here. But before we do, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com. Jill K DeWit: I was going to ask you about your Christmas first. You just jump right in there. Do you know you have a co-host over here? What the heck? Oh, I'm sorry Jill, are you there? Steven Jack Butala: I had what I call an amazing Jill Christmas. Jill K DeWit: Oh yeah? Steven Jack Butala: Yep. Jill K DeWit: What's a Jill Christmas? Steven Jack Butala: Jill Christmas is, well, I kind of meld the whole Thanksgiving and Christmas thing all together, so we had amazing food. It's was a Jill Christmas. All decorated. Everything's decorated. We had presents. The fire was on. It's right out of a postcard. Jill K DeWit: Thank you. All right. So you had a good Christmas. Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, I had a great one. How about you? Jill K DeWit: I had a great Christmas too. Steven Jack Butala: Was it a six out of 10 or an eight out 10? Jill K DeWit: Oh, it was an eight out of 10. You know why? Because it's just so nice. Things have calmed down a little bit. Those of you who know us, we've changed states. We've made some changes and I can't tell you what a difference it is. I'm not picking on anybody. I'm going to only share the positive because that's me. Steven Jack Butala: I'll bring in the negative if it's necessary. Jill K DeWit: Oh good. No, but I have been every day shocked and amazed at nice people. Even Christmas Eve running in the grocery store because you forgot something. And it was like, "Oh no, no, you only have three things. You go ahead of me in line." Oh we're back. At least we're here back. And it's been very, very nice. Steven Jack Butala: Since you brought it up, it's just been a crazy year. Jill K DeWit: It has been another crazy year. Steven Jack Butala: These last two or three months have been very, very nice. Jill K DeWit: Crazy, and it better not be the new norm. Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Moving across state lines and getting all new stuff again. Getting all new insurance and all new... I don't need to do that ever again. Jill K DeWit: Yeah. And how much did you do and how much did I do? Well, we won't go there on that part, on the insurance part. Steven Jack Butala: I did a lot of the man stuff. Jill K DeWit: You did the man stuff. I did the phone call stuff. That's very, very true. Okay. Thank you. Steven Jack Butala: And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill K DeWit: So I think I'm, I hope I say this right, [Basim 00:02:54] wrote, I have a funding partner for a deal and I have informed him that I intended to sell using a realtor. Since the property will be in the investor's name, they need to sign the agreement with the realtor. Can anyone provide an example of a partnership agreement that covers this scenario? Jill K DeWit: Yeah. It's in our go to offer... Wait, deal funding. I had to think about that. So in our deal funding stuff, you can find it on Land Academy, also in Land Investors, also on landfunding.com. I think it's all there too. Steven Jack Butala: Exactly. Jill K DeWit: And that's exactly how we do it, and that's the right way to do it. So if I'm putting up 100% of the money, which I'm often doing. If I'm not, then we're going to, we're going to,

Jill Friday - Jillifying Year End Land Deals (LA 1662) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Hello. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today is Jill Friday. She's going to talk about identifying... Jill DeWit: I'm going to talk about- Steven Jack Butala: She going to talk about Jillification. Jill DeWit: Yep, Jillifying it over the holidays. We got this. It may not be written down, but I remembered, because I have that kind of an amazing memory. Steven Jack Butala: Someone did the script wrong. Jill DeWit: Like an elephant. Steven Jack Butala: I wonder. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on The Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill DeWit: Am I remembering that right? What the heck is going on over here? Steven Jack Butala: I don't know. Jill DeWit: It's just like, you know what? Steven Jack Butala: It's right before Christmas is what's going on. Jill DeWit: It's Christmas Eve. This is airing on Christmas Eve. So am I remembering the elephant right? Does the elephant have a good memory or is that just a saying? Steven Jack Butala: Well, I don't know if they do or not, but it is a saying. Jill DeWit: I've never actually sat down and talked to an elephant. Steven Jack Butala: You know what I learned? Jill DeWit: Tell me. Steven Jack Butala: Recently, that elephants can find groundwater. They have a sense, like a sense of smell for finding groundwater. Jill DeWit: That's flipping cool. I did not know that. Steven Jack Butala: And so during a drought, they'll dig. Altogether, they'll dig and get down to the water and survive. Jill DeWit: That is so darn cool. Yeah, so it's Christmas Eve. So yeah, I like that you're sporting your Merry Christmas hat. And I'm wearing my Jillify hat for today. So back to the show. Matt wrote, "Can you still get a deal done at the end of the year?" And then [Lori 00:01:39], one of our cool people in Land Academy answered this. And then I'm going to talk more about it too. Steven Jack Butala: It's a good little story. Jill DeWit: So Lori says, "Oh, it happens." That was his question, then we're just reading one of the responses, and then we'll talk about it. She says, "I had a seven day close on my first house I put under contract on Christmas Eve day, and it closed on New Year's Eve. That title company said it couldn't be done. There were too many forms to get filled up by too many people. And yes, it was back then, by the way." She's like, not to tell you the year, or how old my children are, or how old I am. She said, "This was before email, but still exactly the same as New York is today." That's funny. "So I talked them into letting me deliver the forms and purpose. And I told everyone I was a courier for the title company, and I had to-" Steven Jack Butala: Isn't that great? Jill DeWit: "I had to wait, and get the form filled out." Steven Jack Butala: This is something you would do. Jill DeWit: I would do the same thing. Steven Jack Butala: Just get it done, man. Jill DeWit: This is brilliant. I'm a courier. I'll wait [inaudible 00:02:32] in here. That's awesome. And they said it was one of their easiest closings ever. That's it. That's perfect. That's Jillifying it. Steven Jack Butala: This is perfectly on topic today. Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Good one. Thank you. Steven Jack Butala: Today's topic is... Well, it's Jill Friday, Jillifying year-end land deals. This is the meat of the show. Jill DeWit: So that is one of them. Actually, that's B. So I have three points to make here, and it's going to tie into this question, which is awesome. So end of year, are we even working? Do people buy things?

Jack Thursday - Less Frequent but Bigger Land Deals (LA 1661) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Hello. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today is Jack Thursday. And I'm going to talk about my personal 2022 goals, which are less frequent, but bigger land deals. Jill DeWit: I want to hear about some of your other goals. Steven Jack Butala: Like try to be a better husband? Jill DeWit: No, no, no. Let's see here, find a new hair stylist, because I failed at that one. So you're... Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, if you are watching this, you can see. Jill DeWit: I got to share this. I walked into a local bar the other day and the sweet, sweet bartender says to me, "Jill, wow. Did you cut your own bangs?" I said, "You know, it might look like that, but no, I did not." Steven Jack Butala: When someone says, "Do you cut your own hair?" That's not a compliment. Jill DeWit: That's a bad sign. Did you do that yourself? Oh darn. Nope. No, it sure looks like it, but no, I did not slaughter my own hair. So that's one of our things for next year. You know, that's one of the hardest things I have... I wanted dry cleaning. I got house cleaners. I got land... Well landscapers came to the house, so we got a couple wins there. Steven Jack Butala: We had a lot of wins. Jill DeWit: A lot of wins. Steven Jack Butala: Can't win it all though. Jill DeWit: We have yet to figure out our trash service, we failed on that one and we failed on the personal hair and all that stuff, we've got to figure that out. I won on a dentist. Don't have a doctor. It's funny, but hey, it's part of moving. It's all right. It's all good. Steven Jack Butala: We live in a town that doesn't believe in charging taxes for anything. And they also don't believe in providing any services. Jill DeWit: Street lights, and sidewalks. Steven Jack Butala: There's no streetlights. Jill DeWit: No. Steven Jack Butala: There's no sanitation or anything. You have to hire everything out independently. There's literally no sewer systems. Jill DeWit: Right. Steven Jack Butala: Everything's on septic. Jill DeWit: It's hilarious. Steven Jack Butala: But it's real cheap to live here. Jill DeWit: It's great. Yeah. I wouldn't call it cheap, but once you get past the water and the electric and the gas bill. Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill DeWit: Ian wrote: If we're looking for infill lots, and there's a lot of lots owned by an HOA, and that HOA looks to be sparsely developed, like maybe 20, 25% of the lots are developed. That's not a good candidate for what we're looking for. Right? In Land Academy 2.0, infill lots, the example Steven shows looks to be lots with houses built all around them. Steven Jack Butala: Let me cut to the chase. Jill DeWit: Please do. Steven Jack Butala: The best case scenario for infill lots. You bought the last lot available in the entire subdivision. Everything else is built on. This country is packed full of failed subdivisions or there's lots of different words for them. Paper subdivisions or where it's 20% developed, and then there're just tons and tons and tons of properties that are for sale, vacant land properties in a sub. When there's an HOA, well, that's just adding fuel to the problem, fire to the... Pouring fuel on a fire. Jill DeWit: Making fun of my "going down the rabbit trail"? Now you're doing it. "Pouring fuel on the problem." [inaudible 00:03:51] How about fire? Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Jill DeWit: Yeah. Steven Jack Butala: So you want to stay out of those HOA driven paper subdivisions,

Learn More About House Academy Here SFR vs Multitenant Investments (LA 1660) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala:Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit:Hi. Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land and investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the valley of the sun. Steven Jack Butala:Today Jill and I, we're going to talk about houses versus- Jill DeWit:It's really the House Academy Show. Steven Jack Butala:Oh, yeah. It's the House Academy Show today. Jill DeWit:Yeah. Steven Jack Butala:Houses versus apartment buildings. The name of the show is SFRs versus multi-tenant investments. Jill DeWit:Mm-hmm (affirmative). Before we get into it, I have a question. Do you use all your luggage for hauling things other than clothing? Because that's what seems to happen to all of our luggage. I had to hold on, physically hold back my one good rollaboard because he wanted to fill it up with stuff. Steven Jack Butala:Ammunition's really heavy, and the easiest thing to haul it around in that I found is suitcases. Jill DeWit:The very nice Travelpro luggage that I have. And he tries to take them all. I'm like, "You can have them all, but you got to leave me one." I am not going to travel on a trip and have my clothes, have gun powder on my clothing when I unpack my suitcase. Steven Jack Butala:It turns out men and women are real different. Jill DeWit:Yep, exactly. Steven Jack Butala:Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and don't forget to subscribe on our Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill DeWit:Amy wrote, "Has anyone run into an issue with Redfin not having matches for zip codes in a county? Doing the Red Yellow Green Test. I wasn't sure if there's an alternative. I'm new to this." This is you. Steven Jack Butala:People, especially really young people, believe that the internet sometimes is like a God-given right, like utility companies, like you turn the tap and the water comes out. It's a public service. Jill DeWit:This should work. I just spent $1,200 on the 13 Pro, and I don't have 5G at this moment. Steven Jack Butala:The internet is a collection of independent businesses, like Land Academy or LandStay, and we're here to make money. And so Redfin's no different. Redfin chooses who they do business with based on where a lot of real estate deals go down. Jill DeWit:Like where the money is. Steven Jack Butala:Which are cities. They're in bigger cities. The bigger the city, the bigger the real estate deals. We're in volume of real estate deals. Redfin has made a strategic decision, and I don't disagree with them at all, that they're just not going to have contracts with certain MLSs that are rural because they don't care. And that's fine. Jill DeWit:They can do that. Steven Jack Butala:Realtor.com is run by the National Association of Realtors and they have 100% coverage of the entire country. Zillow, 100% coverage from what I can see. Redfin has just got, I don't know, it's probably 60 or 70%, but it turns out we buy and sell rural vacant land a lot. So Redfin is not... Although they have the greatest data there ever was, they don't have 100% coverage. I don't know how else to say it. Jill DeWit:No, that was fine. That was good. Steven Jack Butala:Today's topic, SFR versus multi-tenant investments. This is the meat of the show. Here's the deal with commercial real estate. Here's how you make money in commercial real estate. Jill DeWit:Okay, I'm going to settle in now. Steven Jack Butala:You buy a piece of property. I don't care if it's an apartment building, a skyscraper, a trailer park. Doesn't matter. It's got tenants, and they pay every month, and you go about your merry way. It's a terrible return on investment if you line it up against any company, like a manufacturing company or a company like Land Academy. It's just not a good...

Only You Know the Meaning of Time Well Spent (LA 1659) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here. Hello. Welcome to Land Academy Show, entertaining land, investment talk. I'm Stephen Jack Butala. Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today Jill and I talk about only you, know the meaning of time well spent. Jill DeWit: By the way, if you don't recognize us. Yes, we did both get haircuts. Steven Jack Butala: Jill's is better. Jill DeWit: Yep. Well, no, I didn't mean yep. Sorry. I didn't mean it like that. I didn't know that's what you were going to say. I had yep already coming out. So yeah. Steven Jack Butala: We just moved back to Arizona from California and we got to find new people to do our stuff and... Jill DeWit: Oh yeah. That's a process. Steven Jack Butala: What do you say? You know every guy's gone through this. It's like, "Yep. I can see it in the mirror. It's all going to hell. I'm watching it unfold". Jill DeWit: I'm in the chair and I'm trapped. It's like you can't... Steven Jack Butala: Women ever go through this? Jill DeWit: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I'm sure. Yeah, that does happen. It does. You're like, "And I'm trapped, it's not like I can get up and walk out right now. I'm wearing a robe", kind of thing. It's just not going to work. Yeah. I've had massages like that where I'm like, "Crap, this person's beating me up. I don't know what to do. I'm afraid to say anything". Steven Jack Butala: Well, I've had the opposite. I've had the opposite. It's like, this is a 13 year old girl. She couldn't massage a... Jill DeWit: Raccoon? Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. A raccoon. Jill DeWit: All right. Again, I'm not drinking. Steven Jack Butala: You're so dirty. Jill DeWit: Not drinking. It may sound like it, but I'm not drinking. Go ahead. Steven Jack Butala: But Jill's hair, I've been saying this for a long time, Jill with age, she gets prettier and more elegant. And I just get fatter and more angry. Jill DeWit: Hey, before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors online community, it's free. And by the way, don't forget to subscribe on our YouTube channel and comment on the shows that you like. Michael wrote, "I've come across a county where I can't figure out how to filter out parcels with improvements in DataTree. And I thought I'd check with the community". How do you filter out improvements in DataTree? There are a couple different ways, you want to explain this? Steven Jack Butala: Here's a real deal. Here's the sad, terrible truth about data, all data. There's exceptions, and so the vast majority of it goes great, but there's always exceptions. And DataTree is no different than RealQuest or TitlePro or any other data aggregator. DataTree does not create this data, they just aggregate it. And so the majority of what we use in DataTree comes from the assessor. And the LA County assessor does a darn good job at data, but rural county X, in let's say, Arkansas, it's not that important to them. It's not good or bad. It's just how it is. And so if you can't get the data that you need to send out a mailer in the format that you need it, go to another county. This happens to me all the time. And I've been millions and millions and millions of mail merges and data that we've utilized over the years, Jill and I. And to this day, we just get bad data sometimes. Jill DeWit: What if you're dead set on the zip code? Could I download a couple lines of the data, follow me on here? I can download it and I can see all the columns all the way across and I can maybe figure out, "Oh, they don't use these use improvement percentage, but I see they fill in doors or some kind of structure". I can figure out something that they use. Is that a possibility? Steven Jack Butala: This is before I sat down to record this, I looked at a data set that I ordered from Concierge Data. It's 45 units,

Taking Land Acquisition Orders from a Single Buyer (LA 1658) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala:Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit:Hello. Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala:Today, Jill and I talk about taking land acquisition orders from a single buyer. Jill DeWit:Oh my gosh. This is so funny because I think we have different opinions on this. I think, we started to talk about this for just a few seconds before we sat down, and turned everything on and he's like, "Why is this bad?" I'm like, "Where do I start?" So, hold on. I have a lot to say about this. Steven Jack Butala:I made a career out of taking acquisition orders for commercial property when I started out. Jill DeWit:And this is a tad different. So I'm going to share that with you. But before we do that, first I want to say, thank you very much, the gift basket on the shelf behind me is from Alex Peak. Did I say [inaudible 00:00:55] or should I say... [Alex Plow 00:00:56]. Thank you very, very much. We got your gift basket, and we super appreciate it. Haven't really cracked into it yet. I thought I just put it on the shelf for today, and then I'm going to crack into it later. Steven Jack Butala:Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community, it's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill DeWit:Peter wrote, "anybody have experience incorporating their kids into their planned business. I have two girls, age 13 and nine, who both have demonstrated a lot of interest, which is super exciting to me. I know they are young, but they are both motivated and hardworking. They started a couple of side hustles." They're 13 and nine. This is awesome. Steven Jack Butala:I did that at that edge too. Jill DeWit:"Over the last year. And now it looks like they want to edge into the world of land investing. Any thoughts?" I got to say, what was so fun is we had our, our dear Tony in the last career path had his daughter. She's 16, I think? Steven Jack Butala:15. Jill DeWit:15, Yeah. Steven Jack Butala:Probably 16 now. Jill DeWit:Probably 16. Anyway, his daughter in it with him showing up on the calls, the timing worked out great. She was obviously home for school and jumped in this with dad. And by the way, she dug this up for dad. So I believe this to be true. She, and dad were talking about dad was retiring from one career, looking for a different career and something they could do together and teach her. And she found us and found Land and brought this to her dad. And now they were in career path. So I think it's great. Steven Jack Butala:We have three children, Jill and I, and two of them do very well. Jill DeWit:They're in it. Steven Jack Butala:I've always said to all three kids. "I really love two of you." Jill DeWit:Exactly. It changes all the time. You know what's so funny, though? Is that they either they don't get it now, they might get it later. So number one, and number three were in the business. Number two, wasn't so interested. We thought now number three could care less. And number one and number two are in it. So we're hoping that number three will someday like it, maybe not. And that's okay, but if they've got an interest, go for it. I love it. Steven Jack Butala:Here's my real answer to this. Kids need to, all kids, I think, need to have a terrible, terrible job. When they're young, they need to fail and get a boss who's awful and just see the real world and what it's like. And then they'll come back into something like this and really understand that. Maybe appreciate its value. Yeah. Our number three is 18. He's got a terrible restaurant job right now, and they work him to the bone. He gets paid pretty well, but, and it's opening his eyes about what goes on in life,

Jill Friday - Quitting Like Prince Harry (LA 1657) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill K DeWit: Hi. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about... Well, it's Jill Friday, and she's going to talk about quitting like Prince Harry. Jill K DeWit: It's so funny. So as I started to say, I was reading an article on my phone the other day and I just had this disgusted look on my face. And this one says, "What? What's going on? What's got you so mad." I'm like, "You got to hear this one." And it's Prince Harry promoting quitting. And I'll tell you more because I have the article pulled up here. We went into a long discussion on... And you've heard him say this before, I'm going to quote you, "When is that okay?" So, we're going to talk about when is that okay and then in these situations, it's not okay. Steven Jack Butala: First, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube Channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill K DeWit: Jessica wrote, "I just called a small city hall about a property and the mayor answered the phone." This is awesome. This sounds like our office sometimes. I'm like, "Let me answer the phone. Let me answer the phone." They're like, "Is this Jill?" "Yeah." He had a great conversation about a lot I just got a contract on. It's residential but they really want more business. The four lane road it's on gets 11,000- Steven Jack Butala: Excellent. Jill K DeWit: ... traffic cars. Steven Jack Butala: Traffic count per day. Jill K DeWit: Per day. It's pretty good, right? Steven Jack Butala: That's great. Jill K DeWit: There's a new Dollar General three lots away. Steven Jack Butala: Oh man. Jill K DeWit: I know nothing about commercial. Steven Jack Butala: Geeze. Jill K DeWit: Does anyone have any insight as to how to go about making the most of such an opportunity? Steven Jack Butala: Yes. Jill K DeWit: That's hilarious. Steven Jack Butala: I have some insight. Jill K DeWit: I hope you have a [inaudible 00:02:06]. Per the mayor, "This is a great spot." Per Mayor Joe, "This is where you want to be." Steven Jack Butala: As long as you're buying it right, and I mean really buying it right like we do here at Land Academy then I'll... Call us Jessica, but I'm sure- Jill K DeWit: You got people. Steven Jack Butala: ... But I'll tell- Jill K DeWit: You know- Steven Jack Butala: I know how this goes in discord. Jill K DeWit: You got it. Steven Jack Butala: Somebody's already- Jill K DeWit: You don't need us. Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Call us just if you need us. That's what I mean. Jill K DeWit: Yeah. I'm sure you don't. Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jill Friday, quitting like Prince Harry. This is the meat of the show. Jill K DeWit: Okay. So, it's Jill Friday. And so I promise this is not just British tabloid stuff, you're going to see the value here, but it started with that and just makes me crack up. So the whole article was, it popped up in my thing, and it's it says this was December 6th. It says, "Prince Harry encourages people to quit their job if it doesn't bring joy," what? Steven Jack Butala: Because he's qualified to do that. Jill K DeWit: What, what, it's just hilarious that you should work at jobs that you enjoy and that leaving a miserable career is really good for one's mental health. And this is an interview he's doing with Fast Company magazine. So this is all high level stuff. But I'm like, wonder if I was the one doing the interview. I'd be like, are you kidding me? This is hilarious. And, by the way, it talks about him, who he quit his own job as a senior member of the British Royal family. And that job resignations during the pandemic aren't a...

Jack Thursday - Land Academy Word Association Test (LA 1656) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill K DeWit: Hello. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt broadcasting from the valley of the sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today is Jack Thursday. And I'm going to talk about this little game that I devised called land academy word association test. Jill K DeWit: Can I ask what the outcome is supposed to be of this? Steven Jack Butala: Well, okay. I mean, since you brought it up, you should take this question real quick and then I'll get all into it. But here's a little prelude. Jill K DeWit: Okay. Steven Jack Butala: If I say customer, and you say no. If I say, not you necessarily, Jill, because you won't. But if I say, I don't know, 10 or 15 of these words, like customer $50,000 a month. Ranch land. Nope, nope, nope, nope . Jill K DeWit: Is this to help you decide if you're a land person or not? Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Jill K DeWit: Ah, Change. Okay. Steven Jack Butala: Ferrari. Jill K DeWit: Nope. Steven Jack Butala: Calendar. Jill K DeWit: Yeah. Steven Jack Butala: You know? Exactly. Jill K DeWit: Got it. Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the land investors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel, and comment on the shows you like. Jill K DeWit: Tony wrote. I have a signed agreement from an individual who bought a property on a Sheriff's Tax resale deed in Texas. What issues could I come across if I buy this? Steven Jack Butala: All right, this is a very common thing. Full disclosure. I've done thousands and thousands and thousands of transactions like this with almost no incident at all, but like everything, you just need to know the facts. So what happens is people stop paying their taxes or they die or both. This is property taxes now. This is not income tax. These are property taxes, and they're associated with the land, not the person. Income taxes are associated with a person. Debt on property is associated with a person in the form of a personal guarantee. So this gets very misunderstood. If Jill has a piece of property, she's owned it for 10 years. She stopped paying taxes a lot of years ago. I purchase it from her, and she says, great. Here's the deed. Congratulations. Thanks for the check. Good luck. Steven Jack Butala: And I inherit the taxes that our associated with that property stay with the property. So now she's done, and she wipes her hands on the whole thing. Now it's my job to make good on the property taxes as a new owner. So what happened here is somebody stopped paying the taxes altogether. There was no purchaser sale. It went all the way back to the taxing authority, according to state statutes, sometimes local statutes, but mostly state. And the sheriff in Texas literally stood on the court steps. Maybe the sheriff themselves did it, or maybe they hired a company. Sometime lawyers do it in Texas. And they sold the property. Well, Tony here's buying it from somebody who bought it at that sale. And he's wondering what the problem is. So here's the issue. It all comes down to chain of title. In the eyes of the chain of title, this property has a break in the chain of title. And meaning that it didn't convey over its life with the title insurance policy, a title insurance policy, a title insurance policy. Jill K DeWit: Because they had to take it back, like forcefully take it back. Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Got foreclosed on is what happened for property taxes, tax lien. So now he's buying the property, and he wants to, as much as he can, Tony here wants to, as much as he can. Jill K DeWit: Protect himself. Steven Jack Butala: Market the property with marketable title. That's the whole key here.

Learn More About House Academy Here What to Do When Your Buyer Needs Financing (LA 1655) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala:Steve and Jill here. Jill K DeWit:Hello. Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to the Land and House Academy Show today, Entertaining Real Estate Investment Talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala:Today. Jill and I talk about what to do when your buyer needs financing. Of all time, since we've been doing this, since 2014, '15, this has been, consistently been at least a top 10 question, maybe top five. Jill K DeWit:It comes up often because people fall in love with your property and they go, "Oh, I don't have the money." Steven Jack Butala:What I brought, I wanted to make this an episode today because it's really different for houses and for land. Very, very, very different financing animals for a bunch of reasons. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com Online Community. It's free. And please don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill K DeWit:Greg wrote, "Nobody has any money or credit and everybody wants a land contract." This is why I won't want to do ... I don't want to do land contracts. Number one, I can earn way more money over the course of the contract by buying and selling more properties with cash up front. Jill K DeWit:Two, I have to deal with this person for years and who knows what will happen. Three, I have to deal with the neighbors for years. You're driving down my road. There is a homeless encampment on the property, et cetera. Dream it up. Four, liability? What if someone busts a leg or gets shot in a pistol fight? Where are these properties? Am I liable for that risk for the next three years? In my- Steven Jack Butala:Opinion. Jill K DeWit:... opinion, land contracts are only good when nothing else is possible, like no buyers. Steven Jack Butala:Which never happens. Jill K DeWit:Right. Tell me why you love land contracts and what I'm doing wrong with them. Liability clause, litigation clause. Should we just jump into the show because it all ties in? Steven Jack Butala:Yeah. Jill K DeWit:Okay. Steven Jack Butala:Today's topic, what to do when a buyer needs financing. This is the meat of this show. Jill K DeWit:I have a lot of notes, but do you want to go first or do you want me to? Steven Jack Butala:Oh no. I would love for you to. Jill K DeWit:Okay. So I put a plus. I have a minus and then I have pluses. So your buyer needs financing, whether it's land or a house, the first instinct is, oh, seller financing. They always like, they ask that too. Will you carry back on a house? And sometimes it's a good solution, but most of the time, it's not my first choice. It's never my first choice. Let's just say that. I will be open to it. This is the House Academy Show so I'm going to talk about that first. Jill K DeWit:I would be open to it if it was a 30 day, 60 day, 90 day thing. We can see on paper what's coming down the pike. I am cashing in my retirement. Here's everything. We all know it's coming. Can you carry me just until this happens? And here's how it's going to play out. Those would be really the only situations I'd be open to. Jill K DeWit:But what's interesting, there's a lot of people that like this. They like them because they're note people. They want to buy them and have a note and sell the note and that's their thing. That's not who I am. I'm an investor. I'm not a note person. And I want to get my money and move on and do more properties. So before I talk about other solutions, you want to talk about seller financing? Steven Jack Butala:Here you have two options when you buy a piece of property correctly, the Land Academy way. Let's say you buy a piece of property for $10,000 and you know it's worth $20,000. You can buy the property for $10,000 and then put it on the market,

Career Path Starts Next Month in January (LA 1654) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill K DeWit: Hello. Steven Jack Butala: And welcome to the Land Academy show, entertaining land investment talk. Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about how career path starts, next month in January. And I've just been told that this has the possibility of being inspirational. Jill K DeWit: Oh. I hope all our shows are, in some way. Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill K DeWit: Waiting for it, waiting for the teleprompter. Mitchell says, my second mailer is working. We have three good sellers who reach out to us, I would like to reach out to a local land agent and get his opinion on them. Do I need these tied up prior to speaking with said agent or is it okay to probe them, as I'm working with the seller? Oh, I would have them tied up. I want them to be that good. And you know what? Because things could go wrong. You don't know said agent and they don't know you. And so, I'll tell you what I personally do, Mitchell, I personally say, even though I only have a signed purchase agreement, I'm very vague about it with the agents, as far as how long I am in the process, because they don't know, I could have been in escrow for three weeks and it's still going to take three more weeks to close, kind of thing, they don't know that. Jill K DeWit: But I do say, I'm getting ready to close on this deal, can you look at it please? And that tells them it's tied up, it leaves them with that impression and they usually don't do anything more than that. Steven Jack Butala: Those are exactly right. So, it's all about the conversation you have with that agent. And the agent could be, 65 years old or they could be 22 years old, it's not that they... it's the tone and how you handle it. So, there's no real secret way that a real estate agent can call the county clerk or anyone at the county and get inside information. So, when you go on the website, let's say, you actually buy the property, then you call the agent. It's not going to show up anywhere on the website, like realtor.com or Zillow, as an ownership record, for quite some time. Sometimes years, sometimes it's months. I used to really worry about somebody going around the backend, for me, and it's never happened to me, thank God, and I don't really, really expect it. It's not a real concern but Jill's right, if they're good deals, if they're good deals, there's no reason, especially if they're in the same county, just tie them all up with an escrow agent, get an escrow- [crosstalk 00:02:42] Jill K DeWit: Or you can just have a signed purchase agreement. [crosstalk 00:02:43] Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Oh, yeah. You have to have a- [crosstalk 00:02:44] Jill K DeWit: And it depends on how it is- [crosstalk 00:02:44]. Steven Jack Butala: You have to have a PA. Jill K DeWit: Even just a signed purchase agreement, Mitchell, is enough for you to double check your work and not go that far. Because, honestly, I would prefer you do it this way than, you don't want to open escrow on 10 of them and buy one because now this escrow agent is tired of you, because they started the process on 10 and you only do one. So, you want to move forward when you're really feeling good about it. Steven Jack Butala: Feel great about the price, you go for it. That's why we have, would you do the deal section in Discord, so you can get everybody's opinion. And chances are, somebody in Discord or on the Thursday member call, chances are, somebody will really have a good local knowledge of what the deals looks like and whether or not you're going to make any money. Today's topic,

How One Land Academy Member Nets $75,000 per Month (LA 1653) Transcript: Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here. Speaker 2: Hello. Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show: Entertaining Land Investment Talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Speaker 2: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from not so sunny Southern California. Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about how one Land Academy member nets 75000 bucks a month. Speaker 2: You know, I would first like to start with what we just talked about 30 seconds before we rolled. It's a blustery day. You don't like the sweatshirt look? Steven Butala: Oh, Jill, you don't have to explain. You of all people do not have to explain one thing to like anybody on this planet- Speaker 2: I like my little- Steven Butala: Least of all- Speaker 2: Cozy sweatshirt. Steven Butala: Me. Speaker 2: Well, here's the thing [crosstalk 00:00:40] Steven Butala: I was just asking you about what it's all about. Speaker 2: Well, I'm wearing a sweatshirt because it's a cold day, and I like to be all comfy in a sweatshirt, however, you could still say I have a butt and a waist because I'm wearing the right jeans, I hope. Steven Butala: You have a butt and a waist? Speaker 2: Yes. You can still see it. That's the thing if you wear ... What's really bad is if you wear a long sweatshirt, or a long sweater, and then like no one can see anything. You're like a big ball of fluff, and then like little legs stick out like leggings. That I don't like that look, and I won't do that look. Steven Butala: Like you just lose all shape? Speaker 2: Yes. Steven Butala: These are things that men have ... It's never crossed a man's mind. Speaker 2: Cinder block on sticks don't want that look. Anyway. Steven Butala: Oh my gosh. How we veer so far from land so quickly. Speaker 2: Well, you know. Steven Butala: Anyway. This topic today, very briefly, this is a real story, we're not going to use any names or locations or any of that stuff, about a member that we have who was actually at the live event, and a pretty lengthy presentation about- Speaker 2: Oh, great. Now, you're narrowing it down. Steven Butala: His business model. And the reason that I'm bringing it up today is because no ones forgotten it. It's constantly this undertone of- Speaker 2: True. Steven Butala: "Well, I want to be like X. I need to do more like X. Member X has all this figured out." So, I want to kind of get into this, and figure out if it's actually a unicorn, what's real about it, what's unreal about it. I mean, and I'll tell you it's 80% positive, and we'll talk about the positive and negatives, but we still have to do deals. It's not like you're choosing to do ... I'll describe his business model in great detail. Speaker 2: I'm sure you will. Steven Butala: Before we get into it let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Speaker 2: Aroldo ... I can never pronounce this name, I'm sorry. Steven Butala: You got it. Speaker 2: Aroldo asks, "For our first mailer should we keep the letter exactly as the download on Offers2Owners? I think it's all great especially for the sentence that says, 'We are partners with landstay.com who have been in business for 20 plus years, and have successfully completed 10s of thousands of purchases like this one.' I think that would help us with credibility. My gut just tells me to keep it simple and to just send it as it is to make it easy on myself. Any thoughts?" Speaker 2: Look at that. Well, I see one of our members on here already weighed in. Member and moderator Kevin said, "Aroldo leave it the way it is until you know enough to change for some reason. In three years I've only made a couple of very minor changes." Speaker 2: There you go. There's something to be said with aligning yourself. Well, A: Transparency. Number one, you never want to say it's you if it's not really you, and if you really are aligned with us,

Jill Friday - Identifying with vs Emulating Rich People (LA 1652) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Happy Friday. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today Jill and ... Well, it's Jill Friday, and Jill's going to talk about identifying with versus emulate rich people. Jill DeWit: Do you want me tell you where this came from now? Steven Jack Butala: I would love to. Jill DeWit: Okay. So here's how this topic came about. I'm laying in bed, on my tablet, like most nights. And I'm just looking and I'm just looking at news articles and I jump into different things, and then I'm in Facebook and I'm like, "Here we go again. Grant Cardone got another airplane." I'm like, "How many times are we going to see this?" I'm like, "He went from the Rolls Royce, now he's kind of off that." Steven Jack Butala: [crosstalk 00:00:48]. Jill DeWit: It was a lot of that for a little while, the Phantom. And the lights in the ceiling, we all saw that, and driving around and ... Okay, whatever. Now we moved on to ... Apparently I think he got a new airplane, he upped his airplane. And I'm like, "How?" And there's a picture of him and his wife and everything in there. And I'm just like, "Who does that sing to, because it doesn't sing to me." Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, it turns me off too. Jill DeWit: That's kind of where I am. And if you notice about us, you don't really see us. We're not doing that. And I don't have a Bentley or Rolls Royce. And even if I did, I think I would attract the wrong people. Steven Jack Butala: Yep. Jill DeWit: I would not want to do that. There's stuff to have fun and share and things, but then there's times you're just like ... It's just, like I said, it sends the wrong message. Steven Jack Butala: Let's take a question. Jill DeWit: We'll talk about it. Okay. Steven Jack Butala: I agree with everything you're saying, times 80. Jill DeWit: Thank you. Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill DeWit: Okay. Daniel wrote, "Thanks so kindly for your expertise and especially the call I had with you last year, Kevin Farrell." Oh, this is for Kevin. "The confidence I have gained with you as a mentor has led to a profit of around $90,000 in one month." Oh my gosh. This must be Kevin's reply. Steven Jack Butala: No, no, this is all one thing. Jill DeWit: Oh, the same thing. And he put, "Thanks so kindly. As you can imagine, it was a Thanksgiving for the record books, a 2225% return. God bless you and your family, my friend." Aww. Steven Jack Butala: That was a good little Friday motivational ad for you. Jill DeWit: Holy moly. Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Jill DeWit: Wow. Steven Jack Butala: Every time I make a bunch of money in one month, I multiply times 12 and see if it's going to be a good year. And honestly- Jill DeWit: It sets the stage. Steven Jack Butala: ... that next month becomes my thing. Jill DeWit: Yeah. Now I got to keep doing that. Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Jill DeWit: I know I can do it. I got to do it again. Aww, that's so ... And Kevin's awesome, that's wow. Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jill Friday. She's going to talk about identifying with versus emulating rich people. This is the meat of the show. Jill DeWit: Even with our friends, we don't walk around talking about it. "You know how much money I made last month?" Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Jill DeWit: "Do you know how much money I made on this deal? Do you know how much money this did or that did," or something like that? I don't do that. We don't do that. Jill DeWit: And he's dropping a number,

Jack Thursday - Breaking My Own Rules Equals Personal Growth (LA 1651) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Good day. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today is Jack Thursday, and I'm going to talk about how I break my own rules constantly, but it actually equals personal growth. Jill DeWit: It's okay when you do it. It's not okay when I break your rules. Steven Jack Butala: You know how when you're watching, yeah. If anybody's going to break my rules, it's me. Jill DeWit: That's right. That's the only one. Steven Jack Butala: The same thing happens if I try to break your rules. Jill DeWit: Yeah. Number three and I know that. Don't do that to dad. Steven Jack Butala: You know how you, absolutely. You fast forward through whatever you're watching on Netflix, or Amazon, or Hulu, no matter how short it is- Jill DeWit: Like people do to this show. Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. I wonder if they listen to it at times four. Jill DeWit: Yeah. Steven Jack Butala: Then they can detect when we say land. Jill DeWit: And then tune in. Steven Jack Butala: Like, not yet. Jill DeWit: Yeah. Steven Jack Butala: This is all being fast-forwarded through. Jill DeWit: Exactly. Steven Jack Butala: Here's the trigger, if you're fast forwarding. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by [crosstalk 00:01:09]. Jill DeWit: Oh, that's a trigger? Oh, got it. Slow down now. Oh, my gosh. All right. Steven Jack Butala: I had somebody email me two years ago and they said, "Look, I know what you're trying to do here, and the only real value to any of this is the question that you answer. So, can you please edit all that down, and the whole show can just be-" Jill DeWit: The question. Steven Jack Butala: "100 questions in a row, and save me a lot of time?" And I said, "Sure, absolutely. I'm happy to do that. I'll let you know on Thursday." Jill DeWit: That was not visible on iTunes, so we could still keep our rating. Steven Jack Butala: It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel, and comment on the shows you like. People say, people want stuff free. Did you ever notice since the internet kicked in, because we're old enough to know a time before the internet- Jill DeWit: Uh-oh. Steven Jack Butala: Where nobody expected stuff for free? Jill DeWit: True. Steven Jack Butala: Everybody expects everything to just be free. Jill DeWit: I know. You're not wrong. Charlie wrote, "Does my bookkeeper need knowledge of the land business to be a good fit for us? I'm just looking for something that's cost effective for my relatively small number of transactions. I talked to Anderson Business Advisors, but I don't think my one to two properties per month warrants $170 minimum per month in bookkeeping. Maybe I'm wrong." Such a great question. Steven Jack Butala: It's a great question, Charlie. Jill DeWit: Especially, end of year here. Steven Jack Butala: Actually, you're 100% right on everything you said. I actually have some experience in this. Here's what you want to do. And this is a whole module in Land Academy 3.0, which is coming out in January, about your business, setting up your business correctly. I realized that we never really- Jill DeWit: Talked about it. Steven Jack Butala: In the formal education. Jill DeWit: Right. Steven Jack Butala: This is what I want you to do. I want you to make sure you have another bank account that's separate, and I want you to put some money in there from your personal bank account. Let's say $30,000, $40,000, or whatever number you're comfortable with. And all the revenue and expenses that you incur in your business, I don't care if it's building a website, or getting a phone number, or all the other things that are necessary to send a mailer out,

Learn More About House Academy Here We Now Use Real Estate Agents or Fixed Price MLS on Every Deal (HA 1650) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala:Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit:Hello. Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to the Land Academy Show. I'm sorry, the House Academy Show today. Entertaining real estate investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit. And we're putting up with his allergies again. Broadcasting from the valley of sun. Steven Jack Butala:Today Jill and I talk about how we now use real estate agents or fixed price MLS on every deal. Jill DeWit:I'm going to do that every time. There's something oh, sorry. Allergies. Steven Jack Butala:Nobody knows what you mean now though. Jill DeWit:Well, if you listened Monday and Tuesday, you do. Steven Jack Butala:Yeah. Jill DeWit:Okay. So you have to go back and listen. It's funny. Steven Jack Butala:Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill DeWit:Amy T wrote, "Just starting out in Land Academy and in the process of watching all the wonderful videos. Would the more experienced members suggest starting out with an inexpensive land and make some mistakes before moving to infill lots?" What did they say? Steven Jack Butala:Oh, I want you to answer please. Jill DeWit:Oh, what do I think? Steven Jack Butala:Yeah. What would you do? If you're brand new? You're into it, she's into it. What do you do? You buy little properties and just see what happens or do you buy bigger properties and kind of go for it? Jill DeWit:Comfort zone. I think it's your comfort zone. Because some people walk into, this is how I roll, I'm going to walk in saying, "Oh, I got this. Good, bad or otherwise, I'm going to make it happen." My head might be a little too big in some situations but I walk in with a lot of confidence in a lot of situations, most and say, "All right, what's the fastest way for me to take what I know right now and make some real money?" So if that's my attitude, I'm going to go right away, start following the steps and I'm going to mail out and go for some bigger properties, knowing that doesn't matter how much money I have, because there's plenty of people on this group that is going to fund it. I'm going to find a rocking deal. I'm going to use somebody else's money. I'm going to make 50 grand on my first deal and split it with the guy and now I got 25, then I'm going to do it again and again. Now I got a hundred thousand. I'm going to go, "All right. Now, what do I want to do? How do I want to do this? Do I want to fund somebody else?" That's how I want to go. Jill DeWit:But not everyone has that confidence. They're like, "I don't know. I'm nervous. I do want to make sure I like it. I do want to make sure that this is for me, because there's a lot of moving parts. I like your idea, the way you guys did it. I've got $10,000 set aside. I'm going to buy 10 $1,000 properties. I'm going to double those and then I'm going to get all the kinks out and now I'm going to go do what that guy did or what Jill did kind of thing, whatever." So I don't think there's a wrong way, it's just whatever you're comfortable with. Steven Jack Butala:I've never in my life accomplished anything worthwhile within my comfort zone. I'm going through this right now, because I'm recording Land Academy 3.0 for release in January and I'm breezing through it, quite honestly. And here's why, because when we did the first one, the Cashflow from Land Program in 2015, we had a very, very low budget. If you watch it, you can see that. And I had to- Jill DeWit:I'm sorry. Steven Jack Butala:I had to at my age. Jill DeWit:I'm so sorry. No, it was not recorded on our cell phones. Steven Jack Butala:Not that this is real high budget, but. Jill DeWit:This is true. Yeah. What's changed?

We Now Price above 60 percent (LA 1649) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Hi. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt broadcasting from the valley of the sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about how we now price a lot of our mailers above 60%. Jill DeWit: I was going to say, I noticed the other day you were showing me our podcast numbers and how well they're doing and how many people were gaining. And I took a step back and I thought, I wonder why? And it made me think about all the children that are using this at night to fall asleep. Steven Jack Butala: I almost spit my coffee all over your face. Jill DeWit: All the parents of those children who are turning us on to lull their children to sleep. You're welcome. Steven Jack Butala: There's a conversation that Jill and I had right before we just threw the microphones on. We had a house full of people for Thanksgiving for several days. And so we watched them work and all the stuff we did. Jill DeWit: One of them worked. Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Jill DeWit: Let's be honest. Steven Jack Butala: And so he's watching this regular biweekly webinar that this guy holds about investing in stocks. I wish I knew his name, and I was so impressed. I'm like, God, this guy really knows his stuff. He's a former CPA for a big three accounting firm. He's got gray hair, he's got allergies, and he wasn't really [crosstalk 00:01:24] no sidekick. And his allergies, he's just, hold on. He's like, hold on a second. Then he would go off the screen and come back. And it was clear he just blew his brains out. Jill DeWit: Totally serious? Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Jill DeWit: He muted and then you had to wait there for a minute. Steven Jack Butala: Oh, yeah. Jill DeWit: Oh, that's hilarious. Steven Jack Butala: And I asked the guy that was staying with him, so I'm like, what's that? He's like, oh, yeah, he has allergies regularly. So whatever, and it was all business. It was all about the stock market. I think the stock market's going to do this. I think this sector, and this is why with graphs and the screenshots. And I'm like, you know what? People that want to buy and sell land are not getting that from this show. Jill DeWit: I know. I'm like, we've mellowed so far this week. He's like, well, then, maybe we should be. I'm like, oh. Steven Jack Butala: That's why this show works, because if I did a show, it would be like that guy's show and six people would watch it. If Jill did a show, it would be like the Bugs Bunny show. Jill DeWit: That's true. It would be like that. Steven Jack Butala: So there's something in between. And I don't know if that's good. I don't know if ... I don't know [crosstalk 00:02:29] Yeah. Let us know. Based on the people that join Land Academy, I think we're attracting the right people. Jill DeWit: Right. They are very smart. They suffer through me. Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. They listen to a whole 20 in show and get three sentences of valuable information. Jill DeWit: There you go. Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on our landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill DeWit: If you need to say excuse me and clear your throat or anything, go right ahead. Steven Jack Butala: I know. Jill DeWit: Yeah. Steven Jack Butala: It really angers you, doesn't it? Jill DeWit: No, no. Apparently, it's okay because that guy does it. That's what I think is so funny. All right. Tony wrote, "Looking to get estimated selling price per acre in Blank County, Texas. They do not have many properties for sale and have a few signed purchase agreements. Most of the properties are between six and 12 acres. Any support or experience for selling in this county ...

We Now Site Visit on Our Own Properties (LA 1648) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Hello. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about, we now visit all of our properties. Jill DeWit: The ones we can get to. Wait, wait, I want to call this AK... What'd you call this week? Steven Jack Butala: I called it breaking our own rules. Jill DeWit: I call it eating our words week. Steven Jack Butala: This week we're going to talk all about how really, what we're talking about is how our business model has evolved. Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Steven Jack Butala: But yeah, I mean, stuff that we talked about on the show like a thousand episodes ago. Yeah. Jill DeWit: I know. Steven Jack Butala: Don't listen to that. This is better. Jill DeWit: It's funny. We started land academy seven years ago now. I don't even... Going on seven years, I think, ago. But you started this business model in the nineties. Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Jill DeWit: So, there's been several changes over the decades- Steven Jack Butala: Lot of changes last week. Jill DeWit: ... that we've been in this business. Exactly. Just like parenting, I got used to saying, "Not my kid," and then of course, it's my kid. I'm now saying that to you. "Oh, we don't do that," and I'm saying, "Yeah, now we do." Steven Jack Butala: Yep. Steven Jack Butala: Our staff is famous for saying, "Three weeks of ago you guys said we were supposed to do this, this, this and this." Jill DeWit: Yes. Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, that was three weeks ago. Jill DeWit: That's true. That changed. Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on The Land Academy YouTube channel, and comment on the shows you like. Jill DeWit: [Yuri 00:01:42] wrote, "Got an accepted offer for a really weird parcel. It's 4.5 acres. It's a 4.5 acre island in the middle of a river. I was wondering if anyone had any experience dealing with properties like this." These are great. I have. Yeah. We have. Go for it. Steven Jack Butala: A lot of people, including me, had a lot to say on discord about this. And I said, "I love these types of properties," but here's the thing. They're almost never buildable. Jill DeWit: Sure. Steven Jack Butala: They have no access. All the things that we say... Again, this falls under all the stuff we... We say, "Never buy property that doesn't have access," and all of that. Yeah. This is never buildable. It's not going to be buildable, that it doesn't have access, but it's so unique that people love these types of- Jill DeWit: Yeah. Steven Jack Butala: I love to fish, and for five grand, I'd pick up a property like this just to say, "I own it." As long as the taxes aren't too small. Jill DeWit: Yeah. Steven Jack Butala: Maybe I use it two or three times- Jill DeWit: A year. Steven Jack Butala: ... a year. And maybe I print the plat map up, frame it, put it in my office, and say, "I own an island." Jill DeWit: Exactly. Steven Jack Butala: Here's the thing with these properties. They have to be crazy cheap, and you need to really disclose that, as my research shows, no access, super cool property, no access or boat access only, you're never going to develop on it. Jill DeWit: And half of it floods- Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Jill DeWit: ... twice a year. Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Jill DeWit: You know, something like that. Steven Jack Butala: Completely. All the way over. Right? Jill DeWit: Yeah. Steven Jack Butala: This case, this property was in Missouri, and it freezes. Jill DeWit: Oh. There you go. Steven Jack Butala: Honestly, if the river freezes over, it's one of those situations,

Jill Friday - Doing Deals During the Holidays (LA 1647) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Stephen and Jill here. Jill Dewitt: Hi. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Stephen Jack Butala. Jill Dewitt: I'm Jill Dewitt, broadcasting from the valley of the sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today is Jill Friday. She's going to talk about doing deals during the holidays. Jill Dewitt: My favorite time of year and I will tell you why. I have four things for you to know, and number four is the best, and that's all I'm going to say. Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question. Jill Dewitt: I'm not going to tell you now. Steven Jack Butala: Posted by one of our members on landinvestors.com, online community. It's free, and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel, and comment on the shows you like. Jill Dewitt: Yu rewrote. Does anyone have a good system in place for handling people who want to be taken off the mailing list in quotes. Between multiple people emailing me and calling me asking me to be removed, without even telling me who they are most of the time, it's difficult to keep track of them at all. I was thinking about digging my offer there with more clear instructions. Thoughts? Steven Jack Butala: May I? Jill Dewitt: I'm sure we're going to say the same thing. Go for it. Steven Jack Butala: Well, number one, it's great that they don't leave a message about who they are and here's why; we haven't talked about this in a really long time and it's something that's very important. The way that this mail merge is done or the way how we do mail merge and how I teach doing this mail merge, which is the mailer itself, is the culmination of me failing at it for 20 years. This is the one thing that works now. I failed and failed and failed and honed in and changed things and did stuff and made changes over here and the result is what we use now, which is why one of the reasons it's successful. Steven Jack Butala: It's one of the reasons it's so successful is because most people think you sent out one letter, it doesn't look like it's a chain letter or a form letter, or any of that, the way that it's all put together, most people. They say, "Hey, I got your letter... Jill Dewitt: "I got your letter". Steven Jack Butala: Go pound sand take me off your list", because they think you just sent it to them, because everybody thinks that they have the greatest property there ever was. The people that are providing the hate here. The fact is they don't and the fact is we don't care. It's just a numbers game for us. Jill Dewitt: Correct. Do you need to keep track of them? No. Steven Jack Butala: No. Jill Dewitt: Do you need to really go through your thing and put a line out through there? Steven Jack Butala: No. Jill Dewitt: No. Are you going to mail him again? Steven Jack Butala: Yep. Jill Dewitt: Probably not. Or even if you do, who cares? I'm not going to, by the way, if I do mail them again, it's going to be a ways down the road because I'm not going to immediately six months or six weeks hit him again. I'm moving on to a different area. I'm moving on to a different size. I'm moving on to something else. I'm not going to keep track. I don't care about that. Steven Jack Butala: Of all the things you to do in this business, there's a lot of moving parts to it and it can and is extremely profitable once you get all the parts moving together. This is not something you ever need to worry about ever again. Jill Dewitt: Totally. You know what? And here's what you do, Yuri on the phone, You don't even say, "whatever", with these people, you do let them think that you are when you talk to them and they say, "I need to be off your list". "I am so sorry. Got it. What's your name? Okay. You know what? I just took care of it. You won't get anything else from me". And then you hang up and then they feel good. Steven Jack Butala:

Jack Thursday - Your Land Investing Niche Chooses You Not the Other Way Around (LA 1646) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: ... Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Hi. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining, land, investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today is Jack Thursday, and I'm going to talk about your land investing niche that actually chooses you, not the other way around. This is not the first time we've discussed this on the show, I guess as is with most things, since we're on episode 1,646. Jill DeWit: There might be some duplicates in here. Steven Jack Butala: There's some overlap. Jill DeWit: But you know what, though? I would argue there's a reason they come up, because we've figure out something new. I'm sure on show 646 we had different things to say about niche than we do 1,646, and know that's not a typo. Steven Jack Butala: This is a very common theme that you hear in business all the time, about how the business that you ultimately are involved in, or choose... You think we make all these choices, and honestly, there's a lot of things that just chooses us- Jill DeWit: Like women? Steven Jack Butala: Like Jill chose me. Jill DeWit: Exactly. I was just going to say that. Let's see, let's think about, what are a few things that you don't get to choose? You don't get to choose your children. Steven Jack Butala: Boy, that's for sure. Jill DeWit: And you don't get to choose your parents. And you don't get to choose your siblings, I wish I did. Steven Jack Butala: But you can choose your friends, which is why you spend the most time with them. Jill DeWit: Yeah. You can choose where you live. What you drive. You can choose how you look. You can choose your hair color. Wait, what do you have? Steven Jack Butala: I don't know, we'll figure it out as we go here. Jill DeWit: Oh, good. That's [inaudible 00:01:54]. Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question post about one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel, and comments on the shows you liked. Jill DeWit: Anthony wrote, one topic I would like to hear about is what people get... Oh, please. We're having a little, what's the word I'm talking about? Steven Jack Butala: [inaudible 00:02:20]. Jill DeWit: Technical error. Okay. One topic I'd like to hear about is how people get wrecked in the land business. Oh, this is hilarious. Especially if you could add a cautionary tale. My take is that staying away from too much leverage is probably the key to not getting wrecked. I like the term wrecked. Steven Jack Butala: [inaudible 00:02:41]. Jill DeWit: I never use that. It's tempting to finance a purchase or two with credit when your acquisition budget is maxed out. Property values go up and down, most of the time they go up, but if you are over leveraged during a downturn, that debt could be working against you on a leveraged basis. Not saying that we will see a downturn soon, in fact, I see the opposite, with inflation as a dominant narrative ATM, but it's prudent to know where the risks lie. Steven Jack Butala: So I've been communicating with Anthony about this, and other things in Discord. Jill DeWit: Wrecked? Steven Jack Butala: I have a lot to say about this. Jill DeWit: This is good, go ahead. Steven Jack Butala: Because Jill and I were just about flat broke in 2009-ish. Jill DeWit: Yeah. Steven Jack Butala: Which is about the time we met-ish. Prior to that, I had a yacht, and so we really, really, got wrecked by that downturn, and the only reason that we made it out of it, and I say this in every time we do a live event, multiple friends who were in the same business, not necessarily land, but somehow in real estate, in Phoenix at the time, either ended up dead, or filing bankruptcy, or both. And so,

Learn More About House Academy Here Affordable Housing vs. Affordable Cadillac Escalades (HA 1645) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala:Steven and Jill here. Jill DeWit:Hi. Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to the Land Academy Show, House Academy Show today. Entertaining real estate investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala:Today, Jill and I talk about affordable housing versus affordable Cadillac Escalades. Jill DeWit:Do you know before we start, I would like to follow up with something from yesterday, because I'm sure you are dying to know. I checked on Milli Vanilli, and let me tell you what happened here. In case you weren't sure, they were German-French R&B band from Munich founded in 1988. So what all happened everyone? Well, here it is. In July of 1989, they were doing fantastic by the way. I liked them, who didn't like them? Steven Jack Butala:Me. Jill DeWit:Okay well. But it was fun, easy to dance to, good music, right? Well, what happened was, they were on stage during an MTV concert and there was something wrong during the audio course. And they found out that they were lip syncing is how it all went down. And I will have to say too, one of them is still with us. One passed on and they actually performed in July of 2021 at some kind of a festival. And if you really want to know how it all panned out, the one, I will tell you, the net worth of the one who is still with us. I don't know his name here. But anyway, the one that's still with us. Oh, Fab Morvan. His net worth is, ready for this, everyone? And you decide if this worked out. $250,000. Not a million. $250,000. Steven Jack Butala:Oh my gosh. Jill DeWit:I know, bless his heart. Steven Jack Butala:I don't know how they know that, but. Jill DeWit:I know. He lives in France. Well, it's expensive in France. So anyway. Steven Jack Butala:I don't usually say stuff like this, but we have cars worth more than that. Jill DeWit:Yeah. Anyway, that's the update from yesterday. I thought that was funny. Steven Jack Butala:Oh, before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy, YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill DeWit:Charlie wrote, "I was told today the buyer and seller can use different title companies for the same transaction. Is this right? It came up because I want to use a title company that I bought the property with. But the seller requested a different one." Excuse me. "Anyone ever done this? I guess they're saying, do the title work with their escrow company and use mine for escrow slash closing." I wouldn't do this. Okay. So here's the scoop. Can I cover this? Steven Jack Butala:Yeah. Jill DeWit:Alright. Steven Jack Butala:Because, in all my years- Jill DeWit:[crosstalk 00:03:00]. Steven Jack Butala:All my years I've never heard of this. It's not like real estate agency. Jill DeWit:No, you don't. This is not how it goes. You're going to be paying double. If you're hiring. Because if you think you're using their title company for all the work and then your title company's doing something else. They're just acting as your transaction coordinator or doing double. Usually they're just going to go, "What?". They're going to go, "Why are you talking to me?". Steven Jack Butala:I think the answer to this is no. Jill DeWit:Right. [crosstalk 00:03:24] Steven Jack Butala:So everything else that Jill says after this is just information. In a good way. Not in a bad way. She's explaining why. But let's answer the question. Jill DeWit:No. Steven Jack Butala:No you don't ever really have two escrow and title companies. Jill DeWit:No, but let me clarify something, because I think this is where this gets confusing. What I do is I'm going to buy a property with tile insurance. And if I can get a hold open clause or carryover policy,

Rational Growth and Cash Flow in the Land Business (LA 1644) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Good day. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about rational growth and cashflow in your land business. Jill DeWit: What if I don't want rational? I think I want through the roof growth. Steven Jack Butala: Well, that's one of the reasons you're the girl for me. Jill DeWit: There's nothing rational about anything that I do, is there?Actually, that's a whole nother show. Steven Jack Butala: Yesterday, we answered a question from a person who said, "I just sent out a thousand mailers. I got five calls back after about two weeks." And you can go back and listen to the question, and the first 10, five calls or whatever were from people that- Jill DeWit: Not interested. Steven Jack Butala: ... We call it the hate. Just get me off the list. So this person, for whatever reason, that is within their comfort zone to send out a thousand mailers. Jill DeWit: Our comfort zone is 20,000. Steven Jack Butala: 20 to 80. Jill DeWit: I know. At a time. He just lets them rip, by the way. I don't even know they're coming. Steven Jack Butala: Would I do that my first week in the business? No. Jill DeWit: Nope. Steven Jack Butala: So, that's what we're going to talk about here. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy Channel on YouTube and comment on the shows you like. Jill DeWit: Luke wrote, "I think it's going to be interesting to start a poll for everyone's average deal timeline from start to finish, meaning from the seller's signature to the end of the buyer's wire hitting the bank. Seems it's been longer with the corona backing up everyone, combined with forbearance ending, to jumpstart more investors buying homes." Is this home related or land related or anything related? Steven Jack Butala: It's land. And I know ... This is Luke, right? Jill DeWit: Yeah. Which Luke is it? Steven Jack Butala: It's not the Luke you know. Jill DeWit: Okay. Got it. All right. So, it's funny because I still have it all over the place. I have deals still where I put a sign in the ground and you go out and take pictures, and you have your photographer. If you're not doing this, please do this. You're in the process of buying the property. So while you're buying the property, you're already getting the photographer out there. So A, you get eyes on it by the way. Get your drone stuff done and you have everything ready to go. So when you own it, man, you can start marketing it right away. So one of the things that we also do too is put a stupid sign in the ground, as silly as this is. And I get calls and I'll sell property with a sign on the ground. I never even get to post a property for sale. So it's kind of all over the map. Steven Jack Butala: So let's apply some deconstructive logic here. Jill covered the sales part, as she always does. Jill DeWit: Thank you. That's all I know. I'm sorry. This is all I know. Steven Jack Butala: In every deal, there's constants and variables. So let's very quickly take a look at the variables. Variables are all about you. Well, I'm going to assume you bought it for a great price, because that's what we do here, in a great area that has been vetted through the red, green, yellow test and the whole darn thing. So, you know it's going to sell quickly, and it is. So now you've taken out all the stress of 100% of it. Here's the constants. Jill DeWit: Constant. That's a tough word. Steven Jack Butala: The constants, S-T-A-N-T-S, I think. The issue is freaking title agent. That's the problem. Because we've had title agents ...

Career Path and Mobile Homes (LA 1643) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Steven and Jill here. Jill DeWitt: Good day. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWitt: And I'm Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I are going to talk about Career Path, a new product that we launched last year, or I guess in 2021. Jill DeWitt: This year. Steven Jack Butala: That we're going to pretty dramatically expand in 2022 in mobile homes. Jill DeWitt: Yep. Jill DeWitt: I would like to note, we are committed with a capital C. If you are picking up on a little like, oh, I don't know a hoarseness or raspiness to my voice. No, I have not taken up smoking. I've never smoked and I won't go there, but we're coming off the holiday weekend and I'll tell you right now, it's early for us. We are here recording way off our normal schedule because of the holiday. Steven Jack Butala: Still people in our house actually. Jill DeWitt: Are sleeping and they're sleeping. We're not, and here we are. Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And if you are already a member, please join us on Discord. Jill DeWitt: Scott wrote just a question of curiosity. I have sent out almost a thousand mailers so far and received five calls all from people who want to be taken off my list, LOL. How many times on average does your phone ring from about a thousand mailers? Just curious about the averages since it seems to be right at the edge of my first mailer being received. Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Jill DeWitt: I don't want to be overwhelmed in the calls while I'm still working through, during the day, or leave too many to go to voicemail. Just curious, what kind of average on phone calls I may get and have to deal with. Thanks. Steven Jack Butala: So a lot of people commented on this and it's a very popular question. It's not one of my favorite questions because it's on Jill's side of the whole thing, but everybody. Jill DeWitt: Because you don't like the phone. Steven Jack Butala: Everybody kind of agreed, that it's about 2% is what you can expect. You're going to get a 2% response and for every 1500 mailers that you send out, if you do it correctly. Choose county correctly and do it all the way that it's all in the content of the education program, you should get anywhere between and five transactions for every 1500. You might just get one great one. Jill DeWitt: Meaning buy it. Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, buy it. Jill DeWitt: Pull the trigger, buy it. So I'll take, so what is 2%? I'll take, I don't know, 40 calls, I'm going to say maybe calls, letters, things like that. People reaching back out and maybe even more with the hate, to be honest with you. Steven Jack Butala: Two percent is 20 per thousand. Jill DeWitt: Okay. So I almost say I get a little bit better average than that by the time we ripped it out. Steven Jack Butala: Because you're chill. Jill DeWitt: Well I know, but I'm answering the phone too. So like my team we make sure we get those calls. That's pretty good. The first wave too Scott, don't worry about it. The first wave is always people that are kind of mad at you, take me off your list, I'm not interested. Because the next batch is the ones that they've been thinking about it. They get at it, they put it on the fridge, it's on the counter, it's on their desk. They're like, okay, they open up your letter. They take it seriously. They're like, I need to look at this and I need to talk to my wife or whatever it is before I make a decision. Jill DeWitt: And then a couple days, or maybe a week or even a month, they're going to either sign it and send it back or they're going to call you, and you're going to go from there. I do like you to send out a little bit more. I want,

Jill Friday - What Jill Learns from Her CEO Club (LA 1642) Transcript: Steven Butala:Steven and Jill here. Jill DeWit:Hello. Steven Butala:Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Butala:Today, Jill and I... Well, it's Jill Friday. And Jill talks about what she's learns, learns in a future tense, in her CEO club. Jill DeWit:Okay. We're going to talk about our November meeting, basically. Steven Butala:I hope you're stuffed full of turkey. Jill DeWit:I know, that's it. I hope you're shopping. I hope you are enjoying- Steven Butala:Not shopping. Jill DeWit:Well, hold on a moment. I hope you're enjoying Black Friday deals from the comfort of your couch. And watching football, and eating leftovers, and shopping on your computer. And it all arrives on time. Steven Butala:You know the Detroit Lions play on Thanksgiving? Jill DeWit:Thanksgiving. As do the Cowboys. Steven Butala:And the Lions lose. The Cowboys are so dope. Jill DeWit:And not lose to the Cowboys. Steven Butala:Before we get into it. Let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And please don't forget to subscribe on the land Academy YouTube channel, and comment on the shows you like. Jill DeWit:Erin wrote, "Short update on my first deal. Sure seems like it will be a success story. Closing on Friday at $13,800. I paid no attention to the legal description until I got my [inaudible 00:01:28] commitment back. Found out it's five lots on one PID." What's a PID? Steven Butala:The five lots on... it's his- Jill DeWit:Parcel ID or something? Steven Butala:Yeah, yeah. It's the [crosstalk 00:01:41] Jill DeWit:Okay. Just for tax purposes? Okay go it. "Can be split back into five lots for $175 bucks. And no wetlands or site evaluations needed. This is phenomenal. Neighboring lots sold for $19,900 last March. Thinking I'll make as much gross on selling the five lots as I do with my two in one year. And this is my first deal on my second neighbor." Steven Butala:It's outstanding. Jill DeWit:I love it. So you didn't... How sweet is this? Your seller didn't know. They would've told you, "You didn't know." [inaudible 00:02:18]. I'm closing. I'm like, holy moly. I'm actually buying five, I'm not buying one. This is great. Steven Butala:I had a similar story. I don't want to take the wind out of anybody's sail and I'm not trying to up the story here. Jill DeWit:Yeah. Don't take it away from Erin. Just kidding. Steven Butala:No, I'm telling you when these things happen. And you're starting to really exceed your regular job. And I'm not telling you to quit your job at all. But I'm saying- Jill DeWit:Talk about breathing. Steven Butala:Wait a year. And make sure you like it, and you can and continue it. But when you're starting to do single deals that exceed your whole salary for the year, it's time to think about leaving. Jill DeWit:Isn't that amazing? I just think about how well you're going to sleep now. Going, I just put, okay, great... No, it's so hard though because I've been in this situation. You realize your land business is now doing better than your day job. It's really hard to walk into the office with a smile on your face. Especially, when you're like every conversation, "oh, I want to tell them to shove it right now." You think I'm kidding? Steven Butala:No I'm too. Jill DeWit:Because I can afford to. Steven Butala:I lived it. Really. Jill DeWit:Yeah, I know. You know, what's so funny. So this is my truth time too. When I did leave, it was like I hung in there. Right. And everybody knew there was something going on. So when I finally sat my boss down and said, "I got to go." They're like, "I knew it." And then three people on the way out the door, are like, "Can I come with you? Can I work for you?" It was the sweetest thing. I'm like, "Sit tight. If I have a place for you,

Jack Thursday - Challenges of the Times We Live In (LA 1641) Transcript: Steven Butala: Steven, Jill. Jill DeWit: Happy Thanksgiving. Steven Butala: Oh my gosh. I hadn't thought about that. Jill DeWit: Yep. Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show and welcome to Thanksgiving. If you're listening to this, shouldn't you be doing something else right now? Jill DeWit: You are sick of your family. Aren't you? Steven Butala: You're obtaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the valley of the sun and hosting a big meal. Steven Butala: Today is Jack Thursday. I'm going to talk about the challenges of the times we live in, Thanksgiving style. Jill DeWit: This is the biggest one I've ever done. Steven Butala: Shouldn't you guys have something better to do than recording a show and talking to us on Thanksgiving. Ah, we recorded that way weeks earlier. Jill DeWit: I know. Steven Butala: Right Jill? Jill DeWit: But I'll post something. I'll do some stuff on social media today. So you can see our little bash in our event. This is the biggest bird we have almost 26 pound bird. It's awesome. Steven Butala: That's one of two. Jill DeWit: That's true. Steven Butala: She's got a, Jill's a pilot. So she's got - Jill DeWit: Backup. Steven Butala: Redundancy. Jill DeWit: Oh, I do. Yeah. There are backups. Steven Butala: There's two of everything in case one fails. Jill DeWit: That's true. Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel. Comment on the shows you like. Jill DeWit: Greg wrote. So listing on eBay question here, when I'm listing land for sale on eBay, what is the best day of the week and time of day for the auction to end? This is awesome. Steven Butala: Here's my actual response. This is a question in discord. I'm going to, this is what I typed in. I'm going to read it to you and then Jill's going to make fun of it. Jill DeWit: You have decades of, you have a lot of, years of experience. Steven Butala: It said, hello, eBayers. Yeah. If you post or schedule a $1, no reserve 30 day auction on any Friday, any given Friday, it'll close on 30 days later on a Sunday. For a point of reference, we posted about at about 6:00 PM Eastern time or scheduled it. So it would close at that same time on a Sunday, 30 days later. With a decade long strategy, we sold about $20 million of property at an overall 60% gross margin. It took a staff of about eight people working full time and all that's associated with that, the expense and the drama. You can imagine. As a simple reference point now, and I'm going to make the, this is the point of the show. Fast forward to this year as a simple reference point, we'll generate about $2 million net, that's net, not gross this year, buying and selling land with a part-time staff of two, 10 and 90 nines, happily working at home. Steven Butala: I'm not bragging here at all, but all of us in this land academy environment have all the tools, including all the money you would ever need and all the relationships to make millions of dollars a year with very little effort and risk and commitment. Jill DeWit: I hope Justice you saw that post and read that, because that ties into what we were talking about last week on clubhouse. Steven Butala: I spent decade - Jill DeWit: That's really cool. Steven Butala: We always had food on the table, Jill and I. I've always had food on the table, but we spent collectively and individually a lot of time failing at real estate and other stuff in life, so you don't have to. It's Thanksgiving, so that's what I want. I want to send that, convey that I hope you're as thankful whether you're Land Academy member or not, for everything, how this works. Today's Jack's Thursday. I'm going to talk about the challenges of the times that ...

Failed Anatomy of a Spec Home Deal (HA 1640) Transcript: Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Hello. Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining real estate investment talk. I guess this is the house academy show. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun. Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about the failed anatomy of a spec home deal. Jill DeWit: So this is interesting, because now where we are with housing, right? People are talking about housing shortages. People are talking about getting things rezoned, so you could have more homes, like LA county, have more homes on a lot to make it for, so there's more places where people to live, right, and affordable. And it's interesting. And there's a lot of building going on. Not just renovating now since COVID and people are home, but a lot of people are moving and choosing to buy land. Yay! Happy for us. And put houses on there. And it's just mind boggling to me, some of these, I think very risky decisions that they're making. Especially, it's one thing to buy your own piece of dirt and hire your own architect. And it's your own money. You're not going to sell it. You're buying it to build for you and you're going to move in. That makes sense to me. Steven Butala: Jill's emotional about this topic. Let's take a question first. And then we'll get into the show. Jill DeWit: Save it. [crosstalk 00:01:25] Steven Butala: Let's take it. Question posted by, members on LandInvestors.com. Online community is free, and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill DeWit: Host wrote, how would you price a mailer if the sold comps are 50% low than the for sale comps? So, sold is $40,000, for sale right now is $80,000. And each data set consists of approximately 200 comps. Well, first of all, I'd be high fiving myself because this is going up. It's becoming more expensive area. Is there more to it or is at the end? Steven Butala: That's it? Jill DeWit: Okay, got it. So, what do you want to say? Steven Butala: There is brilliance and simplicity. And this is an absolute brilliant question from somebody in Discord that I have never heard of. I think they're new, and they're clearly smart. What they're saying is, I pull the data set and what we teach is you got to look at everything that's for sale, you got to look at thing that's sold, and this person's saying, there's 50% variance in this stuff. All the sold comps say they're 40,000. All for sales comps say they're 80,000. One of the moderators came in Kevin and said, first thing I check for is an error in data. Meaning, you might be the error Host, but I don't think that. It's what Jill said. Jill's initial thought was, hey, the market's going up so fast. Jill DeWit: It could be. Steven Butala: So that's one... No matter what, we can all agree this is a data exception. This is not usually what happens. So it fascinates me innately. Data exceptions fascinate me, not the normal stuff. We all know the normal stuff. So, maybe it's a hotness, market hotness thing like Joe says. Maybe it's a data exception like Kevin, our moderator says. Or maybe, you just do what I say all the time and follow the program. You take the $40,000, you take the $80,000, you average them out. That's 60,000, and you offer 10 or 20% of 60, 10% of 60,000 is six. So if you offer between six and $12,000 and you're right or wrong, at between 40 and $80,000 on the sale side, you win Jill DeWit: That's easy. I would make sure too, that they sold $40,000 comps, one thing I forgot to add. I go in and toggle and back and forth and play with the... When was that? Because if all your sold comps and it's going back to the beginning of time, that's not good. But it's the last 12 months, now I'm feeling good. And everything for sale, because it really could be going up. Some areas it is this nuts. Steven Butala:

Land Academy Shifts into Third Gear for 2022 (LA 1639) Transcript: Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Good day. Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show. Entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit. Broadcasting from the valley of the sun. Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about how Land Academy is shifting into third gear for 2022. Jill DeWit: You just brought this up on Clubhouse last week. Steven Butala: I have. I have this thing about there are stages in everything. Usually four stages. Three or four stages in everything. So Land Academy is getting into stage three. Which, stage three of everything is the most exciting for me. It's like, "Yeah, we know what works!" I'll explain it all, but stage four is where it all works and you're just eating bonbons and hanging out. It's not that fun. Jill DeWit: By the way, I was going to thank everyone who suffered through yesterday's show. It was kind of a hodge podge of topics. I think it was funny though. I just wanted to get that out of there. Steven Butala: Oh yesterday's podcast? Jill DeWit: We were all over the place. It's kind of like, "Who are these people?" Steven Butala: You know, if your girl's like mine, the holiday season is here. So everything is a distraction from that. See, Jill's whole life right now is about Thanksgiving. By the time this airs, Thanksgiving might even be on. Jill DeWit: It will be Tuesday. Steven Butala: And then it's about Christmas after that. And then it's about New Year's. We have a tremendous amount of decorations for all of these holidays. It really starts with Halloween. So working for Jill is no fun. Jill DeWit: What? Steven Butala: Because it gets in the way of decorating and getting turkeys and stuff. Jill DeWit: You don't work for me. You don't work for me. Steven Butala: I didn't say that. Jill DeWit: Oh, okay. Steven Butala: I said, working for Jill is a real distraction against what she wants to spend time on, which is the holidays. Jill DeWit: I didn't understand the way you worded that, but I think I know where you're going. Steven Butala: It's a backwards compliment. So really Jill sitting here just doing the show is getting in the way of what she wants to do for Thanksgiving. Jill DeWit: Oh! I'm like, where are you going with this. Steven Butala: Mm-hmm. Jill DeWit: I understand. Steven Butala: That started yesterday with the podcast. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the show as you like. Jill DeWit: Nick wrote, "I got a 50 acre ... Are we going to use this word? Steven Butala: Fifty acre access list. Jill DeWit: Thank you. Parcel for 42,000. He used the word that started with an L for those of you who are listening and I just hate that word. We both do. Before acquiring, we spoke with property owners around it until we came across a nice lady who was willing to give us an easement for next to nothing. Now we're under contract to sell. What did we buy for again? Steven Butala: Fifty. Jill DeWit: Fifty thousand. Steven Butala: Forty two. Jill DeWit: Now we're under contract to sell for $210,000. Steven Butala: Buy for 42, sell for 210. Jill DeWit: Because he made a call and found a nice lady who would give access. Steven Butala: Because they got on the phone, ran down Joe's checklist for when you buy a property. Talk to the neighbors. And they made $158,000. More than that. Jill DeWit: Ding ding. Steven Butala: One-hundred and seventy. Jill DeWit: Beautiful. Is there any more to it? Steven Butala: Nope. Jill DeWit: Okay. That was awesome. So there was really no question. Steven Butala: No. Jill DeWit: That was just a statement. Steven Butala: This whole week is really a celebration of, because it's Thanksgiving. Jill DeWit: Good. Steven Butala:

What to Do When you Can't Stay on Your Own Schedule (LA 1638) Transcript: Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Hello. Steven Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy Show entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about what to do when you can't stay on your own schedule. Jill DeWit: Hey, for a minute. I was like, "I'm going to be just like the listeners right now. I don't know what this topic is about." And then I remember what we were talking about earlier. I'm like, "Okay, I got it." This came out of your intensive, right? Steven Butala: Came out of a discussion that you and I had earlier- Jill DeWit: Oh shit. Steven Butala: ...about writing topics for the podcast this week. Jill DeWit: Well, there is that. Steven Butala: And it was your idea. Jill DeWit: Thank you. Which came out of the intensive which wrapped up last week and I got to be a guest, if you will, on your last session, and that was very fun. Steven Butala: Yup. Jill DeWit: It was really cool. Steven Butala: Totally. Jill DeWit: Different groups. It was really interesting, I got to jump in on yours and you jumped in at the end of mine and we all talked about very different things. So it was cool. Awesome. Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on thelandinvestors.com online community it's free, and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill DeWit: Greg wrote, "Bought this 1.29 acre lot up in the mountains of Eastern blank for $2,259 back in February. Last week, we're going to a nearby city from Pennsylvania and after ignoring this property for most of a year- Steven Butala: Been there. Jill DeWit: We just, right? Steven Butala: Ignoring this, because he bought it, but- Jill DeWit: You forget. Steven Butala: He just didn't get around to sell it. Jill DeWit: Yeah. Steven Butala: Story in my life. Jill DeWit: Now you're know, Greg, you see how easy it is to forget, what, "Oh yeah. I still own that. Oh yeah." Okay. So anyway, we decided to stop by and take some pictures, do a drone video, dash cam video, and then put up a sign. It was a beautiful sunny day and I got some great colorful shots from both the ground and from the drone. Steven Butala: And so it's cool. He put all this in there. Jill DeWit: This is it. Steven Butala: He put the content in there, like the shot, you know- Jill DeWit: The pictures? Steven Butala: Yeah. Jill DeWit: That's cool. Steven Butala: It was really cool. Jill DeWit: After four hours or about four hours after we left, we got a call from a neighbor who had seen our sign and wanted to know our price. We hadn't quite settled on a price. So I told him somewhere around $16,000. He said, "I'm just curious" and local Tennessee folks wouldn't pay that much. But if you could get people from Florida to pay that, if not more. This seemed like an unusual but interesting opinion of the market value of the land in this area. So then, the next morning, this is so good. I get, "What did you pay?" You paid 2259, or something like that, right? Steven Butala: Let's see. Jill DeWit: Yeah. Wow, I have good memory 2259 and he said it's only around 16. So then the next morning I got a call from another neighbor who was out for her morning walk and saw our sign. She said she lived very close by and was looking for land for her daughter and daughter's husband, both of who live in Florida and want to move to this state. Jill DeWit: Given the opinion that I got from the local guy, I said that the price is $20,000. She thought about it for a minute and then said, "Yes." We now have signed purchase agreement and title company working on this. When all is said and done, we will make about $16,000 profit off our 2259 purchase. Although I was really looking forward to working on the listin...

Jill Friday - How to Sound Like a Professional Investor (LA 1637) Transcript: Steven Butala: Steven and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Hello. Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun. Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk... Well, it's Jill Friday, and she's going to tell us how to sound like a professional investor. I'm as excited and interested as this as you are. Jill DeWit: Thanks. Steven Butala: Before we get into it. Let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community, is free, and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill DeWit: Okay. Erin wrote, "What are some good ways to recover from a mailer that was priced too high?" Steven Butala: I figure this is right up your alley. Jill DeWit: Totally. This is hard. I know it, it's hard to get used to. It's so much easier to come in low and add money than it is to come in high and take away money. But I've done it. And so I was just taught. This is part... I believe is into the topic today. This is all because of the intensive training that I'm doing. We're week two of three right now. By the time this airs it will be over. And it's just how I get deals done. Whether it's the buy side, the sell side, all of that. And what do you do with you come too high with these people. First of all, I want you to take a step back and, and double check your math because maybe there's something to it that you're missing because it could be zone something special. Jill DeWit: It could be in a very unique area. There could be some special attribute. So I never assume when people call in and say, "I like everything, but the price." When they say exactly like that. I will never assume that I'm wrong. I got to get some more information first. So I nicely say, "I may have goofed. Tell me what's going on." And then I ask a lot of questions. So say you've done that they came in... This is the opposite though. You price it too high. They love you by the way. Re roll back again. What's the exact question? Steven Butala: How do you recover from a mailer that's priced too high? Jill DeWit: Priced too high. Okay. So, and by the way, this is the funniest situation, because... Can you do that for me for a second? It's funny for me because everybody calls you back and they love you. That's usually how you know you did it. Like, "Oh no, I sent out a thousand offers and I got a thousand phone calls. Oops. I may have offered too much." All right. So, but anyway, you need to take all the information in and do it just like you would normally take all the calls down, take all the inbound information, go back, do your due diligence, pick the 10 best ones. Right? And then you got to re figure, what is the right price. And then you need to go back to them and tell them, "I goofed and here's why." Jill DeWit: And it's not hard to come up... I mean, I will point out something that would make the property worth more and say, "I thought it was closer to town." I give them some reasons why not that I meant to buy it cheaper. I will never say that, but I will give them some reasons that shocks. "I hate to say this. I know I priced it at 10,000. I meant two. Here's the reason why I did not realize this was this far from X. I did not realize that the access needed a Y. I did not realize that you owed that much on back taxes." So you can come up with other things to do that... Don't do it on all of them. Still pick your best ones and then go back in and give them some reasons. And then let them respond. Steven Butala: Every property's got flaws. Every property's got attributes. Great stuff about it. No two properties are exactly the same. Jill DeWit: Exactly. Steven Butala: Point out the flaws, whatever they are and say, "Yeah, I offer you 10,000 bucks, but here's the deal,

Jack Thursday - Fishing for Land (LA 1636) Transcript: Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Hello. Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show entertaining land, investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWitt broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Butala: Today is Jack Thursday. I'm going to talk about fishing for land. Jill DeWit: I like this. Steven Butala: There's a lot of things about fishing. Jill DeWit: There's a lot of talk about fishing right now with you. Steven Butala: Well, I'm getting older and you know, this is what I told my bartender recently, I need a hobby. Jill DeWit: Like you have one bartender. Steven Butala: Yeah. One of the bartenders. I know, I know who's familiar with all my flaws. Jill DeWit: Got it. Steven Butala: And well, anyway. Jill DeWit: Oh, well finish the sentence. Steven Butala: Oh, I just need a hobby and I've always loved fishing. I grew up doing it. I grew up in Michigan, sometimes in Northern Michigan, and there's just nothing but fishing there. And we had a blast, lot of memories about that. And when you have children and jobs and things start things like Land Academy, there's just, you're pressed for time. And I'm getting to be the age where I need to start enjoying things a little bit more. There's enough money coming, buying and selling land all the time. We've got some good staff, Jill slowing down a little bit and you know I think bout fishing. Jill DeWit: That's good. Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the land academy, YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill DeWit: Buckley wrote: "My first mailer was 1900 units. I received over 10 responses with solid interest in selling. However, not a single one has a solid state or county maintained road access." That's okay. Hold on a moment. "Is it common to have so few replies with road access in a mailer this size, not sure if it's simply due the county I mailed or what plugging away, making the most of what I can though. Any thoughts are helpful." Well, what if it's a dirt road and it's still public and it's not like it's paved, but there's access. Steven Butala: Sometimes you can read my mind. Jill DeWit: Yeah, it doesn't have to be paved and plowed. It's not going to be that great. And depending on the area, this is rural. Let me back up here. This is rural vacant land everyone. Most of the time it is a dirt road. I'm happy with that. Steven Butala: Sorry Jill, get in there. Go. I mean it. Jill DeWit: Seriously, do you want an exit? Do you want your own exit sign with an arrow and a turnout or would you prefer a signal? Steven Butala: How about cut in sewers and roads. No here's the thing.. Jill DeWit: Exactly. A big sign that says power right here. There's a blow thing sticking up out of the ground. Just kidding. Steven Butala: We're not in the business of alienating Land Academy members. Jill DeWit: No, no, I'm teasing you. Steven Butala: But and I want to point out too, there's a lot of questions and comments and successes. I can choose from hundreds and hundreds of entries in discord when we do the show. I'm here to tell you, I'm not always picking the peaches and cream. Oh my God I made a million dollars on this deal kind of comments. So this is a valid comment. It's a valid concern from somebody who sent out a mailer, got a positive response and got a bunch of people that wanted to sell at his price. 10. Jill DeWit: This is all good news. Steven Butala: So that's good, good, good and good. Jill DeWit: Yeah. [crosstalk 00:03:19]. Steven Butala: Actually it's great, right? Jill DeWit: Yeah. Steven Butala: What your question is that is this well, one of the five A's is access and it doesn't appear to me that this rural vacant land has access. So I'm going to tell you little story,

Learn More About House Academy Here Why We Have Not Missed the Housing Boom (LA 1635) Transcript: Steven:Steve and Jill here. Jill:Hello. Steven:Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill:There was a long pause there. I'm Jill DeWit and we are broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven:Today, Jill and I talk about why we've not missed the housing boom at all. Jill:Personally or all of us? Steven:All of us. Jill:Good. Steven:This all comes from... Jill and I have children between the ages of, let's say 26, 27 and 18, and all of them and all of their friends have all throughout their entire... Let's call it late teens, early twenties have said, "Well, you guys are the generation or two generations before us. And thanks for wrecking everything." Jill:"You guys are the last homeowners," like, "Hold on a moment." Steven:To which I say, "I said the same thing to my parents," to which my parents have said, "That's what I said to my parents." Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community. It's free. And if you... Oh, please don't forget to subscribe, I should say, on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill:David wrote, "Could someone give me some insight? I'm closing on my first deal. It's a 9.37 acre parcel. And in 20 days, there's not a ton of comps in the immediate area, and I was originally thinking about trying to sell it for around 30 to $40,000. But I've been doing a deep dive on research and looking at active listings. I noticed two neighboring parcels at 1.4 and 1.3 acres sold at 10,000 an acre, but it took four to six months. I'm very tempted to list it for $79,900. Even 70% of 10,000 acre at 65,000 and some change I would be thrilled with. I don't want to get crazy and list"... Oh, "I don't want to get crazy and list too high"- Steven:That was my fault. Jill:"And have to sit and/or not sell. Am I getting too excited with the neighboring properties? I'm licensed. I'm probably going to list it myself. So, if I can get the buyers and save some money... But I'm tempted to consider using a local realtor. The MLS might be different than the local one, and I might assume a local realtor who's any good would have a better handle on the prices." Is that the end of it? Steven:Yeah. Jill:So, do you want to go first? Steven:Congratulations. This is working for you. I'm really, really glad. I mean it, you're going to get through this first deal. It's going to be a lot easier. You're going to look back on it and say, "Wow, I learned a lot and I can't wait for the second one." Just like your first marriage. So... Jill:Why do you do...? Steven:I do it to annoy you. Jill:Just poking me all day long. Does this happen to you? Poke, poke, poke. Steven:It didn't bother you. If you just sailed right through it and didn't listen to anything I said, I'd never do it again. Jill:Because clearly you don't want to get a rise out of me. Steven:Here's a couple technical things, and a lot of people in our group in Discord commented the same way. Price per acre on small properties... We take a one acre property and it's priced at $10,000. So, it sells for 10,000 and apply that to even an adjoining property that's 10 acres or 40 acres... You can't use that same number. [crosstalk 00:03:27] The higher the acreage number... If it's 40 acres versus one acre, the price per acre's going to be lower. It's called the bottle case theory. When you buy a single bottle of Coca-Cola and then look at the case price, it's always cheaper to buy it by the case. It's just a pure economics thing. That's why people who subdivide property for a living make hoards and hoards of money. If you take a 40 acre property and buy it for four grand and, theoretically, divide it into 40 properties and sell it for a thousand dollars each, now you... Jill:Buy four, sold it for 40. Steven:I'm grossly oversimplifying it.

Introducing Land Academy Garage Sale (LA 1634) Transcript: Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Hey. Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about what we're going to introduce: the Land Academy garage sale. Jill DeWit: I love it. Steven Butala: So do I and it was a smash hit. A lot of stuff we do, a lot of these [sub 00:00:20] and products that we do just don't catch on. We are in beta right here on this thing, and it really, really works. It's our way of internally auctioning off property that... Every land investor has a bunch of stuff, a bunch of [pieces 00:00:37] of property laying around that, for whatever reason, are accumulating taxes, they haven't gotten sold. They just fell through the cracks. I have properties since 25 years ago that we still have. And so, it's a $1 no-reserve of auction. We're just auctioning it off internally within the land academy group [crosstalk 00:00:56] Jill DeWit: We have long written it off, and our loss is your gain. Steven Butala: Yeah. And it's a blast. People are stealing property, and we're happy with it. Jill DeWit: We'll explain more in a minute. Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel, and comment on the shows you like. Jill DeWit: Jake wrote, "This might be a fairly obvious 'do not do this', but does anybody know about the legality of using pictures of another lot that is essentially the same in every aspect as yours, from the internet to help market your own property online?" Well, I have a lot to say about this. Steven Butala: Go ahead. Jill DeWit: Well- Steven Butala: So do I. Jill DeWit: Because we have personally taken for... As Land Academy member, you may or may not know this, you have access to a library of photos in several areas that we took, and made available to you when we launched the original cashflow from land program. We gave these photos, we took them. You took them. And back then, you or our engineering people, took these photos. And so they're ours. It's not like it's proprietary, we stole them or anything. No. They're ours, and we have given permission freely to use them. Jill DeWit: So the point, though, is we want to make sure you say... you have to properly say that these are of the area because it doesn't happen so much anymore. But sometimes you have properties in a, say a subdivision or certain area, maybe you own four or five 10. I don't know. You don't need to send the same guy out there 10 times. But you can, especially now with Google maps and Google earth and things, people can really look in and see that property really with detail. And back then we couldn't. So I have no trouble with this as long as you're not stealing it, A. Don't do that. Like you're not getting it off Canva or something like that. And then B, you let them know that maybe you took the... "This is a lot next door I visited last week. You can see it over here." You may or may not... You don't agree with me? Steven Butala: No. I just waiting, actually. Jill DeWit: I can't tell you're if agreeing or not. So anyway, you just properly say it's of area. Steven Butala: I would say I agree with you Jill, and now and forever. Jill DeWit: Okay. Yeah, I'm sure you would. I said, "Don't worry about that. You know what toes you're stepping on. If you think there's any legal issue, then definitely don't do it." But if someone says, "Sure, use this. It's fine" in the email or whatever, yeah. Go. Steven Butala: I have one word for you. And if you're a note taker or you're actually listening to the show, or if you're cooking dinner and you're listening to it, please listen to this.

When is it Time to Seek Professional Help (LA 1633) Transcript: Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Hi. Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about when is it time to seek professional help? Jill DeWit: No, we don't mean marriage counseling, or whatever issues that you're having. Steven Butala: Are you sure? I disagree. There's no way we can do this episode without addressing this stuff. Jill DeWit: Oh, okay. Got it. That's not where I was going, though. Steven Butala: Every week Jill and I sit down, usually pretty briefly and say, "All right. Let's come up with five topics," and so first thing I do is I go into Discord and see what's on everybody's mind and try to make this some semblance of intelligent. That's not what Jill does. She goes off and she's like, "This is what people need. We need to-" Jill DeWit: And this is my topic. You can [crosstalk 00:00:53]. Steven Butala: I know. This is Jill's topic. That's my point. Jill DeWit: It's clearly mine. Steven Butala: It started out, what she really meant was this. Jill DeWit: We'll get to it. Steven Butala: Okay. Jill DeWit: Okay. It's- Steven Butala: I can- Jill DeWit: We'll get to you in a minute. Steven Butala: Before we get into it, maybe we need help. Let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill DeWit: James wrote, "Kevin, I appreciate you simplifying problems such as pricing and picking the county and help me get past analysis paralysis. I'm finally closing on three deals and will continue to seek your safe consult to get me past stock points." Jill DeWit: Kevin wrote, "I've been watching your discussions here and you are looking good. Keep up the good work." I like this little blip, because it does tie into today and what I'm talking about. Pro help means someone beyond you. Steven Butala: Kevin Farrell is one of our moderators. He is the Discord moderator. He's presented at our live events. He's truly doing this to give back and help everybody and do deals with everybody. He's coming at this from his heart. Jill DeWit: Yeah. Steven Butala: He's just a great guy. I can't say enough good stuff, and his advice is correct. Jill DeWit: Right. Steven Butala: Today's topic? Jill DeWit: I'm waiting for the topic [crosstalk 00:02:17] Steven Butala: When is it time to seek professional help? This is the meat of the show. Jill DeWit: Okay. So here's what I'm talking about. And it's not necessarily someone that's beyond you, so that's not really correct. Maybe it's someone who's doing something totally different that you want to learn from. Steven Butala: Maybe it's Kevin. Jill DeWit: I happened to, just the other day, I jumped on somebody else's Clubhouse chat. It was the funniest thing. Halfway into this guy's chat, it was on mobile homes and mobile home parks. So I'm like, "Okay, I want to hear what this guy's saying," so I jumped in the room and there was nobody else on stage. It was just kind of him talking. I think he answered some questions early on in the call. But at that point it was just him. He said something to me that, of course, struck a chord, so I raised my hand. Jill DeWit: If you're in Clubhouse, you know what I mean. You raise your hand and you get invited on stage. So for the second half hour, it was just this guy and I talking, and everybody else is listening. Steven Butala: Darn, Jill. Jill DeWit: It was so funny because we had a great conversation. I think what it was, I [inaudible 00:03:16]. Steven Butala: You co-hosted his show. There's a little bit of cheating going on here. Jill DeWit: I kind of did, and he really thanked me. It was so funny. He's like,

Jill Friday - It's about Connecting with People, Not What You Know (LA 1632) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill K DeWit: Howdy. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today is Jill Friday, and she's going to talk about how it's all about connecting with people and not really as much about what you know. Jill K DeWit: Yep. So you've heard Jack this week talk about these intensive trainings, and his is Get Your Mailer Out. I'm doing one too. And mine, it's really called, How Jill Gets Deals Done. And I'm really trying to have everyone take a step back and think about ways and how, and techniques and words and listening to connect with people, because you're going to get more deals out of it. You mentioned that, I don't remember what day it was, we were talking. It was a data heavy day and you were mentioning, "This is all great. You want to improve your mailer yield? Do what Jill does." And that's what this is about today. Thank You. Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill K DeWit: Buckley wrote, "Evening all, hope everyone is well. I'm reviewing emails from a mailer or the PATLive recorded calls. If the seller states they're not interested in selling, is it still worthwhile in following up and asking why or just leaving it be and moving on? The sales part of me moves towards ..." This is good, by the way. "The sale is in the follow up, but being my first mailer, I'm trying to put good energy into what is deserving and worth the time. Day job consumes a lot of my time, so I'm trying to put focus on where it's needed. Thanks guys." Jill K DeWit: So this is good, because this is actually stuff that we talked about. I've already, at the time of recording, I've got through week one of the session. And week one was a lot of theory and concepts and all that. And my first goal is you answer your own phones, because you can form that connection right away, find out what you need to find out, Buckley, and you'll know yourself. But you're just getting a message from a service. So what I'm talking to everyone about is, you got to, based on the feedback that you get, you need to see. Maybe you could tweak your questions with PATLive or whatever service you're using to find out, is it a price reason. Is the reason you're not wanting to sell because of price? That's easy. And then you know you need to call them back. Jill K DeWit: So, whether or not you are able to answer the phone, that's okay, but you still need to connect with them the first time that you do talk to them, and it probably is going to be in the follow up. So I tell people whether it's a voicemail ... My goal is not to have these scenarios, but sometimes life happens. You get a voicemail maybe, you get an email maybe, you get something in the mail back maybe. Any indication that there might be something there, I do reach out, just to find out for myself. It's too easy to bust out those phone calls, set up some time, "Thursday afternoon when I get home from work, that's the time I bust out these calls," just to see if there's some juice there, and then you'll know. Steven Jack Butala: Can I ask questions? Jill K DeWit: Absolutely. Steven Jack Butala: What if you don't like talking on the phone? You loathe it. Jill K DeWit: You need to get over that, and that's what this is about too. I'm really trying to help people. I think people who think that they're loathe it's because I think that they're not good at it. Steven Jack Butala: No, I don't think so at all. I think people loathe it because they loathe it, because I'm one of those people. Jill K DeWit: