Land wholesale experts, Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit, share their personal land investment/real estate business achievements, answer questions, share valuable tips, all in the name of promoting listeners’ personal and professional real estate success. Steven and Jill have been buying and sellin…
Los Angeles, CA
land investing, land business, land investment, investing in land, vacant land, sell land, thanks jill, jill's, i've always wanted, business model, cash flow, day job, flipping, look forward to many, academy, thank you steve, jack, passive income, rei, deals.
Listeners of Land Academy Show that love the show mention:Join Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit in episode 1,953 of the Land Academy Show, where they discuss adjusting purchase prices with sellers on the phone and the importance of deciding who to call back. They also share their experiences operating a land business while traveling and the freedom it offers. If you're interested in learning more, visit landacademy.com for a sneak peek into the Land Academy Discord community. Have a question or need assistance? Text them at (480) 530-7383, and they'll read and answer selected questions on upcoming podcast episodes. Steven Jack Butala: I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit. And this is the Land Academy Show. Steven Jack Butala: This is episode number 1,953, believe it or not, and today, we are talking about how to adjust the purchase price with the sellers right when you're on the phone with them and then a little later on we're going to talk about deciding who to call back. Sellers- Jill K DeWit: Sounds like the Jill Show. Steven Jack Butala: It is. This is the Jill Show today. Jill K DeWit: These topics came about this week from Career Path. Hey, by the way, in case you can't tell, we're back in town. Yay. We're back in Arizona right now, and it's so good because sometimes life's just easier. Some things are easier, especially during Career Path time. It's easier to be home. We put so much energy into that. We're really focused and it's so nice being at my own desk. Steven Jack Butala: It's a lot easier to pull off Land Academy with an internet connection. Jill K DeWit: There is that. But it's funny, I'm going to say it again on the record, is, doing my land business from the road, piece of cake. That's no problem. It's the Land Academy part and the video content and all that stuff that we're doing that that makes it easier with really good internet. So, I don't want to worry you and have you think that you can't just get in an RV and have a great land life. And I was thinking about that- Steven Jack Butala: Or both. Jill K DeWit: Well, hold on a moment. I want us talk about this for a second, please. You're moving me along. You've got somewhere to go? Steven Jack Butala: No. Jill K DeWit: Okay. So, I was thinking about this- Steven Jack Butala: Well, of course I do. Jill K DeWit: ...this morning, about just operating land business from the road at the volume of the deals that we do and the income that we make from the land company is so flipping easy to do on the road. I could do it anywhere. Especially now, where we have other people answering the phone. I'm only reviewing the deals a couple times a week. I sit down, do my deal review, and that's it. It's so nice. And then my team, I say, yes, no, find this out, don't like this price, whatever it is. And then, I go back to... This is after about 20 to 30 minutes, and then I go to you and go, "Okay, great. Let's go water-rafting now or let's get on our bikes now." We can do that. Steven Jack Butala: Yep. Jill K DeWit: So, I just want you to know what's possible, and you could do it too. Steven Jack Butala: We have people, and I don't- Jill K DeWit: I need to grab- Steven Jack Butala: ...like to brag like this or- Jill K DeWit: Can you carry me while I grab a Kleenex? Steven Jack Butala: Sure. Jill K DeWit: Okay. Steven Jack Butala: We have multiple people reporting that they are in a very healthy way leaving their jobs or their spouses are leaving their jobs, now more than ever, for some reason. And I'm not trying to sell anything here. It's a moment of triumph for Jill and I because I still remember the first time I- Well, the only time I left my job to do this full-time, and so does Jill. And when people are inspired by the fact that Jill and I are in some three month RV trip buying and selling land and it sparks them to send out more mail and ultimately quit their job or accomplish whatever it is that they're trying to accomplish by being an independent land investor,
This is episode 1,952. Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit delve into the topics of Your Ideal Land Transaction & Working Backwards from Your Land Investment Goals. You can visit landacademy.com to have a glimpse of the Land Academy Discord community. If you want your question answered on air or need assistance with community participation, send us a text at 480-530-7383. We review every text we receive, and if we find your question interesting, we'll feature it on our upcoming podcast episodes. Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt, and this is the Land Academy Show. Steven Jack Butala: This is episode number 1,952, and today we're going to talk about setting goals in land investment, a reverse engineering approach. You want to start at the end and work your way forward so you make sure you get there, and we're going to talk about your ideal land transaction, explained. Jill K DeWit: This'll be good. Steven Jack Butala: You want to do deals that, you know, you planned for. Jill K DeWit: Mm-hmm. Steven Jack Butala: You don't want to just send a bunch of mail out. That's what this is all about today, both of these topics. Jill K DeWit: Yes. Steven Jack Butala: You don't want to just do stuff and see how it goes. Jill K DeWit: Yeah, "Let's just blast this county, this state. Let's just leave everything in, see what comes back and I'll just figure it out. I'll wing it." I mean, that's one way to do it, but I prefer making it easy and we'll talk about that too. Steven Jack Butala: When the cameras are turned off and the weekend starts, which is about two hours from now for us, I just want to see how it goes. But not in my land career, I don't. Jill K DeWit: No. Steven Jack Butala: I want to know exactly how it's going to go. Jill K DeWit: That's a good point. Just see how it goes. I want to pause and tell the story that you just talked about from our neighbor here at this- Steven Jack Butala: Okay, sure. Jill K DeWit: So we're at this sweet, sweet park just outside Estes Park. Steven Jack Butala: RV Park. Jill K DeWit: Uh-huh, an RV Park, and Jack was talking to our neighbor who sounds like they just, on a whim, signed up to be a park host in Estes Park. Is it Rocky Mountain National Park or Estes Park? Steven Jack Butala: Estes Park. Right up there. Jill K DeWit: Okay, but not Rocky National Park. Anyway, they're going to be a park host for like eight months and they just decided to do it on a whim. Steven Jack Butala: Said they're both 67, he and his wife, and he was in the auto industry, I think as an auto mechanic. Jill K DeWit: Oh. Steven Jack Butala: She's a retired teacher and they lost a very close friend of theirs a couple years ago and then they said, "That's it. We're done working." Jill K DeWit: Oh. Steven Jack Butala: And they're full time. They sold their house. They sold everything. Jill K DeWit: Oh, that's so good. Steven Jack Butala: From Virginia. Jill K DeWit: All I heard out the window was him say, "I don't want to be a statistic." I'm like, that's flipping cool. I agree with that. Steven Jack Butala: I have to say- Jill K DeWit: And I remember you saying, "That's why we're doing this stuff." Steven Jack Butala: As a man- Jill K DeWit: Mm-hmm. Steven Jack Butala: People pull in and within the first five minutes that they're here, you can see how much of a man they are. How they hook their stuff up, how they back their rig in, all of it. And that guy put me to shame. Usually that's not the case. Usually I'm like, "I can handle all of this." Jill K DeWit: We did come back last night and you said this, "This man's serious. Look how perfect everything is." Steven Jack Butala: Then we're talking and he's opening all of his storage and everything's all perfect in there. He's got a whole work chest. Pulled things out and he's got screws. I'm jealous. Now I got to up my game. Jill K DeWit: Oh yeah, there you go.
In this episode of the Land Academy Show, hosts Steven Jack Butala and Jill K DeWit are on the road in Boulder, Colorado, discussing how to build a 10,000 unit mailer and how to build due diligence confidence, which are hot topics for their Career Path members. They also talk about how they are able to run their land business from their RV, but have to find office spaces to run their podcast, and Career Path live video sessions. Steven and Jill suggest renting independent office spaces or hotel conference rooms, and mention that there are office shares in almost all tiny towns all over the place. They then answer questions from their Land Academy Discord forum and review land acquisitions from their weekly Thursday member webinar, before taking a deep dive into two land related topics by popular requests. Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit. And this is the Land Academy Show. Steven Jack Butala: This is episode 1,951 and today, we're going to talk about how I build, how Jack builds, a 10,000 unit mailer. And we're going to talk also about building due diligence confidence. These are two topics that came from... Jill K DeWit: Career Path. Steven Jack Butala: Career Path. Jill K DeWit: Yep. Steven Jack Butala: We're mid-session in Career Path Number Six, and these are hot topics, both of them, for... Jill K DeWit: Totally. Steven Jack Butala: ... During the office hours for Career Path members. Jill K DeWit: Exactly. So I want to just make a note too, for those of you who are watching us, we are on the road. I would show you our beautiful background, but with the light outside, it's actually a bright Colorado day right now. So you wouldn't really see it. But my view is beautiful. So we happen to be Downtown Boulder, looking out over the mountains on the front range and it couldn't be more pretty. Steven Jack Butala: It's right out of a postcard, the whole thing. And Jill and I are having an absolute blast. Jill K DeWit: Yep. So for those of you who are tuning in and listening and you're here because, "I want to do it from the road too," sometimes you have to do this kind of a stuff. So I've talked about it before. Running our own Land business from an RV is totally a piece of cake. I can do it with my laptop, I can do stuff on my phone, I can do things on my tablet. No big deal, running a Land business. Now, running Land Academy and a podcast and all the- Steven Jack Butala: And Officer Owners and Parcel Facts. Jill K DeWit: ... And doing Career Path with the video live stuff we have to do, that's a whole different ballgame. So for those things, we find these office space environments and it's great, because you could rent it for a couple hours, rent it for a day, whatever you need. I just want you to know all your options. Steven Jack Butala: It turns out there's an office share in almost all tiny little towns all over the place. I'm shocked at how many... Not the chains. Not the WeWorks. Jill K DeWit: Yeah. Steven Jack Butala: There's all kinds of independent little offices. You can rent a room. Jill K DeWit: It doesn't have to be a hotel conference room. Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Jill K DeWit: We've done that. Steven Jack Butala: They have that too. Jill K DeWit: We've done that. So yeah. Now I'm like, "Oh." And here's the reason why, because we don't want to go home. We picked up a new rig. Well, we did the podcast... Did we do the podcast from the rig last week? I think we did. Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Jill K DeWit: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. That's right. You saw the podcast from the rig last week. So we were going to head home after that, right? And then Jack very nicely says, "I don't need to go home. Do you need to go home?" I go, "I kind of need to go home." So I'm having contacts shipped to me here. That's the only thing I'm running out of that I can't get. But other than that, we'll just see how it goes.
Join Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit on this episode of the Land Academy Show, where they discuss their four-hour investment work week from the road and how mailer yield is a direct result of who answers your phones. They also talk about their new RV and how they are able to conduct their land investment business while on the go. Tune in to learn how you too can be a successful land investor while enjoying the freedom of the open road. Plus, they answer questions from their Land Academy Discord forum and review land acquisitions. Check out landacademy.com for more information. Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, and this is the Land Academy Show. Steven Jack Butala: This is episode number 1,950, believe it or not. And today, we are talking about our four-hour investment work week from the road. We're in our rig right now. And how mailer yield is a direct result of who answers your phones. Jill K DeWit: Two really important topics, I got to tell you. Let's go back to topic number one for a second. I just want to cover these things. For those of you who are watching us, watch this. I can extend both arms and I'm not hitting a wall, and I'm not sitting at a kitchen table. Steven Jack Butala: We have a new RV and- Jill K DeWit: It's over there. Steven Jack Butala: ... Jill's delighted. Jill K DeWit: Yes, we have upgraded everyone. So yeah, for those of you who are in our RV world, we went from 24 to 38 basically. And now that we're in 38, okay, already 38, we feel like, wow. We've been two nights, by the way, in our 38. And what does Jack say today? "Do we need a 43 or 45?" Steven Jack Butala: No. You knew that was coming. Jill K DeWit: I'm like, "What?" We don't need bunk beds. We don't have kids. We don't have pets. Steven Jack Butala: And we have these work stations. Jill K DeWit: Well, we have kids, but they're not allowed to come with us. We don't allow overnight guests. I'm just kidding. So kind of- Steven Jack Butala: This a happy wife moment for me. Jill K DeWit: Wow. And you too. Thank you very much. And it's a whole different ballgame. So yes, as you can see, that's that's going to tie into our topic today because everybody's like, "What do I need to know to do this from the road like you guys? You guys are in an RV." Steven Jack Butala: Might be the back of a boat. Jill K DeWit: You've had two years in your little RV, and we did a good thing. I'm very proud of our two years in our little RV. I think we fared very well. We stayed together as a couple. Our companies held on. Steven Jack Butala: Sure. All valid points. Jill K DeWit: Exactly. Steven Jack Butala: There were moments where we didn't, we weren't sure about us. Jill K DeWit: It was touch and go, and the companies were fine. It was us that was touch and go, but now we're in a much different situation, and we can really spread out. And that's what we're going to talk about today. I did a show, a live thing last week. It was live webinar, which we also streamed on YouTube and Facebook at the same time. It was great. It was so much fun. And here from the road and the whole topic was as a land investor, can you really do this from the road?So the four-hour work week is one part of it, and then doing it from the road is another part of it. Putting it together, it's amazing. And that's what we do now. The land company, the whole Land Academy part of it, that's not a four-hour week. Steven Jack Butala: This is it. Are you going to go into the topic? Jill K DeWit: I guess I am. I will stop now. Steven Jack Butala: Each week we answer questions from our Land Academy Discord forum. We review land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar, and we take a deep dive look into two land related topics that are usually requested on the Discord channel or through some venue by our members. Let's take a question posted by one of our actual members on the Land Academy Discord online communi...
Welcome back to the Land Academy Show, Episode 1949. Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit delve into the anatomy of an online membership community, as well as share their journey from chasing pennies to making millions buying and selling land. Along the way, they share some banter about their creative process and everyday life. The show also features Q&A sessions from their Land Academy Discord forum, reviews of land acquisitions from their weekly Thursday member webinar, and deep dives into land-related topics. Check out landacademy.com to learn more. Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, and this is the Land Academy Show. Steven Jack Butala: This is episode number 1,949, and today we are talking in depth about the anatomy of an online membership community like Land Academy, and a little later in the episode we'll talk about how Jill and I went from chasing pennies to making millions buying and selling land. Jill K DeWit: Cool. Is it autonomy or anatomy? What is the proper word that we're doing here? Steven Jack Butala: Anatomy. Jill K DeWit: Anatomy, okay. Got it. Steven Jack Butala: What did I say? Jill K DeWit: I don't know. I don't even know. I looked at it because it's not the topics... We sit down and we brainstorm. We come up with these ideas, and then when I finally sit down to record, they're all changed. Steven Jack Butala: We agree on everything, theoretically, Jill and I, and then I change it all. Jill K DeWit: Totally. Steven Jack Butala: And I don't tell her about it until the camera's turned on. Jill K DeWit: Exactly. Exactly right. I get to roll with the punches. You have no idea how hard this is. Steven Jack Butala: That's not the only situation where that happens. Jill K DeWit: Oh, no. Everyday life. Every day. What kind of car are we getting? Oh, we're getting this now. Great. Steven Jack Butala: Each week... Moving on, Jill. Each week we answer questions. Jill K DeWit: Throwing your partner under the bus. This is "throw your partner under the bus" day. I like this. Sorry. Steven Jack Butala: Do you ever see that one classic Saturday Night Live? Where... Jill K DeWit: Bring it. Steven Jack Butala: He says... They're sitting there, they're doing the newscast, and he sits there and looks at the camera, and doesn't like what she's saying, and he says, "Jane, you ignorant slut." Jill K DeWit: Yes. I knew you were going to go there. That's your favorite episode. That was 1970 something. Steven Jack Butala: I know. Jill K DeWit: I know exactly what you're talking about. Steven Jack Butala: Each week we answer questions from our Land Academy Discord forum, we review land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar, and take a deep dive into two land-related topics by request, that I mentioned just a few minutes ago. Let's take a question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. If you want to sneak peek at the channel and you're not a member, please go to landacademy.com and check it out. It's free. Jill K DeWit: Aaron wrote, "I have a property under contract to buy and it's the Land Academy Style Purchase agreement, so we know, and in escrow. I was at the two yard line waiting for the seller to turn docs to title when the seller went silent. Fast-forward a couple of months and I find out another flipper is marketing the property. I believe they're acting as a wholesaler. I believe this particular group teaches that a contract is a contract, and advise recording memorandums if sellers try to back out. Now the seller wants to sell to me since I'll pay cash right now and get it done. I've had it under contract this whole time and it's already still an escrow with the title company ready to complete it and close in a couple of days. Any advice on this one? I'm pretty sure I have a buyer and I should make $70,000 a minimum on this, by the way." What a mess. Steven Jack Butala: Close it.
Join Steven Jack Butala and Jill K DeWit on the Land Academy Show as they discuss Land Academy Ladies, their sense of confidence and community, and the importance of technology and innovation in the land flipping business. In this episode, they also talk about their busy week, upcoming events like Career Path, and answer questions from their Land Academy Discord forum. Tune in for valuable insights and advice on land-related topics and how to succeed in the industry. Check out their Land Academy Discord channel at landacademy.com for more resources. Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: I'm Jill K DeWit. This is the Land Academy Show. Steven Jack Butala: In this episode, number 1,948, today, we are talking in-depth about Land Academy Ladies and their sense of confidence and community. That's topic number one. Then, a little bit later on in the episode, I'm going to talk about what I've learned about technology and innovation from our other career path members in those sessions. How was your week, Jill? Jill K DeWit: Great. Steven Jack Butala: You were out of town the whole time. How is working from out of town in warm California? Jill K DeWit: Piece of cake. It's amazing how much I'll get done without you around. No offense. Steven Jack Butala: I'll take it. Jill K DeWit: It's funny. Yeah. Steven Jack Butala: It's amazing how that's a win-win situation. Jill K DeWit: It's amazing how little you get done when I'm not around. That's really the common theme here. Steven Jack Butala: Is there that much that we need to get done? Jill K DeWit: Wow. We've been busy gearing up for stuff. We've got a couple things coming up. I'm excited about it. Steven Jack Butala: We have Career Path. Jill K DeWit: We always have things going on. I don't know if it's a problem. I don't know if it's a positive or a negative. But you and I don't sit still. That's a fact. Steven Jack Butala: I wonder if it's good or bad. I question that, also. Jill K DeWit: I know. Steven Jack Butala: Hey, I hope you're also enjoying our 2023 format. Each week we answer questions from our Land Academy Discord forum. We review land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar. That's every week. We take a deep dive into two land-related topics by popular request that I just described. Now let's take a question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. If you want a sneak peek at that, at our Land Academy Discord channel, please go to landacademy.com. It's free in read-only format. People love it. Jill K DeWit: Yeah. Okay. Clay wrote, "I'm looking for some advice concerning a commercial property that I've come across. The owner wants to sell and has two adjacent parcels with road frontage in East blank. Right around this area, there've been a lot of development recently. I mailed him concerning one of the properties, and he asked me if I'd be interested in both. I am, in light of their location, but I have no idea how to comp what the commercial property will be worth. Does anyone have any insight, tips, or suggestions on how to effectively do this? It may not be any different. This is just the first possible commercial deal I've come across." Steven Jack Butala: This is a regular Tuesday for Jill. Jill K DeWit: Yeah. Exactly. I love this. Okay. The first thing I would do, I look at both. I'm still going to go look at active numbers, just ignoring the type of property it is, in a site like Zillow or Realtor, something just for land in that area. I'm going to try to zero in based on the size. I don't think Clay mentioned the size here. Let's just say there are two properties. It's four acres. So I'm going to look at the two- to five-acre properties active for sale, and then what's sold in the last, sometimes six months, sometimes last 12 months, just to get a gauge. Now, I know it's commercial. I needed to take it a step further. I'm going to go to LoopNet.
In this episode of the Land Academy Show, Steven Jack Butala and Jill K. DeWit discuss the ins and outs of land auctions and provide tips on how to win the bidding war. They also talk about their own garage sale auction where members of the Land Academy community can bid on properties. Later in the episode, Jill shares how to make a million dollars a year through single land transactions each month. Steven and Jill also answer questions from the Land Academy Discord Forum and review recent land acquisitions. Tune in for valuable insights and entertaining banter. Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K. DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, and this is the Land Academy Show. Steven Jack Butala: This is episode number 1,947. Today, we are talking in depth about the ins and outs of land auctions, how to win the bidding war, and then a little later in the episode, Jill is going to talk about how to make a million dollars a year doing single land transactions each month. Jill K. DeWit: Now, I got to tell you something funny, because we just turned on our garage sale, I don't know if you knew that or not. Steven Jack Butala: No. Jill K. DeWit: We just re-turned it on last week. I don't know if it ends on Thursday or Friday this week. Anyway, what the heck am I talking about? We have collected property in our life. You know what I mean. Some we've had a while and some we haven't, but we just have had. We just come across great buys, let's just say that, and sometimes I look at them and I go, "Shucks, is this something I really want to sell? I don't know. It's not really worth an agent to get involved." So I'm like, "You know what? I'm going to give it to the Land Academy community." So what is this? We have our own little garage sale auction. It's bidding in $50 increments, and you could pick up a great property for a couple of hundred bucks, and people have done that and they gone off and sold it for a couple thousand bucks. It's a great way to get started. It's funny because it's an auction format, that we have a beginning time and an end time, and the highest bidder wins, but it's all within Land Academy that we do this, so it's fun. Steven Jack Butala: Are there good properties coming up again? Jill K. DeWit: Oh, yeah. Steven Jack Butala: Awesome. Jill K. DeWit: Exactly. Steven Jack Butala: Geez, these are properties, some of them, that I bought before Jill and I joined forces. Jill K. DeWit: Some are really recent. They're just too small. We picked them up. They're great deals. I had to buy it, but I'm going to pass that off to the community. Steven Jack Butala: Hey, I hope you're enjoying our longer format podcast. Each week, we answer questions from the Land Academy Discord Forum. We review land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar and take a deep dive into two land-related topics by popular requests. I just mentioned them a couple of minutes ago. Let's get started, so let's take a question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. If you want to sneak peek at our Land Academy Discord channel, please go to just that, landacademy.com. It's free in our read-only format. Jill K. DeWit: Stephen wrote, "I just walked out of my W2 exit interview and saw new money transferred in my bank account. Thanks, Land Academy. Off to a good start." Oh, that's so great. Steven Jack Butala: There's a couple of good comments in here. Jill K. DeWit: Okay, so some of Stephen's peers weighed in and wrote some notes here. Sid wrote, "Congrats, as it takes a lot of soul-searching and guts to take action. I left corporate America 12 years ago to become a realtor and got tired of the travel and politics. Not that there hasn't been ups and downs in the market, but the joy of being your own boss and determining your own future is one of the best decisions I've made." That's so sweet. Well, look at Samantha. Samantha says, "That's so awesome.
In this episode of The Land Academy Show, Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit discuss when to negotiate the price of a land acquisition and the backwards psychology of upfront money. They also give an overview of their weekly show and answer a question from a Land Academy Discord forum member. Tune in for expert insights and entertaining banter. Don't forget to check out The Land Academy Discord channel at https://landacademy.com/testimonials/#discord Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit. And this is The Land Academy Show. Steven Jack Butala: This is episode 1,946, and today we are talking in depth about when to negotiate the price of a land acquisition. And then a little bit later on, I'm going to talk about the backwards psychology of upfront money. Jill DeWit: Okay, wait a minute. Last week I couldn't talk. I was really, really sick. Are you okay today? Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, I feel great. Jill DeWit: Okay, good. I'm just making sure. What if it's Jack's sick week? We had Jill's sick week. I don't know if I want a Jack sick week. Steven Jack Butala: I just had a quiet, pleasant four hour in my office with the fireplace on and all the windows and doors closed session. Jill DeWit: And that's what made you not talk. Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Jill DeWit: Or not be able to talk. Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, I've just been thinking and not talking. This is what I do at work. The exact opposite of what you do at work. Jill DeWit: I know. Steven Jack Butala: Talk all day long and then think later. Jill DeWit: Thanks. Steven Jack Butala: And thinking's optional. Tell me I'm wrong. Jill DeWit: Geez. That's just not true at all. Sounds like now it's pick on Jill day. Steven Jack Butala: I'm not picking on you. Jill talks all day. Jill DeWit: Well, because that's because of my job. Steven Jack Butala: I know. Jill DeWit: Okay. It's not like- Steven Jack Butala: No, I don't mean talk to yourself or meaningless talk. I just mean you're on the phone. Jill DeWit: Could you imagine? Steven Jack Butala: That's just what you do. Jill DeWit: I'm just sitting there talking. Who are you talking to? Nobody. No, I don't do that. Steven Jack Butala: Hey, I hope you're enjoying our relatively new 2023 weekly show, even though it's March, it's still new for us. Each week we answer questions from our Land Academy Discord forum, review land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar and take a deep dive into two land related topics that are almost always by request, which I just mentioned earlier. Let's take a question posted by one of our members on The Land Academy Discord online community. If you want a sneak peek of our Discord channel, go to landacademy.com in a read only format. It's free. It's worth it. Check it out. Jill DeWit: All right. So Steven, not you, right? Steven Jack Butala: Not me. Jill DeWit: Not you. Steven wrote, I have a new deal. We have a signed purchase agreement buy for $8,296.81. And retail is, I love this. 30,827.23. The realtor we've been consulting with in the area has a buyer for the property already contingent that it passes perk, but he has just informed us that he charges a $5,000 minimum. This is the realtor. I understand this. Steven Jack Butala: I do too. I'm a pro realtor here. Go ahead. Jill DeWit: Yeah. Is this the standard? Has any [inaudible 00:02:48] heard of this? I always thought this organization Whitetail Properties, that's okay, was always 10%. So here's my experience. The group, the individual, the Whitetail property brokers that I have worked with, I've always had sale prices of $70,000 and up and they get 10%. So no matter what, they're going to lease $7,000. I've never had anyone this low. I bet this is a norm for them and it doesn't scare me at all. The nice thing is when we go up, we go over $100,000 they will sometimes, some of them will rock it back from 10% to 6%, which I appreciate.
Welcome to the Land Academy Show with Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit. In episode number 1,945, the hosts dive into the topic of recovering house flippers and why they're a great fit for the career path program taught by Jill and Steven. Later on, they share some amazing stories from Land Academy members, highlighting their success and achievements. Unfortunately, Jill is suffering from laryngitis due to her extensive phone conversations, but that doesn't stop the duo from answering questions from their Land Academy Discord forum and reviewing land acquisitions from their weekly Thursday member webinar. Join in on the conversation and check out their Discord channel for a sneak peek at landacademy.com. Don't miss out on this episode of the Land Academy Show. Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, and this is the Land Academy Show. Steven Jack Butala: This is episode number 1,949 and today we are talking in depth about recovering house flippers and how they're perfect for the career path program that Jill and I teach. And later on we'll talk about the countless stories of Land Academy members. It's pretty amazing how many Land Academy members we have and have had over the years, and it's amazing to share their stories. We don't do it often enough. Jill K DeWit: I think that's great. I'm really glad. I may or may not sound like myself, but if you see me, I should look like myself. Steven Jack Butala: Jill has- Jill K DeWit: No, I didn't take up cigars this week. Steven Jack Butala: Poor Jill has laryngitis from selling too much. Jill K DeWit: Well, I'm not selling, I'm talking on the phone. Oh, you mean property selling? Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Jill K DeWit: Oh, okay. Not Land Academy, but talking on the phone a lot, which has been really great. Steven Jack Butala: It just crushes my soul to see you like this. I don't like to see you in pain. Jill K DeWit: Aw, I'm not in pain. I just sound like crap. Steven Jack Butala: Okay. I'll carry you. Jill K DeWit: Thanks. Steven Jack Butala: And I hope you're also enjoying this new format that we've created. Each week we answer questions from our Land Academy Discord forum and review land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar. And we also take a deep dive into two land related topics that are usually by popular request, I just mentioned them a couple minutes ago. Jill, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. If you want to sneak peek of our Discord channel, please go to landacademy.com. It's free. Jill K DeWit: Marilyn wrote, "Hello. Hope someone can help me with this. We sold a property over two years ago on a land contract and the buyers have paid 34 out of 60 payments. They want to sell the property to the neighbor. The neighbor wants to run title and go through escrow at their cost. Would this be a concurrent close? Do we write up a new sale agreement between original buyer and us that outlines the purchase amount, the amount received, and the balance, and then she writes up a sale agreement between herself and the new buyer?" What a flipping mess. Steven Jack Butala: No, I think this is a great opportunity. Jill K DeWit: I mean it's great, but it's just messy. It's one of the things I don't like- Steven Jack Butala: No, it's easy. Jill K DeWit: But go ahead. Steven Jack Butala: It's easy. So this comes down to really simple arithmetic. You've got 34 payments paid out of a 60 unit loan, 60 month loan, which is a five-year loan. They've got three years, almost three years paid. That's good. They have, so what? They are going to have some loan balance. So it's just exactly like you own a house. This happens many, many, many times a day. You own a house, you have some payments left on it, so there's a lien, you have a lien on this property. You don't own it, but you have a lien and you've been making payments for 15 years, let's say,
In this episode of the Land Academy Show, hosts Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit cover two important topics related to buying and selling land. They discuss how everyone has access to the same resources and identify three reasons why buying and selling land may not work for some people. Later, they answer questions from the Land Academy Discord forum. Join Steven and Jill for a deep dive into the world of land investment. Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, and this is the Land Academy Show. Steven Jack Butala: This is episode number 1,944. And today, we are talking in depth about a couple of topics. The first one is how we all have access to the same exact resources. All of us have the same exact resource exposure to buy and sell land. And the second topic is three real reasons why buying and selling land may not work for you. Jill DeWit: It's one personality flaws. Steven Jack Butala: No. It could be though. Well, I kept it to three. Jill DeWit: Oh, okay. Steven Jack Butala: Because there's several. Jill DeWit: Okay. We're going to talk about 30 reasons why. I'm just kidding. Good. Steven Jack Butala: No. Look, there's some stuff you got to do to make this really work for yourself. And we're going to spend the next hour, hour-and-a-half talking about it. This is not meant to be negative, it's meant to be a real positive thing. And then at the very end, Jill and I, as always, we're going to talk about our motivational. I've learned a lot in the last ... It's March, so the last couple of months about Land Academy members in a really positive way, what works and what doesn't. Jill DeWit: Cool. What's different? Why do you think you've learned more now than- Steven Jack Butala: I think it's experience and age and for whatever reason. And we should talk to our marketing staff about this, the people that are joining Land Academy really recently are really, really experienced and want to be here. It's called like there's master ... I call them the master's degrees level of interest in learning how to do this. Jill DeWit: I think because you'd led that first accountability group up, maybe where it's coming to you. Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, maybe. Jill DeWit: That's it. That we haven't done that in a while and now we brought them back. They are free for members, by the way. That could be what's going on. Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, I'm sure that's definitely part of it. Hope you're also enjoying this new 2023 weekly show. We moved from a daily show to a weekly show, too, because people are asking us for more depth- Jill DeWit: Like what- Steven Jack Butala: ... in a more in-depth look at exactly how to buy and sell land, or at least how we do it. Each week, we also answer questions from our Land Academy Discord forum. We review land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar, and we take a deep dive into two land related topics that are, for the most part, requested in some way by our members. Now let's take a look, take a question actually posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. If you want to sneak peek at our Discord channel, please go to landacademy.com. It's free. Jill DeWit: Kevin wrote, hello, so I got a signed purchase agreement back in the mail and the seller left his phone number, no email. Multiple times calling the number, it says, the number you're calling is not accepting your call. It's like with these spam things. It sounds like they accidentally have it turned up too high. I found the guy on True People Search. He's very old. I've tried five, six other phone numbers, family members, but they are all disconnected. Does anyone have any other ideas of contacting the seller before we starting just mailing him a followup? I was going to say, you're going to have to mail him now. That's apparently how I replies. He responds. And you know what's interesting? It's not very common,
In this episode of the Land Academy Show, Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit discuss the myth of passive income in relation to buying and selling land. They also delve into how only 10-15 deals a year can lead to millionaire status. The hosts answer questions from their Land Academy Discord forum and review land acquisitions from their weekly Thursday member webinar. Join them as they take a deep dive into the world of land-related topics and share their insights on the industry. Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, and this is the Land Academy Show. Steven Jack Butala: This is episode number 1,943, and today we are talking in depth about the myth of passive income, as it applies to buying and selling land. In the beginning, we're going to talk about that, and then ultimately, later in the episode, we're going to talk about how it only takes 10 or 15 deals a year to make a million bucks. Jill K DeWit: That's fun when you really think about it and you work it backwards, you're kind of like, "Oh, yeah, that's really is all it takes. Like I could do a deal a month and make a million." "Yeah." Steven Jack Butala: We have a bunch of people who signed up largely because of some promotions that Jill and her staff did at the end of the year, so it's March, and they're getting mail-out, and there's a lot of chatter in a very positive way in Discord, "But I sent a mailer out. I got 12 or 13 responses back, but there's no deals." Jill K DeWit: Oh, that's different. Oh, that's a whole another thing. Steven Jack Butala: Well, no. There's a deal in there, I'm sure. Jill K DeWit: That's another conversation. Steven Jack Butala: Well, that's what we're going to talk about later, but there's deals in all this stuff, and you don't need to do 22 deals in one month. You need to do one. Jill K DeWit: Isn't that funny? Steven Jack Butala: One great deal, every month. Jill K DeWit: Well, wait, wait. Let's talk about that. When we get to the passive income part, in a minute here, and we talk about that, and then I have some stuff to say about the 22 deals in a month. Steven Jack Butala: Hey, I hope you're enjoying this new 2022 weekly show- Jill K DeWit: '23. Steven Jack Butala: Sorry, '23 version of it. Anyway, Jesus, almost the first quarter. Each week we answer questions from our Land Academy Discord forum. We review land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar, and then ultimately take a deep dive into the two land-related topics I just mentioned here, and those are all requested on Discord. Now, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. If you want a sneak peek of our Discord channel, please go to landacademy.com. It's free and a read only format, and I really would encourage you- Jill K DeWit: Not all the areas, too. I was clicking around that the other day. It's kind of cool. What you see on the Discord from our website, there's some hidden areas where there's even more deep dive deal discussions. Steven Jack Butala: That's why it's a sneak peek, my dear. Jill K DeWit: I know. Exactly. All right. Bailey wrote... Or wait, is it Bailey or David? Steven Jack Butala: It's David. Sorry. Jill K DeWit: Okay. Excuse me. Okay. David wrote, "Hi all. Kind of a random question. I'm curious if anyone has experienced creating mailers for commercial office space? Specifically, I'm looking for 5,000 to 10,000 square feet in the King County area in Washington, and 15,000 to 20,000 square feet in 'fill in the blank' parts of Florida. Right now, just trying to figure out if that criteria is too specific for this type of model before I really spend a lot of time on it. These would be owner-occupied offices for call centers, so could probably expand the criteria to some types of industrial spaces as well. Any insight would be greatly appreciated. Thanks." Steven Jack Butala: Jack, why would you put a question like this?
In this episode of the Land Academy Show, Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit discuss effective marketing strategies for selling land in 2023 during an economic downturn. They also explore the differences between buying and selling land as a hobby versus a career, sharing insights from their Land Academy Discord community. Steven and Jill also highlight the benefits of being involved in Land Academy's online community, where members can get 24/7 support and have their questions answered by people who were in their shoes six months ago. Check out landacademy.com for more information on the Land Academy Discord community and to watch a view-only snippet of some of the areas within the channel. Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit. And this is the Land Academy Show. Steven Jack Butala: This is episode number 1,942, believe it or not. And today, we are talking in depth about marketing for sale land in 2023 in this economic downturn. And we'll talk later about the difference between buying and selling land as a hobby, or as a career. Jill K DeWit: I like this. Steven Jack Butala: I vote career. Jill K DeWit: Yeah, exactly. Steven Jack Butala: But I was reading in Discord, there's a lot of people that have joined that they have roots in the real estate, civil engineering maybe. They have history locally in dealing with land and landowners. And they joined because they want to do a couple deals a year, and they want to be part of the community. Jill K DeWit: Well, careful, 'cause that's how it turns into a career. That's the greatest thing. Steven Jack Butala: I don't know how you can- Jill K DeWit: Isn't that funny? Like, huh, wait a minute, I didn't even work that hard, and I just made $50,000. What would happen if I really tried? Steven Jack Butala: What would happen if I spent two hours a day instead of one? Jill K DeWit: Exactly. Steven Jack Butala: I couldn't stop myself. That's why we're here, actually. Jill K DeWit: Yep. Steven Jack Butala: I hope you're also enjoying our 2023 weekly show. It's changed a little bit. Each week we answer questions from our Land Academy Discord forum, review land acquisitions from our Weekly Thursday Member Webinar, and we take a deep dive look into the two land-related topics that are by and large requested on Discord. Now let's take a question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. If you want to sneak peek at the Discord channel, please go to landacademy.com. It's totally free. Jill K DeWit: Yeah. It's a view-only snippet of some of the areas within our thing. Discord is our online community. It's pretty darn cool. If you're not familiar with Discord, google it, watch a YouTube video on it, and it'll show you what is it. It's pretty cool. Steven Jack Butala: It's a huge benefit to being involved in Land Academy. I think you're- Jill K DeWit: It's 24/7 support, basically. Steven Jack Butala: Your questions get answered by people who were in your shoes six months ago. Jill K DeWit: Uh-huh. There you go. Bailey wrote... Or was- Steven Jack Butala: That's correct, Bailey. Jill K DeWit: Bailey wrote that Yuri said- Steven Jack Butala: No, I'm sorry. It's script and correction. Jill K DeWit: Oh, sorry. So, Yuri wrote- Steven Jack Butala: No, Bailey just- Jill K DeWit: Oh, Bailey wrote. Steven Jack Butala: ... just said it. Jill K DeWit: Who wrote who wrote the- Steven Jack Butala: Congratulations, Bailey and Yuri. Jill K DeWit: Who wrote the flipping question? All right, we're going to get on that person who- Steven Jack Butala: This is a script error. Jill K DeWit: Yes, that's right. It's probably the same person that does our mailers. Great. This makes me feel great. Okay, that would be him. All right, so Bailey wrote, "Hey guys, has anyone here dealt with fractional interest/ownership before?" Steven Jack Butala: Listen to this. Jill K DeWit:
Welcome to the Land Academy Show episode 1941, hosts Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit discuss why re-mailing land offers is effective and also delve into commercial real estate 101, prompted by a question from a member of their Discord channel. They also share tips and insights about commercial real estate terminology and answer more questions from the Land Academy Discord Forum as well as review land acquisitions from their weekly Thursday member webinar. If you're not yet a member of the Discord community, you can check it out in read-only format on landinvestors.com or landacademy.com. Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, and this is the Land Academy Show. Steven Jack Butala: This is episode number 1,941, and today we are talking in depth about why re-mailing land offers is so effective. And then also, I'll give a little talk on commercial real estate 101. Both of these things were highly suggested this week- Jill K DeWit: Really? Steven Jack Butala: ... in our Discord Channel. Yeah. That's where they came from. Jill K DeWit: Well, I understand the re-mailing land offers. Steven Jack Butala: I don't make this stuff up. I just take direction from our members. Sit next to you. Jill K DeWit: Are you sure? I'm not sure because there's sometimes topics creep in there that are like, dad says, "You need to know this." They may not be- Steven Jack Butala: That's why I asked you. That's why- Jill K DeWit: They may not be requested, but maybe they're required. Steven Jack Butala: We moderate each other. We're supposed to moderate each other. Jill K DeWit: Yeah. I understand. Steven Jack Butala: How effective is that? Jill K DeWit: It doesn't go very well sometimes. That's so true. I'm curious about, I like that commercial real estate 101. Is it because people are making mistakes, or they're just assuming things incorrectly? Steven Jack Butala: No, nobody's doing anything wrong. They're asking questions, which they should. You'll see what the question prompted this. The question's actually in here in a few minutes, but it's like, what the hell's commercial real estate and why is it different and how should it be treated? And more specifically- Jill K DeWit: Is it good? Is it bad? Steven Jack Butala: How can I talk about it and not sound like a ding dong? That's what I'm going to... By the time we're done with my little spiel here, you won't sound like a ding dong. Jill K DeWit: You'll learn some new words, so you too can sound like you know what you're doing. Steven Jack Butala: Is that what you do, Jill? Jill K DeWit: Drop 10 cap. Steven Jack Butala: That's good. Keep going. Jill K DeWit: Just make up. Steven Jack Butala: 10 cap. Jill K DeWit: Just make up anything cap. Well, it's a 32 cap. Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, they would kick you out for that. Jill K DeWit: Could you- Steven Jack Butala: You know what? If you could analyze a girl as a capitalization rate, Jill's a 32 cap. Jill K DeWit: Thank you. Versus some of my friends, which are five caps or- Steven Jack Butala: Or three and a half cap. Yeah. If you know commercial wheel estate it, and you're listening to this, you know what a three cap girl looks like. Jill K DeWit: True. Steven Jack Butala: And forget about how she looks. Jill K DeWit: Exactly. Steven Jack Butala: It's just how she's talks to you. Jill K DeWit: What do you do with a three cap girl? Steven Jack Butala: You walk away. Jill K DeWit: See already right there. Aren't you glad you're listening? You can sound like a professional. Steven Jack Butala: It's just not gender specific. There's three plenty of three cap guys out there too. Jill K DeWit: I dated some three cap guys. Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. And I've heard about her three cap guys, and all I wonder is why stay? Why stick around for that three cap stuff. Jill K DeWit: Yep. Thank you. Steven Jack Butala: Hey, I hope you're also enjoying this new 2023 weekly ...
Description In this episode of The Land Academy Show, Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit talk about why sellers choose to sell their land for less than it's actually worth. They also share their personal experiences and mistakes they've made in the land business and how they turned them around. They also answer a question from one of their members on the Land Academy Discord online community about the value of paying taxes on a 20-acre land with $7,000 in back taxes. This is a must-watch episode for anyone who is looking to get into the land investment business. Don't miss out on the valuable insights and tips from these experts in the industry. Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: I'm Jill DeWit and this is the Land Academy Show. Steven Jack Butala: This is episode number 1,940 and today, we are talking in-depth about why sellers choose to sell their land for less than it's actually worth, less than market value. And then a little bit later we're going to talk about the mistakes we have made in the land business, Jill and I, and how we turned them around. Jill K DeWit: I'm so glad it's not mistakes we've made in life because that could be a three-hour show or more. Steven Jack Butala: It always goes to that. Jill K DeWit: The land business I can handle, but the one I'm talking about mistakes I've made in life, don't get me started. Steven Jack Butala: If we made the contest out of that, I might win that contest. Jill K DeWit: I'm still making mistakes. Steven Jack Butala: I was just going to say I made about three of them all this morning. It's still pretty early. It's like 10:00 in the morning. Jill K DeWit: It's good. Steven Jack Butala: It's going to lead to that, I'm sure. Jill K DeWit: Oh, totally. It's good. Steven Jack Butala: Hey, I hope you're enjoying our new 2023 weekly show. Each week we answer questions here from our Land Academy Discord forum like we always have, but we've added a land review, a situation where we review land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar. We take a deep dive in two land related topics by popular request that I just mentioned. Jill K DeWit: By the way, I'm enjoying the new format. No, seriously. You know what it is? I felt like the old format. There's times I'm like, "I have so much more to say," but we're like moving on. Steven Jack Butala: I think the old format is old. Jill K DeWit: That's very true. Thank you Jack for catching up to 2023. Steven Jack Butala: There's about... Yeah. Well, it's all me. Jill K DeWit: It's kind of it. Well, it really- Steven Jack Butala: There's about three people that made negative comments about darn, I wanted to listen to it every day. Jill K DeWit: So you can. Steven Jack Butala: You can. Jill K DeWit: You snip it up. Steven Jack Butala: There's 1,939 shows that you can listen to every day. Jill K DeWit: Yeah, that's actually true. That's very true. And then when you run out of those, let me know if you're still with us. Steven Jack Butala: Let's take a question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. If you want a sneak-peak at our Discord channel, please go to landinvestors.com or landacademy- Jill K DeWit: Landacademy.com. Steven Jack Butala: Go ahead. Jill K DeWit: Yeah, thank you. It's on there. Steven Jack Butala: It's free and it's read only and it'll give you a feel for what our community's talking about with each other. Jill K DeWit: Okay. Brent wrote, "So here's a newbie question for you all. I have some land in Blank County, about 20 acres, and I bought it cheap, but it has about $7,000 in back taxes. So the tax lien homeowner is foreclosing. Beyond comps, how much should I determine if it's worth me paying the taxes and keeping the asset?" Boy have I been in this situation? You're in it right now. Steven Jack Butala: I was in this situation yesterday. We're constantly in this situation. That's why I included this,
Description Welcome to episode 1939 of the Land Academy Show with Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit. In this episode, learn how to negotiate a purchase price and discover what's holding you back from accomplishing all of your goals. Tune in for a mix of Jill's insights on land deals and Steven's tips for making serious dough. The show has now transitioned into a weekly format where they answer questions from their Land Academy Discord forum and review land acquisitions from the weekly member webinar. Members and non-members alike can benefit from the valuable information shared in each episode. Check out landinvestors.com or landacademy.com to access the Land Academy Discord community in a free, read-only format. Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, and this is the Land Academy Show. Steven Jack Butala: This is episode number 1,939, if you can believe it. And today we are talking in depth about how to negotiate a purchase price down from $30,000 to $13,000. Jill's going to handle that. And then, a little later on the show, I'm going to talk about what's holding you back from actually accomplishing all your goals, personally and professionally. Jill K DeWit: Cool. Steven Jack Butala: Sounds like we got a good mix of Jill telling us how to do deals and me hoping maybe I can get you prepped to make some serious dough. Jill K DeWit: Well, the point here, too, is this podcast is not just for people who find us, but for members and anybody in our world. I know there's a lot of people that listen and watch that are not in Land Academy. You have told me. And you get little nuggets out of this, and I appreciate that. Remember the time, it was so funny, I was looking for a broker in a certain area, and I picked up the phone, and I just was cold calling. I'm like, "I need a broker to sell this property." And I called this guy, and he answered the phone, and he was like, "Jill DeWit." And I'm like, "Have we spoken before?" He's like, "You don't know me, but I listen to your podcast." It was so funny. It was really cool. So I appreciate that. Steven Jack Butala: Good. Hope you're also enjoying our 2023 weekly show. This format's changed. I think this is probably number four. Each week, we answer questions from our Land Academy Discord forum, review land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar, and take a deep dive into two land related topics that we just mentioned. And these are usually by request. Jill K DeWit: They are definitely by request. Steven Jack Butala: Now let's take a question posted by one of our members in the Land Academy Discord online community. If you want to sneak peek about what that's all about, you're not a Land Academy member yet, check out landinvestors.com. It's also posted out now on landacademy.com, I'm told. Jill K DeWit: It is. Steven Jack Butala: It's free in a read-only format. It's pretty interesting. If you're into this, it's worth checking out. Jill K DeWit: Okay, Probacorn, I think I got that right, wrote, "Should most HOA properties be avoided entirely? Just received two accepted offers in North Carolina, but both have a $3,397 yearly HOA in a golf community. Both are infill lots." That's hefty. That's really good. So here's a couple comments that some members wrote. First of all, Will wrote... I like this. This is the power of Discord, and I was just helping someone about that this morning. Everybody right there is here and happy to help too. So one of our members, Will, wrote, "Not necessarily, but a few things to look at for infill lots and HOAs in my experience in North Carolina. Number one, see if they've already paid the HOA dues for the year and if they will agree to transfer that amount in the sale. Number two, get details from the HOA on what the ownership transfer fees are." We've been hit with that. "I had one under contract that has $7,500 owner transfer fee. Nope." Steven Jack Butala: Yeah.
Description Join Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWitt on the Land Academy Show for a deep dive into the Land Academy bucket system and how to build wealth through consistent land investing. In this episode, they discuss a recent live webinar Jill did this week and address the rise of women in the land investment world. Get insights on the relationship between assessed value and market value. Tune in every week for questions from our members only discord and deals from our weekly members call. Access the Discord forum for free on landinvestors.com or landacademy.com in read-only mode. Start building your lifelong fortune with Land Academy today! Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWitt and this is the Land Academy Show. Steven Jack Butala: This is episode number 1938, and today we are talking in depth about the Land Academy bucket system and I'll explain that in great detail, and also how to build a lifelong fortune by consistently investing in land. Jill K DeWit: I talked about that last night at a live webinar for people looking at joining Land Academy. If you were there, thank you very much. We had so much fun. It was much shorter this time. It was only two hours, but I wanted- Steven Jack Butala: That's impressive. Jill K DeWit: I want to answer everybody's questions so it was really fun. But we talked about how learning to buy and sell land, as you and I have proven you before me, proven that for decades this could keep food on the table. And so the conversation came up about can I get my child involved? And I think it was Casey, one person said, "Heck yeah, I've got my nine-year-old doing land deals and so they're learning the value of this and how to make money." Steven Jack Butala: What percentage of women were asking questions versus men? Because I know this is your- Jill K DeWit: That's a really good question. Steven Jack Butala: ... Third or fourth or fifth time during this. And I know we don't continually do stuff if we don't feel like we're helping, and you're obviously continuing to do this. Jill K DeWit: Thank you. I'm going to go with about 50/50. I don't know what's happening right now, what shift is happening on the planet or maybe it's me or maybe it's us, but I am getting great feedback and I'm seeing so many more women investors come into this and I'm so excited. It's awesome. And Atlantic Academy Ladies is coming back next month. Steven Jack Butala: Maybe that's why. Jill K DeWit: Yay. It's cool. Steven Jack Butala: Hey, I hope you're also enjoying our 2023 weekly show. This is I think our third show where we're gone from a daily show to a weekly show. And as far as the numbers go, they're much better. They are. I just checked right before we sat down to record and on YouTube and on audio, the numbers are better. Each week we answer questions from our Land Academy Discord forum, review land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar and take a deep dive into the two land related topics that are requested again on our Discord channel. Jill K DeWit: Yep. Steven Jack Butala: Let's take a question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. If you want to sneak peek of our Discord channel, please go to landinvestors.com Jill K DeWit: Or landacademy.com. It's there also. Steven Jack Butala: It's in both places now and kind of peruse it and it's free. It's a read only as you can see what the community is doing in real time. Jill K DeWit: So Probacorn says, "I'm reviewing my spreadsheet before uploading to offers to owners. I look up a parcel fact and I found out most of my offer prices are much lower than the assessed value, like 20 to 25% of the assessed value and sometimes 10 to 15%. Is it a common practice? I know we try to buy property undervalue, but when the owners look at my offers and then compare my property to their tax bill, they would just laugh at it and never call back.
Description: Welcome back to the Land Academy Show, episode 1937. In this weeks episode, Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit discuss the importance of data in making decisions for land investing and share tips on how to avoid sending overpriced mailers. They also share their personal experiences and insights on maintaining a balance in home and life maintenance in the industry. Tune in to get a deeper understanding of the land investing industry and stay updated on the latest trends and strategies. Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: I'm Jill DeWit, and this is the Land Academy Show. Steven Jack Butala: This is episode number 1937. Today, we are talking in-depth about the data. How the data will tell you exactly what to do. Then later on in the show we'll talk about how to avoid sending overpriced mailers. Two really popular topics that our staff tells us are popular in Discord, and popular in the whole customer service environment for Land Academy members. Jill K DeWit: Always. It's funny, if you send overpriced offers, you know right away because everybody calls you back, and they love you. It's hilarious. I have to pause and say something right now, I just realized. As I'm walking into your office here to record this, I realized for whatever reason, at this point in my life, I'm excited about the weirdest things. Let me tell you what I'm excited about this week. We just had two cars serviced, and our air conditioning check-up kind of thing at the house, and it all came back that nothing was needed. I'm like, "Really?" It always seems that your car goes in, it needs something, and we had two cars go in, nothing. I'm like ... Now, granted it wasn't cheap getting them serviced, but there is that. But at least they didn't come back and go, "Oh, you've got to have ..." Fill in the blank, and it's $900. Steven Jack Butala: Now that you said that, something horrific's going to happen before the week's over. Jill K DeWit: Oh, wait. Hold on a moment. That's okay. We just bought a new pool filter, or pool pump, excuse me. So don't think that it's all peachy over here. Steven Jack Butala: It's endless. Jill K DeWit: It is endless. Steven Jack Butala: I don't know we got on this so fast. Jill K DeWit: I don't know. I don't know. You know it's funny, you go back and forth where you want to live and lifestyle and things like that. We do, anyway. I do, anyway. Right now, Jack is, "I can feel it. You are becoming an association, HOA, I don't do anything outside the walls person really fast." Like "That wouldn't be bad," right? Steven Jack Butala: It's just people. There's an underlying theme today, that about ... We're going to talk about data, which is a real easy discussion, and how data really tells you what to do. So the underlying theme is you don't really have to be emotional, or pay attention to a lot, except for data. [inaudible 00:02:30]. Jill K DeWit: You don't have to be emotional. That's a whole nother topic. I'm writing that one. No. Steven Jack Butala: Topic number one. And then the next we're going to talk about pricing mailers. There's no emotion in that. Jill K DeWit: No. Steven Jack Butala: And then, at the end of the show, Jill and I always put in our 2 cents with some opinions about stuff, and there's some interesting things going on in the world right now, as it pertains to land, of course, that I've never seen before. And I think it's a result of ... Everything's a result of sign of the times. But no, I don't- Jill K DeWit: I agree. Steven Jack Butala: Me inside of an HOA is maybe not the best thing. Jill K DeWit: No, I know, but I know that's not the what's going to happen. But I can feel you kind of going, "What's wrong with that?" Like maybe then I wouldn't have to care about ... I don't have to do anything. Someone else would be responsible for my roof, and the pool, and fill in the blank. Steven Jack Butala: The pendulum swings too far sometimes.
Description Welcome to the Land Academy Show, episode 1936! Join Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit as they share their journey to becoming leaders in the land flipping space and maintaining that position from 2015 to 2023. They will also talk about talking and bonding with sellers and the importance of the first inbound phone call. Get insights on how to make quick connections and learn about the area you're interested in, all in just a matter of seconds. Tune in to this episode to learn more about the land investing industry and stay up to date with the latest trends and strategies. Plus, get sneak peek into the Land Academy Discord online community by visiting landinvestors.com Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, and this is the Land Academy Show. Steven Jack Butala: This is episode number 1,936. And today we are talking in depth, actually, about how and why we became the leaders in the land space and held that position from 2015 to 2023. That's topic number one. And then later in the show we'll talk about bonding with sellers. Jill here is going to talk about bonding with sellers. On the phone from the actual initial first inbound phone call, so incredibly important. And honestly doesn't get talked about enough. Jill K DeWit: You know what's funny about this, is that people think that this bonding needs to take, I've heard anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour. You don't need to do that. You do not, I'm here to tell you. If you have the time, good for you, if you want to talk for an hour. But you don't need to do that long. I don't have the time. Steven Jack Butala: Jill and I bonded the first time we met in about 13 seconds. And I think that's average for her. Jill K DeWit: That's great. You know what? You were pretty quick. I won you over pretty fast. Steven Jack Butala: Jill can bond with a checkout clerk over any topic- Jill K DeWit: Oh yeah. Steven Jack Butala: ... in about 13 seconds. Jill K DeWit: Oh, this is so true. We walk out of the store and he'll go, what took so long? Or not even what took so long? We're getting in the car and I'm like, did you know A, B, C and D as we're rolling through a town? And he's like, "How did you find that out?" I'm like, "I just asked the girl in line. She told me all about where we're we should go for dinner tonight, what sites we have to see, and where the best place is to get a snowmobile." Steven Jack Butala: I'd much prefer to bond with the bottom of a scotch bottle myself. Jill K DeWit: Exactly. That's good. So we hope you are enjoying our new 2023 weekly show. This is the outline, so each week we answer questions from our Land Academy close member Discord forum, we review land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar and we take a deep dive into two land related topics by popular request. Steven Jack Butala: Let's take a question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. If you would like a sneak peek into our Discord channel, please go to landinvestors.com. It's in read only format for the public and it's free there. Jill K DeWit: All right, so Will wrote, thank you, Will, "Loving the new podcast format. I do have a question from the episode that came out yesterday. I posted it on YouTube, but I figured I'd duplicate here in case..." This is in Discord, of course, "...some of you had insight that you could share. So I'm trolling for areas, it's a trolling for areas question. This is a bit geeky and maybe it doesn't matter." Steven Jack Butala: That's why we're all geeks here. Jill K DeWit: Yeah, we are geeks. "As I'm sitting down on my computer opening up Zillow, how zoomed in should I be? Do I want to be looking at about a 20 to 30-minute drive from west to east or south to north on the screen? Do I want to be a 50-mile diameter from the center of the screen?" I get this question, so do I understand? "And then, what count level is interesting?
Description Join us on our first of many long-form podcasts as we navigate the 2023 real estate market and share the top tips and strategies for finding winning land investments. Discover what top land investors are doing differently in 2023, how to classify your properties, and see real-life deals our paid members have secured. Learn how to identify new markets and determine if they are a good fit for your investment portfolio. With decades of experience in the land business, we have seen it all and are ready to share our knowledge with you. Tune in on iTunes, Spotify, Amazon, Google, or watch the video version on YouTube. Don't miss out on this opportunity to take your real estate investments to the next level in 2023. Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: I'm Stephen Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: I'm Jill DeWit, and this is the Land Academy Show. Steven Jack Butala: This is episode number 1,935. Today, we are taking an in-depth look at a couple of topics called What Top Land Investors Are Doing Differently for 2023 and How to Troll for New Land Acquisition Markets Like A Pro. It all starts with trolling. Jill K DeWit: Well, before that, I would like to point out a couple things. Number one, this is our new format. I want to let everybody know this is it. Glad you're here. Get your coffee. Get your tea. Get your Coke. Settle in. This is going to go probably, I don't know, anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour or so. We'll see where this takes us. Jill K DeWit: So our new format is instead of the weekly short shows, where a lot of you have said, "Oh, wait, I really wanted to hear the whole deep dive about it," which is a snippet, we're going to give you those deep dives because you guys have really asked for that. So we're excited to do that. Jill K DeWit: The other thing I want to point out is when we say show number 1,935, we really do mean 1,935 starting with episode zero, basically, because I'm sure there were negative zero because there's probably a few that we started with years ago and since replaced, probably pulled down and replaced because I don't know how great they were, but we've been doing this for a while. So I'm really looking forward to this. So what's going on with you? Steven Jack Butala: I'm just ready to ... I'm embracing this new format. It's going to give us a chance to really take an in-depth look at some of these topics versus just skipping along the topic. Jill K DeWit: Yeah. I want this to be like you get to imagine you're in the room with us right now, and as we're just discussing things, like we always do, just now with cameras on and mics on, we're going to have these longer conversations. We're going to have our partners meetings right here with you. Steven Jack Butala: Oh, gosh. Please spare them, spare the listener. Jill K DeWit: Oh, all of them. I'll remove the arguing. I'll remove the, "That's stupid," or you know what? Actually, we might leave that in. Maybe all the, "That's a stupid idea," we'll leave those in because we don't always agree. Steven Jack Butala: So like Jill says, new for 2023. This is our weekly show now. We'll take a couple of member questions from our Land Academy Discord forum like we always have. We'll review some of our favorite land acquisitions from our Thursday member webinar, and ultimately take a deep dive look into two land-related topics that are requested on the Discord channel. If you're a member, go on Discord. There's a place called Content Topic Suggestions. Please, if you want us to talk about anything or ask a question- Jill K DeWit: Put it in there. Steven Jack Butala: Yup, we'll happily cover it. Jill K DeWit: That's awesome. Steven Jack Butala: All right. Let's take a question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. If you want a sneak peek at our Discord channel, please go to landinvestors.com. It's embedded there, read-only, and it's free. Jill K DeWit: That's pretty cool. All right. So Sid wrote,
Announcement: Our New Podcast Schedule Hello everyone, We are excited to announce that Land Academy will be moving to a longer, more in-depth podcast format starting Wednesday, January 11th. For the past eight years, we have shared daily podcasts to help you buy and sell land profitably. Beginning this month, we will be releasing weekly shows that will still include member questions, interviews, and information on how we do deals. We are lengthening the podcast so we can dive even deeper into what's important to you and how to be successful as a land investor. While we have enjoyed bringing you daily content, we have decided to switch to a weekly format in order to provide more in-depth and comprehensive coverage of each topic. We believe this new structure will allow us to deliver even more value to our listeners. We hope you will continue to tune in and join us on Wednesdays for our new weekly podcast. Thank you for your support and we can't wait to bring you this new format. If you have any guests or topics you'd like us to talk about let us know! 2023 promises to be a turbulent but profitable year for land investment and we will cover it as it unfolds in-depth. Don't forget to join us every Wednesday and be sure to catch up on past episodes in the meantime. Sincerely, Jack and Jill https://youtu.be/83PZ9v45hjQ Thanks for listening, and finally, don't forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Announcement: Our New Podcast Schedule Hello everyone, We are excited to announce that Land Academy will be moving to a longer, more in-depth podcast format starting Wednesday, January 11th. For the past eight years, we have shared daily podcasts to help you buy and sell land profitably. Beginning this month, we will be releasing weekly shows that will still include member questions, interviews, and information on how we do deals. We are lengthening the podcast so we can dive even deeper into what's important to you and how to be successful as a land investor. While we have enjoyed bringing you daily content, we have decided to switch to a weekly format in order to provide more in-depth and comprehensive coverage of each topic. We believe this new structure will allow us to deliver even more value to our listeners. We hope you will continue to tune in and join us on Wednesdays for our new weekly podcast. Thank you for your support and we can't wait to bring you this new format. If you have any guests or topics you'd like us to talk about let us know! 2023 promises to be a turbulent but profitable year for land investment and we will cover it as it unfolds in-depth. Don't forget to join us every Wednesday and be sure to catch up on past episodes in the meantime. Sincerely, Jack and Jillhttps://youtu.be/83PZ9v45hjQThanks for listening, and finally, don't forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Jack and Jill here. Jill K DeWit: Howdy. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jill Friday and she's going to talk about how to- Jill K DeWit: Qualify. Steven Jack Butala: ... qualify a seller in a minute or less. Does it take that long? Jill K DeWit: I'll tell you. In a minute or less. That's exactly right. You can do that. Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And back in the day, it was very, very difficult for Jill and I and anybody during that time to locate real estate without a post office address, like 123 Main Street. We developed a tool to take all 150 million properties that are in the country and develop a backend database so you could look it up by state and the county that the state's in and assessor's parcel numbers. We rolled it all up, put it together and called it ParcelFact, F-A-C-T. Jill K DeWit: With a bow on it. Steven Jack Butala: Check out parcelfact.com. Jill K DeWit: Okay. So the question Sid wrote is, "Guys, Whitetail is" ... Oh, this is a comment it sounds like. So Sid wrote "Guys, Whitetail is just like any real estate brokerage. While they specialize in land, they have inexperienced agents learning the trade, so you have to vet them for their experience in accuracy on comps. Other agents only want to deal with the end seller and buyers because they don't understand our model. I toured 160 acre ranch with Whitetail agent last week. He brought his ATV, UTV. Had the ranch mapped out in MapRight and a folder with comps in the area. If I get lucky enough to get a PA, he will get the listing even though I'm a realtor and I could sell them myself." Oh, so he was just not impressed with the guy. That's what they are. Steven Jack Butala: But my point in including ... I was impressed to start with this. My point in including this is this. This guy's a realtor and he's looking around saying, "You know what? Being a real estate agent on my own land deal doesn't make sense from a money standpoint, a time standpoint." Jill K DeWit: It's true. Steven Jack Butala: "This guy's better at it than I am." Jill K DeWit: True. Steven Jack Butala: "I'm good now at just buying land," which is what we all should be focused on this year. This one thing: buying land really, really, really well. Not selling it well. Maybe choosing who to sell ... Which he's doing. He's choosing a great person to sell it better than himself. I see people make this mistake all the time. They go get their real estate license, they want to represent themself. All it ends up doing is ... It's expensive, time consuming. And now you're in a different business, not in the acquisition business. Today's Jill Friday and she's going to talk about how to qualify a real seller in a minute or last. This is the meat of the show. Jill K DeWit: You know how it goes so fast? All you have to do is figure out three things. Steven Jack Butala: Oh this is good, Jill. Jill K DeWit: Three easy little things that you could figure out really quickly in less than a minute. Are you ready? Right seller, right situation, right price. That's it. In one minute, you can figure that out. Right seller. Am I talking to the guy that owns a property and/or couple and/or church and/or person who can make the decision? That's easy, that's fast. Number two, right situation. What's going on? They'll tell you really quickly, "Thank God you sent me this offer. I didn't know what to do with this. I just inherited it." Fill in the blank. "I just lost my job. I wanted, whatever it is, I need the money. My dog's dying." We've had all those stories. So that's the situation. And the third thing, the last thing is the price. Do they love it?
Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Jack and Jill here. Jill K DeWit: Hello. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jack Thursday. I'm going to talk about confidence. I mentioned yesterday that I don't think this topic gets enough attention and I think that it's an underrated topic that needs to be talked about more often than it should. And I came up with this concept because we just got done with Career Path, Jill and I, for last year- Jill K DeWit: In the summer- Steven Jack Butala: And the last group of Career Path people, it was pretty clear which ones had confidence and which ones didn't. And it's very, very interesting to hear everybody's stories and how they present their land acquisition stories in Career Path, and see how confident they are. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the land investors.com online community. It's free, and please don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel. Comment on the shows you like. Jill K DeWit: Evan wrote, 'When sending neighbor letters to find a buyer from my property, has anyone found it more effective to set filters on who receives a letter? For example, I could send a thousand letters to all the property owners within a two mile radius of my property. Or I could send a thousand letters to everyone that owns two or more parcels of land within a 10 mile radius. I'd love to hear opinions on this.' It's a good question. Steven Jack Butala: I would do both because let's do the math- Jill K DeWit: [inaudible 00:01:31]- Steven Jack Butala: A thousand letters to everybody in a two mile radius, that's $500. A thousand letters to everybody who owns two or more properties in a 10 mile radius. Yes, do that too. So now you're spending a thousand dollars marketing expense, let's call it, to reach, geez, thousands and thousands and thousands of people who already own real estate surrounding the property that you have- Jill K DeWit: To 2000 people. A thousand dollars to reach 2000 people who are likely buyers. Steven Jack Butala: Very, very logical buyers. Jill K DeWit: I agree with this. Steven Jack Butala: I've never, ever... Stop me if I'm wrong here, [inaudible 00:02:05] this- Jill K DeWit: Oh, I will. Steven Jack Butala: But I've never, ever had anyone in Land Academy or anyone else come to me and say, "Yeah, this neighbor letter thing- Jill K DeWit: Is stupid- Steven Jack Butala: And it doesn't work. And I must have missed it because I didn't get any response." No. Everybody's going to respond. The amount of response that you're going to get in that little community because you have a property that's for sale and it's undervalued. Jill K DeWit: Right. Steven Jack Butala: Everybody wants to know what their property's worth. They want to talk about it. Jill K DeWit: And you're also going to drum up buyers. Steven Jack Butala: Yep. Jill K DeWit: That often happens too. I don't want to sell, or I'm not interested in this one, but what else do you have over here? Now I know how you roll, that kind of a thing. That happens on the sell side too, or with our regular mails too. I love it. Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jack Thursday. I'm going to talk about confidence. This is why you're listening. Confidence really is a huge indicator about how successful you're going to be just about anything in life. I think that it's something that you can develop. I don't think you're necessarily born with it. I think that- Jill K DeWit: I agree. Steven Jack Butala: Obviously there's nature nurture to everything. But I really believe that working on... If you're going to work on yourself, let's say, and- Jill K DeWit: Let's talk more about that. Steven Jack Butala: Jill loves this topic. I think most women love this topic. Jill K DeWit: Please tell me.
Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Jack and Jill here. Jill K DeWit: Howdy. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about the pros and cons of partial land ownership. Jill K DeWit: Are there pros? Steven Jack Butala: There are. Jill K DeWit: Okay. Steven Jack Butala: There's a bunch. Jill K DeWit: I can think of one situation where there's a pro, and I'm going to save it and see if you cover it, and if not I'll throw it in at the end. Steven Jack Butala: There's an equal number of pros and cons- Jill K DeWit: Huh? Steven Jack Butala: ... that's the fastest... Well, here's a little tea, a little test, a little taste. If you own half of a property, you only have to come up with half the money. If you own 1/3, and on, and on, and on. Jill K DeWit: That's my pro. Steven Jack Butala: It's a great way to... Jill K DeWit: On the buy side. It's not a pro on the sell side. Steven Jack Butala: On the sell side, you're cutting it all up. Jill K DeWit: Like, great now I have to share half the profits. That stinks. Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community. It's free. Last year, a ton of people, Land Academy members actually- Jill K DeWit: Well actually, 2021. Steven Jack Butala: Two years ago? Jill K DeWit: Yeah. Steven Jack Butala: ... needed help getting their mail campaigns in the mail, which I understand. There's a lot of moving parts to that. We created a concept called Concierge Data Plus, which is an offshoot of our mail company, Offers2Owners, to help you get the amount of mail that you think you need to get in the mail monthly, and keep it on track so you can hit your goals. Go to Support@Offers2Owners.com, and check it all out. Or, just call those guys. They'll tell you exact... We have a lot of customers utilizing this tool and doing deals. Jill K DeWit: Can I just add clarification for new people real quick? Here's the big picture, this has been a thing forever, since people started joining Land Academy and following what we do, like "How the heck are you doing that?" There's a mail merge involved. There's getting the data, but there's scrubbing the data, there's pricing the data. I don't have a PhD in Excel like you do, Jack, so this is why we solved this. We are letting you use our team to help you download, scrub, pull comps so you can price the mailers how you want. You tell them what percentage you want, and then they price it. Then they get it in the mail for you. It's really awesome. It just takes that work out of it for you. If it's something you're not into or not comfortable with, or you're just frankly too busy, that's the greatest thing for me. I really thought that the majority of people that would be using Concierge Data, which is a product of Offers2Owners.com, number two Owners, would be people that are just like, "I can't handle this. This is just too much for me to grasp right now and figuring this all out." But no, it's our heavy hitters. The majority of the users are people that have been with us for several years. They're like, "I'm just done doing my own mail. I use Concierge Data. It saves me time. It keeps me on track. It rocks." Steven Jack Butala: We used to be the biggest customer of Concierge Data, and we no longer are not. Jill K DeWit: Yeah, now we're not. Steven Jack Butala: By leaps and bounds we're not. Jill K DeWit: There's other people sending more mail than us, and it's awesome. Okay, so back to the question. Will wrote, "I have a counter offer on a commercial property. Is there someone that could chat with me about some of the due diligence steps, and how they would or should be different for a commercially zone property?" Well, there's an easy answer,
Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Jack and Jill here. Jill K DeWit: Hi. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today Jill and I talk about how small is too small in your land transactions. Jill K DeWit: I have two things. I want to talk about the deals that I do, and I want to talk about the deals that you should do. Steven Jack Butala: That's great. And I'll tell you right out of the box here, this changes all the time. A regular deal for us used to be buy for $500 and sell for 1500. That was like a standard deal for us for a lot of years. And certainly not anymore. Jill K DeWit: Because they were every hour. Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Jill K DeWit: That makes a difference. Isn't that funny? Wow. Steven Jack Butala: Stick a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. I hope you know by now jill and I own a full-blown commercial printing company called Offers 2 Owners, the number two owners, to get offers into owner's hands that you're sending out to buy their property. We started it a lot of years ago out of frustration because we couldn't get the service and attention that we needed from an outside vendor. So we started our own. And fast forward today, we do almost a million offers a month. Sometimes, we actually go over a million offers going outbound a month. Check out support@offers2owners.com. Jill K DeWit: Will wrote, "Going through the six As. And right now, I'm looking at access. I have an opportunity on a property that is at the end of a dead end road. So there's access. It's a small lot 0.6 acres. This is good. It's over half acre. So how much should I be worried about the fact that it's a dead end road, that it's only one lane wide, but it's paved right up to the property, but not beyond it." Are you kidding? I love that. Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Zero. You should worry about it zero. Jill K DeWit: That's the best possible scenario. I'm like, "Who wouldn't want that road ends at my house?" No one's going there, unless they're going to my house. First of all. I don't have the through traffic and the noise and that kind of a thing and it's paved. I'm like, "That would be the seventh A," which is asphalt. Steven Jack Butala: Don't keep saying that. Jill K DeWit: I know. I'm sorry. We're joking about that one. That was a career path inside joke, but I think it's awesome. What do you think? Steven Jack Butala: Dead end roads are great. The only con, or downside, to having a dead end road property is that the signage, the for sale signage that you put up, might not be as attractive because you're not reaching as many people as you possibly can to sell it. But from a livability and a buy-ability standpoint, everybody loves dead ends. Jill K DeWit: Totally. Steven Jack Butala: Do you know that it's not politically correct to say dead end anymore? Jill K DeWit: What? Steven Jack Butala: No through traffic or what... I don't know. Dead end is just a... I read this is a while ago, like a year ago. Jill K DeWit: What? Well, who is that possibly offending? Steven Jack Butala: I don't know, Jill. Whoever it's offending, I don't know. I don't know what they would be upset about. The word dead, maybe. Jill K DeWit: What? Steven Jack Butala: I know. I knew you'd have that extra... That- Jill K DeWit: Okay. Are you making this up? Steven Jack Butala: Nope. No. All the news signs you see, it says no through traffic. Jill K DeWit: Wow. That's hilarious. Steven Jack Butala: Today's topic before Jill gets all- Jill K DeWit: How much money is that going to cost? Steven Jack Butala: Exactly. Today's topic, how small is too small with land deals? This is why you're listening. Jill K DeWit: Okay. So first, we need to talk about your deals and then we'll talk about my deals.
Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Jack and Jill here. Jill K DeWit: Hi. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today Jill and I talk about getting rich in 2023. Jill K DeWit: Yay. Steven Jack Butala: Who doesn't want to talk about getting rich? Jill K DeWit: I'm just saying happy 2023. I'm excited. Aren't you excited? Steven Jack Butala: I'm excited about rich. Jill K DeWit: I love starting a new year. It's great. I'm really excited. Oh, I know you have a lot... This is all on your side of the sheet- Steven Jack Butala: Not really? Do you have a lack of enjoyment and fulfillment for getting rich? Are you at a loss for words about making money? Jill K DeWit: You know what? I'm over it. It's overrated. Just kidding. Who flipping cares? Steven Jack Butala: I actually had somebody to say that to me one time, really long time ago. I don't know, this was like in high school when we were all sitting around talking with somebody's parents and they said, "Yeah, making a lot of money has really been a letdown in my life. There's a lot of other things-" Jill K DeWit: "It's only money. We'll make more." Just kidding. Steven Jack Butala: It's silly. Jill K DeWit: I know it's true. Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free. Jill K DeWit: Kim wrote, "I'm looking for advice on offer percentages for higher value properties. So I offered $85,000 for a 20 acre property. The seller wants $203,000 and comps are between $340,000 and $400,000 for this size / area in the last few months. I typically stick to 40% of comps as my absolute highest offer price to keep me in check when I call sellers back. For higher priced properties, am I right in remembering that a percent of comps may increase? For example, do I shift my highest percent up to 45 or 50% or more?" I think they go down. Steven Jack Butala: Well yea- Jill K DeWit: For a bigger size. Steven Jack Butala: That's a good question. Jill K DeWit: Yeah. Steven Jack Butala: This is so... It's personal. Jill K DeWit: Yeah. Steven Jack Butala: In general, we're all used to doubling our money on just about every deal. In most cases, the deals that we do. I'm not bragging, I'm just saying how it is. Largely because of Jill's real specific acquisition criteria. It's more than that. So for larger properties, some people go for a dollar amount, like on houses. When we buy houses, we have to make $100,000. We might spend 300 to sell it for 400. And again, that's certainly not doubling our money at all, but it's a different deal. For land, we like to double, sometimes triple the money. Jill K DeWit: Mm-hmm. Steven Jack Butala: It's up to you. Jill K DeWit: I don't know. You know what my whole thing is, Kim? I need wiggle room in case anything goes sideways. Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Jill K DeWit: So the numbers that... Can I see the numbers again? We're at 200 to sell for 340 to 400. Okay. That's not nuts. That's really- Steven Jack Butala: I love your 85 though. Jill K DeWit: No I know. 85 was awesome then you can't go wrong. Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Jill K DeWit: So can you meet them in the middle? That's a very normal thing where you make an offer, they counter, we meet in the middle, whatever it is kind of thing. So that would be my first goal. But otherwise, I mean, how good do you feel About 340 to 400? If you screw it all up and you sold for 300 and you paid 203, are you okay with that? I'm okay with that. Steven Jack Butala: Yeah- Jill K DeWit: As long as it goes fast and I can't lose and I really want it to go fast because I'm tying up $200,000. Because if I'm tying $200,000 for a year, that's a no bueno for me. Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, me too. Jill K DeWit:
Transcript: Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Hi. Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy show entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWitt broadcasting from sunny Southern California. Jack Butala: Today, jill and I talk about the fantastically interesting topic called taxes in your land business. Jill DeWit: I'm excited. Jack Butala: Me too. I can't wait to talk about taxes. No, here- Jill DeWit: We talk about this often, all the time. Gosh, it's a topic that warms my heart. Jack Butala: The truth of it is it's pretty necessary because if you do everything right, this is maybe the second or third or fourth most expensive line item in your expenses for your company. And with ours, it's probably number two or three. Jill DeWit: True or false. If you do everything right, you're a little bit teary eyed when tax time comes/however, that means you did well. Jack Butala: That's right. Jill DeWit: Okay. Jack Butala: It's a bittersweet situation. Jill DeWit: Oh, okay. Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Jill DeWit: This is a long one, I will warn you. Chris asks, "I'm new to the land business and looking for others to join an accountability group. Whether you just joined land Academy as I did a few days ago, or are otherwise somewhat new to the business, it's all good. I anticipate we'll be running into a lot of the same questions and hurdles around the same time as we do our research, get out our first mailers. Mine will go out next week. Field our first phone calls, et cetera. More answers and knowledge than we could ever ask for are here in the forums, education/podcast/ [inaudible 00:01:50] calls, et cetera. So, we're covered there, but what we can do is provide each other some accountability and encouragement as we rack up our first success stories, not to mention learning from whatever unique talents/experience we each bring to the table. And that landed us in this business." And in parentheses, Chris says he's an experienced software developer and business owner himself. Jack Butala: Excellent. Jill DeWit: That's great. Jack Butala: Excellent. Jill DeWit: "Perhaps a biweekly networking call over Zoom and a free Slack channel to stay in touch in the meantime. Anyone interested? Please reply to this thread or send me a PM. Private message. Thanks." Jack Butala: And there were about 20 people in there that replied to this almost immediately. Jill DeWit: I bet. This is a hot topic. Jack Butala: Right. So what do you think? Jill DeWit: I think it's great. I think it's something we should do and I think it's something we are doing. Jack Butala: Go ahead. Jill DeWit: We are going to put together something for you. So in the meantime, Chris, I'm so happy. And for those of you who have created your own groups, because you know that that's the one thing that you uniquely need. Some people do, some people don't. It doesn't ... Nobody's right or wrong. It's just some people need it, and those I'm so impressed and proud about everybody that have taken this on themselves and just said, "I know I need someone making me check in and keeping me on track." And I think this is awesome. Jack Butala: So do I. Jill DeWit: And our group has grown to the level where you have enough people, obviously, that this has become more of a thing. And so, we're going to take it. We're going to provide tools and resources to help you. Jack Butala: This falls under the category for me of what could possibly be bad about this? What's bad about exercising? Nothing. What's bad about more education? Nothing. So this, I think, accountability is just one of the cornerstones of succeeding at anything. And so, since we started Land Academy, I'd love to know your opinion on this too, and we've been doing this for five or six years now. I've learned a lot of stuff.
Transcript: Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Hello. Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt, broadcasting from sunny Southern California . Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about the types of blind offers to send and the types not to send. Jill DeWit: Oh, I have a list. Believe you me. Steven Butala: This is one of those topics that just gets a little passionate about, and I love it. Jill DeWit: Well, only because we've done it all. I mean, I can honestly say, we haven't been doing this... Well, you, because you're much older than me, since the '90s, and tested every possible thing. There's a reason why we got to this point. The reason why we're successful, is the reason why our community is successful, and we all have the secret, and I'm happy to share it. Steven Butala: Awesome. Jill DeWit: For $10,000. Just kidding, I want to share it right now today. Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and if you're a Land Academy member, please join us on Discord. Jill DeWit: James wrote, "I'm in one of the states with a lot of rural lands and with thousands of lakes." Well, how lucky are you, James? You're bragging a little bit, and I think that's awesome. Steven Butala: You can brag, but those lakes are frozen, right now. Jill DeWit: Oh, well, there is that. Steven Butala: I'm from a place like that. Jill DeWit: Okay. "I ran the red, yellow, green test, and many of the counties look like good spots to mail. My problem is, it's hard to find any good average for the pricing, because of all the lakes. On a coastal lake are often higher priced, where a half mile to mile away are much cheaper. I was thinking I need to use in-fill lot pricing, but even on the zip code level, there's a lot of price variability. Do I have to price APN by APN? Or is there a way to price to get me in the ball park of a decent sized area?" This such a good question, because this is stuff that we talked about in the show yesterday. That's a common thing here, if you're doing an area like where we're sitting in Southern California. Ocean front and on the west side of PCH is a whole different pricing point versus one mile or even half mile or even yards away. Steven Butala: James, this is a question I asked myself, even today. I'm working a certain, very specific area in a specific state right now, and I looked at and studied and studied and studied pricing variances based on attribute, that's really what the issue is. And the red, green, yellow test, was designed to solve that for you. So, even in a rural area, if you take each zip code, if you're lucky enough to get the data and drop it into the red, green, yellow test, you're going to see where property is selling, and where it's not. So the theory is, property that's close to the lakes and cheap or cheaper, will sell faster. And then, so you can price that that way, so that's one way to look at it. And then if that's the case, and it almost always is, it's pure supply and demand, pricing and supply and demand go together. Steven Butala: Then you can extrapolate that and run the data sets that way, based on what you find from a zip code standpoint. But zip codes don't often comply with, let's say, shoreline, so what do you do? You have to pretty much run an APN scenario, and I just did it. All of this is more theory than reality. The fact is, if you stick 42 fishing lines in the water versus three, you're going to catch more fish and some of the fish that you catch are going to be small, and you're going to throw them back, because you don't want them. Some of the fish are going to be awesome, you're going to keep it. And some of the fish are going to be, you're going to shake your head and say, "This might be a record for this lake, for the biggest catch of all time,
Transcript: Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Jack and Jill here. Jill K DeWit: Hello. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about why sending blind land offers within a price range, backfires. Jill K DeWit: I have a lot to say about this. Steven Jack Butala: Jill said earlier, or yesterday I should say, that we own a ton of real estate all over the country at any given time, and she's never received... Jill K DeWit: Not one of these. Steven Jack Butala: Never received a range offer. What I mean by this is instead of sending an offer for, this is what we teach in Land Academy and very successfully implement, Jill and I together and have for decades. Is, "Hey, we want a buy your property that's located in this area, that we know you own for $16,832.28." We don't send an offer range like, "Well, we think your property's worth between $14,000 and $22,000 and call us back and we'll talk about it together." Jill K DeWit: Right. Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community, it's free. Did you know that we have a full blown operational commercial printing company called offer2owners.com? Jill and I set this company up several years ago, specifically, to mail out our blind offer campaigns and then we've ultimately started sharing it with our Land Academy members and some non-members only a couple years ago. Last month, I just checked, we mailed out about 700,000 offers that month on our member's behalf. Give us a call or go to offers2owners.com and see if it's real. Jill K DeWit: Cool. Jill K DeWit: I am waiting for it to scroll up. Okay. Erin wrote, "Until recently, I have mostly avoided no access situations and used the title company to confirm access when it is questionable. Interestingly, I had one deal where one title company wouldn't ensure access, but the other one in town would. I guess the first title company just had a claim or two for a similar situation." Kind of funny. So one of our moderators, I already have one of their answers. So I'm going to answer this. I'll read this before we answer. So Kevin, one of our moderators wrote, "I have had a title company insurer with no access, but they had a disclaimer that said they would not govern any issues resulting from not having access. Also, I'm closing on a few right now that have a legal easement, but no rotor path. I purchased these and had a surveyor go out and mark the easement so that my buyers can clearly see that they do have a legal easement. Jill K DeWit: I avoid those with no access and even avoid deals or accesses through the neighboring parcel on a friendly verbal arrangement, since it's that part is not usually transferable. So now I sell all parcels with agents and then I need to have at least legal access for them to be able to show it by law." So he is taking it to a step further. Oh, one more thing. This is really lengthy. "I purchased a property from a guy who buys tax liens. Somehow he gets the deed. This property had no access, so he's sued for access. Cost him some money, it took about a year. Then I came long and made a good offer. I sent my surveyor out there to locate and mark the new easement through the neighbor property. That neighbor did not answer any attempt to contact during the suit or the easement." Steven Jack Butala: Sure. Jill K DeWit: "The suit for the easement, they may be uncooperative. So I work with an agent in the area who knows the neighbor and he went out there am fair warning that the surveyor will be working on the property next week." That was very nice. "I would not have done this deal without the connection with the agent to help with the neighbor. Surveyor was reluctant to go charging in there, legal or not." I understand.
Transcript: Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Hi. Steven J Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit: Are you sure? Steven J Butala: Yeah. Jill DeWit: Okay, and I'm Jill Dewitt, broadcasting from awesome Phoenix, Arizona. Steven J Butala: I'm hot. Jill DeWit: How you doing there? What's going on, babe? Steven J Butala: Well, I'm hot. I'm distracted. Jill DeWit: Yeah. Steven J Butala: We are recording [crosstalk 00:00:24] right now, this moment, in the middle of a construction site [crosstalk 00:00:28] we call our house. Jill DeWit: Yes. Our house is literally at a job site. Steven J Butala: Our sort of house. We live in the living room. Jill DeWit: Yeah, there is that, too. All true. We're running around helping landscapers and pool people and flooring people and all that stuff, but ... Steven J Butala: And we're still here to do the show. Jill DeWit: I know. Steven J Butala: The show must go on. Jill DeWit: I'm happy to be the general contractor of our own project. Steven J Butala: Today, Jill and I ... Wow. And I can't talk. Today, Jill and I are talking about getting ahead of yourself in the land academy education process. Jill DeWit: One thing, I'm not getting ahead of myself with this project. You know what? This is a good example. I could be running around asking for things [inaudible 00:01:08] alone. No, I ask people, what's the process? For example, our wood flooring. How's this going to go? How long does that take? What's the next step? And then I wait. I put it on the calendar and I wait. So this ties into our topic. Steven J Butala: When I was a kid, I took a boating class. I had to take a class from coast guard to get my boating license, and I was a little. It's like with airplanes. It's not like you have to turn 16 to get your license. You can get a boating license really early on, and I think you can get certified as a pilot early on, too. Jill DeWit: You have to be 16 to solo. Steven J Butala: Okay, but I don't think that was the case a while ago, and I know it's not the case for boats. Maybe it's all changed recently. And the second I got into that class, boy, did I have a lot of questions. And I was really interested in getting out on the water that day. It was two weeks before we ever got on the water, and it was books and exams and all kinds of stuff. And I got so frustrated and ahead of myself and, by golly, that's what happens at Land Academy. Jill DeWit: By Golly. What am I going to do with you? Lickety split, by golly and bajillion. Steven J Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. If you're already a Land Academy member, join us on the discord. Jill DeWit: All right. So Erin wrote, Hello, I'm preparing my second first mailer. Oh, that's hilarious. I like that with a happy face. It took me second. Should I scrub out properties that are labeled low income in the opportunity zone column? That's hilarious. I'm concerned that there'll be a price cap on how much I could sell it. Is that accurate? Steven J Butala: This is a very, very hidden PhD level question. Jill DeWit: That's funny. Steven J Butala: What he or she is asking is what do I scrub out of my mailer when it comes to use? Property types, commercial use, industrial use, residential, NEC, which is non-classified property and on and on. What do I exclude? And the answer is nothing. In the very early parts of Land Academy, I made a big deal about use and how you should check out all kinds of stuff, specifically industrial property because you don't want to deal with any type of [crosstalk 00:03:35] EPA cleanup. Yeah, exactly. Well, times have changed. And the more letters that you get out now ... and we've grown as a land investor, just like everybody else over the years. Jill DeWit: We've grown in a lot of ways. Steven J Butala:
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, sending it back, scheduling a notary,
Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Jack and Jill, here. Jill K DeWit: Hello. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Stephen Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun, on this Friday, on the 23rd of December, almost Christmas. Sorry. Just had to get that in there. Steven Jack Butala: Today is Jill Friday, as you can tell. She's going to talk about the quote we received from Career Path Five. "Screw it and do it." Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Jill K DeWit: Script rolling. Script rolling. Script rolling. Script rolling. Steven Jack Butala: We have three days left, including today, to prepay for mailers for next year. Jill K DeWit: True. Steven Jack Butala: We had a pretty deep discount and offers- Jill K DeWit: And concierge. Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. And concierge, if you want us to do your mailers for you. Jill K DeWit: Yep. Steven Jack Butala: So check it out at offers2owners.com. And call those guys, and they'll explain it to you. Jill K DeWit: Yep. Patsy wrote from "Would you brag about this deal" section of Discord. Florida. 20 acres. Hunting track. Diverse property. Offering future home site and recreational use. Neighboring large wooded tracks, great privacy and provide ideal wildlife habitat and great hunting. To the north and the east, there's a 55-acre property owned by Walton County. And to the west is a privately-owned 118-acre property with a creek running through it. With a small church cemetery to the southwest, providing quiet neighbors. A cemetery usually does. Quiet neighbors. All around quiet and privacy is assured. This property is within 12 miles of shopping, including a Walmart, restaurants, and medical facilities in downtown blank blank city. And just about an hour away from the beaches. Mailer offer price was $88,168.65. Accepted offer price... Is this Patty or Patsy? Steven Jack Butala: Patsy. Jill K DeWit: Patsy. Steven Jack Butala: She got him down at 40k. Jill K DeWit: Yeah. Accepted offer is $40,000. He wants to close before the end of 2022. I think I can sell it for 110. That's awesome. This is a "would you brag about this deal?" Steven Jack Butala: So this is in the, "Would you do this deal section of Discord?" And as you can imagine, there are about eight people that said, "PM me." Let's get this thing done. Jill K DeWit: They said, "Heck, yes." Steven Jack Butala: What I was saying earlier this week is, she's new. And she went out and did exactly what she was supposed to do. Got an amazing price for a piece of dirt, without having the money to do it. She didn't care and she shouldn't care. Jill K DeWit: No. Steven Jack Butala: It's kind of what Jill's topic's about today. She just did it. She just went and did it. And then, after that, seeked money. Jill K DeWit: Mm-hmm. Steven Jack Butala: And she found it. Jill K DeWit: This is Patsy with a hyphenated last name. Steven Jack Butala: Is it [inaudible 00:02:59]? Jill K DeWit: I think so. I'm guessing it is. I'll go look later and confirm that. Cool. Good question. And congrats. Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jill Friday. She's going to talk about "Screw it and Do it." It's a quote from Career Path Five. Jill K DeWit: Yeah. Steven Jack Butala: This is the meat of the show. Jill K DeWit: This was on week 10 of 10 in Career Path. I think it was Office Hours. I'm sure it was Office Hours, because how Career Path Works is, we have a guided module every week where we have a set curriculum, what we're talking about, and taking you from wherever you are to wherever you want to be, kind of thing. But outside of that, we have a session called Office Hours where you can just show up and gab with us and ask about the week before, things that are on your mind. Just anything that comes up. And often the topic just goes in whatever directi...
Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Jack and Jill here. Jill K DeWit: Hi. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jack Thursday and I'm going to talk about how money is a terrible manager. Jill K DeWit: Yeah, you know what? I hate working for money. Steven Jack Butala: Yep. Jill K DeWit: Money is a jerk. Steven Jack Butala: If you work for your money, it's the worst boss you're going to have. Jill K DeWit: Totally. He's really unforgiving. Notice how I've made it a he. It's not a she. Steven Jack Butala: Money is a he. Jill K DeWit: Money's a he. And he is a jerk, he's demanding, he's unforgiving. He always wants more. Steven Jack Butala: And he has no emotion. Jill K DeWit: He's never enough, no emotion. Steven Jack Butala: And there's no... Jill K DeWit: Exactly. He complains all the time. Steven Jack Butala: There's no explanation. Jill K DeWit: Exactly. Steven Jack Butala: There's no explaining why you were late. Jill K DeWit: Oh yeah, no. Steven Jack Butala: It's unforgiving. Jill K DeWit: Totally, that's right. And he always says, "You didn't give me enough. You're not doing enough." Steven Jack Butala: Well, you wanted that nice bracelet last week, so here we are. Jill K DeWit: Exactly. That's money. Man, somebody needs to fire that guy. Steven Jack Butala: He's going to fire you before you fire your money. Jill K DeWit: That's true. We need to sabotage money and get him out of there. Cool. Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on our landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and please don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel. Comment on the shows you like. Jill K DeWit: Okay. Martin wrote, "I am brand new to Land Academy. I have a full-time job and three little kids." Steven Jack Butala: Oh boy. Jill K DeWit: "And I want to be successful. How much time do I really need to devote to this?" Steven Jack Butala: First of all... Jill K DeWit: Go ahead Steven Jack Butala: Everyone has been where you are. Jill K DeWit: Okay, good. I wasn't sure where you're going with this. Steven Jack Butala: So it's not like, "Darn it, I'm too late to the party, or man, I made a bunch of mistakes. I shouldn't have had that third kid." Maybe that's true, but that's up to you. Jill K DeWit: That's where I thought you were going with this. Steven Jack Butala: So you need to really put your head into the right mindset where everyone's been in some version of this situation. Just about everyone. There's some exceptions that our world likes to make a huge example of like people born with a silver spoon in their mouth, but they have their own set of problems that I would argue are way worse than tackling what you're about to tackle. Jill K DeWit: That's true. So what would you tell Martin? Steven Jack Butala: Get organized and hopefully the mother of your kids or whoever your partner is, is on board. Boy, it's really going to make it much, much, much harder... Jill K DeWit: They have to be on board. Steven Jack Butala: ...if you're not a unified front with whoever you're involved with the kids. And that's an issue that if you're not, then that's overcomeable. You can find a person that is on board. Jill K DeWit: Well, you can get them on board. That's my goal. You need to have, now we're taking it in a different direction. Steven Jack Butala: [inaudible 00:02:58] I think we should, though because I think this is important. Jill K DeWit: It is true. I have talked to many wives and husband and wives and said, "What do you need to know?" And I think part of it is because we're a couple, it makes it easier for other people to embrace us, other couples and women to go, "All right, Jill's there." Jill's there is going to make sure this all doesn't go sidewa...
Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Jack and Jill here. Jill K DeWit: Hi. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about assessing your professional life at the end of 2022. Jill K DeWit: It sounds a little bit... It's high level. We're going to make it. Steven and I come at things differently. Steven Jack Butala: Yes, we do. Jill K DeWit: That's what I'm trying to say. Steven Jack Butala: I wonder how this topic's going to go today. Jill K DeWit: Well, here's going what's going on with me right now. I just had a little bit of a panic because I'm like, "Crap, am I getting assessed here on the air?" I don't know. Steven Jack Butala: Are you serious? Jill K DeWit: I don't know. Steven Jack Butala: When do I ever assess you? Jill K DeWit: Well, I'm just wondering what questions you're going to ask and how much you want to know because I did not prepare for this. Steven Jack Butala: Jill, are you happy in your professional life? Jill K DeWit: Yeah. Steven Jack Butala: Okay. That's it. Jill K DeWit: Oh, God. Thanks a lot. I'm like, "Should I have written an executive summary before I sat down?" Steven Jack Butala: Are you more or less happy with your professional performance this year, 2022 or 2021? Jill K DeWit: This year. Steven Jack Butala: Absolutely. Jill K DeWit: Keeps getting better. Steven Jack Butala: It's not church. No one's judging you. Jill K DeWit: Oh God, thanks. I wasn't sure. Steven Jack Butala: You're the only person who can say, "Yeah, I'm doing pretty well. I'm going to do a victory lap, or I got some work to do." Jill K DeWit: Okay. Thank you. Steven Jack Butala: That's it. Nobody else can do that. Jill K DeWit: That's fair. Good, because, again, I have notes but I don't have executive summary. Steven Jack Butala: Jill's joking. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community. It's free. Jill K DeWit: Hey, can I please add a little note in here? Steven Jack Butala: Sure. Jill K DeWit: About what's going on with Land Academy? Steven Jack Butala: Yep. Jill K DeWit: It's awesome, and I want to hit this home right now because this week is big with this promotion because I'm not going to do it again. I don't know if I said it the other day, but I'm closing up Land Academy at the end of the year. That's what I don't think I got out. I'm going to hit my cap right now, and we like to keep Land Academy at a real cool small number that we can handle so we can give you the attention and the support that you need and you deserve. That's why there's a cap. Having said that, I have room right now for people to join through the end of the year. I know I'm going to hit it. I know I'm going to hit it on or before December 31, but I'm keeping it open. G to LandAcademy.com, check it out there. You'll see a coupon code that says half off. Yep. It's half off the whole education bundle. There's four programs in that, by the way, that you're getting half off. It's awesome. Yes, you look at that and go, "This can't be right. It's a little too inexpensive." You're right. That's very true. From what you get, it's kind of weird, and that's going to change too. That's why I want you to know about it. Check it out. Thank you. Okay, back to the question. Michael wrote, "Hi all. I wanted to introduce myself. I had to take a personal hiatus from Land Academy, but I am back. I've done a few mailers over the years, but never pulled the trigger. Looking to make some friends/partners. I have intent to send 4,000 to 5,000 mailers a month for a while and hope to be able to find some funding partners when the mail starts to come back. Question to those members that are funding deals, are you generally okay with non-disclosure states in hot markets?
Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Jack and Jill here. Jill K DeWit: Hi. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about, should we be buying infill lots in this down market? Jill K DeWit: That was an interesting conversation that we had the other day. That was on the Thursday member call. I had to think about that, where it was. There's been a lot of talking in my world last couple weeks. Lot of things. It was so fun. If you're listening now, and you were on that webinar that I did last week on Thursday night, yep, did not know it was going to go that long, but I really wanted to answer everybody's questions. I just looked up and I'm like, "Whoa, what happened at the time?" But that was really fun. Anyway, I'm still a little worn out from it. Steven Jack Butala: I think it's natural. Well, I'm used to it. We're both used to it now because it's natural at the end of the year, and the beginning of the year, to make life decisions about where you want your life to go. And buying and selling land is, if it's on your radar, it's an expiration time. Jill K DeWit: Got it. Well, I was saying, yeah, there's a lot of talking, so that's why I got ... This came up on the member call. No, and one of our advanced members shared some really good in insight information about his experience working with builders. Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Jill K DeWit: And big builders. I can't run the name of them, but it doesn't matter. But it's cool. Steven Jack Butala: So they're in the market and buying. That was my takeaway. Jill K DeWit: I have no idea. Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the Land Investors online community. It's free. But before we get into all of that, I hope by now, Jill and I have a full-blown commercial printing company called offers2owners.com. We set this up several years ago because we were frustrated with the level of service and understanding that we were getting from normal, right off the street, commercial printing companies who print catalogs and stuff. What we set up was, and is, a printing company that just sends mail, Offers 2 Owners. Jill K DeWit: Can I just add that they have a special going on and it's four more days. Steven Jack Butala: Oh yeah, it's huge. Huge special. Jill K DeWit: So what he's talking about, it's 11% off mail, 16% off concierge data, which is awesome. So check it out on offers, and the number 2, owners.com. Steven Jack Butala: A lot of people prepay. A lot of our members prepay for their mailers for next year for tax reasons. So if you feel like you're in that category, give those guys a call, they'll explain it. Jill K DeWit: Oh yeah. Kay wrote, "Hi. I'm new to land acquisitions. Please correct me if I'm wrong or misunderstood. If I work backward, home value in an area is $100,000. Land retail price will be around $25,000. And we try to send offers about 50% of the retail price. So $25,000 time divided by 50% is about $12,500. So should we send an offer at $12,500 per residential lot? That right? Please advise. Thank you in advance." Steven Jack Butala: So again, Kay, your math is completely correct. Jill K DeWit: Yep. Steven Jack Butala: It's what I call the rule of quarters. You have a $100,000 house. A builder is usually willing to pay 20% of the value of what a new house would command in that market. 20%, let's say 20-to-25%. So $100,000, they're willing to pay 25,000, so you need to be half of that at 12, let's say. And then, so you buy for 12 and sell it to the builder for 20 or $25,000. Thank you, yes. The math is correct on that. You can't build a house for 75 grand. Jill K DeWit: That's what I was going to wonder if you were going to dress that. I was waiting. I'm like, "What is this going to look like?"
Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Jack and Jill here. Jill K DeWit: Hello. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today Jill and I talk about keeping up with real estate data sources in 2023. I'm going to tell a story here in a minute about explaining our business model to younger people recently and being laughed at pretty directly about how archaic they seem to think that it is. And then I think we all can learn something from it. Jill K DeWit: Cool. Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Jill K DeWit: Ryan wrote, "Hi all. I'm new to Land Academy as of a few days ago. I am new to land in general, but not to SFRs. I've done one land deal within the past month which has led me into Land Academy. I've watched Land Academy 3.0, I'm currently rewatching the video on DataTree and pulling a list. One thing I've encountered that I would love some clarity on is when you pull your list, how are you ensuring they are not church owned, HOA owned, et cetera. In the videos, Steve searches through a couple of records, but he doesn't have a method of bulk scraping out these type of properties In your opinions, is this something to care about or you just pull your list, scrub out the assessed improvements, and then mail it? I hope this question makes sense and thank you for the feedback and I'm stoked to work and learn with you all." That's cool. Steven Jack Butala: Thank you for this question. And the question completely makes sense and it's a great one. So there's a reason I put it in this episode. So here's the deal. There are amazing improvements and ways to pull data, scrub it, and actually create a mailer and get it in the mail. If I talk about all of those in chapter four of Land Academy 3.0, a substantial number of people will get freak out and abandon the idea of sending a mailer out. So I have to teach the basics on a screen. And then this environment, which I love this question, is for us to address, "Hey, there might be a better way for you." If you're a super tech savvy person. The old way works great. Is it the fastest? Nope. Is the most accurate? I think so. But there are all kinds of ways to make it faster. That's kind of what this episode is about. So the fastest and easiest way to scrub out people who own property, or entities that own property, in a mailer data set is to write a macro and YouTube's plastered with all kinds of those things and they are keywords. So I do address this in a pretty direct and simple manner in the program, just follow the program and you're going to do fine. If you want to write a macro to eliminate church owned properties and stuff, which I don't think you should eliminate churches at all. Jill K DeWit: No, I bought from churches. Steven Jack Butala: Right. Jill K DeWit: Churches are great. Steven Jack Butala: We all have. But there are place, like you don't want to send a letter to the United States government. So the US owns a lot of property and they end up in all of our data sets and they just need to be scrubbed out. You can write a real simple macro to do that. And that's what this episode's about is talking about making this more efficient. Jill K DeWit: Well, you know what I was going to say too is I bought and sold properties that are in an HOA, so I don't want those out. Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Jill K DeWit: So you got to really take a step back and think about what you're trying to take out. Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, in general you don't want to make a data set smaller, but you also don't want to waste money on stamps On a mail on the mail. And I say stamps figuratively. Today's topic, keeping up with the real estate data sources for 2023. This is the meat of the show. A couple days ago,
Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Jack and Jill here. Jill K DeWit: Hello. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jill Friday and she's going to talk about how to motivate title agents through the holidays. Jill K DeWit: And your partner. Steven Jack Butala: That's true. And your children, or whoever else is in your life. Holidays have always been a strange thing. It's like people don't really want to work. Everybody's taking time off. Things theoretically slow down. Jill K DeWit: Your employees. Steven Jack Butala: You have a whole special group of people. Yeah, your employees. A whole special group of people that- Jill K DeWit: Want to slack. Steven Jack Butala: Well, entrepreneurial-type people see the time to do research and want to get ready for January 1st to bust it out. Jill K DeWit: It's interesting. No, I think people like us, entrepreneurs, we don't even know it's the holidays. That's really what happens. Steven Jack Butala: That's right. Jill K DeWit: You're in it. Someone's like, "Sweetheart, today's Thanksgiving." "What? What are you talking about?" Steven Jack Butala: I've always been like that. Jill K DeWit: I know. That's what I'm saying. You're my example. And I know there's plenty of other people in Land Academy that are the same way that those of us are like... So that's part of the problem and why we need to talk about this because if you're like me, it's just another day. It's just another week. It's just another month. And what you do know is though, it's the end of the year, so now I might [inaudible 00:01:24] strategic for taxes. Why? Because I own my company. I'm thinking about these things. Now, the people on the other side that are working for you, they don't think about this stuff and you got to keep them on track. Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Back in the day, it was nearly... I don't want to sound like an old man here, but I really kind of am. It was nearly impossible to find land without a mailing address, like 123 Main Street. To solve this problem, Jill and I put together a database and wrote a internet interface to help you input the assessor's parcel number and the county and state where the property's located and find the property very, very quickly. We spent months sometimes trying to find property to decide if we should buy it back in the day. It's called parcelfact.com. Check it out. Jill K DeWit: Okay. Greg wrote, "Today, I went off to the bank and wired in the payoff amount for a home mortgage, 30 year loan paid off in eight years." Oh, that's great. "I pulled the last few thousand dollars I needed from my Land business account. Thank you everyone for your support and information to enable me to reach this goal." How great is that? Was that in the Discord success area? Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, it was in there today. Jill K DeWit: Oh, that's so good. It's like what an amazing feeling to go, "I don't have to think about this." Steven Jack Butala: I remember when my first mortgage was paid off. Jill K DeWit: That's awesome. Steven Jack Butala: There's a few milestones that feel just that great. Of course I sold the house, made a ton of money, and then went and got a mortgage and bought another one and then felt like crap about myself. Jill K DeWit: Do you know what'd be funny? You know what's interesting about this? I think it's England that you would do this. This is when they paint their doors red. Steven Jack Butala: So that's a worldwide thing. Jill K DeWit: Oh, It's a worldwide thing, okay yeah. Steven Jack Butala: If you have a red front door, your mortgage is paid off or you have no debt. Jill K DeWit: [inaudible 00:03:26] pay it off. I love that.
Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Jack and Jill here. Jill K DeWit: Hello. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jack Thursday, and I'm going to talk about how there's only six ways to get rich. Jill K DeWit: This is going to be good. I'm.- Steven Jack Butala: Which way. Jill K DeWit: Really curious. Steven Jack Butala: Which way do you choose? Before.- Jill K DeWit: Awesome. Steven Jack Butala: We get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free. Don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you liked. Jill K DeWit: Matt wrote, "Hi all. I'm working on pricing zip code that varies greatly in prices. Section of area that I pulled in the zip code is close to a downtown, and the other half of the zip code is in a more rural area. How do you price an area like this? If I do it just by the zip code, the addresses close to the downtown area are under priced. And the addresses further out are overpriced." Steven Jack Butala: Matt, this is brilliant. If you are in Land Academy and you're doing the dishes right now, and listening to this. Or you're driving in a car and thinking about something else, now's the time to stop doing that. Now's the time to really listen to this one point I have to make very briefly. If you're not in Land Academy... Jill K DeWit: Or in a safe place that you could pull over. Steven Jack Butala: If you're not in Land Academy this is why there are many people in Land Academy who are successful, it's for stuff like this. What he's describing is, picture a zip code. There's a big city in the zip code, there's maybe a couple of small towns. Maybe one small town in the zip code and all kinds of real estate surrounding it. Very different price. One zip code, different priced land all over the place. This is the norm. This is not an exception. It's always like this. There might be a not so big city. There's always going to be strangely priced scenarios in one zip code. This is why you cannot use a pricing tool that's automatic. You cannot say to Concierge Data, let's say, which is our company where we do your mailers, "Thanks for doing all this and it looks great. We're going to price it at 20% of retail and let me know when it goes out." Huge, sometimes fatal error. There are multiple places in zip codes that have different pricing. How do you do that? How do you deal with it? You get your mailer back, or you create the mail yourself, or you get it back from Concierge Data. And you test for reason over and over again and you sort for, just like I teach in.- Jill K DeWit: Land Academy. Steven Jack Butala: Land Academy, you sort for by APN and you look at test for reason, all of those prices to see. Not all of them, but if there's.- Jill K DeWit: Right. Steven Jack Butala: If you've got a 2,000 unit mailer size and it's one zip code, then test for every APN scenario, test 20 of them. You're going to decide ultimately that 20% is appropriate for this area in the zip code. 18% is appropriate for this area, 32%'s appropriate for this area. These are all really large parcels that are way out of town, maybe 8%'s appropriate for that. Are those numbers hard numbers? "Oh, Jack said 8% if it's out of town." No, that's not what I mean. I mean, it has to make sense so that if the property comes back and it's signed, you want to the do.- Jill K DeWit: Would you buy it? Steven Jack Butala: The deal. It's not overpriced or under priced. Jill K DeWit: Awesome. Steven Jack Butala: Thank you for asking that question. Jill K DeWit: That's a good question. Today's topic? Steven Jack Butala: Today's topic's Jack's Thursday, there's only six ways to get rich. This is why you're listening. Jill K DeWit: Okay.
Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Jack and Jill here. Jill K DeWit: Howdy. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about quite simply how to complete your first land deal. For the last couple of days, Jill and I are talking about taking risk and what's the riskiest thing you can do- Jill K DeWit: What's possible. Steven Jack Butala: ... is not taking risk at all. And 90% of the people who are millionaires own real estate. That's all great, thanks. How do you do it? What are the mechanics of actually taking the first step to getting a land transaction or a real estate transaction done? So we'll take you through it. Jill K DeWit: Cool. Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Jill K DeWit: And don't forget tomorrow I will be live at 5:00 Pacific Time. Yep. 5:00 Pacific time, 8:00 Eastern time via YouTube and Facebook. So check out the Land Academy channels for the details. Ed wrote, "If I only send mail to two and a half acres to [inaudible 00:01:09] acre properties in my ZIP, the quantity is 609. For me to send out 12,000 mailers, conceptually I need to get around 10 to 15 ZIP codes. If I keep it targeted like that, am I thinking accurately? Why am I missing something? Thank you." Steven Jack Butala: Ed, this is an amazing question, and you are on your way to being an incredibly successful at doing this, or really honestly, whatever you choose to do. Diversification is the pillar of success in anything when it comes to placing money and doing different types of equity creation for yourself. So yes, you are 100% correct, in what you're doing. Wouldn't it be better to send property to 10 or 15 ZIP codes than just one? It's always better to diversify. And yeah, 12,000 mailers. Heck yes, you are setting yourself up to the chances of getting a one or two or three or five good great properties out of a 12,000 unit mailer and 10 or 15 ZIP codes, you're setting yourself up to really, really succeed. Jill K DeWit: That's like the dream, really. That's the perfect way. The last thing you want to do is send out 200 mailers and you're staring at, I hope something comes back this week. Could you imagine? Maybe I'll get something, maybe I won't. How long does that flipping take? And then maybe you get one trickling in here and another one there, and then you're like, well, all right, I got five I collected now. Can I make any of these work? That's not the position you want to be in. The way Ed is doing it is the best way, which is let it out there. Just blast it. And guess what? Ed got 10, 20, 30 responses, maybe more with 12,000, I'm going to argue, argue a lot more with 12,000. Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, me too. Especially in different ZIP codes. Jill K DeWit: Right. You're going to have a lot of responses to play with, and especially with that many ZIP codes. This area worked out great. Over here, not so much. This is what I learned. I overpriced over here, I under-priced over here, but I fixed some. And you're like, you're overwhelmed with these deals coming at you. Imagine that. Right? Now Ed could sit back and go, okay, woo, take a number, folks. I only have, this is the whole thing. I'm only one person, so I'm going to pick the top three and I'll get to those next three next week, and then next three the next week. And by then, I got more mail going out. So that's the position you want to be in. Steven Jack Butala: I can't wait to see what happens from ... One of the hardest things that goes on in Land Academy for me is to listen to a reader and listen to a question like this. It's a very, very intelligent question. And then I know that a very substantial number of people go off, do this stuff, do very,
Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Jack and Jill here. Jill K DeWit: Hello. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today Jill and I talk about risk. Specifically the riskiest thing you can do is to take no risk at all. And it's funny, Jill and I were just talking about the title. She's like, well, wait a minute. I'm not really understanding what the hell this is because I don't see any risk in what we're doing at all. Jill K DeWit: Totally. I'm like- Steven Jack Butala: I don't either. Jill K DeWit: ... this wasn't registering for me. I'm like, I had to read this title three times and process it and then I'm like, I hear what you're saying, but I don't think that's, I don't, I'm not feeling it and we'll talk. Steven Jack Butala: You have to take some element of risk to get any reward. Jill K DeWit: Mm-hmm. Steven Jack Butala: It's just a universal concept and we'll talk about choosing things that appear to you to have no risk, like buying and selling land. I don't see any risk in that, but some people do. So we'll talk about it in a second. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Jill K DeWit: Hey, and don't forget, go to Land Academy's Facebook page or somewhere on social media and sign up to join me live Thursday. I didn't even tell you what time it was. Thursday at five o'clock... I have to think about this, five o'clock Pacific time on the 15th. It's going to be awesome. All right, so the Stevens Brothers wrote, "When getting leads from DataTree, do you think it would be a good idea to only get records from leads..." Wait, wait. "Do you think it would be an idea to only get records of leads that screen off the last sale date and the last recording date in the most recent three years?" Am I reading that right? Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, I'll explain it. Jill K DeWit: Okay. Steven Jack Butala: I'll paraphrase. Jill K DeWit: In other words, only get leads at the last sale date or the last recording date was before I got it. Before November, 2019. Have a nice day. Okay, I got it. Steven Jack Butala: We pull ownership records out of DataTree as a group before we, as part of doing a blind offer campaign and so if you think about a zip code. In the universe of that zip code, there's a bunch of land that sits in that zip code and we pull the records for people who own that land and do a bunch of stuff to them, scrub the data and get it in the mail. We use those records to generate offers to send to the mail. And so very often, and we teach this in an incredible amount of detail, how to do it step by step and all of our education on the Thursday call, and it's really kind of what Land Academy's about. Jill K DeWit: Mm-hmm. Steven Jack Butala: What these guys are asking is, hey, would it be a better idea to mess with or alter in some way the 25 year proven concept that Jack and Jill have- Jill K DeWit: Tested. Steven Jack Butala: ... purchased and sold more than 16,000 deals with. I'm brand new at this and I think I have a better idea. Jill K DeWit: I know and exclude the people that have transferred property in the last three years. Steven Jack Butala: Which means there those are people who are used to buying and selling and comfortable with buying and selling land. Jill K DeWit: Right. So here's my point to this. Well, that's great, that's great slash however, what about the sweet little old lady that just got the property in her name because her husband passed on and it was a probate thing. You just took her out of your list. Steven Jack Butala: So guys, we're not picking on you. We're just, we're seriously not, this is a very good question and I'm glad you asked it. It gives us an opportunity to, in a playful way, answer the question. No,
Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Jack and Jill here. Jill K DeWit: Hello. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about how 90% of millionaires own real estate. What a sentence. Jill K DeWit: I know. Steven Jack Butala: The real question is great, 90% of millionaires own real estate, and I think we all are familiar with this type of concept one way or another. The question is, how did they start? I can answer that and we're going to talk about it. The answer is one deal at a time. Jill K DeWit: I wonder how many of those people, this is the majority of what got them there. You know what I'm saying? Did they have another business and then they branched? Because some people have other businesses and then they realize what's possible in real estate and then they get into real estate. And some people, fortunately enough, started just in real estate, like you, and took that to the moon. Steven Jack Butala: I've always wondered that too. I don't know if it's a result of creating wealth somewhere else. I bet- Jill K DeWit: There you go. Steven Jack Butala: ... it's probably 50/50. But in the end, what we do, real estate was just a vehicle. We started a company. It's starting companies and creating something and then plowing money into other things. Jill K DeWit: Making it great. Steven Jack Butala: Exactly. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Jill K DeWit: I would like to note, make a quick little announcement here, that if you are thinking about Land Academy, you're going to want to check out this Thursday coming up. Thursday, December 15th, join me live on YouTube and Facebook. Go to our Facebook page and you can sign up there and get all the details. The title is going to be, what I'm going to talk about is How to Buy and Sell Land for Zero Down and Recession Proof Your Business. How cool is that? One of the things about us is this is not our first recession, not just based on age, but that's part of it. Steven Jack Butala: It's based on age for me. Jill K DeWit: Part of it. But let me go back and just say this too. Not only is this not our first recession, this is going on your third recession being in this industry. Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, that's true. Jill K DeWit: That is what's unique. Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, that's true. Jill K DeWit: This is going to be Jack's third time doing this as an investor. And I know, because I came in with Jack towards the tail end of the last one, and I saw and I knew and I watched some of the people that were other land investors in our space not make it. I was able to be there with you and watch it rise back up again. And now we're just in such a better place. So anyway, we're going to talk about things like that on Thursday, so join in. It's going to be awesome. Back to the question. Jeff wrote, "Hey, I'm just putting some feelers out there to see if anyone would have any interest in some help on their Jack type duties." There's Jack duties and there's JILL duties. "If you get anxiety at sitting at your computer and looking at your screen, I may be able to help. I can help with data pulling, scrubbing, data scraping, pricing, online research or similar tasks. If I can bring any value to your business, please do not hesitate to contact me. I'd love to see if we could put something together and help each other." Steven Jack Butala: So this is in the section of the Land Academy Discord that we've set up for just this type of thing, so everybody can- Jill K DeWit: Partnership. Steven Jack Butala: ... partnership, get together and help each other. This is specifically in the subcategory partnership wanted. Jill K DeWit: This is not help wanted. We don't have a help wanted section.
Transcript: Stephen Jack Butala: Jack and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Hello. Stephen Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Stephen Jack Butala. Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Stephen Jack Butala: Today Jill and I, well, it's Jill Friday, and she's going to talk about how to make it as a female land investor. It's an interesting topic choice, Jill. Jill DeWit: Why? Stephen Jack Butala: Because I really want to know this too. I want to know what the difference is between women, some of the challenges, the unique challenges. I think I speak for everybody. There are apparently unique challenges that women face to make it as an investor that I hope you just spell it out for us. Jill DeWit: I will. Stephen Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Back in the day, it was nearly impossible to find land anywhere on the internet without a mailing address. I mean, locate the actual parcel because you're thinking about buying it. We solved this by collecting and regurgitating that 150 million unit database based on APN. So now- Jill DeWit: Regurgitating. Stephen Jack Butala: All you have to do is type in the state, county and... Jill makes fun of this because she didn't actually, wasn't involved in manipulating 150 million units of data. Jill DeWit: I did too. Just kidding. I did two of them. That's what I mean. No, I'm just kidding. Stephen Jack Butala: We solved it. Go to parcelfact.com. It's simple to use and tailor made for what we do. Jill DeWit: Thank you. All right. Dan wrote, Dan S. wrote, "Here's a success story that's a little different. I am celebrating the success I have finally had in establishing scheduled office hours for myself." Good. This is hard for people. I get it. "I know I've been told over and over that keeping a schedule is crucial. This has been a challenge for me. We've been doing well enough the way I have been going. But by setting up two days a week of seven hours a day and then three days of two hours scheduled undeserved land time, it's a little less chaotic. Thank you to my wife who was much better at organization for helping keep me on task." That's awesome. Stephen Jack Butala: Dan is a, this is Dan Smart, and he's a long time now Land Academy member, Career Path alumni, and crazy successful and just a down to earth, really nice guy. So this was his Academy Award speech I think. Jill DeWit: Oh, that's sweet. That's really good. I love it. Stephen Jack Butala: All kidding aside, you have to have close the door time, don't mess with dad time or mom, I guess in the case of this episode. Jill DeWit: And then even more, we've talked about it on another show you have to plan out, really plan out your week. So we have versions of that and then I have this is deed signing day and this day and that day. When you're going to do your callbacks, have a set time for that. It just makes your life easier. Stephen Jack Butala: Closing day, research day, all of that. Jill DeWit: Due diligence time. Stephen Jack Butala: It's not necessarily days but blocks of time. Jill DeWit: Maybe every day for an hour, it's due diligence. Fill in the blank. Stephen Jack Butala: Took me forever to do that for myself. I went all through college and it was an absolute scheduling disaster. There was no schedule. It was just putting out a fire one minute to the next. Jill DeWit: Got it. Stephen Jack Butala: Today's Jill Friday. She's going to talk about how to make it as a female land investor. This is the meat of the show. But before she does, what makes female land investors different than male land investors? Jill DeWit: How we make decisions. Stephen Jack Butala: Oh, that was fast. Okay. Jill DeWit: Oh, I'll tell you. Yeah, that's just a no-brainer. So every man knows that. Come on. When we come to you and say,
Transcript: Steven Butala: Jack and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Hello. Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting for the Valley of the Sun. Steven Butala: Today's Jack Thursday. And I'm going to talk about why creating a subdivision is so alluring. Jill DeWit: Not for me, man. Steven Butala: You know how... Not for me either. Jill DeWit: But I know you out there that have this condition, we'll call it. Steven Butala: Every time I hear somebody say that, that cliché, "Hey, buy land, they're not making anymore." I laugh to myself. Jill DeWit: Buy dirt. Steven Butala: Because we are constantly making more land by subdividing it. Jill DeWit: That's true. Like, what are you talking about? Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And please don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill DeWit: Mark wrote. Steven Butala: I mean it. The YouTube channel thing. Seriously. Jill DeWit: You done? Steven Butala: Yeah. Jill DeWit: Okay. Mark wrote, "I did my first mailing with offers to owners. A 7,500 piece mailer. So far..." Wow. "I have 16 signed contracts. Now I need to get funding for it. Wish me luck." Is there more to the question? Steven Butala: Nope. Jill DeWit: Okay. Steven Butala: Because that's enough said. Jill DeWit: Aw, isn't that great? Steven Butala: Because he probably did everything right. Went out and found a unique place to send mail, got help pricing his mailer from people. Jill DeWit: Did the [inaudible 00:01:34] test to double-check it all. Steven Butala: All of it. Jill DeWit: Make sure he is making a good decision. Send out... That was a nice amount. I get so frustrated when people say, "Well, I sent out 900 units." I'm like, that's not going to get you that much. 75 hundreds going to get you some juice. Steven Butala: Right. Jill DeWit: And then he's got 16 now to go through and pick the best ones. Even if he picks one that yields $50,000 in there, that's worth it. Steven Butala: That's it. That's the right thing, Jill. Jill DeWit: That covers it. Steven Butala: That's how I look at it. Just do one great deal out of 7,500, you're smashing it. Jill DeWit: Quit trying to... I could hear these people like, "Oh, mailer yield. I should have 50." Stop it. Think. Take a step back and realize nowhere on the planet can you put that money out and make that money back that fast. Steven Butala: That's right. Jill DeWit: Kind of thing. I don't care what it is. And trust me, this one's tested it. He's got them all. Steven Butala: Tested and failed at everything. Jill DeWit: Everything. Steven Butala: Everything in my social and professional life. Jill DeWit: I come up with some new business idea and I'm going to tell you how Jack has probably already been down that road, or I stopped him just in time. Steven Butala: Yep. It's all true. This business can... Not this business, but fill in the blank business can work for you if you enjoy paying. Jill DeWit: So you know what, let me just lead this... Say this comment because it ties into the show today, right? This one, if you do it all right and you do it exactly how we show you, you too will have a successful land business, making money, coasting. And then what does that do to you? Because you're an entrepreneur, you're looking for something else. So this one is constantly saying, "Well, land stuff's so easy, why don't we fill in the blank with X? Let's try something." And it's totally different. So that's what happens in our world and that ties into today's show because some of you are looking for other things to do. Steven Butala: Some of you are looking at creating problems for yourself in the land industry. Land investment world. And this is one of them.
Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Jack and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Hello. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, Entertaining Land Investment Talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today Jill and I talk about why land ownership is ideal against 2023 inflation. Jill DeWit: I sleep really well at night. I always have. Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, me too. Jill DeWit: I always have, the way we buy and sell land. There's nothing better. I don't care what it is. Even over having a safe full of precious metals, seriously, which is good to have too, don't get me wrong. But having land, it's just like, wow. It's different. Steven Jack Butala: There's no feeling like it, quite like owning a bunch of land. Jill DeWit: Yep. So even if I complain, "Oh, it's not selling fast enough," or you're complaining it's not selling fast enough, hold on a moment. Let's take a step back and realize what's going on here. You're in a good spot. Steven Jack Butala: Before you get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Last year a ton of Land Academy members came to Jill and I needing extra help to get their blind offer campaigns in the mail. So I took a look at how we were personally sending out mail with our key employees and ultimately made the same people available to Land Academy members to get their mail campaigns out. We now call it Concierge Data and we launched a new product recently called Concierge Data Plus. It allows you to send out or outsource your entire mailer to offers to owners. Give us a call or actually just go to offers, the number two owners.com. Poke around and check it out, see if it's for you. Jill DeWit: Cool. Kevin wrote, "Hello. Newbie question. On the Zillow sold comps, why might the time between pending sale and sold be a long time, three months plus? And does that potentially make it a worse comp to use?" I have one reason, right now, Kevin. That's manually entered by a real person who did the listing. That's it. So it's not automatically marked sold or pending. I'm surprised they even put pending in there. Some agents don't even do that. They'll just put listed, price change and then sold because they're busy. They're doing other deals, too. So I take that with a grain of salt because it is totally, like I said, a manual entry if used it all. Steven Jack Butala: If you list a piece of property with a real estate agent, they're going to put it on the multiple listing service, the MLS, and they're very regulated on how they input the data. If you've ever posted anything on the MLS or been involved in it, it's a one day process. So there's a lot involved. And they're required by their broker and all kinds of stuff so that when it goes under contract, it goes to pending. When it's sold, it gets removed from the MLS or it gets marked sold. That is absolutely not the case with Zillow. Zillow as a for sale by owner, we can put stuff in Zillow. There's no regulations about taking it off the market when... Jill's exactly right. There's no rules. So very often people just leave it on there and it's not for sale at all. Or they'll post something that's fictitious. So you have to be careful about how you use Zillow and how you look at the comparison values. The exact same thing is true with Land Watch, exactly the same thing. So there's MLS places, multiple listing service ways to post property, and then freeform, user content driven. Redfin is an IDX feed just like realtor.com. Those are all real estate agent driven with rules. I like to use all of them. Jill DeWit: You know what, I'm sorry, I have to just say I don't mean to disagree with you, but I have to disagree with you on something. Yes, they have rules, but once again they're people. Do they make mistakes? Hell yes. How many times have you seen, you go, "Wait a minute,
Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Jack and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Hello. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today Jill and I talk about how to use the Land Academy online community in real time. Jill DeWit: This is so good. This is one of those things that we always tell our community. You ask, we listen. And day one almost of launching Land Academy way back in 2015. Wow, it's been that long. Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Jill DeWit: We have how many years of this? Steven Jack Butala: Well, it's going to be eight. Jill DeWit: Eight. Eight years of making millionaires. How's that? I'm just going to say it. Eight years of making millionaires. That's easy. But 20 to 30 years. Steven Jack Butala: 30 years. Jill DeWit: ... of us doing it on our own. Steven Jack Butala: Yep. Jill DeWit: Talk about valuable experience. I haven't said this in a while, but man, I wish I had us when I was starting out. So anyway, but one of the first things that came out of our folks was, "How can we communicate with you?" I'm like, yeah, you're right. We do need to do that. And so we started an online community. It had a different name than it is now. It was fun. That was Success Plant back then. It was really cool. And then it morphed into Land Investors, and now we still have that, but now it's gone into this Discord environment, which is blowing me away. Steven Jack Butala: Me too. I mean, I'll tell you, we offer value added products in Land Academy all the time. Jill's got all kinds of prop products lined up for 2023. And a online community, especially in this Discord format, was a really good idea. In fact, that's what we're going to talk about today. So before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Before we get into that though, I hope you'd know by now, and this is another example I guess of a product that we created that everybody loves. Yep. Jill and I created a commercial blown commercial printing company created solely to help you get an expensive direct mail offers in the hands of sellers quickly. It's called Offers to Owners. We set this company up several years ago to share it with members and non-members. It's nothing more than how we used to do our own mailers. We just made it pretty and offered it to- Jill DeWit: And still do. Steven Jack Butala: ... our leadership community. Fast forward to today, we do between 700, and 900,000 offers per month on behalf of members and non-members. Everything from pulling and scrubbing and collecting comps to just actually, literally doing the mailer for you. Check it out. Offers2owners.com. Jill DeWit: Titus wrote, "Good morning, Discord family. Hope your Thanksgiving was fun and relaxing. Quick question. Is anyone else having issues with sorting data from Redfin's housing market data website by ZIP code? I don't see ZIP codes in the region type or region fields. Any thoughts? Anybody else having this issue?" Steven Jack Butala: So I put this in here. This is a fantastic use of our online community, specifically Discord. So he's in there pulling data and pulling comps as we ask everyone to do in the Land Academy education. And there's something's going wrong with Redfin. So Redfin, their data center specifically is amazing. I cannot believe how much realtime data they provide for people like us to make good decisions about where to send mail and whether or not, and just if you know the program. You know how we use Redfin's data center. Here's the thing. It's awesome. It's web enabled, and it breaks often. And so I often, very often go into Redfin when I'm doing my own mailers. It's not working right. I have to wait a couple hours maybe. Do it the next day. I included this in this format. I can't include all the responses,
Transcript: Stephen Jack Butala: Jack and Jill here. Jill DeWitt: Hello. Stephen Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Stephen Jack Butala. Jill DeWitt: And I'm Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Stephen Jack Butala: Today Jill and I talk about your perfect land mailer planning for 2023. Jill DeWitt: For investors. Stephen Jack Butala: Yeah. Jill DeWitt: Yep. So this is awesome. We're just wrapping up career path number five and I'll tell you right now, career path number six is not yet planned. And starting in 2023 there's some changes we are personally making, like career path on steroids will be coming. Maybe things that start with an M might be coming like mastermind stuff. Stephen Jack Butala: Oh sure. Jill DeWitt: Everybody under everybody understands and knows what that is, even though it's kind of part of career path. But they understand these mastermind groups and things. But just going into 2023, you really need to take a step back and think about a lot of things. About your acquisition criteria and how you're going to hit it based on your land mailer planning that you're going to do right now at the end of 2022. Stephen Jack Butala: We had a really successful career path this time. They've all been very good. Jill DeWitt: Obviously. Stephen Jack Butala: But they continue to get better with time because what people are asking of us from an instructional standpoint continues to grow and it continues to change based on the time. So I look very forward to 2023 and the content that we're going to produce and the events that we're going to host, kicking it up a few notches. Jill DeWitt: There we go. Stephen Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the land investors.com online community. It's free. Jill DeWitt: Kevin wrote, "hello. I have two trash on property related questions." This is cute. "One parcel I bought has some small trash and litter as the seller had not been there in three years. Do I sell it as is or should I hire someone to clean it up? I already got it cheaper due to the trash." Stephen Jack Butala: Good. Jill DeWitt: Two. "Another property I bought, there's an old vacant trailer house on the foundation that my broker missed when he walked it." I wonder how big the property is. Stephen Jack Butala: I wonder how good the broker is. Jill DeWitt: That too. "He's offered to cut the commission so the money's fine. However, am I free to throw it out or does it still belong to the previous owner?" Stephen Jack Butala: So this question was posted on Discord as it should be, and it was a very interesting and popular question to respond to. A lot of people in Land Academy had an opinion about it and they were all relatively the same, some with stories. I would argue, unless there's something toxic going on, this is all increasing the value of your property ironically. It's the ugly houses model. The vast majority of people want to walk into a house or walk onto a piece of land and have their favorite song playing and everything's pretty, and I understand that. But there's a whole slew of people out there, me included, that look at this as a huge opportunity, especially if it's priced right. "Oh, there's all this trash on the property and that's why it's so cheap. I'm going to buy it." Especially when there's a Mobile Home foundation on there. So now whoever had a mobile home there worked out sanitation, sewer, water, utilities and all of it. So there's a situation, somebody, actually it was Dan, one of our members, Dan from the Pacific Northwest, who told a story about having dilapidated mobile homes on properties and getting the land sales part of the deal. It went into an auction, an unintended auction because everybody wanted it so bad. Jill DeWitt: People, they see that. It's funny, I drove by one the other day where a guy had clearly found an old Airstream kind of thing.
Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Jack and Jill here. Jill K DeWit: Hello. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jill Friday and she's going to talk about embracing the hate and then sending out more mail. Jill K DeWit: This comes up because I think every, well, every day there's somebody getting a mailer. I'm sure of it. I'm sure in our community there's somebody getting their first mailer out, probably darn near every day or every week at least. And then these questions pop up and I think now there's a lot, there's enough of juice in our environments. We have the free environment in land investors. We have the closed environment for members in Discord where you can kind of see how people handle it and work through some stuff. But it's still worth mentioning and bringing up because it is part of this process. It is going to happen. And we'll talk more about it here on the show. Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into the topic, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Back in the day, it was nearly impossible to find land without a USPS mailing address, like 123 Main Street. So over time I developed a solution. Fast forward to today, it's called parcelfact.com. You type in the state, the county and the assessor's parcel number and up pulls a parcel with the basic stuff that you need to make a phase one due diligence decision about whether or not you want to buy the property. It's a pretty cool tool. It was again, something that Jill and I used for years and then ultimately cleaned it all up and made it available to the public. Jill K DeWit: I have to be honest and say too, I don't between, I can make a decision with a property. With parcelfact, looking at it on Google Earth to check slope and things like that. Which parcel fact will take me right to. And then the last thing I use is like Zillow or Realtor. Something to get a handle on days on market, numbers and what's for sale, what's been sold last six months, last 12 months, whatever that is. That's it. Those three. So I pay for parcelfact, but Google Earth Pro is free and Zillow's free. So I make decisions and that's on those properties 90% of the time with just that. Shannon wrote, "anyone sending holiday cards to sellers you've bought from this year? What'd you say in the card? I'm having a hard time coming up with the right words." Well how sweet is that, Shannon? I actually haven't done that. Or I would even say maybe, I would take it a step further that. So if you're reaching out to sellers and sending holiday cards, I would be hoping they have more property to give me. That would be the reason I would be doing that. Now what I would be more likely to do is send thank you cards to people who have bought from me because those are my buyers and those are probably other investors and they might be looking for more property and I would love to keep them. I like to keep my name on the forefront on whatever I'm trying to say with them. What are your thoughts? Steven Jack Butala: No, I completely agree. I think all that kind of stuff goes a really long way. I think you're going to be doing it by yourself, because not very many people do it anymore and I think it's a great idea. Jill K DeWit: Yeah, that's really good. Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jill Friday, she's going to talk about embracing the hate and then sending out more mail. This is the meat of the show. Jill K DeWit: So I'm going to cover this and then I'm going to have you ask me questions. So what am I talking about? We get our data, we get it in the mail. We have these real offers that go out to owners of property. They aren't expecting this, they weren't looking for this. They don't know it's coming. They didn't click on anything.
Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Steven and Jill here. Jill K DeWit: Hi. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt, broadcasting for the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jack Thursday and I'm going to talk about the psychology behind being a real estate agent versus a land or real estate investor. Jill K DeWit: I'm a little nervous. Steven Jack Butala: No, it's not a rant. Jill K DeWit: Oh good. Phew, good. Okay. Steven Jack Butala: I mean the gist of it is this, I came up with this concept because if you go on YouTube and you type in something like how to be a real estate lawyer, or how much do your real estate agents make, and the number of people that have viewed it in the last week is in the millions in some cases, or tens of thousands and there's all different reasons for that. But if you go onto most YouTube places, even the really popular ones, about how to be a real estate investor, it's a lot fewer people. So there's some psychology behind this and I think I know why. Jill K DeWit: That explains our numbers behind our shows. Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. Jill and I get about six or seven views per episode. Jill K DeWit: We should title these. We should just copy and use the titles that work and then just do whatever show we want. This is the whole point. I'm going to read this because you're going to read the question. So first let's take a question post for one our members on the land investors online community. It's free and please do not forget to subscribe to the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows that you like. Steven Jack Butala: Before I read this, Jill and I have, every other Thursday she hosts Clubhouse Talk. It's a new app driven version of an old school talk show, radio show. And so people can call in or dial up and dial in and we move them up to our, she moves them up and they ask questions and we talk with them. And if we do everything right, it's to the benefit of everyone who's listening. Jill K DeWit: Right. Steven Jack Butala: I actually, I really enjoy it. It's a chance for us not to be on in front of a camera. It's audio only. And we really can, because the audience is not that large, really, I think do some good to the people that are there. They want to be there and just be truthful. So Aaron has an opinion about- Jill K DeWit: Go ahead. Steven Jack Butala: ... Our last Clubhouse Talk and here it is. Jill K DeWit: Okay. Steven Jack Butala: He says, I listened to the last Clubhouse and sorry if this comes off harsh, but whoever is thinking that turning land investing into private equity fund, you'll thank me one day, it's an awful idea. I've worked and consulted with various funds in my time from algorithmic stock and futures trading to hard money lending funds and Reg 506 B and C all day long. Why is this such a bad idea? Well, remember how Zillow came up with and tried to beat everyone at the real estate investing game? They too thought that they were smart. I love this though. They took the attitude that they could buy houses for higher prices than anyone else and since they had the best data in a handful of other profit centers, that it would all balance out in the end and they would own the real estate, all the real estate in America. There's expletives in here that I can't say or read out loud. You too can follow their glorious crash and burn on the investing side of things. Go start a fund. Be pressured to do deals because people keep throwing cash at you and you have to show something in the next quarter other than all the cash that's sitting in your Wells Fargo bank money market account. So you buy a property for too much, but it's okay because you get a management fee. This is what I'm getting at. Jill K DeWit: I hear you. Keep going. Steven Jack Butala: There's fees, fees, fees, fees, fees. That's where you make money,
Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Jack and Jill here. Jill K DeWit: Hi. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill K DeWit broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today Jill and I talk about do you make land decisions based on data or based on feelings? I think that we're both going to be surprised at each other's answer. Jill K DeWit: Okay. Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Last year a ton of Land Academy members came to Jill and I needing extra help to get their blind offer campaigns in the mail. So I took a look at how we were personally sending out mail with our key employees and ultimately made those exact same people available to Land Academy members to get their mail out. We call it now concierge data and concierge data plus. A year later, hundreds of members every single month are outsourcing their entire mail effort and mail process out with this product. It's been a huge success and Jill and I have really gotten a lot of positive feedback, it's helping people get mail out and it's working out well. Check out offers2owners.com. They'll hook you up. Jill K DeWit: MJ wrote, "Hi, Land Academy brain trust." That's cute. "Can I hear some opinion please? I'm second guessing my next mailer location selection strategy. Previously, I have chosen areas with strong active to sold ratios, but then found myself struggling with buyers, i.e. Too small of a buyer's pool. If I go to where there is lots of sold activity, the active to sold ratios tend to worsen and I run into saturated markets with tons of listings. How do you approach this balance? Is there a guiding philosophy in this dynamic market I should consider? Thanks." Steven Jack Butala: This is a brilliant question. I know you're new MJ and you're going to do really well here. There's a balance and that's why very often people will say, "In the red, green, yellow tests, why do I have to apply what's red and what's green and what's yellow? Why doesn't it do it for me automatically?" To which I say, for example, a really positive days on market, which is a low, low days on market in one zip code might be just as good as a much different number of days on market that's low across the country. So you have to take all these environments and look at them from an adjacent standpoint and choose the best ones. You're absolutely right in a market like this right now, days on market might be really, really low, but new list is sold, because inventory is accumulating, inventory levels are going up. They're not getting sold the way that they have in the past. That number might be different, but the basic concept here has never changed. Look at 4 or 5 or 8 or 10 or 12 as many zip codes, adjacent zip codes that you can and choose the best ones against each other and you will find the right place to send mail. Or in real life, what I do is just send it all. Jill K DeWit: Thank you. Steven Jack Butala: That's a brilliant question. Jill K DeWit: Yep. Steven Jack Butala: It's really, really obvious sometimes with super new people who's going to do incredibly well really quickly, and that's a real good indication that you understand this and you're making it in your own really quickly. Jill K DeWit: Well, you thinking it through. Some people just blindly... If you're not sure and you blindly follow our steps, you're going to be fine. That's good. But if you are thinking it through, still following our steps and then finding ways to make it better, that's the best. Steven Jack Butala: Well said. Today's topic, do you make land decisions based on data or feelings? This is the meat of the show. What do you do, Jill? Jill K DeWit: Data, you think I'm kidding? Steven Jack Butala: No, I don't. Jill K DeWit: You know what's so funny about this?
Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill K DeWit: Hello. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I are going to discuss how blockchain, or blockchains I guess, will change real estate forever. So like it or not, this is one of those technology things that I think is here to stay. Hasn't really even gotten started. I'm not sure who created the concept of blockchain, but I think it's absolutely brilliant. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Before we get into that, I'm hoping by now you know that Jill and I have created a very specific commercial printing company to help you get offers to owners out in the mail expediently and inexpensively. We did this several years ago for ourselves, and it was worked so well, we decided to share it with everybody. Fast forward to today, we do almost a million offers on behalf of members and non-members every single month. Oh, the name of the company is Offers, the number 2, owners.com. Jill K DeWit: Aaron L. wrote, "The usual advice here is to mail every owner of the properties in a target zip code or county. After all, who knows why someone might want to or need to sell. I've acquired 48 properties in five different states since I joined Land Academy in 2021. Not hundreds or thousands like some of you. Working on that. I'm pretty sure I have never bought a property from someone that lives in the same county as the property." Steven Jack Butala: That's a staggering statistic. Jill K DeWit: "Is this unusual? I also find that people that live in the same county call a lot more often and tend to be more angry than those that live far from their property." Steven Jack Butala: I love this question or comment. And it goes along the lines, right now Jill and I are in the middle of instructing a Career Path session. I think it's Career Path number five. We just got done talking about specialized mailers and when they're appropriate and when they're not. So yeah, he's absolutely right. The conventional wisdom is to mail everybody and see what comes back, but I've never really looked at adjacent property owners because every time we, in the Thursday calls are so often identifying or reviewing properties for people in our group where the adjacent owners are relatives or the same person. So I'm glad that you can quantify that, that that's your experience. That hasn't been mine, but I still find it fascinating. Don't you? Jill K DeWit: That's actually been more my experience like Aaron's here. I have more, like I haven't seen it in 20 years. That comes up a lot. Steven Jack Butala: But you think you can quantify where they live? If you can say, "80% of the property, I"- Jill K DeWit: Yeah. Steven Jack Butala: What I'm saying is how can you do it- Jill K DeWit: Think about where the notary has to go. So I know that too from what we're doing. Think about where the title company ... The title company's in the place of the, at least in the state usually, as the property, not the seller, or not you, the buyer. It's for the property. So when I think about that and I think about most of my sellers are not driving in. Some are. Steven Jack Butala: I mean, I read this question and specialty mailer just pops up like a light bulb over my head. I would like to do a split test specialty mailer for one county and send it to non-residents and residents and see. Jill K DeWit: That'd be cool. See what traffic, how it comes back. Steven Jack Butala: Exactly. Great comment, Aaron. Thank you. Appreciate it. Today's topic, how blockchains will change real estate forever. This is why you're listening. Geez. Unless you live under a rock as a professional person, you've heard the word blockchain,
Transcript:Steven Jack Butala:Jack and Jill here.Jill K DeWit:Hi.Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.Jill K DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.Steven Jack Butala:Today Jill and I talk about how there's way more investment money available than good deals.Jill K DeWit:It's funny, at least in our world, and I don't know if it's us, if it's the people we hang out with, or what, because I'm hearing other people need to do these big funding money raises. Does this make sense?Steven Jack Butala:Keep going with this, because this is the root of... Just keep, I love where this thought train is going.Jill K DeWit:Okay. All I hear is people like, "What do you mean you have money? Everybody else is going to do these big corporate capital funding raise movements." And it's sparking all these new websites and new ways to do that and put accredited and non-accredited investors together to pool to get together a couple million dollars. We were on a call today. Well, we want to save it for the show? I'll just finish this little thing. We were on a call today with an attorney and he about fell apart when he said, "Well, do you guys have any trouble coming up with the money?" We're like, "Oh gosh no, the money's the easy part." And he looked at us kind of funny. So I'm like, "Is it really that hard?"Steven Jack Butala:Later in the week I'm going to talk about this in great detail on Jack Thursday, and what Jill's saying is correct. But just keep this in mind, and this is what we founded. I founded Land Academy and my whole entire land investing career was built on fee-less transactions. And I don't mean stock market fee-less where you save $0.13. I mean like, "Let's remove all the fees out of these deals." And when people raise capital, there's huge, huge profit to be made from just raising capital. It may never get placed and that's the issue.Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the land investors.com online community. It's free.Jill K DeWit:Joseph asked... I saw this in Discord, this is cool. I have my first potential $1 million acquisition. I'm working on getting under contract. Up until now, I haven't needed a due diligence phase and wording to cover me on my acquisitions because I haven't been that big. That being said, does anyone have an all-encompassing purchase agreement/contract they would be willing to share that covers the due diligence phase, earnest money release statement, inspection periods, special situations, special stipulations, et cetera, et cetera? Or any direction on where to pay for one that someone has used personally is appreciated.Steven Jack Butala:So there's a bunch of things going on in this question. First of all, congratulations for buying for a million. I hope you're selling for three. That's amazing. Are there any standard templated agreements for this kind of thing? No. In fact, in commercial real estate, which is where I cut my teeth on a million years ago, there are no template agreements. What we did was when a buyer of commercial real estate or potential buyer wanted to buy something, we went back and looked at purchase agreements from deals that we've done in the past as a office. This was before computers. And we pull the paper out of the file and kind of...Jill K DeWit:Copy the wording?Steven Jack Butala:Yeah, borrow from it, and what's appropriate, what's not, and use it that way. That would be the best. You do the right thing by putting this in discord and I hope somebody pipes in and provides some type of agreement. Otherwise, I would really recommend you get a good, well recommended real estate lawyer to put together an agreement. There's no way that a title agent's going to do it. Even a real good commercial title, there's lots of commercial specific title agents out there, so they might have a real good solid recommendation for you on getting a lawyer....