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Jack Thursday - Chasing Zero (LA 1771) Transcript: Steve and Jill here. Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun. Steve: Today is Jack Thursday and I'm going to talk about this concept I created quite some time ago that just doesn't seem to die. It's sung to some people called Chasing Zero. Jill: I'm excited. I love it. This comes up often. I'm trying to think of, probably because of career path, it comes up in career path. You talk about it and we've done a few shows on this. This whole topic and this description intrigues people, myself included. So, I'm glad we're doing another show on this today. Steve: Good, Jill. Before we get into it though, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free and don't forget to subscribe to the Land Academy YouTube channel. Comment on the shows you like. Jill: Josh wrote, "Hi all, new guy here with a quick question. Got my first mailer and I'm getting some responses. Tried to bring my wife into the operation/discussion, but she's having a hard time wrapping her head around the vacant land, then I mentioned houses. Her interest peaked quite a bit and she's been looking at the House Academy public website. Curious of your thoughts on House Academy training business model, and if any other newbies are doing both, or houses exclusively. Likewise, any thoughts as to why the House Academy podcast and overall focus from Jack and Jill has waned a bit? Market? Just making that model less appealing? Feel free to PM me if that's easier." Oh, I love it. This is good. Steve: This is a very popular topic on discord. Jill: Yep. Steve: There is a lot of responses to this. Jill: I bet. Steve: I love buying and selling houses. Jill: Me too. Steve: Right now it is the most competitive I've ever seen it in my entire career. Jill: And I don't want to play. Steve: If you talk to any homeowner, especially in those target areas, with mid range, two, three, four hundred thousand dollars, buy it for 300, sell it for 400 without any real renovation, they'll tell you that they get two or three offers a week. Jill: Right. Steve: And very frustrated. They'll tell you in a very slam it down on the desk frustrated way. We don't care to run with that, so much competition. We could make it work. We've done it. When the market ... and everybody said this on discord. Jill: Isn't that funny? Steve: I'm reiterating it. When a market chills out a little we'll get back into it. Jill: It seems counterintuitive, but you're like, "Wait a minute. Why would you want now to buy houses and jump in the pool when it's so hot because everything sells so fast?" But, Steven's right, because of the whole way that we operate everything is buying it right. If I'm in a bidding war with somebody else, I'm not buying it right. It's just too nutty. I like it to be slowed down a little bit, not as much competition, I can get some smoking deals, mark it up very effectively, and then sell it and move on. Steve: Here's the truth. Jill: But I like houses, too. Steve: Here's the truth time. If somebody put a gun to my head and said, "You're going to buy and sell houses now." I would sit down. I would run data like I run it now with some changes, and then I would look at the pretty rural markets that are pretty solidly served by useful internet service providers so you can get a good connection, because everybody seems to be ... more and more people are working from home and moving out into outlying areas. So I could choose the right rural markets and buy and sell houses all day long. Jill: Correct. Steve: The fact is, and if I had a nickel for every Land Academy member that came to Jill and I and said, "Wow, thank you. I'm so much out of the house business now. It's so much easier and more profitable to buy and sell land.

Jack Thursday - Chasing Zero (LA 1771) Transcript: Steve and Jill here. Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun. Steve: Today is Jack Thursday and I'm going to talk about this concept I created quite some time ago that just doesn't seem to die. It's sung to some people called Chasing Zero. Jill: I'm excited. I love it. This comes up often. I'm trying to think of, probably because of career path, it comes up in career path. You talk about it and we've done a few shows on this. This whole topic and this description intrigues people, myself included. So, I'm glad we're doing another show on this today. Steve: Good, Jill. Before we get into it though, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free and don't forget to subscribe to the Land Academy YouTube channel. Comment on the shows you like. Jill: Josh wrote, "Hi all, new guy here with a quick question. Got my first mailer and I'm getting some responses. Tried to bring my wife into the operation/discussion, but she's having a hard time wrapping her head around the vacant land, then I mentioned houses. Her interest peaked quite a bit and she's been looking at the House Academy public website. Curious of your thoughts on House Academy training business model, and if any other newbies are doing both, or houses exclusively. Likewise, any thoughts as to why the House Academy podcast and overall focus from Jack and Jill has waned a bit? Market? Just making that model less appealing? Feel free to PM me if that's easier." Oh, I love it. This is good. Steve: This is a very popular topic on discord. Jill: Yep. Steve: There is a lot of responses to this. Jill: I bet. Steve: I love buying and selling houses. Jill: Me too. Steve: Right now it is the most competitive I've ever seen it in my entire career. Jill: And I don't want to play. Steve: If you talk to any homeowner, especially in those target areas, with mid range, two, three, four hundred thousand dollars, buy it for 300, sell it for 400 without any real renovation, they'll tell you that they get two or three offers a week. Jill: Right. Steve: And very frustrated. They'll tell you in a very slam it down on the desk frustrated way. We don't care to run with that, so much competition. We could make it work. We've done it. When the market ... and everybody said this on discord. Jill: Isn't that funny? Steve: I'm reiterating it. When a market chills out a little we'll get back into it. Jill: It seems counterintuitive, but you're like, "Wait a minute. Why would you want now to buy houses and jump in the pool when it's so hot because everything sells so fast?" But, Steven's right, because of the whole way that we operate everything is buying it right. If I'm in a bidding war with somebody else, I'm not buying it right. It's just too nutty. I like it to be slowed down a little bit, not as much competition, I can get some smoking deals, mark it up very effectively, and then sell it and move on. Steve: Here's the truth. Jill: But I like houses, too. Steve: Here's the truth time. If somebody put a gun to my head and said, "You're going to buy and sell houses now." I would sit down. I would run data like I run it now with some changes, and then I would look at the pretty rural markets that are pretty solidly served by useful internet service providers so you can get a good connection, because everybody seems to be ... more and more people are working from home and moving out into outlying areas. So I could choose the right rural markets and buy and sell houses all day long. Jill: Correct. Steve: The fact is, and if I had a nickel for every Land Academy member that came to Jill and I and said, "Wow, thank you. I'm so much out of the house business now. It's so much easier and more profitable to buy and sell land.

Jack Thursday - Chasing Zero (LA 1771) Transcript: Steve and Jill here. Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun. Steve: Today is Jack Thursday and I'm going to talk about this concept I created quite some time ago that just doesn't seem to die. It's sung to some people called Chasing Zero. Jill: I'm excited. I love it. This comes up often. I'm trying to think of, probably because of career path, it comes up in career path. You talk about it and we've done a few shows on this. This whole topic and this description intrigues people, myself included. So, I'm glad we're doing another show on this today. Steve: Good, Jill. Before we get into it though, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free and don't forget to subscribe to the Land Academy YouTube channel. Comment on the shows you like. Jill: Josh wrote, "Hi all, new guy here with a quick question. Got my first mailer and I'm getting some responses. Tried to bring my wife into the operation/discussion, but she's having a hard time wrapping her head around the vacant land, then I mentioned houses. Her interest peaked quite a bit and she's been looking at the House Academy public website. Curious of your thoughts on House Academy training business model, and if any other newbies are doing both, or houses exclusively. Likewise, any thoughts as to why the House Academy podcast and overall focus from Jack and Jill has waned a bit? Market? Just making that model less appealing? Feel free to PM me if that's easier." Oh, I love it. This is good. Steve: This is a very popular topic on discord. Jill: Yep. Steve: There is a lot of responses to this. Jill: I bet. Steve: I love buying and selling houses. Jill: Me too. Steve: Right now it is the most competitive I've ever seen it in my entire career. Jill: And I don't want to play. Steve: If you talk to any homeowner, especially in those target areas, with mid range, two, three, four hundred thousand dollars, buy it for 300, sell it for 400 without any real renovation, they'll tell you that they get two or three offers a week. Jill: Right. Steve: And very frustrated. They'll tell you in a very slam it down on the desk frustrated way. We don't care to run with that, so much competition. We could make it work. We've done it. When the market ... and everybody said this on discord. Jill: Isn't that funny? Steve: I'm reiterating it. When a market chills out a little we'll get back into it. Jill: It seems counterintuitive, but you're like, "Wait a minute. Why would you want now to buy houses and jump in the pool when it's so hot because everything sells so fast?" But, Steven's right, because of the whole way that we operate everything is buying it right. If I'm in a bidding war with somebody else, I'm not buying it right. It's just too nutty. I like it to be slowed down a little bit, not as much competition, I can get some smoking deals, mark it up very effectively, and then sell it and move on. Steve: Here's the truth. Jill: But I like houses, too. Steve: Here's the truth time. If somebody put a gun to my head and said, "You're going to buy and sell houses now." I would sit down. I would run data like I run it now with some changes, and then I would look at the pretty rural markets that are pretty solidly served by useful internet service providers so you can get a good connection, because everybody seems to be ... more and more people are working from home and moving out into outlying areas. So I could choose the right rural markets and buy and sell houses all day long. Jill: Correct. Steve: The fact is, and if I had a nickel for every Land Academy member that came to Jill and I and said, "Wow, thank you. I'm so much out of the house business now. It's so much easier and more profitable to buy and sell land.

How to Improve Your Acquisition Confidence (LA 1320) Transcript: Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Hello. Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from sunny Southern California. Steven Butala: Today. Jill and I talk about how to improve your acquisition confidence. Jill, what's the acquisition confidence? Jill DeWit: Acquisition confidence is going into a buying situation and feeling good about it. That's basically it. And I've got some steps here that I'm going to share in a few minutes. Steven Butala: I would even take it 10 times further than that. When you get that property back, when you're staring at a return purchase agreement or somebody on the phone saying, "You know what? I got your offer and I do want to sell." And you look it up and there's that little tiny moment where you pull it up on NeighborScoop, or wherever you're looking at the property, and you can't believe that you're about to do this transaction. It's that good. And you execute on that logical due diligence, period. But then you execute on it and you own it. That's acquisition confidence. Jill DeWit: You know what's so funny? It's a good thing there's two of us. It's kind of cool, because we look at it totally different. You're looking at the acquisition. I'm looking at the person. So I'm excited to talk about it more. It's totally important. Steven Butala: I can't wait to talk about that. Here's the funny story about that. Every single acquisition person, without exception, that I have ever hired, who's a female, categorizes the deals that they do by the last name of the seller. Jill DeWit: Oh, I don't do that. Steven Butala: The Dawson deal. The Smith deal. Jill DeWit: That's hilarious. Steven Butala: Every male acquisition person, including myself, categorizes it by APN. Jill DeWit: That's funny. Steven Butala: I could care less about the seller. I could absolutely care less. The less I know, the better. Jill DeWit: No, it's funny. I go about the property. Steven Butala: I only care about the dirt. Jill DeWit: Yeah. That's how I am about the property. Which one is that? That's the 40 acres in such county. I'm like, "Okay, thank you." Steven Butala: Guess who does more deals than Jill or me? Times 80, Jill, because this is a people business. Jill DeWit: Yeah. Steven Butala: There's a huge real estate component to it obviously. But... Jill DeWit: So you're saying I'm in the middle? Steven Butala: No, I think you're correct. Jill DeWit: Oh. Steven Butala: If you have to be one of the one or the other. You're talking to a person who's going to sell their property for way under value of what it's worth. There's a lot of finesse and a handholding and a lot of stuff involved. You have to meet that person from where they're coming. In my early days I was like, "This should be the last time we're going to talk. You gave me the APN. We have a signed purchase agreement, and the [inaudible 00:02:37]. Thanks very much." That, in reality, is silly. And I got away with it back then, because nobody else ever sent a letter to them ever, and a bunch of other reasons. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Jill DeWit: Cody wrote, "Hi Sean." Oh, so this is a response. Steven Butala: This is a response. So there's a string. I should have prefaced this. I'm sorry. You kind of got blindsided there. Land Investors is people post a question and then there's responses and responses. And so this is Cody's response to Sean. Jill DeWit: Okay. And I'm sure the response is going to tell us what the question was. Steven Butala: Yes. Jill DeWit: Okay, cool. So here we go. Cody wrote, "Hi Sean. I was able to view a little bit of your response from the members only forum from the activity on the homepage, but I'm not currently a pro member.

How to Improve Your Acquisition Confidence (LA 1320) Transcript: Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Hello. Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from sunny Southern California. Steven Butala: Today. Jill and I talk about how to improve your acquisition confidence. Jill, what's the acquisition confidence? Jill DeWit: Acquisition confidence is going into a buying situation and feeling good about it. That's basically it. And I've got some steps here that I'm going to share in a few minutes. Steven Butala: I would even take it 10 times further than that. When you get that property back, when you're staring at a return purchase agreement or somebody on the phone saying, "You know what? I got your offer and I do want to sell." And you look it up and there's that little tiny moment where you pull it up on NeighborScoop, or wherever you're looking at the property, and you can't believe that you're about to do this transaction. It's that good. And you execute on that logical due diligence, period. But then you execute on it and you own it. That's acquisition confidence. Jill DeWit: You know what's so funny? It's a good thing there's two of us. It's kind of cool, because we look at it totally different. You're looking at the acquisition. I'm looking at the person. So I'm excited to talk about it more. It's totally important. Steven Butala: I can't wait to talk about that. Here's the funny story about that. Every single acquisition person, without exception, that I have ever hired, who's a female, categorizes the deals that they do by the last name of the seller. Jill DeWit: Oh, I don't do that. Steven Butala: The Dawson deal. The Smith deal. Jill DeWit: That's hilarious. Steven Butala: Every male acquisition person, including myself, categorizes it by APN. Jill DeWit: That's funny. Steven Butala: I could care less about the seller. I could absolutely care less. The less I know, the better. Jill DeWit: No, it's funny. I go about the property. Steven Butala: I only care about the dirt. Jill DeWit: Yeah. That's how I am about the property. Which one is that? That's the 40 acres in such county. I'm like, "Okay, thank you." Steven Butala: Guess who does more deals than Jill or me? Times 80, Jill, because this is a people business. Jill DeWit: Yeah. Steven Butala: There's a huge real estate component to it obviously. But... Jill DeWit: So you're saying I'm in the middle? Steven Butala: No, I think you're correct. Jill DeWit: Oh. Steven Butala: If you have to be one of the one or the other. You're talking to a person who's going to sell their property for way under value of what it's worth. There's a lot of finesse and a handholding and a lot of stuff involved. You have to meet that person from where they're coming. In my early days I was like, "This should be the last time we're going to talk. You gave me the APN. We have a signed purchase agreement, and the [inaudible 00:02:37]. Thanks very much." That, in reality, is silly. And I got away with it back then, because nobody else ever sent a letter to them ever, and a bunch of other reasons. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Jill DeWit: Cody wrote, "Hi Sean." Oh, so this is a response. Steven Butala: This is a response. So there's a string. I should have prefaced this. I'm sorry. You kind of got blindsided there. Land Investors is people post a question and then there's responses and responses. And so this is Cody's response to Sean. Jill DeWit: Okay. And I'm sure the response is going to tell us what the question was. Steven Butala: Yes. Jill DeWit: Okay, cool. So here we go. Cody wrote, "Hi Sean. I was able to view a little bit of your response from the members only forum from the activity on the homepage, but I'm not currently a pro member.

How One Land Academy Member Nets $75,000 per Month (LA 1251) Transcript: Steve and Jill here. Hello. Welcome to the Land Academy Show: Entertaining Land Investment Talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from not so sunny Southern California. Today Jill and I talk about how one Land Academy member nets 75000 bucks a month. You know, I would first like to start with what we just talked about 30 seconds before we rolled. It's a blustery day. You don't like the sweatshirt look? Oh, Jill, you don't have to explain. You of all people do not have to explain one thing to like anybody on this planet- I like my little- Least of all- Cozy sweatshirt. Me. Well, here's the thing [crosstalk 00:00:40] I was just asking you about what it's all about. Well, I'm wearing a sweatshirt because it's a cold day, and I like to be all comfy in a sweatshirt, however, you could still say I have a butt and a waist because I'm wearing the right jeans, I hope. You have a butt and a waist? Yes. You can still see it. That's the thing if you wear ... What's really bad is if you wear a long sweatshirt, or a long sweater, and then like no one can see anything. You're like a big ball of fluff, and then like little legs stick out like leggings. That I don't like that look, and I won't do that look. Like you just lose all shape? Yes. These are things that men have ... It's never crossed a man's mind. Cinder block on sticks don't want that look. Anyway. Oh my gosh. How we veer so far from land so quickly. Well, you know. Anyway. This topic today, very briefly, this is a real story, we're not going to use any names or locations or any of that stuff, about a member that we have who was actually at the live event, and a pretty lengthy presentation about- Oh, great. Now, you're narrowing it down. His business model. And the reason that I'm bringing it up today is because no ones forgotten it. It's constantly this undertone of- True. "Well, I want to be like X. I need to do more like X. Member X has all this figured out." So, I want to kind of get into this, and figure out if it's actually a unicorn, what's real about it, what's unreal about it. I mean, and I'll tell you it's 80% positive, and we'll talk about the positive and negatives, but we still have to do deals. It's not like you're choosing to do ... I'll describe his business model in great detail. I'm sure you will. Before we get into it let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Aroldo ... I can never pronounce this name, I'm sorry. You got it. Aroldo asks, "For our first mailer should we keep the letter exactly as the download on Offers2Owners? I think it's all great especially for the sentence that says, 'We are partners with landstay.com who have been in business for 20 plus years, and have successfully completed 10s of thousands of purchases like this one.' I think that would help us with credibility. My gut just tells me to keep it simple and to just send it as it is to make it easy on myself. Any thoughts?" Look at that. Well, I see one of our members on here already weighed in. Member and moderator Kevin said, "Aroldo leave it the way it is until you know enough to change for some reason. In three years I've only made a couple of very minor changes." There you go. There's something to be said with aligning yourself. Well, A: Transparency. Number one, you never want to say it's you if it's not really you, and if you really are aligned with us, and partner with us, and you're in Land Academy, which you are, that's true too. But it helps to have that credibility for people to look you up, and see who you are. It still happens. Now and then I get phone calls or text messengers or even social media people reach out to me from tracking members down to us, and they have said ... And they see us as a credible source, and they say something like this, "Hi, you don't know me. I got a letter from x, y, z individual.

How One Land Academy Member Nets $75,000 per Month (LA 1196) Transcript: Steve and Jill here. Hello. Welcome to the Land Academy Show: Entertaining Land Investment Talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from not so sunny Southern California. Today Jill and I talk about how one Land Academy member nets 75000 bucks a month. You know, I would first like to start with what we just talked about 30 seconds before we rolled. It's a blustery day. You don't like the sweatshirt look? Oh, Jill, you don't have to explain. You of all people do not have to explain one thing to like anybody on this planet- I like my little- Least of all- Cozy sweatshirt. Me. Well, here's the thing [crosstalk 00:00:40] I was just asking you about what it's all about. Well, I'm wearing a sweatshirt because it's a cold day, and I like to be all comfy in a sweatshirt, however, you could still say I have a butt and a waist because I'm wearing the right jeans, I hope. You have a butt and a waist? Yes. You can still see it. That's the thing if you wear ... What's really bad is if you wear a long sweatshirt, or a long sweater, and then like no one can see anything. You're like a big ball of fluff, and then like little legs stick out like leggings. That I don't like that look, and I won't do that look. Like you just lose all shape? Yes. These are things that men have ... It's never crossed a man's mind. Cinder block on sticks don't want that look. Anyway. Oh my gosh. How we veer so far from land so quickly. Well, you know. Anyway. This topic today, very briefly, this is a real story, we're not going to use any names or locations or any of that stuff, about a member that we have who was actually at the live event, and a pretty lengthy presentation about- Oh, great. Now, you're narrowing it down. His business model. And the reason that I'm bringing it up today is because no ones forgotten it. It's constantly this undertone of- True. "Well, I want to be like X. I need to do more like X. Member X has all this figured out." So, I want to kind of get into this, and figure out if it's actually a unicorn, what's real about it, what's unreal about it. I mean, and I'll tell you it's 80% positive, and we'll talk about the positive and negatives, but we still have to do deals. It's not like you're choosing to do ... I'll describe his business model in great detail. I'm sure you will. Before we get into it let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Aroldo ... I can never pronounce this name, I'm sorry. You got it. Aroldo asks, "For our first mailer should we keep the letter exactly as the download on Offers2Owners? I think it's all great especially for the sentence that says, 'We are partners with landstay.com who have been in business for 20 plus years, and have successfully completed 10s of thousands of purchases like this one.' I think that would help us with credibility. My gut just tells me to keep it simple and to just send it as it is to make it easy on myself. Any thoughts?" Look at that. Well, I see one of our members on here already weighed in. Member and moderator Kevin said, "Aroldo leave it the way it is until you know enough to change for some reason. In three years I've only made a couple of very minor changes." There you go. There's something to be said with aligning yourself. Well, A: Transparency. Number one, you never want to say it's you if it's not really you, and if you really are aligned with us, and partner with us, and you're in Land Academy, which you are, that's true too. But it helps to have that credibility for people to look you up, and see who you are. It still happens. Now and then I get phone calls or text messengers or even social media people reach out to me from tracking members down to us, and they have said ... And they see us as a credible source, and they say something like this, "Hi, you don't know me.

Why the Land Academy Wait List is Working so Well (LA 1163) Transcript: Steve and Jill here. Hi. Welcome to the Land Academy show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. And I'm Jill Dewitt, broadcasting from sunny Southern California. Today, Jill and I talk about why the Land Academy wait list is working out so well. What the heck is the Land Academy wait list? It's working out for the members and it's working out for us. And I will explain it. It's going really great. Jill will explain 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. Mike asks, "Hi, everyone. First post. I'm new here and have no experience buying land before, but I've been selling expensive products online for several years. I've sent out about 2,700 rural vacant land mailers so far to three different counties. My first mailer was sent eight days ago, so I haven't got any calls yet. I want to move on to another county for rural vacant land, but I'm having some concerns about the new to sold listing ratio. It's about 150%, which is typically a bad sign. I downloaded the Redfin data for this county's land with the sole listings from last year. I was able to zero in on two specific zip codes within the county that I want to send mail to because of the price differences among the county. I feel like I can work around the 150% new to sold percentage by making the following assumptions." "Number one, if I were pricing for all those specific zip codes for two to four acre properties, there are about 60 to 80 listings given on Redfin. That seems to be enough data. Number two"- Totally enough data. ... "if I start by price per acre and there is a better new to sold at ratio, less than 100% for the top 20 lowest price per acre properties in each zip code. I can ignore everything else if I base my mailer off this price breaker. Number three, even if there's a less than stellar new to sold ratio, I can still move property quickly given I acquire it for around 20% of retail and sell it for 50% of retail." So, hold on. There's just a little bit more, but that's it. You nailed it on number three. You can sell anything, any rural vacant land, any house or any type of real estate if it's dramatically less than everything else that's listed on the market. Right, exactly. "I'm going to send the mailer anyway, but I'd like to hear if anyone does something similar since it will take me a month or so to know if I'm missing something. I didn't do this zip code approach from my other mailers. They were much more of a shotgun approach. Thanks." Okay, so there's a couple of things going on here. Number one, he has experienced selling high dollar stuff online. That's great. I mean, I run around the office constantly and at the live events saying, "Hey, we're a company, a tech company or a customer service company, that happens to sell real estate." So this show is all about real estate, and Jill and I constantly talk about real estate, but really what really goes on is the same stuff as if we own a manufacturing company or a chain of convenience stores or nail salons, or dream it up. It's all business and the same stuff's involved. So I'm really glad to see this fresh approach from somebody where they're just choosing real estate to mark up and sell online. It's a great approach. I think it's a fresh ... It takes the focus off of real estate and onto running a business, number one. Number two, what's this business of new list to sold ratio and where did he get it? He's obviously a House Academy member also because the new list to sold is how I pit zip codes against each other. And so what new list to sold means last month if 10 properties got listed in a zip code and 10 properties sold, the new list to sold is 1.0 or 100%, and that's what you want. You want a lot of properties getting sold and not so many getting listed. You want to be in that I list,

Why the Land Academy Wait List is Working so Well (LA 1144) Transcript: Steve and Jill here. Hi. Welcome to the Land Academy show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. And I'm Jill Dewitt, broadcasting from sunny Southern California. Today, Jill and I talk about why the Land Academy wait list is working out so well. What the heck is the Land Academy wait list? It's working out for the members and it's working out for us. And I will explain it. It's going really great. Jill will explain 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. Mike asks, "Hi, everyone. First post. I'm new here and have no experience buying land before, but I've been selling expensive products online for several years. I've sent out about 2,700 rural vacant land mailers so far to three different counties. My first mailer was sent eight days ago, so I haven't got any calls yet. I want to move on to another county for rural vacant land, but I'm having some concerns about the new to sold listing ratio. It's about 150%, which is typically a bad sign. I downloaded the Redfin data for this county's land with the sole listings from last year. I was able to zero in on two specific zip codes within the county that I want to send mail to because of the price differences among the county. I feel like I can work around the 150% new to sold percentage by making the following assumptions." "Number one, if I were pricing for all those specific zip codes for two to four acre properties, there are about 60 to 80 listings given on Redfin. That seems to be enough data. Number two"- Totally enough data. ... "if I start by price per acre and there is a better new to sold at ratio, less than 100% for the top 20 lowest price per acre properties in each zip code. I can ignore everything else if I base my mailer off this price breaker. Number three, even if there's a less than stellar new to sold ratio, I can still move property quickly given I acquire it for around 20% of retail and sell it for 50% of retail." So, hold on. There's just a little bit more, but that's it. You nailed it on number three. You can sell anything, any rural vacant land, any house or any type of real estate if it's dramatically less than everything else that's listed on the market. Right, exactly. "I'm going to send the mailer anyway, but I'd like to hear if anyone does something similar since it will take me a month or so to know if I'm missing something. I didn't do this zip code approach from my other mailers. They were much more of a shotgun approach. Thanks." Okay, so there's a couple of things going on here. Number one, he has experienced selling high dollar stuff online. That's great. I mean, I run around the office constantly and at the live events saying, "Hey, we're a company, a tech company or a customer service company, that happens to sell real estate." So this show is all about real estate, and Jill and I constantly talk about real estate, but really what really goes on is the same stuff as if we own a manufacturing company or a chain of convenience stores or nail salons, or dream it up. It's all business and the same stuff's involved. So I'm really glad to see this fresh approach from somebody where they're just choosing real estate to mark up and sell online. It's a great approach. I think it's a fresh ... It takes the focus off of real estate and onto running a business, number one. Number two, what's this business of new list to sold ratio and where did he get it? He's obviously a House Academy member also because the new list to sold is how I pit zip codes against each other. And so what new list to sold means last month if 10 properties got listed in a zip code and 10 properties sold, the new list to sold is 1.0 or 100%, and that's what you want. You want a lot of properties getting sold and not so many getting listed. You want to be in that I list,

How One Land Academy Member Nets $75,000 per Month (LA 1124) Transcript: Steve and Jill here. Hello. Welcome to the Land Academy Show: Entertaining Land Investment Talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from not so sunny Southern California. Today Jill and I talk about how one Land Academy member nets 75000 bucks a month. You know, I would first like to start with what we just talked about 30 seconds before we rolled. It's a blustery day. You don't like the sweatshirt look? Oh, Jill, you don't have to explain. You of all people do not have to explain one thing to like anybody on this planet- I like my little- Least of all- Cozy sweatshirt. Me. Well, here's the thing [crosstalk 00:00:40] I was just asking you about what it's all about. Well, I'm wearing a sweatshirt because it's a cold day, and I like to be all comfy in a sweatshirt, however, you could still say I have a butt and a waist because I'm wearing the right jeans, I hope. You have a butt and a waist? Yes. You can still see it. That's the thing if you wear ... What's really bad is if you wear a long sweatshirt, or a long sweater, and then like no one can see anything. You're like a big ball of fluff, and then like little legs stick out like leggings. That I don't like that look, and I won't do that look. Like you just lose all shape? Yes. These are things that men have ... It's never crossed a man's mind. Cinder block on sticks don't want that look. Anyway. Oh my gosh. How we veer so far from land so quickly. Well, you know. Anyway. This topic today, very briefly, this is a real story, we're not going to use any names or locations or any of that stuff, about a member that we have who was actually at the live event, and a pretty lengthy presentation about- Oh, great. Now, you're narrowing it down. His business model. And the reason that I'm bringing it up today is because no ones forgotten it. It's constantly this undertone of- True. "Well, I want to be like X. I need to do more like X. Member X has all this figured out." So, I want to kind of get into this, and figure out if it's actually a unicorn, what's real about it, what's unreal about it. I mean, and I'll tell you it's 80% positive, and we'll talk about the positive and negatives, but we still have to do deals. It's not like you're choosing to do ... I'll describe his business model in great detail. I'm sure you will. Before we get into it let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Aroldo ... I can never pronounce this name, I'm sorry. You got it. Aroldo asks, "For our first mailer should we keep the letter exactly as the download on Offers2Owners? I think it's all great especially for the sentence that says, 'We are partners with landstay.com who have been in business for 20 plus years, and have successfully completed 10s of thousands of purchases like this one.' I think that would help us with credibility. My gut just tells me to keep it simple and to just send it as it is to make it easy on myself. Any thoughts?" Look at that. Well, I see one of our members on here already weighed in. Member and moderator Kevin said, "Aroldo leave it the way it is until you know enough to change for some reason. In three years I've only made a couple of very minor changes." There you go. There's something to be said with aligning yourself. Well, A: Transparency. Number one, you never want to say it's you if it's not really you, and if you really are aligned with us, and partner with us, and you're in Land Academy, which you are, that's true too. But it helps to have that credibility for people to look you up, and see who you are. It still happens. Now and then I get phone calls or text messengers or even social media people reach out to me from tracking members down to us, and they have said ... And they see us as a credible source, and they say something like this, "Hi, you don't know me.

How One Land Academy Member Nets $75,000 per Month (LA 1120) Transcript: Steve and Jill here. Hello. Welcome to the Land Academy Show: Entertaining Land Investment Talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from not so sunny Southern California. Today Jill and I talk about how one Land Academy member nets 75000 bucks a month. You know, I would first like to start with what we just talked about 30 seconds before we rolled. It's a blustery day. You don't like the sweatshirt look? Oh, Jill, you don't have to explain. You of all people do not have to explain one thing to like anybody on this planet- I like my little- Least of all- Cozy sweatshirt. Me. Well, here's the thing [crosstalk 00:00:40] I was just asking you about what it's all about. Well, I'm wearing a sweatshirt because it's a cold day, and I like to be all comfy in a sweatshirt, however, you could still say I have a butt and a waist because I'm wearing the right jeans, I hope. You have a butt and a waist? Yes. You can still see it. That's the thing if you wear ... What's really bad is if you wear a long sweatshirt, or a long sweater, and then like no one can see anything. You're like a big ball of fluff, and then like little legs stick out like leggings. That I don't like that look, and I won't do that look. Like you just lose all shape? Yes. These are things that men have ... It's never crossed a man's mind. Cinder block on sticks don't want that look. Anyway. Oh my gosh. How we veer so far from land so quickly. Well, you know. Anyway. This topic today, very briefly, this is a real story, we're not going to use any names or locations or any of that stuff, about a member that we have who was actually at the live event, and a pretty lengthy presentation about- Oh, great. Now, you're narrowing it down. His business model. And the reason that I'm bringing it up today is because no ones forgotten it. It's constantly this undertone of- True. "Well, I want to be like X. I need to do more like X. Member X has all this figured out." So, I want to kind of get into this, and figure out if it's actually a unicorn, what's real about it, what's unreal about it. I mean, and I'll tell you it's 80% positive, and we'll talk about the positive and negatives, but we still have to do deals. It's not like you're choosing to do ... I'll describe his business model in great detail. I'm sure you will. Before we get into it let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Aroldo ... I can never pronounce this name, I'm sorry. You got it. Aroldo asks, "For our first mailer should we keep the letter exactly as the download on Offers2Owners? I think it's all great especially for the sentence that says, 'We are partners with landstay.com who have been in business for 20 plus years, and have successfully completed 10s of thousands of purchases like this one.' I think that would help us with credibility. My gut just tells me to keep it simple and to just send it as it is to make it easy on myself. Any thoughts?" Look at that. Well, I see one of our members on here already weighed in. Member and moderator Kevin said, "Aroldo leave it the way it is until you know enough to change for some reason. In three years I've only made a couple of very minor changes." There you go. There's something to be said with aligning yourself. Well, A: Transparency. Number one, you never want to say it's you if it's not really you, and if you really are aligned with us, and partner with us, and you're in Land Academy, which you are, that's true too. But it helps to have that credibility for people to look you up, and see who you are. It still happens. Now and then I get phone calls or text messengers or even social media people reach out to me from tracking members down to us, and they have said ... And they see us as a credible source, and they say something like this, "Hi, you don't know me.

Land Academy Members Self Start Accountability Metric to Insure Success (LA 1097) Transcript: Steve:                   Steve and Jill here. Jill:                          Hi. Steve:                   Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill:                          And I'm Jill Dewitt, broadcasting from sunny Southern California. Steve:                   Today Jill and I talk about how Land Academy members have self-started an accountability metric to ensure their own success. Jill:                          I love it. Steve:                   Who the heck wrote that title? Jill:                          Wasn't me, because the word metric was in it. Steve:                   What does it mean? What it means is some smart person in our group started a Facebook group called accountability, Land Academy accountability. And the people that join it, you know it's an invite only or it's like requests only, how that works. Jill:                          It's a secret group. Steve:                   And they- Jill:                          It's not secret now, sorry. Steve:                   It's not secret anymore. When certain people start off on stuff like this, everybody knows this. It's hard to stay on track. Stuff happens. Like you got to pick up your kids from school or whatever. Your job gets in the way. So this is an accountability group to make sure that if you commit to sending out, it's kind of like Weight Watchers, you are going to get weighed in ... I don't even know how the Weight Watchers works. Jill:                          I can tell you. Steve:                   How does Weight Watchers work? Jill:                          There is a weekly weigh in. It's true. It's actually funny. Steve:                   I'm choking myself laughing. Jill:                          Why Weight Watchers came from, but okay. Steve:                   So what happens in Weight Watchers? Do you say I'm going to lose a pound or I'm going to stay on this diet? Is it like, let's see how this goes next week on the scale or I have a goal in losing a pound? Jill:                          Well you have a goal. Well, in the old days when I did Weight Watchers way back when, like you kept track, it wasn't on our phones back then and you kept track of it, you had points and you could eat so many points a day. And then once we could go to meeting and you'd weigh in and meet with your person, they say yay and you'd sit down and someone would talk and then you go home with a bunch of recipes. Steve:                   So does everybody like not eat the day before? Jill:                          Oh, I'm sure. Oh yeah. And they like drink a lot of coffee. Try to get things going before you go to the meeting. And like were your thinnest, lightest weight clothes, like don't wear a sweatshirt that might weigh something. It's so funny. Take your shoes off. Steve:                   So I don't, I'm not a member of this group. I think you are though. Jill:                          Oh, I was. Weight Watchers way back when. Steve:                   No, no. This accountability group. Sorry, I changed gear. Jill:                          No, no. Steven. I am actually not currently a Weight Watchers member. I do however support, always support Weight Watchers. I am not a Weight Watchers member at the time. Are you telling me I should? Steve:                   No. It has nothing do do with- Jill:                          Is this about the chump? Steve:                   No. Yeah. You don't ever want to talk about any woman's weight. Jill:                          That should be the stump the chump, like do you bring up Weight Watchers with a woman? Steve:                   Sitting next to a woman on your own show, do you even bring up Weight Watchers. What kind of idiot would bring up Weight Watchers? Jill:                          And then ask me questions about it. Like,

How Much We Really Need to Be On the Phone (1088) Transcript: Steve:                   Steve and Jill here. Jill:                          Hi. Steve:                   Welcome to the Land Academy show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill:                          I'm Jill Dewitt, broadcasting from sunny Southern California. Steve:                   Today Jill and I talk about how much do we really actually all need to be on the phone in this business. Jill:                          A lot. Steve:                   What are you looking at back here? Jill:                          I don't know. I thought I was ... I'm expecting people to walk by that we might recognize and so I was just kind of keeping an eye out. Steve:                   Why isn't that, Jill? Jill:                          I don't know. Anyway ... Steve:                   Before we get into the topic, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Jill:                          Kyler asks, "Does anyone have experience with quiet titling a property in Texas? There are no other persons claiming ownership. There's just a cloud in the title because the property was owned in a DBA. Debt Doing Business As of a husband that is deceased. The title company instructed us to quite title the property into the wife's name. Never done this before and would love specific input and steps on how to take the process." Thank you. I love that. [crosstalk 00:01:11]. Steve:                   Kevin answers this perfectly. Kevin, our moderator on land investors and then I'll have a couple of comments right after. Jill:                          Thank you for sharing. Steve:                   What does that mean? Jill:                          I don't know. I just think silly. Steve:                   What does that mean? Jill:                          I don't know. Steve:                   Thank you for sharing. This is what the show is. I share some stuff. You share some stuff. Jill:                          Just the way you interjected there. I thought it was funny. Kevin, our moderator is going to answer this perfectly and we're going to get right back to you in a moment. Steve:                   You know why I said it that way? I had to get it in there quickly because I think you're ready to just jump in. Jill:                          I was. That's usually what I do. Steve:                   Sometimes Kevin answers. Sometimes not. Sometimes Kevin answers perfect. Perfectly, and I just throw it in here. You were about to go off the teleprompter again. Jill:                          No, I wasn't. I was continuing to read. I can [inaudible 00:02:01]. Steve:                   Jill's famous for going off script. Jill:                          Really? Steve:                   Yeah. Jill:                          I don't think it's me. Steve:                   Famously. Jill:                          All right. Anyway, Kyler, I would not pay for quiet title and put the property in the wife's name. You could lose control of it. This is good advice. She might sell it to your friend after you've paid for the quiet title. Quiet title can take about three months and will cost some money, maybe two to $3,000. if you go this route, you can get an attorney to help you make the agreement with the wife to accept the purchase amount and make no claim on the quiet title. Bottom line is talk to an attorney on this one if it's worth it. That's such good advice. Steve:                   It's great advice and what he's talking about. What this whole topic is is called equitable title. It's everywhere in the whole country. Equitable title means you don't own the property but you have an interest in it. This is what actually foreclosing on a tax lien is. You have a an interest in the property because you own that tax lien. Let's say you bought the tax lien from the country.

How to Make a Good Land Posting (LA 1082) Transcript: Steve:                   Steve and Jill here. Jill:                          Good day. Steve:                   Welcome to The Land Academy Show, Entertaining Land Investment Talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill:                          And I'm Jill Dewitt, broadcasting from sunny Southern California. Steve:                   Today, Jill and I talk about how a good- how to make a good land posting. Sorry. I got a little confused there for a second. Jill:                          Okay. What is a good land posting? Steve:                   What is a land posting? Jill:                          What? Steve:                   What's a land posting? Jill:                          Wait a minute. Steve:                   Wait, don't I just call my real estate agent and say, "Hey, I've got a piece of property. How about you sell it?" Jill:                          Can I just put a for sale sign on it, and just walk away? Put my phone number? Steve:                   This has got off to a good start. Jill:                          Oh, good. Steve:                   Because that's what I think the whole world thinks. Jill:                          I want to think. Okay, let's think of all the things you would just [inaudible 00:00:43] like. Steve:                   My sister in-law is a real estate agent [inaudible] last Christmas she was talking about a piece of land that this she looked at. Let's call her. Jill:                          Yeah. Steve:                   Shell get solved, it'll be fine. Jill:                          Well, how about the girl that we bought our house from? Let's just call her. Steve:                   So it turns out it 21st century, almost a quarter of the way through the 21st century, we are think about that and the internet and how we do stuff with computers is so dramatically changed. This industry since it was kind of the whole concept of it, the modern day real estate industry was started in the forties and fifties 1940s and fifties for some reason there's lingering real estate agents still. Jill:                          Yep. Steve:                   If you want the answer to that question, go see who the number two lobbyist group is in Washington for the last 35 years. Jill:                          That's interesting. Steve:                   It's the national association of realtors anyway. Jill:                          Who are they? Who are they behind? I hate to guess, does it start with an N? Jill:                          [inaudible 00:01:41]. Jill:                          Is it? is it, is is number one the, is it the NRA is number one? Steve:                   NRA, up there, it's top five. Jill:                          Okay, I would guess. Steve:                   That's a good question. Jill:                          We should look this up. Steve:                   I only ever looked. I look up, I obsess on this stuff. Jill:                          I know. Steve:                   And all five of them or if you just, they're propping themselves up, falsely. Like it removes ironically removes the raw supply and demand of capitalism. But wow that went sideways fast. Steve:                   Turns out... Jill:                          You're getting a lecture from dad right now or professor Steve pick one. Steve:                   Jill and I are in the pre development of a show called the Jack and Jill show about relationships and working together and you know, kind of like couples therapy and, and a non real estate show for is what Jill wants to do and I and I completely agree with her. Jill:                          It's going to happen. Steve:                   So what we're practicing that was a... [Inaudible 00:02:42]. Jill:                          There we go. Perfect. Thank you. Professor Butala. Steve:                   It'll launch out in October and I'm sure it'll fail.

Planning for Your Family Legacy Like Saras Farm (LA 1035) Transcript: Steve:                   Steve and Jill here. Jill:                          Good day. Steve:                   Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Steve:                   and I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny southern California. Jill:                          Today. Jill and I talk about planning for your family legacy, like Sarah's farm. Steve:                   Who The heck is Sarah? Jill:                          Sarah is our niece and this is because of a story that I heard, and I was talking to your sister yesterday and she was sharing with me Sarah's farm, one of their properties that they purchased, and I thought this was really, really cool and I want to talk about it more. Steve:                   If you're a regular listener, you know this, but my middle sister is... It lives in Trevor City, Michigan, and she's extremely successful residential real estate agent. She's actually the single only residential real estate agent that I enjoy spending time with. Jill:                          That is true, well hey wait, there's two. Steve:                   Oh yeah. Jill:                          Well we have two, we have one more local. Steve:                   Yeah, and so she's been accumulating property. She pours a lot of her money, the commission money that she earns ,into buying properties, and I think she's up to what, 20 or 30 or something? Jill:                          20 doors. Steve:                   And so one of them is Sarah's farm, which I think... Tell the story. Oh no, okay wait... Jill:                          We'll save it for the show. Steve:                   Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Jill:                          Mike L. asks, "Hi Steve and Jill, I recently sent out a mailer and have been getting calls back. It's exciting, but everyone wants more than we are offering. I'm okay with that, but I'm having trouble properly assessing the true market value against the land flippers on LandWatch who are properly following your advice and to price less than the cheapest listed seller to move land fast. We have no seller lists yet and we have priced well enough it seems, but we can't move much higher if I'm basing the sales price off the lowest seller. I can find... The lowest one I can find on LandWatch. Have you or others had any experience with this? Is it worth acquiring with the expectation that the sales price will fall more towards the average low? Steve:                   Yes. Jill:                          Usually other flippers or the one or two that are viciously low. Please help. I've got an example below if my question didn't make sense. Steve:                   It makes complete sense. Jill:                          I'm sorry. I'm going to say what he put in here too? This is so cute. Oh, this is a good... hey, good way to do this. This is how you get on this show. He put hashtag podcast question, hashtag love the show hashtag. I'll put whatever I have to put here to get on this show, hashtag you just told us to do something like this to get your question on the show. Mike. Hashtag Mike, you did great. Steve:                   That was hilarious, Actually. Jill:                          Perfect. Steve:                   I didn't even realize that when I put this question in here. Jill:                          That was so good. Alright. Do you want me to read the example? Steve:                   He says, "For example, we listed a property for $750 and they made an offer for $750 and the guy wants four grants. So the cheapest on LandWatch is 2,500 everybody else falls into the four to $5,000 range for the same property that's in a planned urban development. That's east coast, east coast speak for mash plan community.

Difference Between a Successful or Failed Mailer (LA 941)Transcript:Steve and Jill here.Hello.Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from sunny southern California.Today, Jill and I talk about the difference between a successful or a failed mailer.Sorry. I feel bad, but we can help you.In prefaces like this.Yeah.I've done millions, and millions, and millions of letters.Yeah. Oh, my gosh.Millions since the '90s.We should've add ... That'd be a good thing to know. We all talk about how many properties that we've turned, but ...Talk about proving.Right. The number of offers ...I should calculate it.You should go back and calculate that, because it's staggering, and it's not stopping. I mean, now we're doing it with houses and other things, too, so it's comical.I've had exactly one failed mailer in my life.Will you save it for the show?Yeah.Thank you.My point is to preface it with this. The name of this episode is The Difference Between A Failed Mailer and A Successful Mailer. I would say 90+% of all the mailers that go out by all the members, regardless of where they are in their career, yield a property acquisition.Yes.Like everything, Jill and I hear about the failed ones, and not the successful ones.Exactly.It's the squeaky wheel.Exactly.So we're going to try to address and help.Thank you.Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community. It's free. This is a long question, Jill.Okay. Robert asks, "Is there anyone out there that actually uses the Equity Planner tool shown in the Rural Vacant Land: Chapter Three video Finding Your First Target Market? Specifically, the red, green, yellow county tab. I ask because I was trying to follow along, and it seemed that either the tool is broken, or I don't understand how it works."Can I just some tiny bit of background?Ready.In the LandAcademy 1.0: Rural Vacant Land, which Jill and I just got done recording about a month or two ago, I included a tool that I created recently. And included it in there where we take data from the zip code or a county, you paste it from Realtor.com or Redfin.com, tons of data about days on market, technically. It's a tool to help you decide where to send mail.Right.At the left side of the ... It calculates all these columns, and it shows you, "Okay. We calculated data." Green light means, "Heck, yes. It's a good candidate to send."Send mail.Yellow is like, "Ah, there's some concerns."I don't know.And red is-Don't bother.No, there's some indicator that's says, "Property's not moving in this area." For example, the days on market's too long. So he's referring to that tool, "Does anybody use it?" Yes. Actually, if you go into Land Investors and look at this question, there's about 40 replies to it about how great it is. But go ahead, Jill.Yeah. A lot of people are using it.Go ahead.Okay. "I would like to point out that I'm very familiar and comfortable using Sell, and it's a big program. I'm not ruling out user-error or that I'm missing something. I copied and pasted the data I the right spots from the places I was told to do so, but I noticed that the colors didn't change." Okay. "They stayed the same regardless of how the data pasted or input into the tool. I even took the same county information and populated all the lines with the same information, but the first few columns never changed, because there's no formula in the cells. They are just numbers typed in, and it's never addressed how to fill them out. At one point in the video, they talk about-"They meaning us.Yes. Meaning you on this one. "... talk about how using your own threshold to determine if something is good or not, but if you're new or familiar with the area, how do you make that determination? What are considered good or bad numbers? It seems like you already have to be experienced in the area in order to use the tool and determine if the...

Difference Between a Successful or Failed Mailer (LA 941)Transcript:Steve and Jill here.Hello.Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from sunny southern California.Today, Jill and I talk about the difference between a successful or a failed mailer.Sorry. I feel bad, but we can help you.In prefaces like this.Yeah.I've done millions, and millions, and millions of letters.Yeah. Oh, my gosh.Millions since the '90s.We should've add ... That'd be a good thing to know. We all talk about how many properties that we've turned, but ...Talk about proving.Right. The number of offers ...I should calculate it.You should go back and calculate that, because it's staggering, and it's not stopping. I mean, now we're doing it with houses and other things, too, so it's comical.I've had exactly one failed mailer in my life.Will you save it for the show?Yeah.Thank you.My point is to preface it with this. The name of this episode is The Difference Between A Failed Mailer and A Successful Mailer. I would say 90+% of all the mailers that go out by all the members, regardless of where they are in their career, yield a property acquisition.Yes.Like everything, Jill and I hear about the failed ones, and not the successful ones.Exactly.It's the squeaky wheel.Exactly.So we're going to try to address and help.Thank you.Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community. It's free. This is a long question, Jill.Okay. Robert asks, "Is there anyone out there that actually uses the Equity Planner tool shown in the Rural Vacant Land: Chapter Three video Finding Your First Target Market? Specifically, the red, green, yellow county tab. I ask because I was trying to follow along, and it seemed that either the tool is broken, or I don't understand how it works."Can I just some tiny bit of background?Ready.In the LandAcademy 1.0: Rural Vacant Land, which Jill and I just got done recording about a month or two ago, I included a tool that I created recently. And included it in there where we take data from the zip code or a county, you paste it from Realtor.com or Redfin.com, tons of data about days on market, technically. It's a tool to help you decide where to send mail.Right.At the left side of the ... It calculates all these columns, and it shows you, "Okay. We calculated data." Green light means, "Heck, yes. It's a good candidate to send."Send mail.Yellow is like, "Ah, there's some concerns."I don't know.And red is-Don't bother.No, there's some indicator that's says, "Property's not moving in this area." For example, the days on market's too long. So he's referring to that tool, "Does anybody use it?" Yes. Actually, if you go into Land Investors and look at this question, there's about 40 replies to it about how great it is. But go ahead, Jill.Yeah. A lot of people are using it.Go ahead.Okay. "I would like to point out that I'm very familiar and comfortable using Sell, and it's a big program. I'm not ruling out user-error or that I'm missing something. I copied and pasted the data I the right spots from the places I was told to do so, but I noticed that the colors didn't change." Okay. "They stayed the same regardless of how the data pasted or input into the tool. I even took the same county information and populated all the lines with the same information, but the first few columns never changed, because there's no formula in the cells. They are just numbers typed in, and it's never addressed how to fill them out. At one point in the video, they talk about-"They meaning us.Yes. Meaning you on this one. "... talk about how using your own threshold to determine if something is good or not, but if you're new or familiar with the area, how do you make that determination? What are considered good or bad numbers? It seems like you already have to be experienced in the area in order to use the tool and determine if the...

The Power of Scaling Offers to Owners (LA 932) Transcript: Steve and Jill here. Hello. Welcome. Jill, you crack me up with this stuff. I'll just kind of slow it down. Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny southern California. Today, Jill and I talk about the power of scaling offers to owners. Is that slow enough? I have to admit something right now for everyone, and you too, Steven, that I didn't take any notes. I rewrote the top title, and I'm sitting here going, "How do we want to talk about this?" So ... I'll do it. Okay, good. I am sure you have a plan. Yeah, I have a total plan. Okay, good. It's gonna be concise, and mind-boggling. And informative, and entertaining. That's what every woman wants. Concise? I want a man who's concise and mind-boggling. I don't think everyone wants that. No, they don't. What do they want? What do women- But a man wants a woman who's concise and mind-boggling. So, what do women want? Isn't that true? You want a woman that's concise and mind-boggling. Like, "I don't know how she looks like that, or how she packages it up, but it looks good. That's mind-boggling." Packages it up? Exactly. Nice packaging. "Whatever's going on under there, Daddy likes." What if you walked up to a woman and said, "Hey, nice packaging"? How would that go? You know what? It depends on the person, but I got a few people who would think that's comical. And I got a few people that would not think that's funny. My experience with women has been, they're not gonna like that at all. No, I am that person. That if you walk up and go, "Hey, nice packaging," I'm gonna be like, "Right? Thank you." "Yeah, it's all Nordstrom Rack, half off." "I got this all just right where I want it." It is ridiculous. "And there's no body tape involved." Ridiculous how differently men and women are, that we even talk to each other for any amount of time at all. Dude, I'm gonna walk up to you some day, and I'm gonna be like ... You're with some really cool jeans, and I'm gonna tell you, "Nice packaging." What would you say? If you said it to me? Yeah. I would say, "Hell, yeah." Okay, good. See? I would say, "How do I kick it up even a couple more notches?" I like this. This is my new thing now. "Nice packaging." I don't even know what this show's about. I do. I can help you. Oh, before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our packagers on LandInvestors.com. It's an online community, and it's free. Okay. This is a little bit different. This is actually a thread that was started by a member on our staff, and I wanted to read about what we're doing here. This is kind of just to further let you know about the value of this group and what we're doing. Yeah. That's really what this is for. A, what we're doing for the group, and B, how smart our group is, based on the comment and the feedback that we got. So here's the thread, started by Erin, one of our senior managers here at Land Academy. She wrote, "Hello, all. One thing that we're working on here at Land Academy is creating a centralized place where members can put recommendations for various types of vendors, et cetera, that they have used before in different areas. Our question to you is, how"- Vendors meaning, "Hey, is this title company in North Carolina good or bad?" Actually, put the vendors in that they've used and loved. Yeah. Not to talk about them, but like- Oh, just a good- ... "Hey, anyone in Florida, this is the guy. He's the bomb. We did all these deals in 10 days." Okay. And, "Hey, Texas. I've got a great drone pilot. He will drive to all the surrounding states. Here's his contact information and how much he charges." Okay. It's that kind of a vendor list. I'm the last one to know, because- That's okay. ... I'm the owner. That's okay. That's why I'm here. So, that's what we're putting out there for ...

The Power of Scaling Offers to Owners (LA 932) Transcript: Steve and Jill here. Hello. Welcome. Jill, you crack me up with this stuff. I'll just kind of slow it down. Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny southern California. Today, Jill and I talk about the power of scaling offers to owners. Is that slow enough? I have to admit something right now for everyone, and you too, Steven, that I didn't take any notes. I rewrote the top title, and I'm sitting here going, "How do we want to talk about this?" So ... I'll do it. Okay, good. I am sure you have a plan. Yeah, I have a total plan. Okay, good. It's gonna be concise, and mind-boggling. And informative, and entertaining. That's what every woman wants. Concise? I want a man who's concise and mind-boggling. I don't think everyone wants that. No, they don't. What do they want? What do women- But a man wants a woman who's concise and mind-boggling. So, what do women want? Isn't that true? You want a woman that's concise and mind-boggling. Like, "I don't know how she looks like that, or how she packages it up, but it looks good. That's mind-boggling." Packages it up? Exactly. Nice packaging. "Whatever's going on under there, Daddy likes." What if you walked up to a woman and said, "Hey, nice packaging"? How would that go? You know what? It depends on the person, but I got a few people who would think that's comical. And I got a few people that would not think that's funny. My experience with women has been, they're not gonna like that at all. No, I am that person. That if you walk up and go, "Hey, nice packaging," I'm gonna be like, "Right? Thank you." "Yeah, it's all Nordstrom Rack, half off." "I got this all just right where I want it." It is ridiculous. "And there's no body tape involved." Ridiculous how differently men and women are, that we even talk to each other for any amount of time at all. Dude, I'm gonna walk up to you some day, and I'm gonna be like ... You're with some really cool jeans, and I'm gonna tell you, "Nice packaging." What would you say? If you said it to me? Yeah. I would say, "Hell, yeah." Okay, good. See? I would say, "How do I kick it up even a couple more notches?" I like this. This is my new thing now. "Nice packaging." I don't even know what this show's about. I do. I can help you. Oh, before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our packagers on LandInvestors.com. It's an online community, and it's free. Okay. This is a little bit different. This is actually a thread that was started by a member on our staff, and I wanted to read about what we're doing here. This is kind of just to further let you know about the value of this group and what we're doing. Yeah. That's really what this is for. A, what we're doing for the group, and B, how smart our group is, based on the comment and the feedback that we got. So here's the thread, started by Erin, one of our senior managers here at Land Academy. She wrote, "Hello, all. One thing that we're working on here at Land Academy is creating a centralized place where members can put recommendations for various types of vendors, et cetera, that they have used before in different areas. Our question to you is, how"- Vendors meaning, "Hey, is this title company in North Carolina good or bad?" Actually, put the vendors in that they've used and loved. Yeah. Not to talk about them, but like- Oh, just a good- ... "Hey, anyone in Florida, this is the guy. He's the bomb. We did all these deals in 10 days." Okay. And, "Hey, Texas. I've got a great drone pilot. He will drive to all the surrounding states. Here's his contact information and how much he charges." Okay. It's that kind of a vendor list. I'm the last one to know, because- That's okay. ... I'm the owner. That's okay. That's why I'm here. So, that's what we're putting out there for ...

Velocity of Money (LA 931) Transcript: Steve and Jill here. Mid yawn, hello. Welcome to the Land Academy show. Entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. And I'm Jill DeWitt broadcasting from sunny southern California. When Jill gets done yawning we'll talk about the velocity of money today. I'm so sorry. No it has nothing to do with this topic. I want you to know it has nothing to do with you. I didn't yawn like, "Oh here we go again. We're gonna talk about some accounting things. I'll just take a nap." Sorry. The velocity of ... To your happiness, the velocity of money is very easy to talk about and very easy to explain and I never get tired of talking about it. And even if you know exactly what it is. It's still just good to refresh it in your mind or if you've never heard of it it's all good. Oh goody. Before we get into it let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community. It's free. Could you imagine. That's kind of funny. I never get tired about talking about the velocity of money. I never get tired about spending the velocity of money. Yeah you know what we could talk about the outbound velocity of money. Outbound velocity. I like this. Is this is inbound or outbound? 'Cause I have a lot to say about that too. We'll talk about inbound and then outbound. Okay good. Never even thought about that. Yes. Congratulations. Now this topic is important to me. Now I'm in. Okay Marilyn asks, "I nee help. My processes are all over the place and I'm wasting time retyping and recreating documents and emails for each deal. You could say I'm the copy and past queen. I know there has to be a better way. Most of my documents are in a Google Docs and I'm using Google Sheets to track deal flow. I've recently been playing around with a Google Sheet add-on called Document Studio, but it doesn't work every time. Probably operator error. Here again, I'm taking information from my main deal flow Google Sheet that I copy and paste into another Google Sheet to initiate the document merge letter. What do you use?" "Do you hire a pro to set it up? A lot of what I learned is from you two so any referrals there would be useful as well. Any suggestions would be much appreciated. Thank you in advance. Marilyn." Yes, hello Marilyn. What do you want to say? You have to strive to be a linear thinker. First time I'm gonna get just slightly philosophical here. Okay. You have to look at every single task that you do and you kind of have to hate it. You have to say, "I really don't like doing this task. I'd like to remove it somehow." And not remove doing it today. Re-setup the system so that it's all together completely removed. I use the analogy like this. How many times you ever gone to a closet, like a hall closet to look for a tennis racket or something like that? And you know it's back there somewhere and you end up just completely reorganizing the closet and 20 minutes later you have a Goodwill pile and everything's completely organized and it doesn't probably make your spouse that happy. Or depending on your spouse it makes 'em really happy. Makes me happy. That's how I think of everything. Every single thing I do I look at it and I say, "This is completely unnecessary. I need to relook at this." That's a good analogy. So you have to set up a system, you have to start thinking like this today. I don't care if you're brand new at this or you've done it a 150000 deals. There's a whole module in the House Academy program that the gist of it is this. You have to set up a system that's entirely and completely repeatable and it runs itself with other people without you. Or you will never truly scale this business to where it needs to go. So you can take that a million different ways, but you cannot work in your own business forever. Does that mean you have to outsource purchase, acquisition decisions? No, but you can do 100 acquisition decisions on Wednesday morning be...

Velocity of Money (LA 931) Transcript: Steve and Jill here. Mid yawn, hello. Welcome to the Land Academy show. Entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. And I'm Jill DeWitt broadcasting from sunny southern California. When Jill gets done yawning we'll talk about the velocity of money today. I'm so sorry. No it has nothing to do with this topic. I want you to know it has nothing to do with you. I didn't yawn like, "Oh here we go again. We're gonna talk about some accounting things. I'll just take a nap." Sorry. The velocity of ... To your happiness, the velocity of money is very easy to talk about and very easy to explain and I never get tired of talking about it. And even if you know exactly what it is. It's still just good to refresh it in your mind or if you've never heard of it it's all good. Oh goody. Before we get into it let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community. It's free. Could you imagine. That's kind of funny. I never get tired about talking about the velocity of money. I never get tired about spending the velocity of money. Yeah you know what we could talk about the outbound velocity of money. Outbound velocity. I like this. Is this is inbound or outbound? 'Cause I have a lot to say about that too. We'll talk about inbound and then outbound. Okay good. Never even thought about that. Yes. Congratulations. Now this topic is important to me. Now I'm in. Okay Marilyn asks, "I nee help. My processes are all over the place and I'm wasting time retyping and recreating documents and emails for each deal. You could say I'm the copy and past queen. I know there has to be a better way. Most of my documents are in a Google Docs and I'm using Google Sheets to track deal flow. I've recently been playing around with a Google Sheet add-on called Document Studio, but it doesn't work every time. Probably operator error. Here again, I'm taking information from my main deal flow Google Sheet that I copy and paste into another Google Sheet to initiate the document merge letter. What do you use?" "Do you hire a pro to set it up? A lot of what I learned is from you two so any referrals there would be useful as well. Any suggestions would be much appreciated. Thank you in advance. Marilyn." Yes, hello Marilyn. What do you want to say? You have to strive to be a linear thinker. First time I'm gonna get just slightly philosophical here. Okay. You have to look at every single task that you do and you kind of have to hate it. You have to say, "I really don't like doing this task. I'd like to remove it somehow." And not remove doing it today. Re-setup the system so that it's all together completely removed. I use the analogy like this. How many times you ever gone to a closet, like a hall closet to look for a tennis racket or something like that? And you know it's back there somewhere and you end up just completely reorganizing the closet and 20 minutes later you have a Goodwill pile and everything's completely organized and it doesn't probably make your spouse that happy. Or depending on your spouse it makes 'em really happy. Makes me happy. That's how I think of everything. Every single thing I do I look at it and I say, "This is completely unnecessary. I need to relook at this." That's a good analogy. So you have to set up a system, you have to start thinking like this today. I don't care if you're brand new at this or you've done it a 150000 deals. There's a whole module in the House Academy program that the gist of it is this. You have to set up a system that's entirely and completely repeatable and it runs itself with other people without you. Or you will never truly scale this business to where it needs to go. So you can take that a million different ways, but you cannot work in your own business forever. Does that mean you have to outsource purchase, acquisition decisions? No, but you can do 100 acquisition decisions on Wednesday morning be...

Finance Friday with Steven Butala, Jill DeWit & Justin Sliva (LA 903) Transcript: Steve:                   Steve and Jill here with Justin. Jill:                          Hello. Steve:                   Welcome to the Land Academy Show on this Friday, it's a special Friday. I think this is the first time all three of us are doing it. Jill:                          I think so. Justin:                   It is, it is. Steve:                   Here at tending Land Investment Talk, I'm Steven Jack [Butella 00:00:15], with guests, Justin [Slieva 00:00:17], and Jill [DeWitt 00:00:17], broadcasting from sunny Southern California and Dallas-Forth Worth. Today, Justin and I talk about Finance Friday with special guest, Jill, which is a little bit strange. Jill:                          Thank you. Steve:                   I can't even read it, it's so strange. Jill:                          You a little confused right now? I kind of like this. I just get to sit back and coast, Justin:                   And relax. Jill:                          And comment now and then. Yeah, this is awesome. Steve:                   I'm gonna say some revealing stuff about Jill. Jill:                          Oh, great. Justin:                   Okay. Steve:                   Jill loves to be the only girl. Like, wherever we're just with a bunch of guys, she's like, "Yeah, I like being the only girl." Jill:                          Actually, it is nice. I understand the dialog. I understand, yeah I get it. It's good. Steve:                   Before we get into the show today and I find out the deals that Justin's doing and the stuff that Jill's doing, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the Landinvestors.com online community, it's free. Jill:                          Do you want me to add? Steve:                   Sure. Jill:                          Travis asked, "Has anyone successfully used the CoreLogic API to fetch their data from RealQuest Pro instead of the GUI?" Steve:                   User interface. Jill:                          Oh, the new user interface. Got it. "What would be a quick and helpful way to get the number lots in a given area if that's possible? Faster than searching county by county on their website, any ideas? Steve:                   Yeah, so the RealQuest API is literally the backend. CoreLogic API of parcel facts. Actually, yeah. I have a lot of experience using that. This will be solved, what you're trying to accomplish when we release DataTree, access to DataTree. The searching function and the parcel checking function based on geography, even map searching it, is instantaneous. It's leaps and bounds above what we use for RealQuest. However, the real value in RealQuest is it has, I think, a superior search function for land. Actually, Justin, go ahead and comment. I know you have experience with both too. Justin:                   Yeah. DataTree is ton of better on houses. It just leaps and bounds better on houses; but, when you get into RealQuest, they're actually getting their lots down. It's way, way easier to use than RealQuest. For someone who may have less than half the price on what the data is, it's worth it for me to pay more on data in RealQuest, because it's so much easier to manipulate with land. It works out for us a lot better. Steve:                   Same exact experience here. Exactly. So, with House Academy, which is just a couple of months away from release? Jill:                          A couple months. Steve:                   The subscription to DataTree will be included much like RealQuest prop. Jill:                          Because, I personally would like to have a life. So, that's why House Academy's going to be not next week. A month or two. Justin:                   Are you missing date night? Jill:                          What's that? I don't know what that is. Justin:                   We literally have a meeting after we're done r...

Find Your Zen Investor Inside (LA 805) Transcript: Steve:                   Steve and Jill here. Jill:                          Hello Steve:                   Welcome to the Land Academy Show. Entertaining land investment talk, I'm Steve Jack Butala. Jill:                          And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny southern California. Steve:                   Today, Jill and I talk about 'Find Your Zen Investor Inside' and I'm going to quote Jill right before the show.

Transcript -- Steve and Kirsty have been together for 4 years. They reflect on how having a child has brought them closer together and their future lives together, as a family.

Transcript -- Steve and Kirsty have been together for 4 years. They reflect on how having a child has brought them closer together and their future lives together, as a family.

Transcript -- Steve's love of music inspires youngsters to have belief in their own creativity.

Transcript -- Steve's love of music inspires youngsters to have belief in their own creativity.

Transcript -- Steve describes the core values behind his management skills and explains how he resolved a range of problems

Transcript -- Steve describes the core values behind his management skills and explains how he resolved a range of problems