Members Aaron and Liz English Shares Land Academy Success Stories (LA 991)

Transcript:

Steven Butala:                   Steve and Jill here!

Jill DeWit:                            Hello!

Steven Butala:                   Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.

Jill DeWit:                            And, I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the sunny Southern California.

Steven Butala:                   Today, Jill and I talk with members: Aaron and Liz English. And, we talk about their land success, Land Academy success stories, or maybe some of where they haven't had so much success.

Steven Butala:                   So, just to start it off, and before we get into the real topic, let us know please how you got here? How you got to this moment with Land Academy?

Aaron English:                    Well, I got into the land business about ten years ago, and did the whole Jack Bosch thing, and said, "Go to the county, get a mailer or get the data." And, I'm like, "Okay." And then you get the data, and it's like, "What? What is this?" You know... I was like, "Okay, I can't do this." So, I end up buying a list from China, sent a mailer out and just got a bunch of hate back, so I backed it for like ten years. And then, just about two years ago, I found you guys and went out specifically looking for land investors and land investing, came across your podcast and pulled the trigger. And so, here we are.

Jill DeWit:                            Awesome!

Aaron English:                    How long ago did you join?

Liz English:                          Two years.

Steven Butala:                   Two years ago?

Liz English:                          Yeah, yeah.

Aaron English:                    Yeah.

Steven Butala:                   Has it worked out? I mean, are you doing deals?

Liz English:                          Yeah.

Aaron English:                    Yeah. We're doing lots of deals. I think we're about 150-160, something like that.

Steven Butala:                   Wow! What's a typical deal for you guys? That's great!

Aaron English:                    As far as money goes, or...?

Steven Butala:                   Yeah, like buy it for 5000, 10 acres in, I don't know, some Western State. Sell it for 22, in terms or cash, or what's a typical deal?

Liz English:                          We did a lot of terms before, and we don't want to do anymore because it's a pain in the butt. Talk to a lot of interesting people that are time wasters. But now, we're doing more, bigger deals and selling them cash because we kind of graduated out of-

Aaron English:                    All cash, for sure. We stopped doing notes about last month. Just chasing too many people, and too many people with sob stories and they're like, "We got to take this property back now." You know, it's just a pain. Just cash.

Jill DeWit:                            It sounds good. I mean, a lot of people are... if you have the, I don't want to say stomach for it or what the right word is, but if that's your thing, yeah, you can quickly get how many... you know, coming in a month. But, you have to babysit them a little bit, as you know. There's always one that needs something, and somebody's not available. And, even though with us, I'm like I would say, "What do you need? Do you want me to..." It's like, "I get paid on the third, could I make the payments come out on the fifth?", "Fine." And, they're still always a little something, and I'm like, "This is just a lot of work." And then, of course, then they go dark, and you're like, "Darn it!" You know, I don't want to take it back. I like the payment thing and they're gone. I kind of feel bad for you, but now I got to do it all over again. So, I get it. Yeah.

Liz English:                          We've had some people that are being great all along, but it's just those few people that want to change it up, their credit card every month, or miss a payment,

How Much Should I Diversify Land Acquisition Types (LA 990)

Transcript:

Steven Butala:                   Steve and Jill here.

Jill DeWit:                            Hello.

Steven Butala:                   Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala ...

Jill DeWit:                            And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny Southern California.

Steven Butala:                   Today, Jill and I talk about how much should I diversify my land acquisition types, one of my favorite topics when I-

Jill DeWit:                            I know. I have a bunch of notes here.

Steven Butala:                   Awesome.

Jill DeWit:                            This is going to be a good show.

Steven Butala:                   Before we get into it ... I started in commercial real estate, so I didn't start in land. We still do deals in that space.

Jill DeWit:                            Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Steven Butala:                   Before we get into it though, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landInvestors.com online community. It's free.

Jill DeWit:                            What you're saying is we walk the walk. We don't just talk the talk. Right?

Steven Butala:                   What does that mean?

Jill DeWit:                            That means that we say diversify, and we diversify. That's the point.

Steven Butala:                   I don't think there's much that we talk about ... I don't think there's much theory in any of these Land Academy, House Academy or any of it. I think it's all proven.

Jill DeWit:                            Oh yeah. Yes. We've been there, done that.

Steven Butala:                   We talk about attitude and some other stuff once in a while, and get a little bit nebulous, but the fact is, this is what we do.

Jill DeWit:                            Sorry, I have a hair right in my eye here, so we'll find it. All right, Jason says, "Good afternoon. I need to find a real estate attorney to draw up an affidavit of heirship. The attorney needs to be in Orange County, California, probably in or near the Irvine area. If anyone knows of a good inexpensive lawyer they can recommend, please let me know. Thanks in advance."

Jill DeWit:                            You know what's really cool about this? I said see stuff like this on Facebook all the time too. I'm glad people know to reach out and ask.

Jill DeWit:                            All right. One of our members, [Steven 00:01:41] F says, "Hey, Jason. I use an attorney out of Riverside. I gave her a call, and she said she'd be happy to speak with you regarding your request. Riverside is the next county over, and she can do work in Irvine. Here's her cell number. Here's her name."

Steven Butala:                   Her name is [Ricky Rivera 00:00:01:56].

Jill DeWit:                            Oversharing.

Steven Butala:                   Her cell number is (951)719-5149. I included all this, I personally included it in the script today, because that's what Land Investors is.

Jill DeWit:                            Yeah.

Steven Butala:                   That's what we do here. We help each other. It's not just access to the data. It's not just education. It's not just advice on a show, or on and on and on, the stuff that goes on.

Jill DeWit:                            Right.

Steven Butala:                   In fact, I'm actually going to call this person too, because adverse possession property ... What this person is asking is ... What happened here is this ... I'm reading between the lines and it's a generalization, but I really think it can help listeners.

Steven Butala:                   When you send out a bunch of mail, there's a lot of people that contact you that say, "I would love to sell you my property," whether it's a house or a piece of land, "but it's in my dad's name. He passed away two years ago, and I've been paying the taxes,

House Flips are the Next Logical Step (LA 989)

Transcript:

Steven Butala:                   Steve and Jill here.

Jill DeWit:                            Happy Memorial Day.

Steven Butala:                   Welcome to the Land Academy show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.

Jill DeWit:                            And I'm Jill DeWitt broadcasting from sunny Southern California.

Steven Butala:                   Today Jill and I talk about how house flips are the next logical step.

Jill DeWit:                            They are. Some people are just ... they took our concepts, started to apply it to other property types, which is great and figure it out and that is the way it should be, right?

Steven Butala:                   Do you think house flips are easier or harder?

Jill DeWit:                            Over all, completing the transaction, easier.

Steven Butala:                   That's what I think.

Jill DeWit:                            When agents get involved, harder.

Steven Butala:                   I don't know I'm trying to make a good analogy and a good example. It's like when you do a bunch of land deals, land deals are great. House deals are just a such of wealth ... Well that's the title. A logical stop. I think they're so much easier for a lot of reasons, but you've got to do them right. Just like everything else.

Jill DeWit:                            Exactly.

Steven Butala:                   Before we get into though. Let's take a question posted by one of our members. On a landinvestors.com online community. It's free and I should say this. We also have a House Academy by the time this airs. A House Academy forum.

Jill DeWit:                            We do.

Steven Butala:                   And we're about to launch a new House Academy show.

Jill DeWit:                            We do. True. All right. Alex says, "Morning everyone. Mailed three different counties in my first mailer and it did not go so well. Hudspeth county, Texas is probably the worst county to deal with. They don't even have the properties recorded on a map. I've had a ton of people call and mail back purchase agreements for less than $100 per acre, but I can't find any info on any of them.

Jill DeWit:                            One guy texted me pictures of his deed and plot information, but the coordinates are in relation to the other plots in the same subdivision. No one knows where the subdivisions are. I asked county how they figured out what the taxes for the parcels are if they don't know where they are? And they said, "We have no idea. LOL." If they could get those properties all recorded, some on there could make a killing.

Jill DeWit:                            I got nothing but hate calls from another county, but I think it was my fault on the pricing. The third county, I've gotten calls back, but people want way too much. I'm four grand in the whole, but I think of it as a pricey education. I know I'll make something happen on the next mailer and hope I do. Anyone else get whacked on their first time out?"

Jill DeWit:                            I watched you and there were like several responses.

Steven Butala:                   There are probably at least ten responses to this in the forum from some more senior members.

Jill DeWit:                            Yeah.

Steven Butala:                   I'm about to give my response too.

Jill DeWit:                            It's kind of funny.

Steven Butala:                   Go ahead, Jill.

Jill DeWit:                            One of our members in particular wrote this. He said ... and it was Kevin. Kevin said, "Hey Alex, it's too early to shut the door on these counties."

Steven Butala:                   Exactly.

Jill DeWit:                            "You're getting their early responders, the most motivated and desperate sellers. Just wait."

Steven Butala:                   Exactly.

Why Men Don't Understand Women (LA 988)

Transcript:

If you enjoyed the podcast, please review it in iTunes . Reviews are incredibly important for rankings on iTunes. My staff and I read each and every one.

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email me directly at [email protected].

The BuWit Family of Companies include:

https://BuWit.com

https://offers2owners.com

https://landinvestors.com

https://landacademy.com

https://landpin.com

https://parcelfact.com

https://countywise.com

https://deedperfect.com

https://houseacademy.com

https://ownersdata.com

https://houseacademy.com

I would like to think it’s entertaining and informative and in the end profitable.

And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes.

You Don't Need a License to Buy and Sell Real Estate (LA 987)

Transcript:

Steven Butala:                   Steve and Jill here.

Jill DeWit:                            Hello.

Steven Butala:                   Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk, I'm Steven Jack Butala.

Jill DeWit:                            And I'm Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from sunny Southern California.

Steven Butala:                   Today Jill and I talk about how you don't need a real estate license to buy and sell real estate.

Jill DeWit:                            What?! Wait, what?

Jill DeWit:                            Yes, that's true.

Steven Butala:                   Of all the things that you need a license for, and I'm sure Jill's got a whole list of them she's going to describe, because some of them are silly, like being a barber.

Jill DeWit:                            Yup.

Steven Butala:                   You do not, in any way, need to a license to buy and sell real estate.

Jill DeWit:                            Yup.

Steven Butala:                   [inaudible 00:00:38] we have a lot more freedom than we all think.

Jill DeWit:                            Yup.

Steven Butala:                   Before we get into it, let's take a question, posted by one of members on landinvestors.com online community. It's free.

Jill DeWit:                            Damien asks, I primarily wholesale residential buildable lots inside ... okay, wait, wait, wait. Can you go back up here?

Steven Butala:                   I primarily wholesale residential buildable lots inside of sub-divisions.

Jill DeWit:                            [crosstalk 00:01:07] Inside of sub-divisions. He put a question mark and that's what threw my there. I'm like is that a question or a statement? Looking to branch out to other markets, however, I was wondering if there was a way I could find only counties with land that primarily uses public water and sewer and don't need perk tests, wetlands tests, environment tests, et cetera.

Jill DeWit:                            Okay, so we want to find infill lots that don't need those items.

Steven Butala:                   What he's asking is, is there something in a data set in RealQuest, DataTree or whatever you're using that identifies the buildability of a given piece of property, land.

Jill DeWit:                            Thank you for translating.

Steven Butala:                   The answer's no.

Jill DeWit:                            [inaudible 00:01:51].

Steven Butala:                   So these data sets, while they're extraordinary in the amount of information that they provide.

Jill DeWit:                            That would be cool.

Steven Butala:                   What they generally provide, this is how I mentally see it. What they generally provide is all the stuff that you could put on a piece of paper about a piece of property, but no so much the stuff about the physical asset. Now, there's lots of exceptions to that, so you can get square footage very easily if it's a house, and certainly if it's land most of the time. Does it have a pool to how many bedrooms does it have and stuff, but we're talking about land right now, so it's almost all, does it have a mortgage? That's one there, that's one a piece of paper, but the attributes of the land, where utilities are? Is it in a flood plains? Things like that, those are happen afterward, and so if you're brand new at this, this is a very good question, if you're new at this, when you open this data set for the first time and you start horsing around in there, you don't know what to expect. And a lot of times people, just because it's curiosity, it's not like they're wrong, they don't fully understand that the actually physical attributes about the property, access, and specifically access, nothing, it's not there.

Jill DeWit:                            I look at it this way, which is true,

Member Matt Rogers Shares Land Academy Success Stories (LA 986)

Transcript:

Steven Butala:                   Steve and Jill here!

Jill DeWit:                            Hello!

Steven Butala:                   Welcome to The Land Academy show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.

Jill DeWit:                            And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny Southern California.

Steven Butala:                   Today, Jill and I talk with member extraordinaire, Matt Rogers, and he shares his success stories, hopefully, and maybe some of the reason why he got here. That's really what I'm interested in.

Jill DeWit:                            Exactly!

Steven Butala:                   Before we get into it, I would love to... actually, this is the question. Love to know how you got here. And don't leave out any details!

Matt Rogers:                      In the summer of 2017, I had taken a break from television producing, which I had been doing for 15 years, and was just kind of burnt out with the travel. I had been on the road for almost 10 years and had some great experiences, met a ton of cool people, have a million awesome stories to tell at parties. But at the end of the day, I didn't really have a ton to show for it.

Matt Rogers:                      The money was good, but when you're on the road that much, you get burnt out after a while. So, I started looking for ways I could work less in production and do something more for myself, and I started just digging into bigger pockets and figuring out different real estate avenues, things that could... You could get in with not a ton of money, and it kept coming back to land. And honestly, there's three or four kind of main educators in the space, and with you and Jill being one of them, I just started listening to podcasts, and kind of connected with you guys and listened for a couple of months, tore through all the podcasts.

Matt Rogers:                      And just decided to join. I joined in September of 2017, and just said, "You know what? Let's give this a shot and see what we can do." And I had about $10,000 I wanted to kind of ante in with, and just see where it could take us.

Steven Butala:                   What's your bank balance now, Matt?

Matt Rogers:                      It's a little more than 10,000.

Steven Butala:                   Oh, wait, we need to hear... What was the answer? I didn't hear that.

Jill DeWit:                            He just said, "A little more than 10,000."

Steven Butala:                   12,000's good.

Matt Rogers:                      No, it's been a pretty crazy ride for the last, oh, I think we're going on a little under a year and a half now, and honestly, the first three or four months was just almost dipping your toe in the water. And kind of testing for reason, as you like to say, and just making sure that you weren't going to lose a ton of money or just want to make sure it works!

Jill DeWit:                            Yeah.

Steven Butala:                   What does a television producer really do? Every time I see it on a credits, in the before and after anything we watch, it's like, "Produced by X," and I just, my initial reaction is, "Yeah, they just put a bunch of money into that thing, and that's it."

Matt Rogers:                      There's those type of producers. Those are usually on movies and things like that, executive producers, people that just are the money people.

Jill DeWit:                            Okay.

Matt Rogers:                      As we know, what we do, there's money people in our business, too. And on my level, I did more of unscripted things, like Travel Channel, Food Network, HGTV shows, so I would run with a small team. I would usually have a couple of camera people, an audio guy, maybe a couple of assistants, and my job was to direct and also make sure all the logistics were in place while we were on location.

Our Most Recent House Flips Net Us 100K (LA 985)

Transcript:

Steven Butala:                   Steve and Jill here.

Jill DeWit:                            Hi.

Steven Butala:                   Welcome to the Land Academy Show. Entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.

Jill DeWit:                            And I'm Jill DeWit. Broadcasting from sunny southern California.

Steven Butala:                   Today Jill and I talk about how our most recent house flips net us about a hundred thousand bucks. Jill's like right before the show, "What do you mean it net us $100000?"

Jill DeWit:                            I don't even look anymore. I'm like and did it what? What are you talking about?

Steven Butala:                   We made $98000. These three properties generated.

Jill DeWit:                            I get so-

Steven Butala:                   $98000. When you think about that, it's actually pretty amazing.

Jill DeWit:                            It is.

Steven Butala:                   And you think about doing one a month. It gets to millions pretty fast.

Jill DeWit:                            Yeah. Do one a week.

Steven Butala:                   Yeah. I need it. Yeah.

Jill DeWit:                            That's really what you'd like.

Steven Butala:                   If we didn't have a show and we didn't have Land Academy and House Academy. If we were you, listener.

Jill DeWit:                            We're going to get back to one a week. All good.

Steven Butala:                   We're putting food on the table. Before 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:                            Kevin says, "Hi everybody. Yesterday, I received a call from a property that we just put on the market". And the caller asked, "Why is it so cheap?" I love this. Isn't this funny how this happens? It's so darn funny. Half the time I feel like I'm going to mark it up just because they don't believe it. "That is my second favorite question when talking to buyers. One, it tells me that I got the comps right. That is important feedback when there are very few comps. In this case I really had to dig to look for listings and recent sales to get a number. Two, if the buyer is serious, he isn't going to haggle much. He already knows that the price is great. Three, the buyer won't drag his feet on a deal because he knows that other buyers will be attracted to this price. In this case, I have two buyers out looking at the property after being on the market for two days. And number four, I have the opportunity to explain my business to the buyer, so he knows how we purchase properties and why the price is so low."

Jill DeWit:                            "I also explained that there are no liens or back taxes. That way you can stop worrying about the property being a toxic dumping ground and get on with making a good purchase decision. Oh yeah. My favorite question is how can I buy it? If you want to hear people asking you these questions? Send more mail."

Jill DeWit:                            And I agree. That was good.

Steven Butala:                   That's a Luke Smith call.

Jill DeWit:                            I like that.

Steven Butala:                   Stop asking all these questions. Just send more mail.

Jill DeWit:                            Isn't that funny? And it's so true. That happens all the time because our whole motto is buy a right, mark it up, this is, we're talking land of course, mark it up so you double your money, but you're still way below everything else out there. And then it's going to sell really fast. And you are going to get these calls and these people going, "What's wrong with this?" And the question is nothing and you better hurry up because I got, there's other people looking at it, kind of thing. It's great. What do you want to add?

Marketing is Everything (LA 984)

Transcript:

Steven Butala:                   Steve and Jill here.

Jill DeWit:                            Hello.

Steven Butala:                   Welcome to The Land Academy show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.

Jill DeWit:                            And I'm Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from sunny southern California.

Steven Butala:                   Today Jill and I talk about how marketing is everything.

Jill DeWit:                            It's an amazing ... Where would we be?

Steven Butala:                   You know, we were just talking before we started the show. This whole internet thing, if you're very young, you don't know what it was like before the internet and how hard it was to market. We all have businesses, every single one of us in Land Academy, and soon to be House Academy.

Jill DeWit:                            I remember with you being at a bookstore, I was looking at a magazine. This was way before Land Academy. It was just selling land. I was thinking, "Maybe we should create one of these magazines to promote our land." I'm glad we didn't do that.

Steven Butala:                   In marketing, you're never going to sell a piece of real estate if you just purchase it and never tell anyone about it.

Jill DeWit:                            Exactly.

Steven Butala:                   So even if you sell a lot of property, just bring it on Craig's List, and it's free, you're still marketing the property.

Jill DeWit:                            Exactly.

Steven Butala:                   That's what made realtors and the MLS so popular before the internet. We'll talk about that and get into some detail in a second here. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community. It's free.

Jill DeWit:                            Tanner asks, "Morning everyone. I'm interested in hearing some thoughts and opinions on how to gain good credibility as a new investor. I understand the importance of having a professional online presence to begin with, but how am I able to boost my credibility beyond that? Land Academy in itself is an incredibly credible source, so is that acceptable to say that I'm a member of this group so that a seller or buyer may be able to reference that as well? Would love to hear thoughts around this. Appreciate it." On the way in, by the way, I'm listening to my Sirius Radio and the Wharton Business School, which I talk about a lot because I just love that dumb channel. It was just, there was a little excerpt from a show that I had heard a couple weeks ago about a guy saying, "Your website, when people are looking you up, right away your appearance and how it looks and everything, it makes them real quick decide quickly if they want to do business with you or not."

Steven Butala:                   In two seconds.

Jill DeWit:                            So number one, you better have one. And number two, it needs to look good and professional. I would absolutely put us on there. We probably still have somewhere, our members would use it. It'd say, "Land Academy certified member," like a little image that you could put on your website.

Steven Butala:                   Like a stamp.

Jill DeWit:                            I would totally use that. And it does make a difference when people trace you to us, then it stops it right there.

Steven Butala:                   I mean, there's a lot of ways. This ties right into the show that we're talking about. So, promoting yourself and what you know and the fact that you have maybe a different or unique angle on how to buy real estate maybe cheaper, you're going to sink or swim by that. This goes right into the topic actually. In fact, let's just make it the topic. Today's topic, marketing is everything. This is the meat of the show.

Steven Butala:                   We have all extremes in our group.

Illinois Governor Pritzkner Property Tax Evasion Investigation (LA 983)

Transcript:

Steven Butala:                   Steve and Jill here.

Jill DeWit:                            Happy Friday.

Steven Butala:                   Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.

Jill DeWit:                            And Jill DeWit broadcasting from sunny Southern California.

Steven Butala:                   Today, Jill and I talk about Illinois Governor Pritzker, property tax evasion investigation. Sounds boring, but I promise you it's not.

Jill DeWit:                            This is a good one.

Steven Butala:                   Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.

Jill DeWit:                            Michael A. Hello. Michael asks, "Hello friends, for those of you who have subscribed to PATLive, how's it working out? Sure, PATLive can take messages, but are they really helping out? Are you simply calling back at the calls that PATLive takes? Is it really helpful? Every call is different and often there's amount of rapport building that's needed to convince the seller that you're not a scam or that your offers legit? Is PATLive able to do this for you? Please share your experiences. Thanks."

Steven Butala:                   Jill's an expert at this, but I must say before she answers, I've never seen so many answers, membership answers. There's probably 35 answers of positive experiences from our users about PATLive. So, there's an underlying meaning here to this question. Jill's going to answer the actual question. Does PATLive work, yes or no? And I'm going to answer, what I think is the underlying meaning here.

Jill DeWit:                            Okay, I love it. So here's the deal about... So PATLive, there are other different services out there, but we all, as a group, use PATLive and it's nice because they are a little bit real estate based. I think we have a group and they know us.

Steven Butala:                   They understand our group.

Jill DeWit:                            They do and they understand our calls and what we're doing. We've got some seasoned people now, so it works out great. But what's funny too is... What it is, is you send out mail, and the offers come back. You can pick up the phone yourself and weed through all the calls, either the good and the bad and the, "Hey, take me off your list calls." Or you can have someone like PATLive answer the phone, weed through those calls and then, just send you the responses. Which is a beautiful thing because it saves you so much time and energy.

Jill DeWit:                            Maybe you have a day job. This covers that for you and then, all you get at the end of the day is a list of who you want to call back. You may have six no's, one person that was really unhappy and you can see that. Then, you have four people that said, "Love your offer. How fast can we close?" And those are the ones you call back.

Jill DeWit:                            So it's really great and they'll take down some of the details too, which I appreciate. Because what you can do then is have a chance to look up the property and just look over some things and go, "All right, I remember what I offered. They liked it. There's the property." So when you call them back, you're ready to in that... Now you're only making that one phone call, you can efficiently, really close the deal on that call.

Jill DeWit:                            You could have already looked it up and said, "Hi, I just want to make sure I'm talking to Mr. and Mrs. Smith? Yep. Well, I looked it over and you accepted my offer of $1,293? Yep. We love it. Can we do it on Tuesday like you said? Absolutely. Is this the right address for you [inaudible 00:03:11] notary? Yes it is." And you can see how that goes. You could really in one call, with this service,

Difference Between a Wholesale and Retail Deal (LA 982)

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:                            I'm Jill DeWitt. Broadcasting from sunny, Southern California.

Steven Butala:                   Today Jill and I talk about the difference between wholesale and retail transactions.

Jill DeWit:                            There's a difference? Hey, you keep saying I'm crowding you. Am I okay? You want to come a little-

Steven Butala:                   No, you're fine.

Jill DeWit:                            Am I okay? All right, good.

Steven Butala:                   It's all good.

Jill DeWit:                            Okay.

Steven Butala:                   Both of our shoulders are in the frame, it's perfect.

Jill DeWit:                            Cool. Nice.

Steven Butala:                   Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free.

Jill DeWit:                            Brian asks, "I'm looking at picking up six adjacent parcels in Riverside County, California, in a developed area that has other small apartment complexes in the same block area. This is a high density zoning, as well as SFR residential, and I would like to target developers interested in putting in apartments. How would you recommend finding such potential buyers?"

Steven Butala:                   This is a great question. It's the kind of question I love answering on the show, because it's a complicated question on the face of it, and very advanced, I'd say, but the answer is so simple. The answer applies to every person who's listening to this that's ever owned a piece of real estate or aspires to own a piece of real estate. When you find specific use property like this, high density residential apartments, they're very specifically zoned, typically, or there's a range of zones, like multi-unit one to multi-unit four, that kind of thing. It's just for sake of argument.

Steven Butala:                   In that county, or in that zip code, or the adjacent zip codes, are going to be other owners that own the property that you can see in the data based on how it's zoned, or being used. I mean, and I'm talking about in less than two minutes you can find these, because you already pulled the data, you sent the mail out. These are the people who are going to buy these properties, and if they don't, 50% of all property gets sold. All property and all property types gets sold to people who live or work in the immediate one mile radius of that property. Small apartments and specialty use properties, no different.

Steven Butala:                   If you talk to anybody who owns any type of real estate, or any business for that matter, they're going to say one of two things. "Oh, this company ... if I had two of these companies, I'd be done. I love this company. I love going to work there, and it's great." Or, "I hate this apartment building. If I could sell it right now, I would, it's just not working."

Steven Butala:                   So, by sending a letter to these people, whether it's companies or [inaudible 00:02:43] owners, you're looking for the ones who say, "Man, I really want another one, or another. I'm looking for another development project, this one's really close to the one I already own." You're going to smoke those people out really quickly.

Steven Butala:                   This kind of deal is how I started in real estate back in the early '90's, before the internet and stuff. It's a very special ... in my case, it was healthcare facilities, like assisted living buildings and stuff. It's specialty use, there's only a limited number of owners in certain markets, and they're going to buy the stuff if they're happy with t...