Transcript:

Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.

Jill DeWit: Hello. Happy Thanksgiving.

Steven Butala: That threw me for a loop on the script there.

Jill DeWit: Yeah. You're like, "Wait a minute. What's that?"

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 side of the Thanksgiving Day parade. Just kidding. We are in our usual southern ... Actually, we're in Scottsdale right now.

What 2020 Looks Like for Steven and Jill (LA 857)

Transcript:

Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.

Jill DeWit: Hello. Happy Thanksgiving.

Steven Butala: That threw me for a loop on the script there.

Jill DeWit: Yeah. You're like, "Wait a minute. What's that?"

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 side of the Thanksgiving Day parade. Just kidding. We are in our usual southern ... Actually, we're in Scottsdale right now.

Steven Butala: Yeah.

Jill DeWit: So, yay.

Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about what 2020 looks like for both of us. What's funny, when you wrote this title, I'm like, "Ah. I wonder what the future looks like." It's like a year from now.

Jill DeWit: I know. 2020. I had to think about that too. I'm like, "Oh. We've got a long time."

Steven Butala: No.

Jill DeWit: Oh, no. We don't.

Steven Butala: It's literally-

Jill DeWit: It's almost 2019.

Steven Butala: ... 13 months from now.

Jill DeWit: Exactly. That's very scary.

Steven Butala: We'll be 260 shows ahead.

Jill DeWit: Wow.

Steven Butala: That's part of the meat of the show I guess, but we will be-

Jill DeWit: That's pretty cool.

Steven Butala: ... well into show ... 1,100 shows.

Jill DeWit: Will we have a new show by then do you think?

Steven Butala: Oh, yeah. Or a show in addition to. We need a House Academy Show. That's what I think.

Jill DeWit: This is how it starts.

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. As you're listening, please drop your questions into the comments section below.

Jill DeWit: Jason R asks, "How do I best prepare for Land Academy 2.0? I've completed 10 deals exactly. I feel good about moving forward. Am I ready?" Oh. I like this.

Steven Butala: Am I ready?

Jill DeWit: Am I ready? What do you think it means, people need to be ready for 2.0, which, by the way, is coming out tomorrow.

Steven Butala: Yeah.

Jill DeWit: Yeah.

Steven Butala: You're absolutely ready if you've done 10 deals. You were probably ready after two or three deals. Here's the myth I need to dispel, because it's already started.

Jill DeWit: This is good.

Steven Butala: The myth is this. Because you make more money on these info lot deals and they're buildable lots, they're harder to do. It's the exact opposite. The deals are easier to do, because you've got title involved, and you've got a lot of resources, like InfoReports.com, so you don't make any mistakes to complete these types of deals. The same thing is true with wholesaling houses. You have even more resources available for that, because there's already a house there, so there's less chance for error, and you have a tremendous amount of data in these urban counties about days on market. You can look into a crystal ball. I want to officially dispel this myth that making more money is harder than making less money, because it's exactly the opposite. The more money you make, the easier it becomes, and the more systems you put in place. It's really easy to systematize info lots and wholesaling houses over rural, vacant land. Rural, vacant land, every deal's different. There's a lot of stuff going on, and in houses and info lots you're just checking boxes.

Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative). I was gonna say I agree. I think you're ready. You know how the deals go. You've got ten under your belt, you've got them all the way through.

Jill DeWit: So like Steven said, you understand the process, now you're gonna sit back and go, "This is awesome."

Steven Butala: Today's topic, what 2020 looks like for us. This is the meat of the show.

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 DeWitt, broadcasting from sunny Southern California.

Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about what would you do if could go back to 1998?

If We Could Go Back to 1998 (LA 856)

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 DeWitt, broadcasting from sunny Southern California.

Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about what would you do if could go back to 1998?

Jill DeWit: This is gonna be good.

Steven Butala: So I'm sitting here thinking, there's a professional piece to this and a personal piece.

Jill DeWit: I didn't-

Steven Butala: So I'm gonna ask some tough questions.

Jill DeWit: Okay. I didn't really think about the personal one, I only thought about the professional one.

Steven Butala: Me too.

Jill DeWit: I'll be on the-

Steven Butala: That's what's nice.

Jill DeWit: Totally on the fly here. So, cool?

Steven Butala: Personal stuff's more interesting though.

Jill DeWit: 'Kay.

Steven Butala: Before I get into it, let's take a question, posted by one of our members, on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and as you're listening, please drop your question into the comment section below.

Jill DeWit: Jeremy asks, "I'm having trouble figuring out what criteria to use in a county selection. In going though the modules a few times, a lot of what Steven says is somewhat nonspecific. I'm using countywise.com for my initial data. County density seems pretty straight forward. How many back tax properties is a good minimum? How many personals is a good minimum? Anyone want to share some of the criteria you used when you got started? If anyone know a member [inaudible 00:01:24] discussed in more depth, pointers would be appreciated."

Steven Butala: This is a really good question.

Jill DeWit: Yeah.

Steven Butala: Very, very good question, and I've said this before. Whoever you are, welcome to the membership group. I can tell just by the questions that you're asking right in the beginning how successful you're gonna be. This is a spot, it's one of the first bottlenecks. If you do experience bottlenecks, this is one of the first ones.

Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Steven Butala: I wish there was some type of checklist that you could go through and check, check, check, check, check, yup meets all the criteria I'm set in mail there, and there's just not. So I'd devise a three point plan. This is for rural vacant land only now, this is not for 2 point 0 info lots at all. 2 point 0 info lots there is pretty much a checklist, because they're urban areas, and you're looking for consistency, but for rural vacant land you want to find property, there's three point concept.

Steven Butala: Rural property, where the population density according to the census maps is dark green, that's the most rural, does that in and of itself mean you're going to do well if you send mail there? No. Number two: You want to make sure that there is some type, in general, this is not a hard and fast rule, in general you want to make sure that there's some type of back tax scenario happening there whether it's tax leans or back tax property, so you want to find out , as a gage, how many properties are in a back tax status situation. I'll tell you, for example, if you just looked at that in a of itself it wouldn't work because Los Angeles County has the most highest number of, and it doesn't work from a density map standpoint 'cause it's very, very urban obviously.

Steven Butala: So time of tax presence, this is just if you're starting out. And then the third test is a test of reason where you want to go out on the internet and see how many other properties are for sale. You want to do it on Land and Farm, Land Watch, Craigslist, all kinds of places. If you're shooting for 100, 200, 300 dollars an acre, real low end stuff,

Transcript:

Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.

Jill DeWit: Hello.

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

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

Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about the three stages of successful land investing, and I'm pretty sure

3 Stages of Successful Land Investing (LA 855)

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 the three stages of successful land investing, and I'm pretty sure we have a different opinion on this.

Jill DeWit: I made three sets of three stages-

Steven Butala: Really?

Jill DeWit: So I have a lot to-

Steven Butala: What?

Jill DeWit: Work from, because I took it from different angles. Like, okay, this could be three stages, this could also be three stages. I had fun with this.

Steven Butala: Well, we all can agree that it's beginning, intermediate and advanced.

Jill DeWit: And that's not what I put down.

Steven Butala: We'll just find what those mean, now I ... I mean I understand-

Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative), that's not one of the ones.

Steven Butala: Defining those things can be, I'm sure, can be different for us.

Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and as you're listening, please drop your questions into the comment section below.

Jill DeWit: Ivan asks: "There are two lots and an APN legal description, tracked 1A and tracked 1B, but the seller is only selling one of them, track 1A, which is the one I want to buy. The other one is landlocked, and about 2000 feet from the one I want. Should I just go through title and let them figure out how to write the deed and generate a new APN? Or can I write the new deed with the one track that I'm buying, just leaving the out the other track? Will a county take this?"

Jill DeWit: Why is this so familiar? Did we answer this last week?

Steven Butala: It was actually a topic that came up in a different environment, but it was not on the podcast.

Jill DeWit: Oh, okay. Cool. I'm like, this seems very familiar. Maybe I'll ... well, good I was in our online community and maybe I saw it there too.

Steven Butala: It turns out my answer's going to be the same.

Jill DeWit: Mine too.

Steven Butala: And I think it's the same answer.

Jill DeWit: It is. You want to go?

Steven Butala: When you have one APN with two properties in it, or 22 properties, or 222, we've seen it all, you are going to convey with writing the deed, or the title will convey, all of them all at the same time. You are buying and selling ... if you're into this from a career standpoint, you want to take a ... no one's done this, you are in the business of buying and selling APNs, not legal descriptions, not land, not houses, APNs. So each number, each assessor's parcel number, represents whatever the assessor says it is.

Steven Butala: So logically this guy is saying here, "Yeah, there's two properties. I can clearly see it. I'm looking at the map. They're not even connected, but it has one APN," so in the eyes of the assessor, and that matters by the way, what the assessor things, it's one property. We buy properties like this all the time. So the title is not going to fix it. You're going to have to go through a land split procedure at the county that is not going to happen overnight by any stretch, so you're going to technically buy one piece of real estate that's probably two properties.

Jill DeWit: You could beautifully write out a new deed and put the one APN and call it whatever you want, have it go past the recorder and maybe get to the assessor even, it's not going to matter. You're not going to own-

Steven Butala: Yeah, Jill's right.

Jill DeWit: It's not going to work.

Steven Butala: The tragedy, I'll tell you,

Transcript:

Steven Butala: Land Academy show. Inner city 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 one deal at a time. You know, this topic qualifies for one of those topics where it's like, "Hey, thanks Captain Obvious."

One Deal at a Time (LA 854)

Transcript:

Steven Butala: Land Academy show. Inner city 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 one deal at a time. You know, this topic qualifies for one of those topics where it's like, "Hey, thanks Captain Obvious."

Jill DeWit: Yes, it does.

Steven Butala: What do you mean you do one deal at a time, isn't that obvious? You just have to do one deal at a time. I just got done, completely done recording and producing Land Academy 2.0, you know Infolots. There's a spreadsheet that's kind of like central, it's like ground zero for buying and selling real estate. And what I asked you to do right in the beginning is calculate how much money you want to make and so, let's say you want to make two, five, eight million dollars whatever, and then break it all down backwards like, "Okay, I have to do X amount of deals" and it's scary. 'Cause like, okay, I'm 210 deals away from making two point one million dollars.

Jill DeWit: When you look at it that way, it's scary.

Steven Butala: But then if you break it all down by how many months it takes and getting organized and scaling and all that, it's not that scary. So I came up with this topic.

Jill DeWit: I love it.

Steven Butala: You just gotta talk about one deal at a time, and every single deal, you build more systems in place so that you have to do less and less work per transaction.

Jill DeWit: Love it.

Steven Butala: It all starts with one deal.

Jill DeWit: I agree, Captain Obvious. I have a lot to say but I'll save it.

Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free and as you're listening to us, please drop your questions into the comment section below, specifically in YouTube.

Jill DeWit: John S. asks, "I remember a while back there was lot of talk about Jill live as a direct competitor with Pat live. I was just wondering, what happened to that?"

Steven Butala: Me too.

Jill DeWit: Same here. "As a follow-up, I was wondering what and who you guys were using as an answering service for your mailers. I wanted to see if there were any resources I should consider. Thanks your ideas and suggestions."

Jill DeWit: Well, here's what happened to Jill Live. I spent months and I really, I went down that path. I tried to do that. I tried multiple varieties of doing it. I thought about hiring an in-house staff. You know, like putting people in a room and getting them to answer everybody's calls. And, but the software and everything that went into it got to be super expensive, and so I kind of ditched that idea. Then I tried to do it with a local company. Met with them, talked to them, tested it for a while. Then it got to be uber expensive and so at the end of the day, I had to have a conversation with myself and with Steven and say, "Who do we wanna be? Do we wanna be investors? Or do we wanna kill it here in the phone answering service?" And we decided, we are investors. We are not gonna try to kill it in the phone answering service.

Jill DeWit: So, what we did in the meantime was, "Whose doing it well?" And Pat Live is doing it well. So, we went to Pat Live and said, "What can you do for us?" And they said, "I'll tell the truth. Here are two. We can do anything up to 20%. And you can give your people five percent, you get 15, you can do 10 and 10. Whatever you want." We said, "Thank you very much. We don't want a penny. They get the full 20%."

Steven Butala: Yeah.

Jill DeWit: So that's what's going on. So we get nothing. So-

Steven Butala: Pat Live is a real estate specific call center too. That's what I like about him. It's not ... they're not answering the phone for medical doctors and stuf...

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 there's power in numbers and support. Boy, that couldn't be more true.

Power in Numbers and Support (LA 853)

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 there's power in numbers and support. Boy, that couldn't be more true. Think about caveman times. You're better in a group. Especially when there's older people teaching you how to do stuff.

Jill DeWit:                            Oh, yeah.

Steven Butala:                   Younger people with more energy. Everybody wins. It's not just a one-way street.

Jill DeWit:                            It's a circle. Yep.

Steven Butala:                   Before I get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community. It's free. As you're listening, please drop us questions into the comment section below.

Jill DeWit:                            Okay. Walden asks, "I am building an offer application and was hoping for some input. In your experience, would you offer more if market value is more certain, i.e., like more comp data, like more completed sales data, or the opposite? I usually offer between 10 to 25% for rural vacant land, but I'm thinking more about the logic in choosing 10% over 25%."

Steven Butala:                   Man, there's so many schools of thought on this. And when you mean application, I hope you don't mean a computer program that prices property for you based on the other statistics in the actual line item. I hope that's not what you're doing. For years, people have been trying to do this, me included, and that's just not how it works, because every single market's so different.

Steven Butala:                   What you choose to do in Elko, Nevada, as a pricing scheme, is diametrically different than you would do in northern Michigan or anywhere else. I just chose those two places. Pulled them out of a hat. I hope it's not a computer application. 10 to 15 to 20% is only for rural vacant land. It's not for infill lots at all. Infill lots are all tied to the sale price of the house that you're going to build on it, and what the developer's willing to pay, and getting inside the head of a developer. A home builder, I should say.

Jill DeWit:                            I'm not a fan ...

Steven Butala:                   This is Walden. I think he's relatively new.

Jill DeWit:                            I'm not a fan of going out low, too. I don't know. I mean, I know people have done and done it successfully, but I can do just fine and probably pick up more properties pricing it at 25% and selling it doubling my money, and then I'm still way under everybody else. I'm not here to prove something.

Steven Butala:                   Yeah, there is nobody in this group that is making tons and tons of money offering five and 10% of wholesale, even, or retail.

Jill DeWit:                            Right.

Steven Butala:                   It's too low.

Jill DeWit:                            It's too low. You may be missing a lot of people.

Steven Butala:                   You're missing tons of people. And will you buy property? Absolutely.

Jill DeWit:                            Sure.

Steven Butala:                   Your mailer yield was going to go through the ceiling. It's going to take you 10,000 offers to buy one house.

Jill DeWit:                            Right. Meaning,