Creating Access for Land (LA 784)

Transcript:

Steven Butala:                   Steve and Jill here.

Jill DeWit:                            Hi.

Steven Butala:                   Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. When I can talk.

Jill DeWit:                            When you can talk.

Steven Butala:                   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 creating access for your land. Access, access, access.

Creating Access for Land (LA 784)

Transcript:

Steven Butala:                   Steve and Jill here.

Jill DeWit:                            Hi.

Steven Butala:                   Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. When I can talk.

Jill DeWit:                            When you can talk.

Steven Butala:                   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 creating access for your land. Access, access, access.

Jill DeWit:                            Last time I checked-

Steven Butala:                   Can you think of other topic that causes more confusion and more discussion than access?

Jill DeWit:                            I was gonna. I was gonna, think I was going in a different direction. Can I, if I think of anything more important?

Steven Butala:                   No, I can't.

Jill DeWit:                            Access of all the four As, which we should talk about here in a moment, I think that's probably one of them. I mean, for me that might be number one.

Steven Butala:                   It is number one for me.

Jill DeWit:                            Okay, thank you.

Steven Butala:                   It's the first thing I look at on every single deal, including really serious urban properties. A lot of times there's no access to urban properties.

Jill DeWit:                            Sure, I don't care how gorgeous it is, but if you can't get there, it doesn't do you any good.

Steven Butala:                   So we'll talk about it in a second here. Before that though, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free.

Jill DeWit:                            Brandon asks, I have a larger parcel that I'm buying, and on Google earth it looks like there's really old dirt road to the property. It looks like it is overgrown-

Steven Butala:                   Oh, this is perfect.

Jill DeWit:                            And would be hard to drive on.

Steven Butala:                   Perfect for the topic.

Jill DeWit:                            I'm wondering if it would be worth the money to pay someone a few hundred bucks. I'm not sure how much it costs, to clear off the road and make it more accessible. The overgrown road does connect to a county road, so I think it would be pretty easy to do. Just not sure if it's worth the money to have someone do it before I try to sell it. Would this add value and has anyone ever done this?

Steven Butala:                   This is a great question.

Jill DeWit:                            Love it.

Steven Butala:                   And it's perfectly timed for this-

Jill DeWit:                            Episode.

Steven Butala:                   Yeah. This topic, so I've done this. I have bladed, it's called blading roads in. You know, those big huge Caterpillars with the blades on the bottom. That's what they use these for, grading. So in this case, if you have determined that, here's the problem with looking at Google Earth and seeing that there's a road there. That's really good news, that's actually passes my first test. Can you use the property?

Jill DeWit:                            Right.

Steven Butala:                   The second thing is if it's a valuable piece of property, I check the plat map to see if there's little dotted lines which are platted easements,

Tiny Houses RVs and Mobile Homes (LA 783)

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 tiny houses and RVs and mobile homes as ways to improve your property. Should you do it or shouldn't you do it? I don't know, we're gonna talk about the pros and cons and the whole point to all of this.

Tiny Houses RVs and Mobile Homes (LA 783)

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 tiny houses and RVs and mobile homes as ways to improve your property. Should you do it or shouldn't you do it? I don't know, we're gonna talk about the pros and cons and the whole point to all of this.

Jill DeWit:                            What's involved and that stuff.

Steven Butala:                   Before we take a look ... Before we take a question posted by ... (laughs)

Jill DeWit:                            What?

Steven Butala:                   Me. Before we actually 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 DeWit:                            Rod asks, "Hello, I have one seller with several properties he wants to sell. I don't have the money to buy them all. What is the process to tie them all up in an agreement? I have heard this mentioned in podcasts and webinars. I don't remember what you call this technique. I'm not talking about an option. Besides the obvious reasons, could this be done without a title company? Is there some other way to put the land into escrow? Thanks."

Steven Butala:                   Want to do it, Jill?

Jill DeWit:                            You go ahead.

Steven Butala:                   It's called a release or at least that's what I call it. It's called a lot of different things, but I call it a release, and here's what happens. Somebody's got 100 properties, but you only wanna spend money for 10 of 'em, and it's a smokin' deal, right. It's worth going through all this stuff. So you ask the escrow agent ... Yes, you ask the escrow branch that you're working with to give you the most experienced agent in the branch, you don't wanna do this with a brand new agent. And they will write up the deal as if it's all 100 properties, they'll do one title insurance policy, cheap, cheap, cheap now, and you ask them to do 10 releases.

Jill DeWit:                            Like a month, you could spread it out however you want.

Steven Butala:                   Yeah, one a month.

Jill DeWit:                            Whatever you and this seller agree on, so, and they love it.

Steven Butala:                   And now they're "tied up" and the theory is you use those first 10 deals, the cash that you generate, so do the next release and the next release, and the next release. So, in the end you only actually have to come up for the money for the first release. I've done this a lot of times, I've done this and made millions of dollars per transaction actually.

Jill DeWit:                            Right because here's what happens, as you're buying them and as you're selling 'em, now you could actually speed up the process if you want. Maybe it's a release of 10 the first month, and then it's now we've got the cash from the first 10 and by month three let's say, the 10 that you sold in month two, or somethin' like that, now I can go, I can buy 20 at a time, and then I can buy 40 at a time and just keep and doing it that way.

Steven Butala:                   Exactly.

Jill DeWit:                            You can, yeah, you can spread this out over whatever you and the seller agree on. The escrow agent works for you, you get to call the shots and tell 'em what you want.

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 splitting parcels 101 all week this week.

Splitting Parcels 101 (LA 782)

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 splitting parcels 101 all week this week. It's just how to improve your property or property improvement. Should you do it, shouldn't you do it. If you have to, splitting, for my money, is the best way to dramatically increase how much money you're making.

I'll go through the math in this episode and the process and why it's so incredibly valuable.

Jill DeWit:                            About when to do it, when not to do that.

Steven Butala:                   Yeah.

Jill DeWit:                            Okay, good.

Steven Butala:                   The whole deal.

Jill DeWit:                            Cool. I look at it this way too. What I love about splitting parcels, people always say, oh, they're not making anymore land. Hold on, hold on. You can add an APN.

Steven Butala:                   I love that. Hey, buy land. They're not making it anymore.

Jill DeWit:                            Watch me.

Steven Butala:                   Hey, get a new cliché.

Jill DeWit:                            Exactly. Watch me turn that.

Steven Butala:                   Watch Jill generate money-

Jill DeWit:                            Watch me-

Steven Butala:                   By making more land.

Jill DeWit:                            Make more land, and I'm not talking the Dutch way, like really making land, which they are doing, but it's a different way.

Steven Butala:                   Exactly.

Before we get into this though, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the Landinvestors.com online community. It's free.

Jill DeWit:                            Mike asks, hi all, what does it mean if the parcel owner listed on the county website is a title company? Do they own it or are they holding it for someone like a trust, etc? Would these be good to send an offer letter to? Thanks.

Steven Butala:                   Great question.

Jill DeWit:                            Awesome question.

Steven Butala:                   This is a Master's degrees, maybe PhD level question.

Jill DeWit:                            Exactly.

Steven Butala:                   Why the heck would a title company like First American Title, if you've, why would they own property? If you've ever processed data and sent a mailer out, this happens all the time. You always scrub through the data just to see where there's weird ownership because you don't want to waste time and money sending a letter to the city of Maricopa or-

Jill DeWit:                            The fire department or a church, well not church, yes, but fire department-

Steven Butala:                   Or hospital or any municipality or, in there is like, there is always questionable ones like what the heck is this? Should I send this or not?

Title companies are, they fall into that gray area, so here's the deal. When people buy property or they own it and they sell it on terms in the deed of trust way, which we don't recommend, they have to go or should go through a title company, and the title company creates the documents, does the whole thing. They create a deed of trust which puts a lien and a trustee on a prop...

Improve Your Land Before Selling (LA 781)

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 gorgeous, sunny southern California.

Steven Butala:                   Today Jill and I talk about improving your land before selling it. Is it a good idea? Is it a bad idea? We definitely have different ideas about this, but our goals are the same, I think.

Improve Your Land Before Selling (LA 781)

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 gorgeous, sunny southern California.

Steven Butala:                   Today Jill and I talk about improving your land before selling it. Is it a good idea? Is it a bad idea? We definitely have different ideas about this, but our goals are the same, I think.

Jill DeWit:                            Exactly.

Steven Butala:                   Get in that piece of property, get out of there, convert it to cash.

Jill DeWit:                            I agree. That's what we all want.

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:                            Travis asks, "In one of the Land Academy Podcasts, I recall Jack saying that vacant land, that for vacant land not houses, perhaps we should ignore the days on market on Zillow and similar sites, as it's not revalent/accurate. At the same time, however, when researching a new county to mail to, we are instructed to find a county road property seems to be selling rather quickly, to identify a hot market."

Steven Butala:                   That's it.

Jill DeWit:                            Right? "But if LandWatch and similar sites don't provide this data, the limited real quest pro sales data only gives a date sold, not the date the property is listed for sale. We are to look past days on market on Zillow and Trulia and data for the region is not provided on Redfin and how are we to know how long property is sitting on the market? How do we identify a region where property sells quickly? I perused the forums on this topic, but I have yet met with a satisfactory answer."

Steven Butala:                   We're gonna give you a satisfying answer.

Jill DeWit:                            Have I overlooked something? I'm able to identify counties that I qualify for based on price, but how determine how long properties take to sell. Should I just pull data and find a place for a lot of properties close in the last few months or leave it at that. Or is there a technique with more finesse? Always appreciate your help as always everyone. Cheers." That was a good long question. Well thought out.

Steven Butala:                   Travis is a long time member. Very successful. He's like third or fourth generation land subdivider in Texas, so he really knows. He came to us with a tremendous amount of knowledge, plus he's really one of the funniest people I've ever talked to. So here's the deal. What you're describing is the whole concept that caused us to launch Land Academy 2.0. Land Academy 2.0 is all about buying urban land, not rural land. Because of this fact. I have in all of my experience, not been able to locate a good place to find completed sales or true old school comparison values for rural vacant land. And here's why. It's not because the data is looked at differently or handled differently by assessors. None of that. It's all handled the same way. The further out you go, there's just no comps. There's not 25 sales in a rural county in Texas every day, like there is in an urban county.

Jill DeWit:                            I wonder too, how many transactions are off market of this property type?

Steven Butala:                   Yeah.

Jill DeWit:                            Does that make a difference to you?

Truth about Land Sales (LA 780)

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 truth about land sales. Yesterday was The Truth About Land Acquisitions, and I got a lot out of that myself actually.

Truth about Land Sales (LA 780)

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 truth about land sales. Yesterday was The Truth About Land Acquisitions, and I got a lot out of that myself actually.

Jill DeWit:                            I'm glad.

Steven Butala:                   Today Jill's gonna tell us all about land sales: the good, the bad, the ugly, and what to really, truly, honestly expect in the beginning of your career, and even all the way through.  God knows she's seen it all.

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

Jill DeWit:                            Fairy asks: "Of all the methods of sales, if you had to pick one, and that is the only one you could use to sell a property, what would that be?"

Steven Butala:                   Oh, this is such a dangerous question.

Jill DeWit:                            Of all the methods.

Steven Butala:                   I wouldn't ... First of all, well, you're gonna answer it, but I'll preface it with this: this is a bad idea.

Jill DeWit:                            What does that mean? Oh, like one avenue to sell?

Steven Butala:                   Yeah, like, let's say you pick, it's your desert meal ... desert island meal. If you could only eat one meal for the rest of your life-

Jill DeWit:                            Oh, yeah.

Steven Butala:                   On some deserted island somewhere-

Jill DeWit:                            That's true.

Steven Butala:                   What would it be? What would yours be?

Jill DeWit:                            Yeah, this ... My one meal?

Steven Butala:                   Yeah.  For the rest of your life every single ... Ah, that's your nightmare.

Jill DeWit:                            Mexican food, that's easy. I don't care. Fajitas.

Steven Butala:                   Yeah.

Jill DeWit:                            I could live off ... I could probably live off fajitas. It's got to be a healthy amount of salsa and guacamole in there, but then I would ... I'd be okay.

Steven Butala:                   That's not even too far off the top of my list, too-

Jill DeWit:                            You can live off spaghetti and meatballs.

Steven Butala:                   I could.

Jill DeWit:                            See? There you go-

Steven Butala:                   It's not good for you though-

Jill DeWit:                            It's not that crazy-

Steven Butala:                   Yeah, I liked your healthy option.

Jill DeWit:                            Thank you. Yeah, my fajitas are good.

Steven Butala:                   What would you choose? Here's a list of them: MLS. Would you just say, "Oh, I'm gonna list it on the MLS and figure it out."  Would you just use your email list-

Jill DeWit:                            Website?

Steven Butala:                   Would you just ... yeah, your website. Craigslist, [inaudible 00:02:03][crosstalk 00:02:02]-

Jill DeWit:                            Social media.

Steven Butala:                   Yeah,