Transcript:

Steven Butala:

Steve and Jill here.

Jill DeWit:

Hello.

Steven Butala:

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

Jill DeWit:

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

Steven Butala:

Today, Jill and I talk about the types of blind offers to send and the types not to send.

Jill DeWit:

Oh, I have a list. Believe you me.

Steven Butala:

This is one of those topics that just gets a little passionate about, and I love it.

Jill DeWit:

Well, only because we've done it all. I mean, I can honestly say, we haven't been doing this... Well, you, because you're much older than me, since the '90s, and tested every possible thing. There's a reason why we got to this point. The reason why we're successful, is the reason why our community is successful, and we all have the secret, and I'm happy to share it.

Steven Butala:

Awesome.

Jill DeWit:

For $10,000. Just kidding, I want to share it right now today.

Steven Butala:

Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and if you're a Land Academy member, please join us on Discord.

Jill DeWit:

James wrote, "I'm in one of the states with a lot of rural lands and with thousands of lakes." Well, how lucky are you, James? You're bragging a little bit, and I think that's awesome.

Steven Butala:

You can brag, but those lakes are frozen, right now.

Jill DeWit:

Oh, well, there is that.

Steven Butala:

I'm from a place like that.

Jill DeWit:

Okay. "I ran the red, yellow, green test, and many of the counties look like good spots to mail. My problem is, it's hard to find any good average for the pricing, because of all the lakes. On a coastal lake are often higher priced, where a half mile to mile away are much cheaper. I was thinking I need to use in-fill lot pricing, but even on the zip code level, there's a lot of price variability. Do I have to price APN by APN? Or is there a way to price to get me in the ball park of a decent sized area?" This such a good question, because this is stuff that we talked about in the show yesterday. That's a common thing here, if you're doing an area like where we're sitting in Southern California. Ocean front and on the west side of PCH is a whole different pricing point versus one mile or even half mile or even yards away.

Steven Butala:

James, this is a question I asked myself, even today. I'm working a certain, very specific area in a specific state right now, and I looked at and studied and studied and studied pricing variances based on attribute, that's really what the issue is. And the red, green, yellow test, was designed to solve that for you. So, even in a rural area, if you take each zip code, if you're lucky enough to get the data and drop it into the red, green, yellow test, you're going to see where property is selling, and where it's not. So the theory is, property that's close to the lakes and cheap or cheaper, will sell faster. And then, so you can price that that way, so that's one way to look at it. And then if that's the case, and it almost always is, it's pure supply and demand, pricing and supply and demand go together.

Steven Butala:

Then you can extrapolate that and run the data sets that way, based on what you find from a zip code standpoint. But zip codes don't often comply with, let's say, shoreline, so what do you do? You have to pretty much run an APN scenario, and I just did it. All of this is more theory than reality. The fact is, if you stick 42 fishing lines in the water versus three, you're going to catch more fish and some of the fish that you catch are going to be small, and you're going to throw them back, because you don't want them. Some of the fish are going to be awesome, you're going to keep it. And some of the fish are going to be, you're going to shake your head and say, "This might be a record for this lake, for the biggest catch of all time,

Transcript:

Transcript:

Steven Jack Butala:

Jack and Jill here.

Jill K DeWit:

Hello.

Steven Jack Butala:

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

Jill K DeWit:

And I'm Jill Dewitt, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.

Steven Jack Butala:

Today, Jill and I talk about why sending blind land offers within a price range, backfires.

Jill K DeWit:

I have a lot to say about this.

Steven Jack Butala:

Jill said earlier, or yesterday I should say, that we own a ton of real estate all over the country at any given time, and she's never received...

Jill K DeWit:

Not one of these.

Steven Jack Butala:

Never received a range offer. What I mean by this is instead of sending an offer for, this is what we teach in Land Academy and very successfully implement, Jill and I together and have for decades. Is, "Hey, we want a buy your property that's located in this area, that we know you own for $16,832.28." We don't send an offer range like, "Well, we think your property's worth between $14,000 and $22,000 and call us back and we'll talk about it together."

Jill K DeWit:

Right.

Steven Jack Butala:

Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community, it's free. Did you know that we have a full blown operational commercial printing company called offer2owners.com? Jill and I set this company up several years ago, specifically, to mail out our blind offer campaigns and then we've ultimately started sharing it with our Land Academy members and some non-members only a couple years ago. Last month, I just checked, we mailed out about 700,000 offers that month on our member's behalf. Give us a call or go to offers2owners.com and see if it's real.

Jill K DeWit:

Cool.

Jill K DeWit:

I am waiting for it to scroll up. Okay. Erin wrote, "Until recently, I have mostly avoided no access situations and used the title company to confirm access when it is questionable. Interestingly, I had one deal where one title company wouldn't ensure access, but the other one in town would. I guess the first title company just had a claim or two for a similar situation." Kind of funny. So one of our moderators, I already have one of their answers. So I'm going to answer this. I'll read this before we answer. So Kevin, one of our moderators wrote, "I have had a title company insurer with no access, but they had a disclaimer that said they would not govern any issues resulting from not having access. Also, I'm closing on a few right now that have a legal easement, but no rotor path. I purchased these and had a surveyor go out and mark the easement so that my buyers can clearly see that they do have a legal easement.

Jill K DeWit:

I avoid those with no access and even avoid deals or accesses through the neighboring parcel on a friendly verbal arrangement, since it's that part is not usually transferable. So now I sell all parcels with agents and then I need to have at least legal access for them to be able to show it by law." So he is taking it to a step further. Oh, one more thing. This is really lengthy. "I purchased a property from a guy who buys tax liens. Somehow he gets the deed. This property had no access, so he's sued for access. Cost him some money, it took about a year. Then I came long and made a good offer. I sent my surveyor out there to locate and mark the new easement through the neighbor property. That neighbor did not answer any attempt to contact during the suit or the easement."

Steven Jack Butala:

Sure.

Jill K DeWit:

"The suit for the easement, they may be uncooperative. So I work with an agent in the area who knows the neighbor and he went out there am fair warning that the surveyor will be working on the property next week." That was very nice. "I would not have done this deal without the connection with the agent to help with the neighbor. Surveyor was reluctant to go charging in there, legal or not." I understand.

Transcript:

Steven J Butala:

Steve and Jill here.

Jill DeWit:

Hi.

Steven J Butala:

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

Jill DeWit:

Are you sure?

Steven J Butala:

Yeah.

Jill DeWit:

Okay, and I'm Jill Dewitt, broadcasting from awesome Phoenix, Arizona.

Steven J Butala:

I'm hot.

Jill DeWit:

How you doing there? What's going on, babe?

Steven J Butala:

Well, I'm hot. I'm distracted.

Jill DeWit:

Yeah.

Steven J Butala:

We are recording [crosstalk 00:00:24] right now, this moment, in the middle of a construction site [crosstalk 00:00:28] we call our house.

Jill DeWit:

Yes. Our house is literally at a job site.

Steven J Butala:

Our sort of house. We live in the living room.

Jill DeWit:

Yeah, there is that, too. All true. We're running around helping landscapers and pool people and flooring people and all that stuff, but ...

Steven J Butala:

And we're still here to do the show.

Jill DeWit:

I know.

Steven J Butala:

The show must go on.

Jill DeWit:

I'm happy to be the general contractor of our own project.

Steven J Butala:

Today, Jill and I ... Wow. And I can't talk. Today, Jill and I are talking about getting ahead of yourself in the land academy education process.

Jill DeWit:

One thing, I'm not getting ahead of myself with this project. You know what? This is a good example. I could be running around asking for things [inaudible 00:01:08] alone. No, I ask people, what's the process? For example, our wood flooring. How's this going to go? How long does that take? What's the next step? And then I wait. I put it on the calendar and I wait. So this ties into our topic.

Steven J Butala:

When I was a kid, I took a boating class. I had to take a class from coast guard to get my boating license, and I was a little. It's like with airplanes. It's not like you have to turn 16 to get your license. You can get a boating license really early on, and I think you can get certified as a pilot early on, too.

Jill DeWit:

You have to be 16 to solo.

Steven J Butala:

Okay, but I don't think that was the case a while ago, and I know it's not the case for boats. Maybe it's all changed recently. And the second I got into that class, boy, did I have a lot of questions. And I was really interested in getting out on the water that day. It was two weeks before we ever got on the water, and it was books and exams and all kinds of stuff. And I got so frustrated and ahead of myself and, by golly, that's what happens at Land Academy.

Jill DeWit:

By Golly. What am I going to do with you? Lickety split, by golly and bajillion.

Steven J Butala:

Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. If you're already a Land Academy member, join us on the discord.

Jill DeWit:

All right. So Erin wrote, Hello, I'm preparing my second first mailer. Oh, that's hilarious. I like that with a happy face. It took me second. Should I scrub out properties that are labeled low income in the opportunity zone column? That's hilarious. I'm concerned that there'll be a price cap on how much I could sell it. Is that accurate?

Steven J Butala:

This is a very, very hidden PhD level question.

Jill DeWit:

That's funny.

Steven J Butala:

What he or she is asking is what do I scrub out of my mailer when it comes to use? Property types, commercial use, industrial use, residential, NEC, which is non-classified property and on and on. What do I exclude? And the answer is nothing. In the very early parts of Land Academy, I made a big deal about use and how you should check out all kinds of stuff, specifically industrial property because you don't want to deal with any type of [crosstalk 00:03:35] EPA cleanup. Yeah, exactly. Well, times have changed. And the more letters that you get out now ... and we've grown as a land investor, just like everybody else over the years.

Jill DeWit:

We've grown in a lot of ways.

Steven J Butala:

Steven Jack Butala:

Steve and Jill here.

Jill K DeWit:

Howdy.

Steven Jack Butala:

Welcome to the Land Academy Show, Entertaining Land Investment Talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.

Jill K DeWit:

I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the Valley Of The Sun.

Steven Jack Butala:

Today Jill and I talk about how everyone I know is killing it in the land business. This topic came from-

Jill K DeWit:

A quote.

Steven Jack Butala:

A talk that Jill attended I think-

Jill K DeWit:

I was on.

Steven Jack Butala:

Clubhouse.

Jill K DeWit:

I jumped. I now and then just have some free time and I'm trolling Clubhouse. If I find a real estate-based or women in business community that sounds interesting, I'll just jump in the room. This was a real estate one and they were talking about getting financing, financing for deals. I'm like, "All right, let's hear how you guys go about it," and it was comical. That's a whole other show.

Jill K DeWit:

Anyway, I do not agree with the first hit up all your friends and family. That's not what we do. Anyway, this was a quote. I jumped in and I gave some advice on how we do it. Three people jumped in after me and said, "Hi, Jill. We're so happy to talk to you." They said, "Oh my gosh, everyone that we know that does land is killing it right now." Then, I'm going to go on in the media show here and tell you how the rest of the conversation went.

Steven Jack Butala:

Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members. I can't wait by the way.

Jill K DeWit:

Thank you.

Steven Jack Butala:

I love this kind of stuff. It's so funny to see people in social media spouting off all this stuff that they know nothing about-

Jill K DeWit:

It was good though.

Steven Jack Butala:

By one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community, it's free and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.

Jill K DeWit:

Steven wrote, "Thank you at." Do you want me to say that?

Steven Jack Butala:

No, just thank you investor.

Jill K DeWit:

Thank you.

Steven Jack Butala:

Thank you investor.

Jill K DeWit:

"Thank you other investor for working with me on my first funded deal." That's awesome. "You were very cool and collected and helpful. You really did make this happen. This is a great way to start the year. This was a double lot like an infill lot with a double close. I had assigned a property to this buyer in the past and knew what his criteria was."

Jill K DeWit:

"The deal came from my first mailer and I had written off the seller as a tire kicker, but a checked back with them every five weeks to see if they were interested. They wanted a more formal looking purchase agreement. That was all it was. So when you provided me one and told me about the availability on some site," who knows what that is?

Steven Jack Butala:

Jill, you're really interested in the site. Let me start it.

Jill K DeWit:

I'm not sure what I'm supposed to share and not share.

Steven Jack Butala:

Steven says, "Thank you, funder, for working with me on my first funded deal. You were very cool and collected and helpful. You really did make this happen for me. This is a great way to start my year. This was a double lot infill with a double close. I had assigned a property to this buyer in the past and I knew what his criteria was and that he was capable of closing."

Steven Jack Butala:

"The deal came from my first mailer and I had written off the seller as a tire kicker, but checked back with them every five weeks," which is something Joe would do, "To see if they were interested. They wanted a more formal looking purchase agreement. So thank you, funder, again for providing me one and it made them obviously feel comfortable to the point where they closed. I followed up with them."

Steven Jack Butala:

"I had to followup with them repeatedly every step of the way, signing the purchase agreement, sending it back, scheduling a notary,

Transcript:

Steven Jack Butala:

Jack and Jill, here.

Jill K DeWit:

Hello.

Steven Jack Butala:

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

Jill K DeWit:

And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun, on this Friday, on the 23rd of December, almost Christmas. Sorry. Just had to get that in there.

Steven Jack Butala:

Today is Jill Friday, as you can tell. She's going to talk about the quote we received from Career Path Five. "Screw it and do it."

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

Jill K DeWit:

Script rolling. Script rolling. Script rolling. Script rolling.

Steven Jack Butala:

We have three days left, including today, to prepay for mailers for next year.

Jill K DeWit:

True.

Steven Jack Butala:

We had a pretty deep discount and offers-

Jill K DeWit:

And concierge.

Steven Jack Butala:

Yeah. And concierge, if you want us to do your mailers for you.

Jill K DeWit:

Yep.

Steven Jack Butala:

So check it out at offers2owners.com. And call those guys, and they'll explain it to you.

Jill K DeWit:

Yep.

Patsy wrote from "Would you brag about this deal" section of Discord. Florida. 20 acres. Hunting track. Diverse property. Offering future home site and recreational use. Neighboring large wooded tracks, great privacy and provide ideal wildlife habitat and great hunting. To the north and the east, there's a 55-acre property owned by Walton County. And to the west is a privately-owned 118-acre property with a creek running through it. With a small church cemetery to the southwest, providing quiet neighbors.

A cemetery usually does. Quiet neighbors.

All around quiet and privacy is assured. This property is within 12 miles of shopping, including a Walmart, restaurants, and medical facilities in downtown blank blank city. And just about an hour away from the beaches. Mailer offer price was $88,168.65. Accepted offer price...

Is this Patty or Patsy?

Steven Jack Butala:

Patsy.

Jill K DeWit:

Patsy.

Steven Jack Butala:

She got him down at 40k.

Jill K DeWit:

Yeah. Accepted offer is $40,000.

He wants to close before the end of 2022. I think I can sell it for 110.

That's awesome. This is a "would you brag about this deal?"

Steven Jack Butala:

So this is in the, "Would you do this deal section of Discord?" And as you can imagine, there are about eight people that said, "PM me." Let's get this thing done.

Jill K DeWit:

They said, "Heck, yes."

Steven Jack Butala:

What I was saying earlier this week is, she's new. And she went out and did exactly what she was supposed to do. Got an amazing price for a piece of dirt, without having the money to do it. She didn't care and she shouldn't care.

Jill K DeWit:

No.

Steven Jack Butala:

It's kind of what Jill's topic's about today. She just did it. She just went and did it. And then, after that, seeked money.

Jill K DeWit:

Mm-hmm.

Steven Jack Butala:

And she found it.

Jill K DeWit:

This is Patsy with a hyphenated last name.

Steven Jack Butala:

Is it [inaudible 00:02:59]?

Jill K DeWit:

I think so.

I'm guessing it is. I'll go look later and confirm that.

Cool. Good question. And congrats.

Steven Jack Butala:

Today's Jill Friday. She's going to talk about "Screw it and Do it." It's a quote from Career Path Five.

Jill K DeWit:

Yeah.

Steven Jack Butala:

This is the meat of the show.

Jill K DeWit:

This was on week 10 of 10 in Career Path. I think it was Office Hours. I'm sure it was Office Hours, because how Career Path Works is, we have a guided module every week where we have a set curriculum, what we're talking about, and taking you from wherever you are to wherever you want to be, kind of thing. But outside of that, we have a session called Office Hours where you can just show up and gab with us and ask about the week before, things that are on your mind. Just anything that comes up.

And often the topic just goes in whatever directi...

Transcript:

Steven Jack Butala:

Jack and Jill here.

Jill K DeWit:

Hi.

Steven Jack Butala:

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

Jill K DeWit:

And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.

Steven Jack Butala:

Today's Jack Thursday and I'm going to talk about how money is a terrible manager.

Jill K DeWit:

Yeah, you know what? I hate working for money.

Steven Jack Butala:

Yep.

Jill K DeWit:

Money is a jerk.

Steven Jack Butala:

If you work for your money, it's the worst boss you're going to have.

Jill K DeWit:

Totally. He's really unforgiving. Notice how I've made it a he. It's not a she.

Steven Jack Butala:

Money is a he.

Jill K DeWit:

Money's a he. And he is a jerk, he's demanding, he's unforgiving. He always wants more.

Steven Jack Butala:

And he has no emotion.

Jill K DeWit:

He's never enough, no emotion.

Steven Jack Butala:

And there's no...

Jill K DeWit:

Exactly. He complains all the time.

Steven Jack Butala:

There's no explanation.

Jill K DeWit:

Exactly.

Steven Jack Butala:

There's no explaining why you were late.

Jill K DeWit:

Oh yeah, no.

Steven Jack Butala:

It's unforgiving.

Jill K DeWit:

Totally, that's right. And he always says, "You didn't give me enough. You're not doing enough."

Steven Jack Butala:

Well, you wanted that nice bracelet last week, so here we are.

Jill K DeWit:

Exactly. That's money. Man, somebody needs to fire that guy.

Steven Jack Butala:

He's going to fire you before you fire your money.

Jill K DeWit:

That's true. We need to sabotage money and get him out of there. Cool.

Steven Jack Butala:

Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on our landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and please don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel. Comment on the shows you like.

Jill K DeWit:

Okay. Martin wrote, "I am brand new to Land Academy. I have a full-time job and three little kids."

Steven Jack Butala:

Oh boy.

Jill K DeWit:

"And I want to be successful. How much time do I really need to devote to this?"

Steven Jack Butala:

First of all...

Jill K DeWit:

Go ahead

Steven Jack Butala:

Everyone has been where you are.

Jill K DeWit:

Okay, good. I wasn't sure where you're going with this.

Steven Jack Butala:

So it's not like, "Darn it, I'm too late to the party, or man, I made a bunch of mistakes. I shouldn't have had that third kid." Maybe that's true, but that's up to you.

Jill K DeWit:

That's where I thought you were going with this.

Steven Jack Butala:

So you need to really put your head into the right mindset where everyone's been in some version of this situation. Just about everyone. There's some exceptions that our world likes to make a huge example of like people born with a silver spoon in their mouth, but they have their own set of problems that I would argue are way worse than tackling what you're about to tackle.

Jill K DeWit:

That's true. So what would you tell Martin?

Steven Jack Butala:

Get organized and hopefully the mother of your kids or whoever your partner is, is on board. Boy, it's really going to make it much, much, much harder...

Jill K DeWit:

They have to be on board.

Steven Jack Butala:

...if you're not a unified front with whoever you're involved with the kids. And that's an issue that if you're not, then that's overcomeable. You can find a person that is on board.

Jill K DeWit:

Well, you can get them on board. That's my goal. You need to have, now we're taking it in a different direction.

Steven Jack Butala:

[inaudible 00:02:58] I think we should, though because I think this is important.

Jill K DeWit:

It is true. I have talked to many wives and husband and wives and said, "What do you need to know?" And I think part of it is because we're a couple, it makes it easier for other people to embrace us, other couples and women to go, "All right, Jill's there." Jill's there is going to make sure this all doesn't go sidewa...

Transcript:

Steven Jack Butala:

Jack and Jill here.

Jill K DeWit:

Hi.

Steven Jack Butala:

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

Jill K DeWit:

I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.

Steven Jack Butala:

Today, Jill and I talk about assessing your professional life at the end of 2022.

Jill K DeWit:

It sounds a little bit... It's high level. We're going to make it. Steven and I come at things differently.

Steven Jack Butala:

Yes, we do.

Jill K DeWit:

That's what I'm trying to say.

Steven Jack Butala:

I wonder how this topic's going to go today.

Jill K DeWit:

Well, here's going what's going on with me right now. I just had a little bit of a panic because I'm like, "Crap, am I getting assessed here on the air?" I don't know.

Steven Jack Butala:

Are you serious?

Jill K DeWit:

I don't know.

Steven Jack Butala:

When do I ever assess you?

Jill K DeWit:

Well, I'm just wondering what questions you're going to ask and how much you want to know because I did not prepare for this.

Steven Jack Butala:

Jill, are you happy in your professional life?

Jill K DeWit:

Yeah.

Steven Jack Butala:

Okay. That's it.

Jill K DeWit:

Oh, God. Thanks a lot. I'm like, "Should I have written an executive summary before I sat down?"

Steven Jack Butala:

Are you more or less happy with your professional performance this year, 2022 or 2021?

Jill K DeWit:

This year.

Steven Jack Butala:

Absolutely.

Jill K DeWit:

Keeps getting better.

Steven Jack Butala:

It's not church. No one's judging you.

Jill K DeWit:

Oh God, thanks. I wasn't sure.

Steven Jack Butala:

You're the only person who can say, "Yeah, I'm doing pretty well. I'm going to do a victory lap, or I got some work to do."

Jill K DeWit:

Okay. Thank you.

Steven Jack Butala:

That's it. Nobody else can do that.

Jill K DeWit:

That's fair. Good, because, again, I have notes but I don't have executive summary.

Steven Jack Butala:

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

Jill K DeWit:

Hey, can I please add a little note in here?

Steven Jack Butala:

Sure.

Jill K DeWit:

About what's going on with Land Academy?

Steven Jack Butala:

Yep.

Jill K DeWit:

It's awesome, and I want to hit this home right now because this week is big with this promotion because I'm not going to do it again. I don't know if I said it the other day, but I'm closing up Land Academy at the end of the year. That's what I don't think I got out. I'm going to hit my cap right now, and we like to keep Land Academy at a real cool small number that we can handle so we can give you the attention and the support that you need and you deserve. That's why there's a cap. Having said that, I have room right now for people to join through the end of the year.

I know I'm going to hit it. I know I'm going to hit it on or before December 31, but I'm keeping it open. G to LandAcademy.com, check it out there. You'll see a coupon code that says half off. Yep. It's half off the whole education bundle. There's four programs in that, by the way, that you're getting half off. It's awesome. Yes, you look at that and go, "This can't be right. It's a little too inexpensive." You're right. That's very true. From what you get, it's kind of weird, and that's going to change too. That's why I want you to know about it. Check it out. Thank you.

Okay, back to the question. Michael wrote, "Hi all. I wanted to introduce myself. I had to take a personal hiatus from Land Academy, but I am back. I've done a few mailers over the years, but never pulled the trigger. Looking to make some friends/partners. I have intent to send 4,000 to 5,000 mailers a month for a while and hope to be able to find some funding partners when the mail starts to come back. Question to those members that are funding deals, are you generally okay with non-disclosure states in hot markets?

Transcript:

Steven Jack Butala:

Jack and Jill here.

Jill K DeWit:

Hi.

Steven Jack Butala:

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

Jill K DeWit:

And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.

Steven Jack Butala:

Today, Jill and I talk about, should we be buying infill lots in this down market?

Jill K DeWit:

That was an interesting conversation that we had the other day. That was on the Thursday member call. I had to think about that, where it was. There's been a lot of talking in my world last couple weeks. Lot of things. It was so fun. If you're listening now, and you were on that webinar that I did last week on Thursday night, yep, did not know it was going to go that long, but I really wanted to answer everybody's questions. I just looked up and I'm like, "Whoa, what happened at the time?" But that was really fun. Anyway, I'm still a little worn out from it.

Steven Jack Butala:

I think it's natural. Well, I'm used to it. We're both used to it now because it's natural at the end of the year, and the beginning of the year, to make life decisions about where you want your life to go. And buying and selling land is, if it's on your radar, it's an expiration time.

Jill K DeWit:

Got it. Well, I was saying, yeah, there's a lot of talking, so that's why I got ... This came up on the member call. No, and one of our advanced members shared some really good in insight information about his experience working with builders.

Steven Jack Butala:

Yeah.

Jill K DeWit:

And big builders. I can't run the name of them, but it doesn't matter. But it's cool.

Steven Jack Butala:

So they're in the market and buying. That was my takeaway.

Jill K DeWit:

I have no idea.

Steven Jack Butala:

Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the Land Investors online community. It's free. But before we get into all of that, I hope by now, Jill and I have a full-blown commercial printing company called offers2owners.com. We set this up several years ago because we were frustrated with the level of service and understanding that we were getting from normal, right off the street, commercial printing companies who print catalogs and stuff. What we set up was, and is, a printing company that just sends mail, Offers 2 Owners.

Jill K DeWit:

Can I just add that they have a special going on and it's four more days.

Steven Jack Butala:

Oh yeah, it's huge. Huge special.

Jill K DeWit:

So what he's talking about, it's 11% off mail, 16% off concierge data, which is awesome. So check it out on offers, and the number 2, owners.com.

Steven Jack Butala:

A lot of people prepay. A lot of our members prepay for their mailers for next year for tax reasons. So if you feel like you're in that category, give those guys a call, they'll explain it.

Jill K DeWit:

Oh yeah.

Kay wrote, "Hi. I'm new to land acquisitions. Please correct me if I'm wrong or misunderstood. If I work backward, home value in an area is $100,000. Land retail price will be around $25,000. And we try to send offers about 50% of the retail price. So $25,000 time divided by 50% is about $12,500. So should we send an offer at $12,500 per residential lot? That right? Please advise. Thank you in advance."

Steven Jack Butala:

So again, Kay, your math is completely correct.

Jill K DeWit:

Yep.

Steven Jack Butala:

It's what I call the rule of quarters. You have a $100,000 house. A builder is usually willing to pay 20% of the value of what a new house would command in that market. 20%, let's say 20-to-25%. So $100,000, they're willing to pay 25,000, so you need to be half of that at 12, let's say. And then, so you buy for 12 and sell it to the builder for 20 or $25,000. Thank you, yes. The math is correct on that. You can't build a house for 75 grand.

Jill K DeWit:

That's what I was going to wonder if you were going to dress that. I was waiting. I'm like, "What is this going to look like?"

Transcript:

Steven Jack Butala:

Jack and Jill here.

Jill K DeWit:

Hello.

Steven Jack Butala:

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

Jill K DeWit:

And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.

Steven Jack Butala:

Today Jill and I talk about keeping up with real estate data sources in 2023. I'm going to tell a story here in a minute about explaining our business model to younger people recently and being laughed at pretty directly about how archaic they seem to think that it is. And then I think we all can learn something from it.

Jill K DeWit:

Cool.

Steven Jack Butala:

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

Jill K DeWit:

Ryan wrote, "Hi all. I'm new to Land Academy as of a few days ago. I am new to land in general, but not to SFRs. I've done one land deal within the past month which has led me into Land Academy. I've watched Land Academy 3.0, I'm currently rewatching the video on DataTree and pulling a list. One thing I've encountered that I would love some clarity on is when you pull your list, how are you ensuring they are not church owned, HOA owned, et cetera. In the videos, Steve searches through a couple of records, but he doesn't have a method of bulk scraping out these type of properties In your opinions, is this something to care about or you just pull your list, scrub out the assessed improvements, and then mail it? I hope this question makes sense and thank you for the feedback and I'm stoked to work and learn with you all." That's cool.

Steven Jack Butala:

Thank you for this question. And the question completely makes sense and it's a great one. So there's a reason I put it in this episode. So here's the deal. There are amazing improvements and ways to pull data, scrub it, and actually create a mailer and get it in the mail. If I talk about all of those in chapter four of Land Academy 3.0, a substantial number of people will get freak out and abandon the idea of sending a mailer out. So I have to teach the basics on a screen. And then this environment, which I love this question, is for us to address, "Hey, there might be a better way for you." If you're a super tech savvy person. The old way works great. Is it the fastest? Nope. Is the most accurate? I think so. But there are all kinds of ways to make it faster. That's kind of what this episode is about.

So the fastest and easiest way to scrub out people who own property, or entities that own property, in a mailer data set is to write a macro and YouTube's plastered with all kinds of those things and they are keywords. So I do address this in a pretty direct and simple manner in the program, just follow the program and you're going to do fine. If you want to write a macro to eliminate church owned properties and stuff, which I don't think you should eliminate churches at all.

Jill K DeWit:

No, I bought from churches.

Steven Jack Butala:

Right.

Jill K DeWit:

Churches are great.

Steven Jack Butala:

We all have. But there are place, like you don't want to send a letter to the United States government. So the US owns a lot of property and they end up in all of our data sets and they just need to be scrubbed out. You can write a real simple macro to do that. And that's what this episode's about is talking about making this more efficient.

Jill K DeWit:

Well, you know what I was going to say too is I bought and sold properties that are in an HOA, so I don't want those out.

Steven Jack Butala:

Yeah.

Jill K DeWit:

So you got to really take a step back and think about what you're trying to take out.

Steven Jack Butala:

Yeah, in general you don't want to make a data set smaller, but you also don't want to waste money on stamps On a mail on the mail. And I say stamps figuratively. Today's topic, keeping up with the real estate data sources for 2023. This is the meat of the show. A couple days ago,

Transcript:

Steven Jack Butala:

Jack and Jill here.

Jill K DeWit:

Hello.

Steven Jack Butala:

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

Jill K DeWit:

And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.

Steven Jack Butala:

Today's Jill Friday and she's going to talk about how to motivate title agents through the holidays.

Jill K DeWit:

And your partner.

Steven Jack Butala:

That's true. And your children, or whoever else is in your life. Holidays have always been a strange thing. It's like people don't really want to work. Everybody's taking time off. Things theoretically slow down.

Jill K DeWit:

Your employees.

Steven Jack Butala:

You have a whole special group of people. Yeah, your employees. A whole special group of people that-

Jill K DeWit:

Want to slack.

Steven Jack Butala:

Well, entrepreneurial-type people see the time to do research and want to get ready for January 1st to bust it out.

Jill K DeWit:

It's interesting. No, I think people like us, entrepreneurs, we don't even know it's the holidays. That's really what happens.

Steven Jack Butala:

That's right.

Jill K DeWit:

You're in it. Someone's like, "Sweetheart, today's Thanksgiving." "What? What are you talking about?"

Steven Jack Butala:

I've always been like that.

Jill K DeWit:

I know. That's what I'm saying. You're my example. And I know there's plenty of other people in Land Academy that are the same way that those of us are like... So that's part of the problem and why we need to talk about this because if you're like me, it's just another day. It's just another week. It's just another month. And what you do know is though, it's the end of the year, so now I might [inaudible 00:01:24] strategic for taxes. Why? Because I own my company. I'm thinking about these things. Now, the people on the other side that are working for you, they don't think about this stuff and you got to keep them on track.

Steven Jack Butala:

Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Back in the day, it was nearly... I don't want to sound like an old man here, but I really kind of am. It was nearly impossible to find land without a mailing address, like 123 Main Street. To solve this problem, Jill and I put together a database and wrote a internet interface to help you input the assessor's parcel number and the county and state where the property's located and find the property very, very quickly. We spent months sometimes trying to find property to decide if we should buy it back in the day. It's called parcelfact.com. Check it out.

Jill K DeWit:

Okay. Greg wrote, "Today, I went off to the bank and wired in the payoff amount for a home mortgage, 30 year loan paid off in eight years." Oh, that's great. "I pulled the last few thousand dollars I needed from my Land business account. Thank you everyone for your support and information to enable me to reach this goal." How great is that? Was that in the Discord success area?

Steven Jack Butala:

Yeah, it was in there today.

Jill K DeWit:

Oh, that's so good. It's like what an amazing feeling to go, "I don't have to think about this."

Steven Jack Butala:

I remember when my first mortgage was paid off.

Jill K DeWit:

That's awesome.

Steven Jack Butala:

There's a few milestones that feel just that great. Of course I sold the house, made a ton of money, and then went and got a mortgage and bought another one and then felt like crap about myself.

Jill K DeWit:

Do you know what'd be funny? You know what's interesting about this? I think it's England that you would do this. This is when they paint their doors red.

Steven Jack Butala:

So that's a worldwide thing.

Jill K DeWit:

Oh, It's a worldwide thing, okay yeah.

Steven Jack Butala:

If you have a red front door, your mortgage is paid off or you have no debt.

Jill K DeWit:

[inaudible 00:03:26] pay it off. I love that.