Difference Between County Unincorporated and Township Land (LA 1860)

Transcript:

Steven Jack Butala:

Steve and Jill here.

Jill K DeWit:

Hello.

Steven Jack Butala:

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

Jill K DeWit:

And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the valley of fishing. I should say, not the fishing from the land of fishing. We'll look behind me. There's so much fishing going on here and I never knew what smelt was. Isn't that funny?

Steven Jack Butala:

Oh yeah.

Jill K DeWit:

Until come here I didn't. Yeah. I'm like, I thought smelt was well, something smelt. I didn't know that was a fish.

Steven Jack Butala:

People think that's how you use the word.

Jill K DeWit:

I know that's not how.

Steven Jack Butala:

It's okay.

Jill K DeWit:

No. Yeah. Like what the heck is smelt? How do you eat that? I'm like, oh, it's a fish. So anyway. Yeah. And you're loving it. I'm loving it.

Steven Jack Butala:

I've been fishing since I got here. This is Silver Lake right behind us in Northern Michigan, just outside of Traverse City. And we are in our RV in arguably one of the best spots in this RV park that we're in. And I many, many times just walked out there and through the line in. I went to a simple store, got a old Shakespeare, not old, but a new Shakespeare rod, whole thing cost 25, $30. Got some pretty good lures. And I've been pulling fish out ever since to the point where I was about to start cleaning them and eating them and I'm like, why? This is just too much work. This is more fun.

Jill K DeWit:

When I can go somewhere else and they'll serve it up for me all beautifully. And I love that. I'm probably going to have white fish tacos again for dinner tonight.

Steven Jack Butala:

Yeah.

Jill K DeWit:

Because I love them.

Steven Jack Butala:

Totally. I'm right there with you.

Jill K DeWit:

Yep.

Steven Jack Butala:

I plan on eating white fish till it's like,

Jill K DeWit:

Till I'm sick of it. Till we leave.

Steven Jack Butala:

Yeah. Exactly.

Jill K DeWit:

And then it'll work out perfect. Then we're going to eat it until we can't get it anymore. And then it's going to be fine. Cool.

Steven Jack Butala:

Today, Jill and I talk about the difference between county unincorporated land and township land. Everywhere we go Jill and I, especially here because my sister's a very successful almost local celebrity, like real estate agent. So we find property that's for sale. Whether it's a sign on the road, maybe it's on the MLS. We go look at it. We start asking questions. Sometimes you can answer them, sometimes you can't and this is a result of one of those conversations. And I'll talk all about it. 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. Last year, a ton of Land Academy members came to Jill and I needing extra help to getting their blind offer campaigns underway. Hey, it's sometimes it's complicated. It is for most people. It's complicated if your brand new.

And so we created a product called concierge data, where we take instruction for you about where you want to send out offers. We put together the entire mailer, get the retail pricing component complete for you. And then we ask you at the very end to price it. It's a very, very, very popular service that we created. And it's helping a lot of people who I think otherwise would not have gotten their mail campaign off the ground. And get their career started. So check it out at offers to owners and just type in concierge data.

Jill K DeWit:

I just was reading this question ahead a little bit. It's good. Eric wrote, so I signed up yesterday and I just binge watched, oh my goodness, Land Academy 3.0 and 2.0. This might seem like a dumb question, but how important is naming and niching your land business? I'm in Charleston and I want to niche in the surrounding counties and all along the coast.

Land Academy as a Legacy Business (LA 1859)

Transcript:

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:

And I'm Jill Dewit, broadcasting from the Apple Centric, awesome Michigan. How's that? How many apples are in a bushel? You know it's funny, your sister-in-law, your sister, my sister-in-law brought up picking up a bushel of apples the other day and I'm like, that sounds cool. I want that too, but I don't know if I can fit it here. How many apples are in a bushel? Is that like one big basket?

Steven Jack Butala:

I'm just as much now from the west as you are.

Jill K DeWit:

Have you ever had a bushel of apples?

Steven Jack Butala:

I don't think you should buy a bushel of apples unless you're going to make moonshine.

Jill K DeWit:

Or pie.

Steven Jack Butala:

Or what else?

Jill K DeWit:

Pie. Hello.

Steven Jack Butala:

Moonshine because it... Yes.

Jill K DeWit:

Apple sauce?

Steven Jack Butala:

The answer's yes.

Jill K DeWit:

Maybe, oh, I'm going to get some apple cherry fill in the blank. Wouldn't that be delicious?

Steven Jack Butala:

It's big! Bushel of apples is big.

Jill K DeWit:

I think it's like a big bucket of apples. I know you guys are all laughing at us right now.

Steven Jack Butala:

It's special. It's a bushel, like a wooden woven...

Jill K DeWit:

That's what I thought. Okay.

Steven Jack Butala:

Bigger than a bucket.

Jill K DeWit:

That's going to be cool. I love it here. Thank you Michigan. You guys know how to...

Steven Jack Butala:

Thank you Northern Michigan.

Jill K DeWit:

Yes. Northern Michigan, I love your Fall weather. The leaves are starting to turn. We couldn't have picked a better time to be here. We're having a ball.

Steven Jack Butala:

Today Jill and I talk about Land Academy as a legacy business.

Jill K DeWit:

Yes.

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. And I'd like to let you know, and hopefully you already know, that Jill and I have a full-blown commercial printing company that goes along with Land Academy, called offers2owners. Offers and number two owners. It was born out of our frustration from using other people's printing companies to send out offers. They just didn't get it. They didn't understand mail merges and a bunch of other stuff. Go to offers2owners.com. I know for sure we have a promo going when this airs, until the end of the month. So you get 10% off.

Jill K DeWit:

Sweet. I think it's like MAIL10. It's on the website. You'll find it.

Steven Jack Butala:

Yeah. The promo code I think is MAIL10. Just ask them. They'll tell you.

Jill K DeWit:

Mike wrote: "Hey, regarding easements, I have a 35 acre track and a contract in East Texas, with a quarter mile easement to it. The easement has never been used and is directly across three neighboring wooded properties. The pricing is great, but the easement would take serious money to turn it into real physical access. Has anyone gone through with deals like this? [inaudible 00:02:40] with access around turning $80,000, whereas I'm thinking I could sell now for around $180,000."

Steven Jack Butala:

So Mike you're in a great situation and I'll directly answer your question and then I'll take a couple steps back. Hell yes, we've done deals like this, and we do deals like this. An easement is a right to cross somebody else's property to get to yours. Easements are all over the place. They're super prevalent. Chances are you cross over all kinds of properties to get to your own and don't even know it all the time. So now this is very common where luckily you're in a great situation. That's why we say access, which is one of the six A's in Land Academy. Access is when you go through your phase one due diligence, you want to check the six A's and I'm not going to go through them no...

In-Person vs Online Trolling for Counties to send blind offers to Buy Land (LA 1858)

Transcript:

Steven Jack Butala:

Steve 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 cherry capital of the world.

I have to say, I love it. I love cherries. I love cherries so much that over my shoulder here, let me just show you. I even picked up some cherry flavored whiskey from the Grand Traverse Distillery, and boy is it delicious. We are actually coming to you from Traverse City, Michigan right now.

Steven Jack Butala:

Yeah, if you don't already know from last week we've been on the road for at least two weeks, maybe a little bit more. Our destination-

Jill K DeWit:

Shucks, three tomorrow.

Steven Jack Butala:

Our destination was our niece's wedding here in Traverse City. We've got that behind us and apparently everybody else does too, because you know how weddings are, although we did have a blast and we're going to continue traveling, buying and selling, or taking a look at real estate. Jill just signed a deal today. We had a notary come over.

Jill K DeWit:

Here to the rig.

Steven Jack Butala:

We're effectively, seriously full-time testing doing this from the road and it's working out great.

Today, Jill and I talk about in-person versus online trolling for counties to figure out where to send blind offers to send mail.

The entire time that we're out here, I'm like, "Wow, this is a fantastic county or zip code, potentially, to check it out." Make sure it passes all the red, green, yellow tests to see if we should send land here, so we'll talk about that in just a few minutes here.

Before we get into it though, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and I hope you know that Jill and I instruct a handful of people every quarter on a 10 week session called Career Path. I think the next one is starting in October.

Jill K DeWit:

October 12th, it's coming up fast. If you're interested, I still do have slots. Go to landacademy.com/careerpath, and read all about it and then send my team questions if you have them at [email protected], and we will fill you in.

Kevin wrote, "Hello. I'm not sure about the concept of title insurance."

Steven Jack Butala:

Boy, you're not alone.

Jill K DeWit:

What did you say?

Oh, I didn't know. I thought you said, "Oy." I'm like where did oy come from?

Steven Jack Butala:

No, Kevin, you're not alone. Jill's going to explain.

Jill K DeWit:

Boy, you're not alone, okay.

Am I left or right? I'm going to have to find out right now. Am I left or right? I'm left. Sorry. Okay, cool.

Number one, when buying properties, should you always get title insurance and why? Number two, when selling properties, why would some buyers not want title insurance? You want to go first?

Steven Jack Butala:

Yeah, I'll go first and try to make it simple. Title insurance ensures theoretically any errors in the chain of title, and the chain of title is quite simply all the chain of people that have owned it since it was homesteaded, let's say in the 1800s, and so maybe 10 people have owned it since its inception, maybe one or two people have owned it because it's stayed in the family or it's stayed in some type of trust. That title insurance is supposed to ensure that chain of title.

To directly answer your question, should you always get it? No, I don't think so. When should you not? The vast majority of time you should get it. When you should not get it is when you're buying a property for $500 or a thousand dollars that's really in the desert. You're going to go sell it on eBay or online or really just sell it for a thousand dollars more to somebody who's going to kind of just own it, maybe not use it, just say they own a piece of California, for example. The cost of getting title insurance and going ...

Jill Friday - Pricing Like a Seven-Year-Old (LA 1856)

Transcript:

Steven Jack Butala:

Steve and Jill here.

Jill DeWit:

Hello.

Steven Jack Butala:

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

Jill DeWit:

And I am Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the loyal sports fans. We have the Brewers, we have the Packers, and we have the Bucks. You think I'm kidding?

Steven Jack Butala:

No, we're not kidding.

Jill DeWit:

We have, in the days that we have been here, seen some amazing, awesome, loyal, crazy fans, in a good way crazy.

Steven Jack Butala:

And some real estate too.

Jill DeWit:

Oh yeah, that too.

Steven Jack Butala:

Some great real estate.

Jill DeWit:

Do you think they picked the green because everything else is so green?

Steven Jack Butala:

Yeah.

Jill DeWit:

Okay.

Steven Jack Butala:

I do.

Jill DeWit:

Okay.

Steven Jack Butala:

Jill's from Southern California where everything's brown.

Jill DeWit:

Yeah.

Steven Jack Butala:

So she's getting a good taste of Fall green and some colors changing.

Jill DeWit:

These are what trees are supposed to look like.

Steven Jack Butala:

Yeah. This is what nature looks like Jill.

Jill DeWit:

I didn't know that.

Steven Jack Butala:

Not in a desert.

Jill DeWit:

Sorry. That painted wall with the cow on it, isn't that the same thing?

Steven Jack Butala:

Today's still Friday. She's going to talk about pricing like a seven year old.

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 I want to tell you about a time back in the day when it was impossible to find land that didn't have a post office address, like 123 Main Street. People don't assign properties an address until they want to do something with them. So all you have is an assessor's parcel number and a state and the county that it's in. Well, it was very hard to find property. We solved it. We wrote, we commissioned parcelfact.com. So where you can just type in the state, the county, the APN, right when you're on the phone with the seller and find out a lot about the property. Enough to know anyway, really quickly whether or not you want the deal to continue or stop right there.

Jill DeWit:

Exactly.

Steven Jack Butala:

Check it out. parcelfact.com. We're proud of it.

Jill DeWit:

Cool. All right, back to the question.

Mark wrote, "My partner and I are looking at mailer pricing. We are using concierge data to scrub and send the mailer. We're using many counties next to each other to get enough properties to do the mailer. The prices per acre very considerably on the different counties. Any thoughts on how to price?"

Steven Jack Butala:

Absolutely. At the end of concierge data, you'll get the entire mailer file back in Excel. Just like we teach, it's nothing out of the ordinary at all. Just like we teach in chapters three and four of the of Land Academy 3.0. And you have to assign a pricing scenario, usually a percentage of resale, 25%, 30% or whatever number you choose. And it can vary widely from county to county, state to state and certainly zip code to zip code.

So, what we do is we enable a concept called testing for reason, which is not my concept at all, it's actually an accounting concept where you test for reasons. So what we do, just like on the Thursday call, you have to ask yourself this question, "If this mailer came back priced just like this, would I buy it?" That's testing for reason. And if so, at 25%, if you're saying, "Heck yes, I would absolutely buy it." At 30%, "Yeah I still would buy it." At 40%, "I'm not so sure." Then maybe 30%, so I should price the mailer. And I go over this in great detail all the time on a Thursday, we have a weekly Thursday webinar call where everybody in the whole group gets together, throws a bunch of deals at Jill and I and we say, "Yeah, you should absolutely do this deal," or "Well wait a minute."

Jill DeWit:

And here's why,

Jack Thursday - All the Decisions You Make Add Up (LA 1855)

Transcript:

Steven Jack Butala:

Steve and Jill here.

Jill DeWit:

Hello.

Steven Jack 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 valley of the cheese curds. I first-

Steven Jack Butala:

Burned Wisconsin.

Jill DeWit:

I first learned about cheese curds in Seattle. Now why Seattle has good cheese curds? I don't know, maybe a lot of people from cheese areas like Wisconsin have relocated to Seattle. If you know The 5 Point Cafe, that's the first time I experienced them. And then I have to say here in Wisconsin, now I found some even better cheese curds. So sorry, Seattle. They rock here.

Steven Jack Butala:

Maybe it's because the weather's the same.

Jill DeWit:

That's it. Wisconsin people can move to Seattle because they can handle it. That actually makes sense.

Steven Jack Butala:

This is a personal note. I don't know why you need to deep fried cheese. It's already good enough.

Jill DeWit:

It's really good. I know.

Steven Jack Butala:

It really kind of wrecks the taste.

Jill DeWit:

I know, but you know what? And then it's breaded and there's maybe beer in there a little bit? I don't know. There's just-

Steven Jack Butala:

They're not bad.

Jill DeWit:

They're super good. And you know what's great? When you get good ones, you know they're good ones. They're not all tater tot shaped. You know they're real. And so thank you. I love them.

Steven Jack Butala:

Today's topic, all the decisions you make, add up. 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. Don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. It actually helps us create content that's similar to what you like.

Jill DeWit:

Cool. Will wrote, "Has anyone funded a deal as a JV? Anyone that has..." Excuse me. "... funded a deal as a joint venture, were you listed on the deed? And is anyone willing to share a sample or template of the agreement you used?" I will.

Steven Jack Butala:

It sounds out too well.

Jill DeWit:

Yeah. It's on landfunding.com. And it's on landinvestors.com. So if you want to go and see my sweet little EC two page agreement... And that's just a starting place. That's kind of what we use. I mean, it really is what we use. But if you want to change it up like, "Can we do this? Can we do that? Can I change this? Can I change that? I'm going to put in some money and then I'm going to do this. And then you put in money, you do that. And here's the percentages now because of this." It's all negotiable.

Steven Jack Butala:

A contract is an agreement between two people and the content of that agreement and the provisions and all of that stuff is what you both decide on and sign and date. That's it. If you've ever taken a law class or basic law class, they'll teach you that. Or if you've ever spoken with a good attorney, usually with the drink in hand they'll tell you that. Why-

Jill DeWit:

Is that what makes him a good attorney?

Steven Jack Butala:

Yes. In my mind.

Jill DeWit:

Okay.

Steven Jack Butala:

What gets confusing about this, especially in real estate is because we are so brainwashed by the National Association of Realtors that... And the state departments of real estate where we are, whatever state you're doing deals in. And real estate agents have no idea. They just do stuff that the person in the cubicle that sits next to them does-

Jill DeWit:

Told them to do.

Steven Jack Butala:

... or their broker. So you end up that way with a two inch thick document that allows you, air quotes, to buy a piece of real estate. And none of that's necessary. And so contracts for joint ventures... People who do joint ventures like us are a little bit more intelligent about it. And so we know that a one or two page contract that spells out what's going to...

Jack's Career Path Alumni Advice (LA 1854)

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 Valley of the Beer.

Steven Butala:

Oh yeah. Milwaukee's close.

Jill DeWit:

Yeah.

Steven Butala:

Didn't think about that.

Jill DeWit:

Oh, exactly.

Steven Butala:

We're going to test that tonight.

Jill DeWit:

Oh yeah, we had something night. What was the Amber? The Shocks?

Steven Butala:

Yeah. What was that?

Jill DeWit:

I can't remember the name of that Amber Beer, but it was delicious. There's a... I'm going to cycle through a few of them tonight too.

Steven Butala:

Yeah,

Jill DeWit:

I'm going to get to know.

Steven Butala:

We'll give you a report.

Jill DeWit:

The good. All I keep hearing is good Wisconsin Beer. I know about the other good stuff you have.

Steven Butala:

Yeah.

Jill DeWit:

So cool.

Steven Butala:

Today Jill and I talk about, well, I'm going to talk about Jack's career path alumni advice, because I was asked to.

Jill DeWit:

Oh, by whom?

Steven Butala:

By somebody. Well, on the first Tuesday of every month.

Jill DeWit:

Oh.

Steven Butala:

We have a career path alumni.

Jill DeWit:

Oh yeah.

Steven Butala:

It's somebody this time asking-

Jill DeWit:

The call.

Steven Butala:

... Hey, what's the advice you'd give us?

Jill DeWit:

What's your top thing? And that was good and I'm glad you're bringing that up. So...

Steven Butala:

Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the online [email protected]. It's free. And I want to tell you about Concierge Data. Last year, several people came to us and said, "We don't like doing mailers. We just want to be on the phone and do deals. We're deal makers help us." So we developed a product based on how we send our own mail out called Concierge Data. If you go to offers to owners.com, that's our mailing company and ask about career, about Concierge Data, they will tell you exactly how we will do your mailer for you and take it right to the bitter end with the exception of pricing it. We'll do the whole thing for you. It works. Tons and tons of people use it. It got so overused a couple months ago, we had to shut it down, but it's back.

Jill DeWit:

Sure.

Steven Butala:

We had to restaff it and we hired a bunch of people and it's working out great now.

Jill DeWit:

Yep. It got bogged down. We fixed it. All right. Aaron wrote. Okay, equity planner type question. Maybe Jack has an idea about this. How many properties would you need to have on the market at any given time to have a very high chance of closing that month? I've reached out many of you, and of course everyone will feel differently based on what areas they target, et cetera. But what do you think? Do I need 10 properties on the market at that time to be confident? You'll see some income in a month. Maybe you feel like you need 20 or just five. Any thoughts?

Steven Butala:

So this is a sales funnel question and the only way that you can ever quantify a number like this two days ago we did. This is all subjective. Some people need to have 40 properties in the pipeline to feel great. Some people need 10. Some people don't think about it and they still do a lot of deals. So it becomes a sales funnel scenario at the top of the funnel. Our is the largest number. You send out 10,000 thousand mailers, you're going to get 90, a hundred, 200 phone calls back. You're going to get 10, 20, 30 viable transactions. And depending on who you are, you're going to choose from those transactions how many deals to do. And I can tell you, if you do the exact same thing over and over and over again, you're going to get a different result. It's just how it is. So this is very, very, very subjective and I can't give a number.

I can tell you what I think and I would love for you to tell us what you ...

Learning How to Run a Business (LA 1853)

Transcript:

Steven Jack Butala:

Steven and Jill here.

Jill DeWit:

Hello.

Steven Jack 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 valley of the cheese.

Steven Jack Butala:

We're in Wisconsin today.

Jill DeWit:

Yes we are. You know what? And I'm looking for that chocolate cheese. I've had it. I know of it. I don't know where to find it but I'm on a mission.

Steven Jack Butala:

If anybody knows where to get the chocolate cheese, we'll be here for a while. Please let us know or staff know or put it in there.

Jill DeWit:

Yeah.

Steven Jack Butala:

YouTube or anyway, you can get to us.

Jill DeWit:

Yeah. Please tell me the home of the chocolate cheese. Because it's so good.

Steven Jack Butala:

Today Jill and I are going to talk about learning how to run a business. As I said yesterday, an integral part of what we do here. It takes up at least 50% of the time of what we talk about during career path. From people who have been running businesses their entire professional life. And people who are brand new. I always learn something new and make those changes based on what goes on in career path. So there's a lot of career path talk right now because we're starting to back up. The next session is in October and we just had the career path alumni call, which we have once every-

Jill DeWit:

Month.

Steven Jack Butala:

Once every month. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the land investors.com online community. It's free. And I hope you know by now we have a full blown printing company to send your offers to owners.com. It's called offers to owners. The number two, we send out between 500,008 or 900,000 mailers a month on behalf of members and non land academy members.

Jill DeWit:

And ourselves.

Steven Jack Butala:

Yeah. And they do our mail.

Jill DeWit:

Yeah.

Steven Jack Butala:

Completely born out of our frustration, Jill and I of having to deal with commercial printing companies that didn't understand mail urges or what we're doing or how we're doing this.

Jill DeWit:

Our urgency, or why we're doing it.

Steven Jack Butala:

Trying to sell us color printing. When we know we don't need it.

Jill DeWit:

Stuff like that.

Steven Jack Butala:

Things like that.

Jill DeWit:

Exactly. Matt wrote, “Hello, all I'm closing on my first piece of land and selling it retail value. Looking for advice on the best way to go about selling it. Should I get a real estate agent? Is there an inspection process I should go through before buying it? Soil test. See if something's available? Where is the best place to list it on the MLS?” Is that more of the question there? Okay, “So I'm buying it for $7,000 and I think it's going to retail between 25 and $30,000. I often use flat fee listing companies when selling houses because I haven't sold land yet. So I was considering an agent as I'm not exactly sure what information I need to market it appropriately.” You want me to go first?

Steven Jack Butala:

Sure.

Jill DeWit:

Okay. So yeah, if you are not sure and you've not experienced with this then I think getting an agent is stellar.

Steven Jack Butala:

Me too.

Jill DeWit:

You can do flat rate MLS postings, just like you did in the past. There's companies like... Can't think of the one that we used to use out there. But now I use Broker Direct, MLS.com. Because they cover all over the country and they're a great service to help you put it up there. So the great thing about those companies, if you do flat rate listing service, you're going through a title or going through a real estate agent, I should say, but they're not taking a commission. You're just paying them a fee to use them to get on the MLS. They're going to send you the forms you fill them out. They're going to say how many pictures you want? What order you want?

Career Path Alumni Call Topic: Mailer Yield is Subjective (LA 1852)

Transcript:

Speaker 1:

Steven Jill here.

Speaker 2:

Hello.

Speaker 1:

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

Speaker 2:

And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Rain. If you're watching this and you are looking over my shoulder like, "I see a lot of green." Yeah, that's a lot of green. And it's wet green. We are literally sitting... As you can see, it's not as glamorous. I may or may not be in an RV dinette. Yes, that's exactly where I'm sitting. Highly encourage you to go on YouTube and you'll get a kick out of this. And, "Jill, why is your hair frizzy?" Oh, because it's big hair day here in the Valley of the Rain. It's a-

Speaker 1:

Our final child is officially in college, and the same week we left, Jill and I left in our RV and are driving across the country. We're in Madison, Wisconsin today. We were in Nebraska for the last couple of days before that, in Colorado for an entire week. Tomorrow will be in Michigan and we've got a wedding to go to in Northern Michigan. And then, who knows?

Speaker 2:

I got to tell you, this has been a blast. We've talked about this a lot. If you worry about, is there enough land out there? Take a drive across the country just once. I don't care where you go, what state you cross, just get out of your little bubble and drive around a little bit. You're going to go, "Oh yeah. There's a whole lot of land out here." There's also a whole lot of corn out here. We've found all the corn.

Speaker 1:

And beans.

Speaker 2:

And beans.

Speaker 1:

And-

Speaker 2:

Soybeans. Yup.

Speaker 1:

We obviously spent a couple of days in the heartland. Nicest people you ever want to meet.

Speaker 2:

Oh, we're having so much fun.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely a blast. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

I find myself saying things like, "I had no idea Iowa was so cool", and "I had no idea that..." Yes, we did watch the Green Bay Packers and the Minnesota Vikings game. This is what's so cool, we got to see Iowa and Iowa State play, in Iowa, in a bar. And then the very next day, that was on a Saturday night, and the next day on Sunday night, we watched in Wisconsin, at Green Bay-

Speaker 1:

In Madison, Wisconsin.

Speaker 2:

In Madison Wisconsin.

Speaker 1:

Close to Green Bay.

Speaker 2:

Here. Yeah, we watched the game, the Green Bay and the Vikings game. Not going to talk about how that all went.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. We're the wrong

Speaker 2:

Those who live here where we're sitting, we won't bring that up. But anyway, it was fun and cool to say that I'm here and I get to be here with everybody watching I'm going to have such a blast.

Speaker 1:

The point is, we're in an RV doing our job's pretty effectively.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

All the land academy roles we have, and buying and selling land. So if we can do it, you can do it.

Speaker 2:

You can do anything. You really can.

Speaker 1:

If we only had to buy and sell land, we would work like half a day a week.

Speaker 2:

Once a week. That's it. Four hours, that's all I need

Speaker 1:

Today. Jill and I talk about career path alumni topic: how mailer yield is subjective the first Tuesday of every month. Everybody who has been through our career path program, and I think Jill's got another one start in October, we all get together and kind of have a mastermind group and this topic came up, and it was so... it hit me so square in the face in a good way that I want to talk about it today, because I think it's really going to help everybody.

Speaker 2:

Thank you.

Speaker 1:

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

Speaker 2:

And can I say about this? Can I give this little-

Speaker 1:

Sure. Oh sure. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

So before you launch into Career Path, let me talk about career path for just a second. We are T minus 30 days.

Jill Friday - How to Talk to a Seller (ReAir LA 1682)

Transcript:

Steven Jack Butala:

Steve and Jill here.

Jill K DeWit:

Happy Friday.

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 ... Well, it's Jill Friday. She's going to talk about how to talk to a seller. Sounds trite and silly, especially to a data person like me, because people like me ... How to talk to a seller? This is how you talk to your seller.

Steven Jack Butala:

"Hello."

Jill K DeWit:

"What do you got?"

Steven Jack Butala:

"I'd like to sell ... Yes. I got your letter, and wondering if it's legit. Yeah. Come on. You're talking too slow. Let's go."

Jill K DeWit:

"Hurry it up."

Steven Jack Butala:

That's not how you talk to sellers.

Jill K DeWit:

"I sent out 3,000 offers today. Hurry up, ma'am. Hurry it up. Come on, lady. Get to the point."

Steven Jack Butala:

"You want to sell or not? Going to the bar. I'm on my way to the bar. Want to sell or not?"

Jill K DeWit:

"Just sign it and send it in, would you?"

Steven Jack Butala:

That's not how you do it.

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. What's so funny?

Jill K DeWit:

It's just really funny. There's a reason why we don't let you talk on the phone. It's totally true.

Jill K DeWit:

Wait, wait. Truth time. Our phone ring in our office, back when we had an office, and I get excited. I'm like, "Let me answer." Steven's like, "Get me away. Is it still ringing? Why am I hearing ringing?"

Steven Jack Butala:

That's my exit.

Jill K DeWit:

Steven's like, "See ya."

Steven Jack Butala:

You've clearly forgotten to subscribe to the Land Academy YouTube channel, but please do so now. Comment on the shows you like.

Jill K DeWit:

Right. You would also sneak over and go ... Close my office door. Here they go again.

Steven Jack Butala:

I have 30 minutes of peace. Jill's talking to a seller.

Jill K DeWit:

That's funny.

Jill K DeWit:

All right. [inaudible 00:01:47] I was sharing yield data with another member here. I can't remember who. We figured out that his yield was so far off because he was using an employee to handle the incoming calls.

Steven Jack Butala:

Ding, ding.

Jill K DeWit:

I'm set up differently from him in a lot of ways, but I still worry that handing off my least favorite part of this could ruin it.

Steven Jack Butala:

Yep.

Jill K DeWit:

Jack and Jill talk a lot about the benefits of doing this as a partnership, but I'm not looking to give away half of the pie.

Steven Jack Butala:

I did.

Jill K DeWit:

I would only consider having the Jill work done by a paid employee or a VA. That's okay too.

Steven Jack Butala:

This is all you.

Jill K DeWit:

Oh.

Steven Jack Butala:

Honestly, I got pure luck with Jill.

Jill K DeWit:

Well, we didn't have to make this a partnership. You chose to do that. There's probably people ... There's lots of people out there that would ... The way it worked out, yes, we are partners in every way you can imagine. "Mommy, what does Miss Jill mean by that?"

Steven Jack Butala:

"Mommy, I want a partner."

Jill K DeWit:

"Can I have one like Miss Jill?" Anyway. Oh no.

Steven Jack Butala:

The kids are in the back seat. Jill's imitating them. She doesn't talk like that at random.

Jill K DeWit:

Could you imagine? No. That's true. All right.

Jill K DeWit:

I understand. Yeah. I would not go into this with that intent myself. If I didn't know you ... Let's back up. I'm this person. I'm not that good on the phone. I need someone that's good on the phone. Or I'm doing it, and I'm okay on the phone, but I could be better on the phone, and it's something I don't like to do. I would be searching and finding someone.

Steven Jack Butala:

So would I.

Jill K DeWit:

Jack Thursday - Land Deal Flow Machine Consistency (ReAir LA 1686)

Transcript:

Steven Jack :

Steven Jill here.

Jill K DeWit:

Hi.

Steven Jack :

Welcome to the land academy show entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven, Jack [inaudible 00:00:08]

Jill K DeWit:

And I am Jill DeWitt and we are broadcasting from the valley of the sun.

Steven Jack :

Today's Jack Thursday. And I'm going to talk about land deal flow, machine consistency. This whole episode is about one basic concept and I'll phrase it as a question. Is it better to buy [crosstalk 00:00:28].

Jill K DeWit:

Sorry.

Steven Jack :

Better to buy a piece of real estate and decide what to do with it every single time, or is it better to buy the same type of real estate over and over and over again and do exact same thing? The same process, the same people are involved over and over and over again. I bet you can guess which one I think is better. 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 don't forget to subscribe on the land academy YouTube and comment on the shows you like.

Jill K DeWit:

Steven wrote. "Hey guys, I am currently scraping data from Zillow for my next mailer, and I noticed that in Zillow, many of the listings don't show the acreage anymore. You have to click in the listing to find out. So because of that, when I scrape the acreage is not spit out, I need manually go into each listing to find out. Does anybody know of a workaround when scraping?"

Steven Jack :

There's two. And inconsistent data in Zillow is fairly common. And here's why. Some of the places in the country Zillow collects data from the MLS. Some of the places they have to be manually input by whoever's listing the property. There's two types of people that list the property, real estate agents, who don't usually don't know their ass from their elbow, or people like us, but it's mostly the ass from the elbow kind. And scraping data from Zillow can go great sometimes because sometimes they implement anti scraping software. Sometimes they don't. So it very much varies from area to area. Don't get discouraged, the sure fire away to fix this is to get a virtual assistant overseas, to manually input some of that data. It is not expensive at all. Usually wait if you order it, you'll get it back overnight because they're working, their day is our night. I've done it both ways for years, years and years, we manually order data mining from the Philippines in our case. And now we scrape. But the truth is if I can't get good data, when I scraped to price and mailer, I moved to a different area to send mail.

Jill K DeWit:

Peaches and cream. What's, peaches and rainbows [crosstalk 00:02:57].

Steven Jack :

This show it's been on since 2015, every day.

Jill K DeWit:

Yep. Yeah. You'd think I would not be shocked.

Steven Jack :

Even real estate agents have reached out to me. And said I don't like your attitude. I don't think your description of the average real estate agent is accurate. Zero, zero.

Jill K DeWit:

Okay. [crosstalk 00:03:20]. Because they're not listening to this. Because they know.

Steven Jack :

Yeah.

Jill K DeWit:

All right.

Steven Jack :

Today's Jack Thursday, by the way. So I get to say what I want.

Jill K DeWit:

Yep.

Steven Jack :

I'm going to talk about land deal, flow machine consistency. This is why you're listening. Jill and I have struggled with this. So for years and years and years, I bought and sold real estate through one venue, eBay for years, 10,000 plus deals. And then around 2011, Jill and I joined forces and we did it a little bit differently and I have to say, we make a lot more money together than we did separately, but it was a totally a different type of company. We would buy property the conventional way, the way we buy property now. Sending out mailers a lot of times back then I went to tax sales, but we would buy it the same way every single time, process it,