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 K DeWit broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.

Steven Jack Butala:

Today Jill and I talk about do you make land decisions based on data or based on feelings? I think that we're both going to be surprised at each other's answer.

Jill K DeWit:

Okay.

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. Last year a ton of Land Academy members came to Jill and I needing extra help to get their blind offer campaigns in the mail. So I took a look at how we were personally sending out mail with our key employees and ultimately made those exact same people available to Land Academy members to get their mail out. We call it now concierge data and concierge data plus. A year later, hundreds of members every single month are outsourcing their entire mail effort and mail process out with this product. It's been a huge success and Jill and I have really gotten a lot of positive feedback, it's helping people get mail out and it's working out well. Check out offers2owners.com. They'll hook you up.

Jill K DeWit:

MJ wrote, "Hi, Land Academy brain trust." That's cute. "Can I hear some opinion please? I'm second guessing my next mailer location selection strategy. Previously, I have chosen areas with strong active to sold ratios, but then found myself struggling with buyers, i.e. Too small of a buyer's pool. If I go to where there is lots of sold activity, the active to sold ratios tend to worsen and I run into saturated markets with tons of listings. How do you approach this balance? Is there a guiding philosophy in this dynamic market I should consider? Thanks."

Steven Jack Butala:

This is a brilliant question. I know you're new MJ and you're going to do really well here. There's a balance and that's why very often people will say, "In the red, green, yellow tests, why do I have to apply what's red and what's green and what's yellow? Why doesn't it do it for me automatically?" To which I say, for example, a really positive days on market, which is a low, low days on market in one zip code might be just as good as a much different number of days on market that's low across the country.

So you have to take all these environments and look at them from an adjacent standpoint and choose the best ones. You're absolutely right in a market like this right now, days on market might be really, really low, but new list is sold, because inventory is accumulating, inventory levels are going up. They're not getting sold the way that they have in the past. That number might be different, but the basic concept here has never changed. Look at 4 or 5 or 8 or 10 or 12 as many zip codes, adjacent zip codes that you can and choose the best ones against each other and you will find the right place to send mail. Or in real life, what I do is just send it all.

Jill K DeWit:

Thank you.

Steven Jack Butala:

That's a brilliant question.

Jill K DeWit:

Yep.

Steven Jack Butala:

It's really, really obvious sometimes with super new people who's going to do incredibly well really quickly, and that's a real good indication that you understand this and you're making it in your own really quickly.

Jill K DeWit:

Well, you thinking it through. Some people just blindly... If you're not sure and you blindly follow our steps, you're going to be fine. That's good. But if you are thinking it through, still following our steps and then finding ways to make it better, that's the best.

Steven Jack Butala:

Well said. Today's topic, do you make land decisions based on data or feelings? This is the meat of the show. What do you do, Jill?

Jill K DeWit:

Data, you think I'm kidding?

Steven Jack Butala:

No, I don't.

Jill K DeWit:

You know what's so funny about this?