Public Records and Your Next Land Deal (LA 1590)

Transcript:

Steven J Butala:

Steve and Jill here.

Jill DeWit:

Hello.

Steven J 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 sun.

Steven J Butala:

Today, Jill and I talk about public records and your next land deal. So Jill, I had described it yesterday at the end of the show, but I'll describe it again. Jill and I are famous for driving around wherever we go. Not intentionally, but every single time we get in a car, I'm usually sitting shotgun, calling off real estate values around town or wherever we happen to be. And as I'm pulling these up, saying this property is for sale for $4 million or $2 million, Jill's first question is, what did they pay for it and when? And it's usually like, well, they bought it five years ago for a lot less than they're selling it for now. And Jill, I realized recently, usually on a Thursday call, this is important for her for some reason, when she makes a decision about negotiating when we go to buy the property.

Jill DeWit:

And value. It helps me determine the value, like, is it going up? How drastically is it going up? What do they think's going on? That kind of a thing.

Steven J Butala:

So the question is, how lucky are we that we have all this public record information that we can make these decisions? Well, this show is not so much about the fact that we have it because we all know that it's out there. How much does it matter when we're sending out these offer campaigns? Do people look at this stuff? And the answer is hell no, because they're not in the real estate business like we are. But we'll get into that in a second here. 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 please to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you liked.

Jill DeWit:

Shannon wrote, "How do you handle the public record of what you purchased the land for versus how much you're listing it? We are set to close on our first five acres, and I'm wondering how people will view it when they see what we bought it for versus what we're asking. Any input is appreciated. Just wondering what has been your experience in this type of scenario. Thanks in advance." This I know ties into all of this. I'm going to say most people don't look and they don't know.

Steven J Butala:

The truth is, and this is the question that was the inspiration for this entire-

Jill DeWit:

Very rare.

Steven J Butala:

... was the inspiration for this entire show. So first of all, you need to know that public record is what this whole information system in our country from a real estate data standpoint is built on. For whatever reason, who set up this real estate system, and I'm actually researching that pretty heavily right now about how this all came about very heavily, so I can put it in the Land Academy 3.0. I'm researching how this all came about that whoever put the system together, and it goes back to our founding fathers of this country, really, who sat around and said, "Everyone needs to know who owns everyone else's land," because it's the exact opposite in our entire world. No one wants anyone to know what they own.

Jill DeWit:

You know what's funny about that? We know a lot of what we did came from England, correct, when England is especially the exact opposite. That is private information. It is not public, who owns a house.

Steven J Butala:

I'll tell you, if I was setting the system up, I would lean toward the England way. Wouldn't you?

Jill DeWit:

Yeah, I would.

Steven J Butala:

I wouldn't want everybody to know everything.

Jill DeWit:

I know. So we'll talk about that too.

Steven J Butala:

Yeah.

Jill DeWit:

So the answer to your question is I don't worry about it. It very rarely comes up. I've had it like, oh my gosh,