When Its Too Late to Change Your Career (LA 1596)

Transcript:

Steven J Butala:

Steve and Jill here.

Jill K DeWit:

Hello.

Steven J 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 J Butala:

Today, Jill and I talk about when is it too late to change your career?

Jill K DeWit:

So I put some thought into this. We've been talking about this for a while because people come to us at all different ages. We have people in their sixties, we have people in their twenties and even teens, even middle school, Caitlin, high school. Caitlin's in high school and was in career path. So what's interesting is ... it's not necessarily, I think, the age, obviously. I don't think it's a number, especially because I'm a woman. I don't believe in numbers.

Steven J Butala:

You don't believe in numbers?

Jill K DeWit:

But it comes with age.

Steven J Butala:

I believe in numbers.

Jill K DeWit:

Age or the scale, I don't believe in numbers, but I do believe that there are things about a person that will make a difference and I'll share. I have two concerns for people of all ages that are starting another career.

Steven J Butala:

So this is largely circumstantial for me, so we're going to come at this a little bit differently, [crosstalk 00:01:18] which is good.

Jill K DeWit:

I like that.

Steven J Butala:

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 don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.

Jill K DeWit:

Okay. Luke wrote, "So at what point should or would you consider entitlements? I was watching a recent interview with Seth Williams and Mike Marshall about this topic. Mike did a good job breaking down the idea and, for example, how it's different from rezoning. But at what point would a land investor decide to go further into development into entitlements for a particular parcel? Seems like a great topic of discussion."

Steven J Butala:

Mike Marshall and Seth Williams are both former Land Academy members, and [inaudible 00:02:05] have a ton of respect for those guys.

Jill K DeWit:

Yes.

Steven J Butala:

Mike's just an expert in this specific topic, both in [crosstalk 00:02:12] California and Texas, so he's got both perspectives. When should I or Jill or let's say [crosstalk 00:02:23] yeah, you, or a land academy member could start down or go down the path of entitling real estate? And the answer is never.

Jill K DeWit:

Please explain [crosstalk 00:02:32] what it is, if you don't mind.

Steven J Butala:

Entitlements are when a large company, let's say like Shea Homes or Toll Brothers or any developer, could be even just a regular person like us, wants to take a piece of property, let's say a five acre property, or in a larger case, maybe a 40 acre property, and create a subdivision. Or entitle the property so that it can be developed into separate APNs. On the east coast, it's called creating a subdivision. On the west coast, it's called entitling real estate. There's tons and tons of different ways to do this. It is extremely time consuming and expensive and frustrating as hell, and our whole Land Academy model. And rightfully so, we've been proving this over and over, and now hundreds of members are proving it with us and for us. Buy a piece of property as is, sell it as is for more. That's the model.

Steven J Butala:

Entitlements, it's real easy to get into a spreadsheet and say, I'm going to pay $25,000 for this 40 acre property. And for sake of argument, if I had 41 acre properties, I could sell them all for $5,000 each, I don't need to do the math on that. It's incredibly profitable. It's also frustrating as heck if you don't know what you're doing. And can you hire consultants to do it? Yeah, but it's going to take you a year to two years later.