Go to College or Not? (CFFL 0072)
Go to College or Not?
Jack Butala: Go to College or Not?. Every Single month we give away a property for free. It’s super simple to qualify. Two simple steps. Leave us your feedback for this podcast on iTunes and number two, get the free ebook at landacademy.com, you don’t even have to read it. Thanks for listening.
Jack Butala: Jack Butala here from Land Academy. Welcome to our Cash Flow from Land Show. In this episode Jill and I are going to talk about college. Should you do it or not? Do the benefits outweigh the costs? Let’s see what she thinks. Hi, Jill.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Jack Butala: Hey, way before we do this I’ve got a question. I think you got a question, and we talked about it right before the show about a woman from California.
Jill DeWit: Yes, we got a call. We have our [800 00:00:25] number and people call and leave us messages for us to answer on the show. This is one that got to us the other day. Janet from California asks this, “Should I look for properties with back taxes? What other ways do people show that they want to sell for a good price?” I love this topic because my number one thing is don’t get hung up looking for properties for back tax reasons. There’s plenty of other ways to find property and that people want to sell to show that they’re motivated sellers. I know, Steven, you have a lot to say about this.
Jack Butala: As always.
Jill DeWit: As always. As always. I’m going to start walking around like that. Every time you say something I’m going to go, “As always.”
Jack Butala: Jill, you’re not wearing very much clothing today, as always.
Jill DeWit: That’s not how that goes. What the heck?
Jack Butala: I was trying to test the as always thing.
Jill DeWit: That’s so funny. Steven, you’re not wearing shoes, as always. That’s so funny.
Jack Butala: Boy, that’s a whole show, as always.
Jill DeWit: I’ll have another, as always.
Jack Butala: Oh my gosh.
Jill DeWit: For me, the whole point is people get hung up on the back tax thing.
Jack Butala: Why is that?
Jill DeWit: I don’t know.
Jack Butala: I know the answer.
Jill DeWit: I can think of two people in particular in our field that are hung up on tax properties.
Jack Butala: In our field, you mean our competitors?
Jill DeWit: Yeah, something like that. Yes. I wasn’t going to say that. [inaudible 00:02:17] great because, but that’s just one way … Missing a lot of other opportunities.
Jack Butala: Okay, can I give my two cents here?
Jill DeWit: Your show.
Jack Butala: As always.
Jill DeWit: As always.
Jack Butala: Something like that.
Jill DeWit: Just kidding.
Jack Butala: Your face is on everything. It’s like the Jill and Steve show.
Jill DeWit: Do you know what’s so funny? We call it the Steve and Jill show, but you put me in front of everything. You’re standing behind me, not that I’m arguing with it. It’s cool.
Jack Butala: When we’re not talking about the show and people ask us about it we call it the Steve and Jill show or the Jill and Steve show. Maybe we should change it to that.
Jill DeWit: Steve and Jill seems to flow a little better, for me.
Jack Butala: Than Cash Flow from Land?
Jill DeWit: Yes.
Jack Butala: Or Steve and Jill versus Jill and Steve?
Jill DeWit: Yes. The Steve and Jill show.
Jack Butala: It’s really about cash flow from land though. I don’t know. We’ll figure it out.
Jill DeWit: All right, answer the question clear.
Jack Butala: Taxes … Can I put in the breakfast club?
Jill DeWit: I don’t go to the breakfast club.
Jack Butala: [inaudible 00:03:13] dating ourselves. There are several ways to buy ridiculously inexpensive property for a very small amount of money. If you have a paper and a pencil or a super good memory, now is the time to turn all this stuff on. Here they are, and this is all of them.
Number one, if people have property and they’ve got a ton of back taxes on it, that’s a good way. You offer them a small amount of money, you assume the taxes, and you go on your way, clean up the taxes and do whatever else you’re going to do with the property, and then resell it for a lot more. It works with all types of properties. Another way is contacting people with back tax property. Another way is tax deed property. That you buy right from a municipality. They actually have taken title to the property and they own it. They just want to get it back under tax [rules 00:04:04], so more often than not they’re willing to let it go for nothing. We’ve got back tax property, tax deed property, and there’s tax lien property which is a topic for a whole additional situation because it’s very complicated.
I’m not going to get into the mechanics of it, but, very briefly, the county or the municipality who the taxes are owed places a lien on the property. Instead of buying the property like you did with a tax deed, you actually buy the lien. You literally take over the lien so that the lien is in your name. That person who owns the property now has to pay you instead of the county or the municipality. Why the hell would they do that? They would do that because it’s just a lot of work. They’re avoiding the work. They think that you as a lien holder are going to get that thing all taken care of way more efficiently than they will. Jill’s just falling asleep.
Jill DeWit: No, I know how it goes. It’s okay.
Jack Butala: How do you think I feel?
Jill DeWit: Well, in my defense, I’m fighting a cold.
Jack Butala: How do you think I would feel if I have to do all the talking?
Jill DeWit: What?
Jack Butala: You think I want to talk about this stuff right now?
Jill DeWit: You’re doing a good job. Finish it. Janet from California wants to know.
Jack Butala: It’s funny because these people … Now I know how my high school history teacher feels. This is new to … Most people are listening to this, it’s new. The look that I just got from you across the thing here is not the new thing.
Jill DeWit: It’s not new for me.
Jack Butala: What were you thinking about? Really, you’re deep into a daydream.
Jill DeWit: I was actually waiting for you to finish it so that we could move on to the college conversation. I’m way more excited. This is a good question. I want to answer it. You’re doing a good job.
Jack Butala: The liens are one of my personal favorites. I think buying liens is a great way to do this. It’s a lot of legal stuff and there’s lots involved. We are in a process of producing a whole program on how to do it. What I [inaudible 00:06:03] remember saying is they purchase other lien programs and they just don’t get it. It’s not that they don’t get it, it’s just because it’s not presented right. All these educational programs, by the way, the vast majority they tell you about the opportunity, “Oh, yeah. You can go buy a tax lien,” but they never tell you how to do it. Our stuff, Jill and I shook on this long before we ever started this … When people say, “What makes you different?” Here’s what makes us different. We show you how to do it, man. We show you in videos. We talk about it on the podcast. We don’t just sit here and talk about theory. That’s very topical for this podcast topic because there’s a lot of theory in college and not any reality.
Jill DeWit: Good segway. That’s true. Could you imagine … This is a good one. Here’s how we are, how we teach, and how we think every college course should be. You take Marketing 101 and you think you’re going to Marketing 101 or even Marketing 305 because you’re a junior now, you should be learning the ins and outs of marketing.
Jack Butala: You should be doing it.
Jill DeWit: You should be doing it. You should be testing things. You should be analyzing the backend numbers. Nothing. How do we know? I’ll tell you how we know, because we fill in and do some teaching spots for a professor at NAU, Northern Arizona University. It’s a business
Jack Butala: Jill and I are substitute professors.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jack Butala: With no credentials at all. The kids love it because they know that. They know we’re in business, and we talk about that. It’s fun.
Jill DeWit: We share the real world stories. I can’t believe we walked in and you brought up Google Analytics one time, and they all looked at you cross eyed like, what is that?
Jack Butala: What the hell was what? A graduate class. The class that we had subbed for is an entrepreneur or whatever. I don’t even know the title. We did a random thing on Google Analytics and none of them had heard of it.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Jack Butala: That’s tragic.
Jill DeWit: That’s my point, kind of like this. Let me back up. I’ll do it.
Jack Butala: I’m still not done answering the tax question.
Jill DeWit: I’m sorry. Go ahead.
Jack Butala: No, that’s all right. I’ll slip it in somewhere. Want me to just finish it?
Jill DeWit: Yes.
Jack Butala: There’s back tax people, there’s tax deeds, there’s tax liens, there’s purchasing mortgage notes, that number four, and the fifth way, which is our way. You should do it all, and you do it one way with one data set, you get it all in a system, and you get the people to call you back. All those first four ways, you’ve got to go out and look for the property. Our way, you wait for it to come back to you. Very leverageable. Buy a mortgage note, very briefly … Again, this is a topic for volumes of books. It’s like tax liens, you either understand it or you don’t. If there’s a house that has a mortgage on it and the mortgage is defaulted on, and let’s say the mortgage value is half of the house. The house is worth one hundred thousand dollars, it’s got a fifty thousand dollar mortgage on it, and a person who is paying on a mortgage stops paying for whatever reason. Usually it’s because they die.
The bank has just lists and lists and lists of these properties, and they mechanically deal with them. They feed institutions certain properties. Long story short, once it gets all done with the institutions and is passed up and whatever, at the end of the line they give it to individuals like us. You can buy mortgages, sometimes, for 20% of its value. For twenty grand you could purchase a hundred thousand dollar house. Then you assume it’s over. You own the mortgage. You’re like the bank, so they have to pay you. I have a buddy who does this very successfully in an incredibly valuable way to purchase real estate. Number five, which is us, send mailers out.
Jill DeWit: You said number five already.
Jack Butala: That was number four. Notes are number four. Number five is our way.
Jill DeWit: Which is do all of the above.
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: That’s what you said.
Jack Butala: You want to be done.
Jill DeWit: No, you did already say number five and you repeated number [crosstalk 00:10:22].
Jack Butala: I didn’t describe how to do it.
Jill DeWit: We just did number five. Do them all.
Jack Butala: They don’t need to know how to do it, just that that’s what to do.
Jill DeWit: Number nine.
Jack Butala: That’s exactly what we’re doing about. That’s exactly what we’re saying, don’t do that. Don’t just say this is it and not tell them how to do it.
Jill DeWit: You know what? I took some cold medicine awhile ago and I’m a little jittery or something right now.
Jack Butala: You take the nighttime kind?
Jill DeWit: No, I just took [asudafed 00:10:53]. That’s all that I had. They had some good stuff, so it’s okay. [inaudible 00:10:59] properties or back taxes was really the question, and don’t get hung up on properties with back taxes.
Jack Butala: It’s a terrible place to start.
Jill DeWit: If you’re just going to use that as your only business, you’re missing … Hey, if you’re going to use that, hey, thank you. I’ll gather up everybody else that you missed.
Jack Butala: That’s it.
Jill DeWit: That’s fine.
Jack Butala: Let’s say all those … There’s the four types of properties in a database in a given county, and if you just send a mailer out or contact one of them, then you’re missing 75% of the other … Or some number, very large percentage.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: If you send a mail out, like we say, it’s systematically, not all at once, but systematically, you reach every single person that’s a logical candidate in the pricing. Trust me, you’re going to kill it.
Jill DeWit: Okay, can we get to the college thing? What do you think about the go to college or not? That’s the real topic.
Jack Butala: I think to go to college and get a four-year degree the way that … Isn’t it strange that that hasn’t changed since 1810?
Jill DeWit: Right.
Jack Butala: I think that’s very [inaudible 00:11:55] and silly, especially if you do it in liberal arts.
Jill DeWit: Oh gosh, yes.
Jack Butala: If you get a four-year degree in engineering that’s a different story. My nephew just graduated from high school, and I’m going to use him as a perfect example. He graduated with a welding certificate. He went to high school, did very, very well … Did and does very well academically, but his parents, my little sister, made sure that he had all his bases covered. He went through trade school, this is like senior year in college, went to trade school for welding, went for mechanical engineering in college. He started college. They allowed him to do this. He also not only started college, but had college credits in high school toward a degree, so he was almost a sophomore by the time he graduated from school. So, yes. Do I think you should go to college? I think you should go to some form of education institution. Yes, I do. I think a four-year degree for almost everybody, me included, in liberal arts is silly. I’m going to get a lot of flack for this.
Jill DeWit: No, I’m just waiting. I’m just saying. I wrote down three notes. I wrote down there’s trade schools, there’s traditional schools, and then there’s us. I don’t mean us. You and I are different examples for different reasons. You know my other note … I sat down and took notes for this, and I always put in my little notes was, “Listen to your parents.” Nobody knows you better than you do.
Jack Butala: Listen to your parents?
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Part of me … You don’t like that one?
Jack Butala: No, it’s a good thing. I didn’t listen to my parents.
Jill DeWit: Your parents wanted you to go to a four-year school. There was no
Jack Butala: Yeah, and I’m saying I’m not sure that’s the best idea.
Jill DeWit: Well, cross that off.
Jack Butala: How’s that cold medicine going?
Jill DeWit: I’ll just cross it off my notes.
Jack Butala: Your parents told you not to go to college at all.
Jill DeWit: Well, they did. They did want me to go to college, but they just didn’t want to spend a whole lot of money on me going to college, especially because I … You know what? You know why? My parents are probably right because I didn’t have any direction back then. They didn’t see the point back then in spending a whole lot of money sending me cross country to whatever school if I really didn’t have a real clear direction of what I wanted to do.
For example, one of the things when I was a kid was I liked to draw with rulers and stuff. I used to think about being an architect. Now, if that followed me all the way through my whole life … That changed later on, but if that followed me through my whole thing and I was out being an apprentice architect for somebody as a sophomore in high school, yeah, I’m sure we would’ve agreed and spent the big money to send me to the top architectural school because that was clearly my path and that made sense. How do I say this?
That makes sense. Like you said, if you have a clear thing, I’m going to be a lawyer. I know I’m going to be a lawyer. There’s a family business. Whatever, it’s in my blood or I’m going to be a doctor. Gosh, I just love it. I’ve always … There’s some things
Jack Butala: I think you actually go to school in the way that it’s setup for those types of careers the answer is heck yes.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jack Butala: Well, you have to go to get licensed and everything else.
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