Little Old Lady From Pasadena (CFFL 0097)
Little Old Lady From Pasadena
Jack Butala: Little Old Lady From Pasadena. 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: Welcome to Land Academy, this is the cash flow from land show, where we show you how to buy unwanted vacant land and sell it for more on the internet. I’m Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: I’m Jill DeWit. We are your hosts.
Jack Butala: With over 15,000 completed transactions, we are the experts in this nichy land flipping business.
Jill DeWit: We hold a drawing to win a free property every month. Enter to win by reviewing this show on iTunes, and downloading our free e-book at landacademy.com. All right, let’s get this show started.
Jack Butala: Jack Butala here for the land academy, welcome to our cash flow from land show. In this episode, Jill and I talk about how Jill is helping a little old lady in Pasadena prepare her estate. Jill, you can’t make this stuff up. I titled it like this because I know you like the Beach Boys.
Jill DeWit: It is a little old lady from Pasadena too, and I love the Beach Boys.
Jack Butala: For all of you young listeners out there, there’s a song out there by … Well, you don’t care. Hey, as always, I can’t wait to talk about this, but before we do, let’s take a question.
Jill DeWit: Sure, okay. We have a question from a caller, Robert from San Francisco asks, when do I need title insurance?
Jack Butala: Oh, that’s a good question and it comes up all the time. Hey, if you want to be on this show and you want to have us read your question or actually even be on the show, call 888-735-5045, and we’ll listen to your message and give you a call back, and talk a little bit more. If you’re funny, we’ll have you on the show. If you sound like Eeyore, we’ll probably just read it. Sorry, Robert from San Francisco.
Jill DeWit: Answer the question, Steven. Answer the question, Claire. I have something to say about that too, go ahead.
Jack Butala: When do you need title insurance? Well, the hard and fast rule cutting to the super chase for us is if we buy an asset for more than about $4,000-$5,000, we almost always get title insurance. The reason is, not because we are concerned, but it’s more because when we go to sell it, it just makes regular buyers, especially retail buyers, more comfortable. When do you need, need, need title insurance, without what I just said? When you’re buying a house, when you’re spending a lot of money, when there’s any question in your mind that there may not be a clean title, but the way that we do it and the way that we teach it and all of our members do it, there’s pretty much no … I mean, there’s not no question, but your risk is so low you kind of act as your own title agent/escrow agent, because you check to see who owned it and who owns it, and that’s what we teach.
Jill DeWit: Do your own due diligence.
Jack Butala: Be a very informed buyer.
Jill DeWit: You are a very informed buyer, that’s exactly right.
Jack Butala: We show you exactly how to do it, and we provide the tools. We have a product called Data to Doorstep, where you get all the data to send mailers out, and it’s literally an ongoing, constantly replenishing database that First American Title, among many other customers, uses to write title policies, so we’re literally getting the exact same, and so are our members, our Data to Doorstep members. Getting the exact same data that escrow and title agents use to write policies. Does that answer the question?
Jill DeWit: I think that answered the question. Do you want to hear my funny story?
Jack Butala: Yes, I do.
Jill DeWit: [crosstalk 00:03:36] a little old lady.
Jack Butala: You have that look in your eye, like you’re kind of thinking … I bet it’s funny as heck.
Jill DeWit: Well, because I’ll forget. It’s exactly why.
Jack Butala: I thought you were reading a script in your head.
Jill DeWit: No, that is the truth. Oh, my gosh, I have so much on my mind right now, and it’s all good stuff. We’re just so busy with Land Academy and Land & State, and we’re going to interview somebody cool in a little bit, and I’ll tell you now, it’s John Lee Dumas from Entrepreneur on Fire, we’re going to interview him today, and so I have so much on my mind that if I don’t say it, I will forget what I was going to say.
When I said, “Answer the question Claire,” that made me think of John Hughes. The Director, Producer, everything from the 80’s, 90’s?
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Anyway, left over from Valentine’s weekend, there’s a few theaters in town that are re-running the movie Pretty in Pink, so I happen to be going to that tonight. I heard that there’s even like an alternate ending that we did not see that they’re going to show after the movie.
Jack Butala: That’s awesome.
Jill DeWit: I know, so I’m pretty darn excited about that. Anyway, that was my little thing I had to say. So, little old lady in Pasadena?
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Jack Butala: You have a story? Can I guess what the story is?
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Can you guess?
Jack Butala: I bet you’re buying a bunch of property from a senior citizen female who is from Pasadena, California, who’s husband maybe passed away recently or maybe in the distant past, and maybe she’s got some kids, and we sent her a letter, probably like 4 years ago, or 18 years ago, and she called you and said, “You know, Jill, I want to get stuff organized, I’m getting a little older.”
Jill DeWit: You must’ve been around my desk.
Jack Butala: No. Is any of that true at all? Because that’s a typical situation.
Jill DeWit: You are super close. She does live in Pasadena, she and her husband inherited a bunch of property out in the Palm Desert area, very good, and he’s sick. He’s with us, but he’s sick, and that is prompting her to get things in order, and she needs my help. The great news is he’s still with us, so everybody can make the transfer and everything easy, but she’s in charge of the transaction. That’s brings up something valuable for everyone to know, sometimes people need our help, and it’s not necessarily elderly, it could be, who knows whatever is going on in people’s lives. There’s a time to take a step back, and help people out, and there are some things that I’m doing for her that I don’t do for every transaction and kind of holding their hand through, and making sure it’s real easy for her, and making sure it’s a good fair price, and she’s happy, everybody’s happy.
Jack Butala: It’s a beautiful story, Jill.
Jill DeWit: It’s a good ending.
Jack Butala: I feel all warm inside.
Jill DeWit: It’s true, but that makes me mad, I got to tell you, by the way. If I ever hear people giving people a hard time about stuff like this, and they’re short with them or something, forget it. I have actually talked to sellers when they’re selling me the property that they have said, “You know, I want to sell to you, you are nice, you’re helping me, you’re a real person, you’re going to make it real easy for me, I looked you up, I trust you.” There’s a long list, I’ve heard them all, and it’s important to be a stand up person.
Jack Butala: What would you say to somebody who says, I haven’t heard this really in a long time, but somebody said this to me. Well, all through my career, people have said some version of this, serious skeptics, and this is actually before Land Academy, “Why are you taking advantage of this little old lady from Pasadena, why aren’t you giving her absolute market price for her property? She’s old, her husband’s sick, what’s wrong with you?” What would you say to that? Have you answered that? I haven’t heard that in a while, I’m just being Devil’s advocate, skeptic, whatever, I can answer it for you if you’d like.
Jill DeWit: I know, you know it’s funny, I haven’t had that in a long time.
Jack Butala: Because you’re nice.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Jack Butala: You’re a sweet, nice person on the phone, and I’m angry.
Jill DeWit: You know, here’s my explanation. She could do that. I’m not going to pay that, maybe somebody will. To maybe get that price is going to involve a lot of work, it’s going to involve 6 months or a year, I hope her husband is around then.
Jack Butala: No, why aren’t you?
Jill DeWit: Why aren’t I doing it?
Jack Butala: Why aren’t you paying market price or more?
Jill DeWit: Because that’s not what I do. I’m not going to live there and love it. I’m a wholesaler, I’m going to buy it and sell it to somebody who is going to move on and live there and love it.
Jack Butala: You’re actually providing some free advice and recording deeds for it, you’re providing some value.
Jill DeWit: I am, that’s true too.
Jack Butala: At a beautiful price.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: I’m being satirical, but I think that’s the answer. It’s not just buying the property, hey it’s the old milk thing, right? I use the milk example. You can go right now and buy a gallon of milk at a convenience store, at a grocery store, or at a Walmart big box. Three very different prices, so why are the prices different? Well, it’s convenient. The clerk charges whatever the number is, $5.00 or $4.00 for milk, you know how much it’s going to cost you before you go in there.
Jill DeWit: But they also incur in those costs. I’m also incurring those costs. I’m paying the notary, I’m paying for the recording, I’m doing the deeds, I might be tracking down a deed, I’m doing all of that, making it super easy. You know what, Steven, I have no trouble selling my car on Craigslist and just walking away.
Jack Butala: Me either.
Jill DeWit: There is no difference as far as I’m concerned.
Jack Butala: Jill, I can’t agree more, but it just comes up. This is unusual that we agree on this.
Jill DeWit: I know. You’re so funny, we agree all the time.
Jack Butala: I know, it’s fun though, not to agree with you, especially on the air.
Jill DeWit: I think you do that to me on purpose. I think you do that, I think you’re kind of … You know what? My brother used to do this, I’m going to tell you exactly what my brother used to do. My parents-
Jack Butala: It’s every man’s dream to be compared to a woman’s brother.
Jill DeWit: Sorry.
Jack Butala: You remind me a lot of my mother, too.
Jill DeWit: Shut up. I didn’t say my dad, I said my brother, he’s cool. Okay, anyway, my dad’s cool too. You’re so funny, I swear. Jeff used to wait for me to answer, mom would say, “Where do you guys want to go eat?” I’d blurt out something and he’d wait for me to say it so he could say something else. Like, what the heck? I think he just wanted to invoke some little brother controversy.
Jack Butala: I’m sure of it.
Jill DeWit: He still is.
Jack Butala: I have a theory about siblings, about the natural order of things, want to hear it?
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Jack Butala: You know how siblings, it’s just universal, I don’t care where you go, they just pound the heck out of each other, figuratively and literally, and they are like the worst enemies ever. Natural enemies, when they’re little.
Jill DeWit: Very true.
Jack Butala: I think that, it’s back from a survival thing.
Jill DeWit: I’m sure.
Jack Butala: I don’t know how far back you have to go for this to be a reality, but maybe if there’s 3 or 4 kids, and there’s a limited supply of whatever, 2 of them got to go.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Jack Butala: It just cracks me up, I have story after story after story of siblings just half way murdering each other. I have to say, I think it’s just funny for some reason.
Jill DeWit: Oh yeah, we did that.
Jack Butala: It’s not normal to think that it’s that funny.
Jill DeWit: I think it’s funny. Anybody listening right now that has little kids, right now they’re going “Ah-ha” because their kids are in the back car beating themselves up right now.
Jack Butala: He’s touching me.
Jill DeWit: Exactly, that’s my side. Oh my goodness. Anyway, did I properly talk about my little old lady from Pasadena?
Jack Butala: I think so. One last question I had about that was, you said you’re going above and beyond. People who require this and I’m saying this for our listeners and members because it comes up a lot, there are people that are arranging for estates or settling for estates, you said you’re going above and beyond for that type of person. What does that mean?
Jill DeWit: As a matter of fact, last night I talked to a gentleman, I was catching up on my 80,000 things that I acquired over two weeks, and I called a gentleman back, and he has a property that, oh my gosh, it was his dad’s, and his uncle’s, and both have passed, he thought he was the only one on the deed, long story short, I pulled up the county website while I was talking to him on the phone, I just went right into the county website, he was in California and they have a great website. Pulled it up, and it’s a garbled mess, if you will.
Jack Butala: Lots of owners?
Jill DeWit: Well, it has 50% of him, this is a true story, it shows 50% ownership as the guy I’m talking to, as joint tenants, I’m okay, and the other 50% was his uncle who passed on, tenants in common. I’m like, “Oh, no.”
Jack Butala: Oh, no.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. I know, and I’m like, “Okay, we have a problem.” I was really nice with him on the phone, and he’s like 60, seriously.
Jack Butala: Can I ask you, this is supposed to be funny, but I’m going to ask a couple technical questions.
Jill DeWit: Sure.
Jack Butala: Are there two APN’s?
Jill DeWit: No, it was on APN.
Jack Butala: Okay, that’s good.
Jill DeWit: One APN pulls up all this information, so the bottom line is, and it’s a 2.5 acre property. I said, “Here’s the deal,” I said, “Your best bet at this point,” because it was from 10-15 years ago, recorded wrong. I said, “You’re probably going to have to get an attorney to get it fixed,” and I was very nice and honest with him, and that’s my going above an beyond, he thanked me so much, and I pretty much said, “Hey, if you work this out, and it’s worth while to work it out, and you want to sell it, let me know.” I know he’ll call me back, but basically I told the guy, “Look, if you call an attorney and go through the whole motions and he says it’s anything more than like $2,000-$3,000 to fix it,” I said, “Walk away.”
Jack Butala: Jill and I are getting all technical right now and that wasn’t my intention, the definition of tenants in common and joint tenants and stuff. If you have any questions about that and have some fun with it, go out in success plan and ask some satirical questions to everybody out there, like, “What the heck were Steve and Jill talking about on that show called Little Old Lady from Pasadena?” They’ll explain it to you, but if they still can’t-
Jill DeWit: Sorry everybody, I just went off on a tangent there.
Jack Butala: No, it’s okay, we have to because, I don’t want to make this sound hard, but that’s why we’re so successful, because we know what we’re doing, our members know what they’re doing, and it’s not just for no reason that we’re out there, helping people get out of their property. In California, there’s a very simple way to go through a quick probate. It’s called a short asset probate or something, but with tenants in common, and I don’t know how long, that’s just going to be tough.
Jill DeWit: I know. Here’s my point. I gave out free advice, I really helped the guy, if he does work it out, I know darn well he’s going to call me back.
Jack Butala: I’ll tell you, between you and me, he has no choice. The only person who’s going to work this out for him is you, I’ll tell you right now. Because that, and I’ve done this before, that’s a mess.
Jill DeWit: It was a really good guy and a happy ending, so it’ll be fine.
Jack Butala: Join us in another episode, where Jill and I discuss your all important success in land investment, and in life. There’s no way that deal’s going to happen.
Jill DeWit: I’m sorry, did I get too technical?
Jack Butala: Not at all.
Jill DeWit: Okay, good.
Jack Butala: You never have to apologize.
Jill DeWit: Okay, thank you.
Jack Butala: No matter what you say, everyone loves you two times as much as me.
Jill DeWit: I didn’t want to go too deep on stuff and everybody go, “What is she talking about?” Here’s the bottom line, if some of this is all Greek to you, you’ll learn it, and we’ll help you. It’s not hard, we can help you, you will learn this stuff, it’s really not that hard.
Jack Butala: There’s a way to get that deal done. Did you see a map on it?
Jill DeWit: I didn’t even get that far. Well, actually, I did. I did, because I was on the computer, it’s a really good county site.
Jack Butala: It is? Oh, it’s not, okay. That deal’s over.
Jill DeWit: It kinda is.
Jack Butala: It breaks your heart doesn’t it? You get attached to these people.
Jill DeWit: I felt bad for the guy. He’s walking around thinking and like shucks, it’s not as easy as you think it is.
Jack Butala: That is a deal board deal, where you explain it all and say it’s just not worth it, but if you’re learning and starting out, maybe it’s a good place to, you know?
Jill DeWit: Maybe.
Jack Butala: I guess it’s not. I wish I had a camera, I wish this was a TV episode right now.
Jill DeWit: This is some of the stuff that we teach though. If it’s too complicated, walk away. It’s not worth to walk away, that’s okay.
Jack Butala: Thank you Jill. Let’s go buy some property.
Jill DeWit: We hold a drawing to win a free property every month. Enter to win by reviewing this show on iTunes, and downloading our free e-book at landacademy.com.
Jack Butala: If you want to get involved or you need more information about our profitable, nichy real estate operation, call 480-467-0359. You just might get Jill at the other end of the line.
Jill DeWit: Landacademy.com, you are not alone in your real estate ambition.
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