Seller Called Back on My Offer – How to Close the Deal (CFFL 0143)
Seller Called Back on My Offer – How to Close the Deal
Jack Butala: Seller Called Back on My Offer – How to Close the Deal. 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 for Land Academy. Welcome to our Cash Flow From Land show. In this eight part series, Jill and I talk about what to do when the sellers begin to start calling you back based on the offers that you sent them in their mail to buy their property. In this episode, it’s eight of eight. It’s an eight part series. This is the last one. Jill is pretty happy about that, I think. I’m not too disappointed either. It’s called “The Seller Called Back On My Offer, Now Let’s Close The Deal.” Jill, good show today. It’s the final episode, final edition of what to do when the seller actually calls you back. Before we get right to it, let’s take a question from a caller like we usually do.
Jill DeWit:
Okay. Angel from Orlando called in and asked, “I’m 19, in college and would like to purchase my first property in a few years.”
Jack Butala:
Yeah. God, wish I had started this when I was 19.
Jill DeWit:
Oh my goodness. You’re on the right track, Angel. “Is there any advice or tips that I can be given to gain knowledge and better prepare myself as a real estate investor in the future?”
Jack Butala:
I love this question.
Jill DeWit:
Great question.
Jack Butala:
I answer this question in bigger pockets personally, all the time, or a different version of this question, probably five times a week-ish, maybe more, I bet even more so I’m pretty qualified, I think, to answer it. Here’s the answer. It’s a three-step process: education; number two experience, get some experience from somebody who’s got a ton of experience already and who appreciates the fact that you’re there; and then number three, do some deals on your own or better yet, do some deals with the person where you got all this experience from and then ultimately do some deals on your own like Jill and I do every single day. It’s pretty simple stuff.
What I see in real estate, for some reason, I don’t know why, is everybody thinks step one is to find a piece of property and so they don’t get any education, they don’t really reach out like you are correctly doing here, Angel, reach out to somebody who’s got some experience to say, “What’s the best way to do this because I don’t want to waste my time? I don’t want to go find a house and then …” I see a lot of people go find a house, I’m not sure why houses are the first place they look, find a house and then they try to, in their head, make the deal work instead of really sending a million … What we do is send a tremendous amount of offers out for well below retail value and then let the sellers come find you.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly.
Jack Butala:
And then it’s like, “Man, I’m running all the way to the bank saying, ‘I hope the seller doesn’t change their mind,'” because it’s such a good deal, instead of the other way around where you go out and find the deal and then you sit there and convince yourself over and over again that it’s a good deal. If you don’t think that it’s a great deal like jumping around great, don’t get involved in it, but please get educated first. You’ll learn all that stuff through education, then you can look at some real estate as number two.
Jill DeWit:
You did say align yourself with somebody with a mentor or something in there?
Jack Butala:
Mentor means a lot to different people.
Jill DeWit:
Right. You know where I’m going with that. It’s like I just … It’s helpful if you are aligned with someone who has some transactions, who can help you with some …
Jack Butala:
There’s a lot of people in late night TV that say they’re going to help you for 50 or 80 or 100,000 dollars and that’s not the direction that I would take. We have a lot of members in our community who went that route and they’re with us now I think probably for long-term, hopefully for life because there’s just not a lot of BS … It’s not a lot of BS, Jill. We pretty much tell it like it is and probably have a lot less members because of that and I don’t like to sit around and talk about how much money I have or how much money I made. What I would rather say is we’ve done almost 16,000 transactions.
Jill DeWit:
That’s true.
Jack Butala:
I’m not going to do the math for you which is a lot of deals and I think we’re qualified to answer these questions and have this show. I personally think we really have no business being in front of a camera. I wouldn’t want to look at me. That’s what Jill’s in front.
Jill DeWit:
What the heck?
Jack Butala:
That’s why Jill’s in front. I’m sitting in the back with black on and Jill’s up in front smiling. That’s the way it should be.
Jill DeWit:
You know what we should do? We should have a big potted plant. That would be so fun.
Jack Butala:
No. I should be wearing a Cookie Monster uniform.
Jill DeWit:
That would be awesome. Oh my goodness. There we go. The man behind the mask. Who is he? I don’t know. Hey, let’s get you a Zorro mask or something that’s outrageous.
Jack Butala:
No, that’s even still too much Steve.
Jill DeWit:
That’d be so funny, or what if we just turned you and just see the back of your head?
Jack Butala:
That’s good too. I’ll do the whole show like this. My voice isn’t any different.
Jill DeWit:
Oh that would be so funny. That would be great. I got to say, just that over the years, dear Steven has really had to get over this whole transparency thing.
Jack Butala:
If somebody told me a few years ago that we would have a company called Land Academy and we would give away all of our secrets and tell everybody everything about this business I would have said, “That’s really a funny, funny story.”
Jill DeWit:
Right, not going to happen.
Jack Butala:
Now it’s the greatest thing ever-
Jill DeWit:
And here we are.
Jack Butala:
-because we’re doing a ton of deals with our members. We’re doing a deal right now with one of our members, one of our original members where we would both clear at, I’m guessing, but it’s very close to probably 50,000 each, each party, Jill and I and then … See, I wasn’t going to talk about numbers.
Jill DeWit:
I know. Here you are.
Jack Butala:
Let’s wrap this series.
Jill DeWit:
These numbers are okay. When you’re going to age numbers, that’s bad. Don’t bring up age.
Jack Butala:
Let’s talk about the topic. It’s for better or for worse, I think it’s for better. This is episode eight of eight and the whole series has been the sellers are calling you back because you sent a bunch of offers out, what do you do? This one is, how do you get the deal closed? A guy calls you back and says, “Heck yes I’ll accept your price. Yeah, I like your terms. I like the timeframe and the whole thing’s good. I sign the deal. Now what do we do? What are the steps? What do we have to do? What do you need from me?” Right, Jill?
Jill DeWit:
Right.
Jack Butala:
What is it? Like a five, six, seven-step, three-step process? You’re so much closer to the front lines these days. What is it?
Jill DeWit:
I know. Depending how you do it, there are steps. It doesn’t matter how you categorize them, but the first thing is yes, they like the price and the terms. You want to make sure … You’re so silly. I could see your reflection over there. Sorry, you can’t sneak up on me. Okay. Are the price and terms acceptable to you? That’s number one. Great, you threw out an offer, you did it right, you’re sending out 3,000 to 5,000 offers or 1,500, whatever it is, you’re sending out a large number at once. You’re not going over every one and making sure that’s the right thing.
Jack Butala:
There’s a bunch of extremely non-gentlemen-like things that I could do behind your back that could …
Jill DeWit:
You really could and I wouldn’t know until-
Jack Butala:
You wouldn’t.
Jill DeWit:
-later.
Jack Butala:
It would end the whole periscope thing for us.
Jill DeWit:
Or-
Jack Butala:
We just stay as a successful podcast.
Jill DeWit:
Wait a minute.
Jack Butala:
Keep the video out of it entirely.
Jill DeWit:
Depending what you do, it might up the periscope numbers.
Jack Butala:
I think that you just being in front of the camera, that’s enough to get the numbers that we need.
Jill DeWit:
No, I just repositioned the camera so I could see exactly what you’re doing.
Jack Butala:
I’m sorry. I interrupted you.
Jill DeWit:
That’s okay. Your seller is reaching back out to you. Now I got to watch you though. I got to keep looking over my shoulder.
Jack Butala:
I’ll behave.
Jill DeWit:
This seller called you back. You want to make sure, are the price and terms acceptable to you, number one. Okay, so now we’ve done that. Step two, let’s confirm ownership. Let’s make sure we have the right person. Is he really the owner of the property?
Jack Butala:
Yeah, this seems basic, but geez, just do it with the data and the tools that we provide in the Land Academy community. It doesn’t take long. If you’re talking to John Smith with 20 acres in Nevada, it’s really easy to look it up with the tools that we have and say, “Yeah, this is John Smith’s,” or maybe Sally Smith owns it and John’s the brother or something like that. You just want to get to the bottom of that as fast as you can. I’m not trying to complicate it. You got to confirm it the same way a title agent does and then you can send the stuff to the right person to close it. Go ahead, Jill.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly. Okay. The next step is we’ve done that, we still like it, we like the terms, we’ve got the right person, do we still want this property? That’s part of your … You did an initial …
Jack Butala:
The technical term is due diligence.
Jill DeWit:
You reach out to all the five-acre owners in X county. Now you want to go look up this exact parcel and make sure, does it pass all your tests? Like we say, does it have the four A’s? Which are, and this is our thing, this is Steven’s thing he came up with and I love it, the four A’s are access …
Jack Butala:
Can you get to it?
Jill DeWit:
Acreage.
Jack Butala:
Large is better
Jill DeWit:
Affordability.
Jack Butala:
Cheaper is better.
Jill DeWit:
Attribute.
Jack Butala:
What’s around it, the Grand Canyon? Is it close to the water, close to Las Vegas, just outside of Los Angeles? Something that makes it slightly unique that you can describe about it, mountain views, something, great for snowmobiling, I don’t know.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly. That’s part of your due diligence here. You want to make sure you still want the property, it passes your tests. We say, when you’re just starting out, you want to have three of the four A’s at least, preferably all four. If you really want to knock it out of the park and you know you’re going to sell it quickly and fast, you want all four A’s, so that’s making sure you want the property.
Jack Butala:
Here’s what happens in the real world and Jill is 100% right. You open up Google Earth, you find a property, you take a look at it and you decide from there. You can see access and the whole thing. That’s not the only thing you do, but in about a minute, a minute or two, you’re going to know whether or not you want to buy that property. You can find out all four A’s to some degree, pretty serious degree of certainty in 30 to 60 seconds in Google Earth. I’m not trying to slow this down, Jill. I’m just trying to summarize, make it easy.
Jill DeWit:
Thank you. Okay. Can I go on to the next step?
Jack Butala:
Yes, please.
Jill DeWit:
Okay. The next step is you need to generate … Now you’ve done it, you got the deal done. Okay, now how do we physically close the deal? How are you going to do that? You need to generate a new deed and you need to set up a notary to close the deal for you at your seller’s place of convenience. It might be at their home. It might be in a coffee shop or whatever. Let me back up a little bit. How am I going to generate a new deed? What are you doing about?
Jack Butala:
Copy the old one.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly. Part of your process, you want to ask that seller, and they should have a copy of the vesting deed, is what it’s called, the last recorded deed, that shows them as the owner. You’re going to request a copy of that deed and they can just take a picture of it, they can scan it, they can fax it.
Jack Butala:
What if they don’t have it?
Jill DeWit:
What if they don’t have it?
Jack Butala:
We look it up on RealQuest.
Jill DeWit:
Well, I guess deal’s off. Deal’s off. Don’t have it. Sorry, can’t do it.
Jack Butala:
It’s too hard. I don’t want to make 20,000 bucks on this.
Jill DeWit:
No. Sorry. It takes a teaspoonful of effort now. You can get a copy of that and that’s another show. Okay, thank you.
Jack Butala:
All issues are solvable.
Jill DeWit:
They are all solvable. You’re basically copying the new deed and putting them as the owner and you as the grantee now and you’re setting up a notary to do that and you’re sending the documents to the notary. Cashier’s check, we go into that more in other shows as well, don’t we?
Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
Okay, thank you.
Jack Butala:
We cover all of this stuff-
Jill DeWit:
We do.
Jack Butala:
-in crazy amount of detail in our Cash Flow From Land program and other real detailed episodes of the podcast and successplant.com and on and on and on.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly. I’m going to paraphrase.
Jack Butala:
All the details of this stuff are elsewhere.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly. Basically, you’re setting it up and you’re sending the documents. The bottom line is you’re sending the documents and the payment with a notary to their front door to do it and it doesn’t matter where they are in the country, by the way. We happen to be in Redondo Beach right now and we’re actually negotiating a deal this week with a seller in, I think he’s … The property is in Colorado, which is funny, the seller could be … I don’t even know where the seller is, as a matter of fact.
Jack Butala:
I don’t either.
Jill DeWit:
We’re doing it with one of our members who’s in another state. We got at least four states here that we’re working with and it doesn’t matter, which is so great. You could be anywhere and do this. Next step, you’ve got all that done, the notary handles it, the deed is signed, they hand the payment, the notary already had the envelope to get the deed back to you, what do you got to do? Record the deed with that county, the county that the property is located. You’re recording that deed, super easy to do, anywhere from 13 to 20 bucks traditionally and do you want to say the last step?
Jack Butala:
What is the last step?
Jill DeWit:
The last step is the best, sell it …
Jack Butala:
Oh yeah, the seller doesn’t know about that, but what you want to do is package it all up, make it look pretty and sell it on the internet for a heck of a lot more than you paid.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly.
Jack Butala:
We don’t do a deal unless we double our money. More often it’s closer to three to four times if you buy it properly.
Jill DeWit:
If you buy it right.
Jack Butala:
That’s it.
Jill DeWit:
That’s it.
Jack Butala:
That’s the end of the series.
Jill DeWit:
That’s it.
Jack Butala:
Eight part series.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. Whew.
Jack Butala:
We made it through.
Jill DeWit:
That was long. Just kidding.
Jack Butala:
No, I don’t think you’re kidding.
Jill DeWit:
That eight part series felt like 12 parts underwater. That’s it, Steven.
Jack Butala:
I think the next series that we do might be four parts.
Jill DeWit:
I think that’s a good idea, or maybe even five parts. Make it like a Monday through Friday thing. I like that. Five is good. Eight is long.
Jack Butala:
Join us in another episode where Jill and I discuss your all important success in property investment and in life. Jill, we did it. It’s over.
Jill DeWit:
Yup. Yay. That went well.
Jack Butala:
No, I think everybody … Here’s the thing. We horse around a lot on the show and there’s a lot of stuff that goes on, but you got to learn some stuff too.
Jill DeWit:
You do.
Jack Butala:
This show, all kidding aside, needed to be eight parts. There’s eight different types of … This didn’t happen on accident, eight different types of responses that you really get, eight basic types of responses that you get from a seller when you send them an offer. This is true if you’re buying a skyscraper, if you’re buying a mobile home park, or a mobile home, if you’re buying an RV or land.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly.
Jack Butala:
If you’re turning 20, 30, 500,000 bucks a month doing something, it’s basically the same responses. This is a great place to learn all of that and how to do all … It’s a great first step to learn how to do all that stuff and use the same tools that pros use. We’re the pros.
Jill DeWit:
We are the pros. Thank you.
Jack Butala:
What are you doing tonight?
Jill DeWit:
I am going to … Actually, I’m going to see one of my childhood girlfriends and have some dinner tonight.
Jack Butala:
That’s great.
Jill DeWit:
I’m really excited to be back here kind of home where I grew up in Southern California and I get to go … Every time I’m here, I get to meet up with some old friends.
Jack Butala:
What’s also great about that is you’re not making me go with you.
Jill DeWit:
I am not making you go with me. Oh my gosh.
Jack Butala:
I really appreciate it.
Jill DeWit:
Remember you just talked about when a lot of talking is good and when a lot of talking is not good? This is one of those situations when we’ve been apart for so long that there is a lot of talking and oh my gosh, you do not want to be there for any part of that.
Jack Butala:
Right. Remember when we were 12 … Yes.
Jill DeWit:
Right. Yeah, whatever happened to that guy? All those things. You know what, Steven, I appreciate our relationship so much that I am not going to drag you there.
Jack Butala:
Can’t even describe how jealous a lot of guys are right now who are listening to this.
Jill DeWit:
Okay, yeah.
Jack Butala:
Because I get to do whatever I want tonight.
Jill DeWit:
You do.
Jack Butala:
You don’t want to be around for that either.
Jill DeWit:
No, I don’t want to be around for that. Everybody needs a break from each other period and once a week is not bad. It’s good.
Jack Butala:
On that note, let’s go buy some property.
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