How to Buy Anything for Half Price (CFFL 0146)
How to Buy Anything for Half Price
Jack Butala: How to Buy Anything for Half Price. 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.
Steve:
Jack Butala here from Land Academy. Welcome to our Cash Flow From Land show. Today Jill and I talk about how to buy anything for half price. Well what the heck does that have to do with real estate? I’ll tell you. Jill, great show today. Before we start, let’s take a question posted from SuccessPlant.com, our free online community.
Jill:
Cool. All right. Brent from Dallas asks:
“I’m a brand new real estate investor. I’m in the very beginning stages of starting my real estate investing business, and I was curious if anyone had advice on where I should start from step one. Should I start marketing the motivated sellers without a business entity, or get a business structure first? Feel free to add any tips for now. I’m just starting out. Thanks.”
Steve:
Hey, I’ll answer that in a second. If you have a question, or you want to be on our show, please call 800-725-8816.
Great question. I think a lot of people have it. I’m sure a ton of listeners have the exact same question. Where do you start? So this is what you do. Marketing certainly is not where you start. You always start with education on anything that you want to accomplish, in my opinion. You want to start with free education. You don’t want to plow a bunch of money into something that you’re really not going to follow through on. If you’re interested in real estate do two things: Get our fee eBook at LandAcademy.com, that will get you in a system, give you some exercises, some hands-on stuff; and get yourself a username at BiggerPockets.com. Jill and I have no affiliation, but it’s a huge community of very experienced and completely brand, spanking new real estate investors of all different types: apartments, land, houses, the whole thing. Start utilizing those two free resources, that’s step one.
We’ll talk about marketing and all that stuff, eventually, and business structure. A lot of people say, “Hey, I need to start an LLC before I do anything.” Leave that down the road. Get educated. You might not like real estate at all. Maybe you would rather open a website eventually, and sell stuff that you by from China. I don’t know, but find out for free.
Jill:
I love the things you just pull out of mid air. Like, whatever. Maybe you want to sell sunglasses in a kiosk at the mall. What the heck? Remember when we talked about that a long time ago?
Steve:
Selling sunglasses?
Jill:
We did. Oh gosh.
Steve:
That was for the kids.
Jill:
Oh, all right. But we-
Steve:
Yeah. One of the kids had an idea to do that.
Jill:
Yeah. Because you and I, sometimes before we started … I hope it’s okay I’m jumping in ahead here.
Steve:
Yeah.
Jill:
Right. Before we started Land Academy because our land business was rolling and it was going so smooth, you and I were like, “Well what should we do now?”
Steve:
We were bored. Yeah, “What are we’re going to do?”
Jill:
That’s exactly it. We started looking around at all kinds of crazy things like, “Gee, I wonder how much that makes.” It’s like driving for dollars, but driving for businesses, like, “Gee, what’s a good business to …” You know? Walking through the mall going, “Oh, I could do that. Look at the return they get.”
Steve:
You know what I do sometimes late at night on the Internet? I look for dry cleaners for sale. I’m just fascinated with that business. I don’t mean a dry cleaner plant. Next time you walk into the dry cleaner. If it’s one of those that have an actual … They don’t clean the clothes. They just have one of those big, long conveyor things and a person at the cash register. It costs a ton of money, most of the time, to dry clean; then they just collect the clothes, tag them, send them to somewhere, and then they then collect your money and you come and get it, and then do it three days later. What could be better?
Jill:
I know. You’re so funny.
Steve:
Here’s another one.
Jill:
You’re trying to sell me on it, right now, is what it sounds like.
Steve:
Here’s another one that I look up: A gym! You know? An exercise thing like an exercise gym; monthly subscription, you’ve got to make sure the machines are clean and that there’s somebody walking around so people aren’t killing each other, but that’s it.
Jill:
I know.
Steve:
What a great business model.
Jill:
Oh my goodness. What is coming around the corner? What?
Steve:
Why, Steve, then do you not own either one of these things? Here’s why.
Jill:
Okay.
Steve:
I promised myself a long time ago that I would never get involved in a brick and mortar business; it’s too expensive to start up, and the whole thing. Plus, you know what? We’re doing the right thing, Jill. I think we’re really helping a lot of people, and making a couple of bucks.
Jill:
This is so much fun.
Steve:
I love it, yeah.
Jill:
Me too.
Steve:
I hope that answers Brent from Dallas’s question.
Here’s today’s topic: How to buy anything for half price. Here’s how. Write down what you want. Let’s say you want to to buy a property for half of what you can sell it for the next day.
Jill:
What? No, no, no, that doesn’t happen.
Steve:
Who does that? Let’s say you want to buy a sports car for half. What do you do? This is what you do, here’s some great free advice: You send out a ton of written offers. Maybe it’s email. Maybe it’s indirect mail. You find the people who own that make and model and year of that sports car, you find a database full of those people, and you send out an offer for half of what you think it’s worth. What the heck? Aren’t they’re going to get mad? Who in their right mind would ever sell you anything for half of what it’s worth? Here’s the answer: People who need the money; people who don’t want the car laying around anymore; people who just don’t want the land anymore, they’re tired of getting the tax bill, they’re just done with it.
There’s lots of triggers and Jill and I talk about this all over our programs, and in Success Plant, and all throughout our education material. There are lots of triggers that make people sell stuff for less than what it’s worth. One of those triggers is my favorite … It’s not my favorite, it’s the most popular in my opinion, is that the person passed away, and whoever inherited or is left to deal with these assets just wants to check it off the list. They’re not interested. They have a life. Maybe they have kids. Maybe they live in a different city. They just want to get rid of it. In fact what you’re going to find in your endeavor to buy stuff for half is that they’re going to thank you. I was right in your shoes a long time ago, and I’m making up reasons in my head about what’s going to happen. They were all wrong. Here’s some of the reasons I made up in my head.
If I write these offers out for five hundred dollars for five acres in Arizona, a bunch of people are going to call me and be really angry and say, “You’re a terrible person. You’re a bottom fisher.” You could dream it up. You know what? That might happen, it might not. It probably won’t, but there’s a chance it could happen. What will happen, I will tell you for sure because we’ve done if fifteen-thousand times now, Jill and I, is someone’s going to call or they’re going to sign your offer and send it back and say, “How fast can we close, and thank you so much for solving this problem for me.”
Jill:
You want to know what one of my triggers is?
Steve:
Yeah.
Jill:
I was think about what you were saying just a few minutes ago. You know? “Dream it up, whatever it is.” We were talking about properties, but “check engine” light.
Steve:
What?
Jill:
Can you imagine …
Steve:
I can’t wait to hear where this is going to go.
Jill:
Okay, so here’s mine. Okay, so to piggyback on what you were saying, it does work for everything. That’s the best thing. I mean, “How to Buy Anything for Half Price,” is absolutely true. It doesn’t have to be just property, and we’ll get to that. Imagine: I don’t need the money, I’m not hurting for anything, the car’s paid for. It’s driving me up the wall; that stupid “check engine” light. Can you imagine, Steven? If I received a letter in the mail two months ago for the car that’s taking up space in the driveway, I would have said, “Done.” I would not have been mad, I would have said, “Thank you.”
Steve:
Absolutely, Jill. I don’t mean send a letter that says: “I’m really kind of interested in buying that sports car. Why don’t you give me a call and let’s talk about it.” You know what’s going to happen? Seven million people are going to call and say, “Heck, yes, it’s for sale, and I’m going to sell it to you for fourteen million dollars.”
No, no, no. You write a letter that says: “Jack Jones, that ’63 Stingray Convertible that you own, I will give you three thousand dollars for it. I’ll have the three grand over there by Thursday.” That is how you buy something for half price. It works for land, houses, apartment buildings …
Jill:
Best buzz.
Steve:
Anything that you can get your hands on a good, solid quality data … I’m not talking about a list of the Internet that’s thirty-years-old; I’m talking about an active database that you subscribe to because you want fresh data. I can go into why this wouldn’t work, but that’s not what this is about. It’s about the general concept. You can buy almost anything for half price if you make a ton of written offers. Here’s the “if, then” portion of the show. If you want to buy just about anything for half price, then make a ton of written offers.
Jill:
Love it. It’s true. It works.
Steve:
Why wouldn’t this work? I’ll tell you why. If you have all the tools and the information, which is my job here at Land Academy, and my role here between Jill and I, my job is to show you how to do this, to educate you, and give you the information. Jill’s job is to provide the motivation. The yin and the yang, the Steve and the Jill, of this whole thing: Steve is information, Jill is inspiration and motivation. So Jill, please tell me, because I’m fascinated. I’ve known you for a lot of years. I still don’t know why you’re so good at this. I don’t know, maybe it’s just me. It’s not me, everybody says it. You’re just so full of motivation and inspiration. Were you born this way, or were you born angry and you changed yourself? I was born angry in Detroit; angry Detroit person.
Jill:
No. You know? I think a lot of it’s nature, but with nurture you can get there. I think anybody can do this. It may take a little time. Boy, I’ve been working on you for how long now? Just kidding. No, seriously.
Steve:
Seriously, why are you so inspirational and motivational? What makes you different than let’s say a huge name like Tony Robbins?
Jill:
I don’t think I’m a lot different than Tony Robbins.
Steve:
I don’t think so either. I think you’re better, actually.
Jill:
Thank you.
Steve:
I think Tony Robbins is unscripted. I think he says stuff … He’s just a great speaker. I don’t think he has … I know he doesn’t, I researched it. He has no experience. He’s just got the gift of the gab. I think your inspiration goes so much deeper than that. I really, truly think there’s some people in life that just really are walking around and unintentionally not telling the truth. I think that your desire to help people and inspire people is deeply rooted in your soul, if you know what I mean?
Jill:
Thank you.
Steve:
I think you genuinely want to help people.
Jill:
It’s true. If you know me, like you do, Steven, I’m a bad liar.
Steve:
Yeah. You can’t lie at all.
Jill:
I’m awful.
Steve:
I think a lot of nurses are just born that way. I think there’s a lot of nurses, too, that are just angry. They don’t have that inspirational, “help people,” thing that you have. You can tell it a mile away. You can line three nurses up and you can see who’s got that “I really enjoy helping people” thing, and the other ones might not have that.
Jill:
Thank you.
Steve:
They’re just in it for the money. I don’t think you’re in this for the money at all. I think you love helping people.
Jill:
Well maybe because that’s the bottom line. I could have been a nurse. I could see myself in that role/ I didn’t want to do that much studying.
Steve:
That’s what I’m talking about. Add a dash of honesty to it.
Jill:
Yeah. I’m like, “Yeah, no. Go to school for how long? I’ve got to do a what?” No, no, no, thank you. I prefer to help people in my own way. That’s it. Yeah. Thank you, Steven. At the end of the day, this all comes easy to me because whether it’s someone selling me their property, I want to help them. Okay, they want this off their plates, I want to buy it, I want to help them; then when I’m selling to somebody, I feel like I’m helping them again. This is their dream vacation property, or whatever it is, or they just want to buy it from me and make some money off it too. I don’t know. It sounds kind of trivial, but it’s true.
Steve:
I don’t think it’s trivial at all.
Jill:
I look at everything like, “Thank you. I want to help somebody.”
Steve:
That’s what sets us apart from a lot of other types of real estate people. I really think both of us want to help, at the root of it. I think that my patience is a lot shorter than yours. All kidding aside, we both want that. We both go at it in a different way. I provide the information, you provide the inspiration.
Jill:
I have something to share along these lines also. It’s shocking to me how many people don’t roll that way. Every time I meet someone that really, sincerely, you can tell and feel like, “Boy, they just want to do something nice for me,” I almost question it. Right? I’m a little bit lost. I’m like, “Really?” Let me give you an example. This is two weeks ago. We were parking somewhere there was very tight parking, and I was waiting for you. You were rolling up. Do you remember this?
Steve:
Mm-hmm.
Jill:
Okay. Basically I’m standing in the street holding this parking spot for you to parallel park. This woman whips around. I’m like, “Aw, shucks.” I’m like, “All right.” I stepped back out of the way thinking it’s not going to be cool; I can’t really lay down in the street here and say, “Sorry, this is mine. He’ll be here in a minute.” I stepped back and I stepped on the curb, and I’m like, “All right. Okay, what can I do? This is going to be her spot now. I tried.” She rolls up, rolls down her window and says, “I am so sorry. Are you saving that spot for somebody, because I can go somewhere else?” Obviously I was a little, like, “What? You’re being nice too?”
Steve:
You beach people are all in love with each other.
Jill:
We are. I’m getting goosebumps about it right now, because how nice was that? I was a little taken aback about, “Thank you,” being reminded that there’s other people out here too. There are really a lot of people out there that are like this, and we should all be like this. It was just so nice and I’m like, “Oh my goodness. Thank you so much. No, do not worry about it. You take the spot. It’s totally cool.” I was so pleased that she was so nice about it. What’s really funny is she was only there for ten minutes, if that. She ran in, she was picking up her kid from some event and leaving, and by the time she left you zipped in and got the spot. It was like meant to be. It was amazing.
Steve:
Like it or not we’re all in this together, in this world even, so just be nice to everybody. Unless somebody’s going out of their way to be angry or honking their horn at you or something, just be nice. Even then, maybe be even nicer. I don’t know.
Jill:
That’s what I do. It’s so much easier to walk around going, “All right.” I do that all the time. I tell myself, “Boy, it probably sucks to be you right now because you’re really mad.” I’m like, “I’m not going to let that affect my day.” Yeah. Especially angry people driving, I’m like, “Whatever. Not me.”
Steve:
Get rid of all the stuff that’s stopping you from whatever you’re trying to succeed at. We talked about it in another show. Look around. If there’s some stuff that’s stopping you … And I’m not going to go through the list because I got in trouble last time.
Jill:
Yeah. Please don’t go down that list.
Steve:
Hey, if you have a question, or you want to be on the show, call 800-725-8816 and join Jill and I in another episode, where we discuss your all-important success in property investment, and in life.
Great show today, Jill.
Jill:
Mm-hmm.
Steve:
It’s getting more inspirational.
Jill:
Yeah.
Steve:
I love the inspiration, or information, way we cut this thing up now.
Jill:
I was just thinking about that. We have, a couple of times, gone off on these little-bit tangents. I’m really curious to know what people think about that, really. We’re still covering …
Steve:
Well the day after these shows air, we’re going to find out if we’ve lost all of our listeners or just half.
Jill:
Well you know, here’s the thing: It’s important to talk about business, and it’s important to talk about numbers, it’s important to talk about transactions, and buying, and selling, and all the things that we do, and the half price thing, but this is also an important part of it, you’ve got to mentally be in the game, period.
Steve:
It’s essential. Very few people can just get the information on how to do something, and then just be real successful at it. You need the motivation and the inspiration along with it. It helps to be involved in a group like Land Academy, where maybe your inspiration is listening to someone talk about doing deals because they’ve done fifteen-thousand of them. That’s inspirational, I guess. Maybe your inspiration is a cheerleader on a sideline jumping up and down saying, “You can do this, man.”
You know those guys that get up in those award shows? When I say “guys,” I mean, “people.” They get up in award shows and they say, “Hey, I want to thank my dad who is the biggest source of inspiration in my whole life.” They could be the greatest actor in the world but if they didn’t have a parent, or whatever source of inspiration that was to get up their finally and end up on that stage with a gold statue, it’s not going to happen. Maybe your source of inspiration is you talking to yourself all the time. I don’t know.
Jill:
I love it. Maybe it’s the voice in your head talking to you all the time. I’m just kidding.
Steve:
Don’t talk back to that voice, if that’s happening.
Jill:
No.
Steve:
Talk back in your head, not out of your mouth.
Jill:
Listen to the voice. I think you should listen to your inner voice but that’s a whole other thing.
Steve:
Join Jill and I in the next episode, where we kind of talk about, still, how to buy anything for half.
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