3 Reasons Why Your REI Career May Be at a Stand Still (CFFL 0177)
3 Reasons Why Your REI Career May Be at a Stand Still
Jack Butala: 3 Reasons Why Your REI Career May Be at a Stand Still. 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:
It’s Jack Butala for Land Academy. Welcome to our Cash Flow from Land Show. We show you how to buy property for half of what it’s worth and resell it the next day. Great information and instruction from Jack. That’s me.
Jill DeWit:
And inspiration from Jill. That’s me.
Jack Butala:
Here’s some funny stuff that happened to us recently.
Jill DeWit:
Okay. I have to share this. I never thought I would see the day where a grown man was walking around … No, it’s a good thing though. More excited than a kid on Christmas.
Jack Butala:
Oh, because I’m buying a motorcycle today.
Jill DeWit:
Yes, that’s why. You, last night, about every three to five minutes would blurt out, “I’m getting a motorcycle tomorrow. I’m getting a motorcycle tomorrow.” You have clearly missed that and I think it’s cool. I just had to share that because you were so darn excited and I haven’t seen you this excited about something like that.
Jack Butala:
I used to non-professionally race super bikes. You know, those Café Racers and then, like it should, the switch flipped in my head to protect myself and my family and be a grown up. That happened for lots and lots of years and Jill and I have been going back and forth from Los Angeles. From Scottsdale to Los Angeles and I’m sick of the traffic. I decided to get a scooter which became a Quest and guess what? I found a new one that’s used, with like a 130 miles on it, that they don’t even make anymore. It’s super powerful, for half price.
Jill DeWit:
Gee, imagine that.
Jack Butala:
Jill and I don’t have this company just because it’s a cool headline. We live this.
Jill DeWit:
This is how we roll.
Jack Butala:
We buy stuff for half or we don’t do it at all.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly. Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jack Butala:
It’s kind of sad.
Jill DeWit:
Why? What?
Jack Butala:
I don’t know. Maybe there’s just something wrong with that.
Jill DeWit:
No it’s not.
Jack Butala:
When’s the last time you paid full price for anything?
Jill DeWit:
I do it all the time. Look at my necklace.
Jack Butala:
You paid full price for that?
Jill DeWit:
I did pay full price. Actually, I should say. I saw it in the store … this is funny. I did see it in the store, and they didn’t have it in sterling silver so I came home and ordered it on Amazon, probably about the same price, but I wanted to get the sterling silver.
Jack Butala:
It’s the outline of the state of California.
Jill DeWit:
It is. I’ll give you another example. We were in a store last night and you picked up some things and you go, “I didn’t even look at how much that costs.” Sometimes we do, it depends on what it is.
Jack Butala:
It’s a disease, but it hasn’t taken over our life completely.
Jill DeWit:
You’re so funny.
Jack Butala:
In this episode, Jill and I talk about three reasons why your REI career may be at a stand still. Because we’re here to help. Great show today. Before we start let’s take a question posted by one of our members on successplant.com. Our free online community.
Jill DeWit:
Okay. Kevin wrote, “Should I include Land Owners Associations in my mailer? If the LOA shows up as an owner, does it mean they haven’t taken over the property or does it mean it’s just a common area for all land owners to use?”
Jack Butala:
This again. I’m going to answer the question in a second. I remember when Kevin called here and said, “This is not going to work. There’s no way. You guys need to convince me.” This was about three or four months ago. Three months ago.
Jill DeWit:
More than that. I think it was longer than that.
Jack Butala:
He’s obviously sent mailers out. He’s obviously buying and selling property and he’s got an extremely sophisticated and intelligent question. He’s got the mindset where he’s adjusting as he goes and he might want to include these associations in his mailer or not. He’s going to ask me, and the rest of our group, what our take is on it and save a bunch of time and money. This is exactly how this should all work. Yeah, Kevin. I would include associations in your mailer. For sure, but I wouldn’t … Typically, when you look at a list of all property in an area that you’ve identified as buying it cheap. The HOA or the LOA, they’re going to own that one lot or ten lots, but lots. They’re going to own a ton of them, so to directly answer your question, yes you should include them, but don’t spend fifty cents a lot.
Combine them or send them one letter and say, “I know you have a ton of properties here. What’s the deal? Can I buy them directly from you?” The second part of the question is, does it mean that they’ve taken them back or does it mean that it’s common area? It’s both. Land Owners Associations, that’s their business model. They take property back and resell it for me. Some of them just sell it at cost. Jill and I have done many, many, many … Probably thousands of transactions with Land Ownership Associations. A lot of people can’t really avoid that. I don’t agree with that. I think it’s a great relationship to establish and you can go back to the well as long as you want.
Jill DeWit:
That’s what I love, too. You can call … Once they reach back out to you and you figure out that this is a good property you like and the right price, you could say, “All right, now let’s talk about ten. What if I buy ten.” They’ll negotiate with you and when you buy them you start with a clean slate with as far as fees and all that goes. They’ll say, “All right, great. You’re taking this off my hands.” It’s a beautiful relationship that you can develop.
Jack Butala:
The final part of the question. Is it common area property? When it gets subdivided it might be … Around the office we call them slivers. Is it a sliver property? Is it a drainage ditch? Is it an easement? Sometimes in subdivisions you’ll see the actual roads have an APN. Everybody’s first reaction is to throw that away and I don’t understand that so let me tell you a really quick story.
I purchased a property on accident in southern California one time that was under power lines. There’s power lines running all over the place because whatever the power source is that is delivering power to these cities is way out in the middle of the desert. Whether it’s a coal plant or nuclear plant, or whatever. It’s not nuclear. Sometimes. Nuclear plants are close to the water. Coal plants are in the middle of the desert so they’ve got these really high powered wires delivering electricity to the cities and all the properties that’s under those, not all, but many parcels under those properties are subdivided and nobody wants them.
I bought a piece of property like that on accident and a group of properties a lot of years ago. An engineer came and he said, “This is going to be a mess because there’s these power lines.” Well, guess what happened? We posted it and we said, “Hey, this is an awesome area property under power lines. We fully disclosed what we did and you know the rest of the story. Some guys that loved to rip it up on the weekend with motorcycles and dirt bikes and stuff, they bought a huge piece of acreage property under some power lines and they’re having a blast with it for next to nothing. There’s always people that … As crazy as you might think these properties are, there’s always people that want them.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly.
Jack Butala:
If you have a question or you want to be on the show, call 800-725-8816 and don’t be Eeyore about it. Three reasons why your REI career may be at a stand still. This is the meat of the show. I listed three but I bet Jill could come up with thirty-two more.
Jill DeWit:
We’ll go with your three because I like your three. That’s a good number.
Jack Butala:
The phrase that I hear a lot lately, and it never comes out of my mouth or Jill’s, but people come to us and say, “I’m in analysis paralysis.” They’re usually pre-members. What they’re asking us I think is, “Get me out of analysis paralysis. I’ve looked at your stuff. I’ve looked at everybody else’s stuff and I just can’t make a decision about which path to go down.” That’s why your career is failing or at a stand still I should say.
Jill DeWit:
They need a kick or something sometimes.
Jack Butala:
Make a decision. Make a commitment, make a decision. What’s the worst thing that can happen? You spend a little bit of money on some education that you didn’t fully want to use. Is that really a bad thing? You got more education and then found out that you didn’t want to do it. Which never happens by the way. If that’s what you’re afraid of, that’s silly.
Jill DeWit:
Isn’t it funny? There’s some people that come to us and they’re three days into it and they’re like … Ready to go. Then, there’s some people that are three years into it, researching this and stuff, and they’re … It’s tough. I feel bad for them. I do a lot of, “I’ve been to all these meetings. I’ve been doing this and that.” I’ve heard other people talk about this, too. That they have people that they’ve mentored and they just can’t go anywhere for some reason. They’re stuck.
Jack Butala:
None of that’s as important as the fact that I’m picking up my motorcycle today.
Jill DeWit:
I know that. I’m so glad. We’re listing the reasons. Do we want to tell him … Are we telling him how to get out of them or just telling them get out of it?
Jack Butala:
Analysis paralysis. If somebody comes to us and says that … Honestly, I’ve heard it probably five times in the last two weeks. My first reaction to that is, “Oh, so you’re a mechanical engineer then. You’re an accountant then.” Those personality types … We have many of those types of personalities in our group actually. Way more than I think our competitors do because we’re just taking a more brainy approach to this, but they get out of it. Then, my concern starts to become, “Well, if it took you two years to get to this point, you haven’t made a decision, what’s going to happen when you’re two properties in and somebody calls you and reaches a riot act about the fact that they got a letter that they think is under-priced? You have to adjust your attitude about this stuff and chill out about it and really just take it as it comes.
Jill DeWit:
I agree.
Jack Butala:
Number two of the three reasons. Stick to the plan. The whole train comes to a grinding halt in an REI career, and I don’t care if you’re flipping houses or whatever, if you’re putting the cart before the horse. You have to get the right data, you have to get education and get the tools and then stick on an inspiration/motivation/support network, like Success Plant, to execute this whole thing. First, you need education. The single biggest reason I see people fail in real estate really early on is because they wake up in the morning, they decide they want to be a real estate investor or they know somebody who’s driving a Porsche around and they own a bunch of real estate and the first thing they do is go look for real estate.
To try to find a deal and they have no idea what a good deal is or a bad deal is. Step one is education. I don’t care if you get it from us, but you’ve got to get it somewhere. In fact, i would highly suggest you get it from multiple sources so you can decide what path you want to go down. Stick to the plan. Please don’t go out and look for real estate … If you want to get in this business, get education first. Real estate will come second. If you get the right education, the real estate’s going to come to you. You won’t even have to go out and look at it and it will be half price by the time it gets to your desk. You want to take number three Jill?
Jill DeWit:
Yes. Number three … I love this. Hurdles becomes roadblocks. Don’t let that happen to you. I see that sometimes. People get hung up on a detail. I call it a speed bump and you say hurdle and I love that. For me, it’s a speed bump. Big deal. What’s interesting is, what are speed bumps for me are roadblocks for somebody else and then once we talk through it they go, “Oh, I guess there is a solution.” Yeah, there is. If you can train yourself to think of everything as a speed bump, don’t think of anything as a road block. Then, you will figure it out. You’ll get over the speed bump and you’ll move right along.
Jack Butala:
You know, this is a really nice way of saying, “Be a positive person.” When Jill and I started Land Academy, not so long ago, it was all technical. If you go back and look at our first education program, which is our best seller still, it’s very technical. There’s some funny stuff in there thanks to Jill, she lightens the whole thing up, but it never occurred to me, in my male brain, that inspiration is part of this and that keeping a positive attitude and getting through whatever is in front of you at the time to get to the next step is so important. That’s why we added inspiration and motivation to all of of what we do here now. There’s some people that, unfortunately, I think they get the most attention, who are just walking around hanging their heads saying, “I’m not good enough, I’m not smart enough, and gosh darn it, people don’t like me.”
Jill DeWit:
Exactly. It’s funny, but you know and I was just thinking, too. We’ve had how many transactions over the years that nobody else would get them done and they would put them aside, but you and I get them done. You know? Sometimes people look at me like, “Are you crazy?” No, I’m going to get it done.
Jack Butala:
It’s not that hard. Especially when you have the tools that we provide. In all of our stuff, we provide the exact same tools that Jill and I use every single day. There’s no tricks or we’re not holding anything back. I heard somebody say that one of our competitors does this secret county list. Here’s a list of the secret counties that … Come on. We don’t hold anything back. We want you to succeed.
Jill DeWit:
Steven, I’m glad you brought those up. Those are all really good and really big and I do hear those everyday, and see people everyday. You’ve just got to get passed it.
Jack Butala:
The one that’s not on here is wrong prog type. We get a lot of people that have gone down the road and gotten stung flipping houses. Not just flipping them or whole selling them like we teach, but like cleaning them with … Fixing them up and putting new cabinets in and stuff.
Jill DeWit:
Right, and it wasn’t the right thing for them?
Jack Butala:
Let me tell you about that. For some reason, people are either really good at what we do, which is like bird dogging and finding cheap property or they’re at like, putting new cabinets in, cleaning them up and selling them. For some reason, I’ve never seen a good working example of both. Jill and i have done this several times and I prefer to never ever do it again. If I don’t see the inside of a Home Depot ever again in my life, that’s going to be fine with me. We get a lot of people that come in understand now that flipping land is the product type for them and that flipping houses is a lot more work than they thought.
Jill DeWit:
You know what? I was going to piggyback one thing that you said, too, right there. If this is not for you, that’s okay, too. We talk about that all the time. Everyday, people come to us and they want to do something else. That’s great. I’m not going to talk you into something you don’t want to do. Whatever it is, go do it. This whole thing about REI, like Steven said, we’re talking about the three reasons your REI career may be at a stand still. It’s not just land, it’s anything. Go find what sings to you, get educated and don’t stop.
Jack Butala:
If you wake up in the morning and look over across the bed and that’s the wrong person, it’s not too late. If your thing is at a stand still, make some changes. This is the if/then segment of the show. If you do X, then Y will happen. If your REI career is at a stand still, then there’s a reason for that. Take a look at the time and the reason, professional or personal, where it stopped, where the train stopped, and restart that program right there. Deconstruct it. Take a look at exactly what happened. Maybe your kids need some attention and you had to stop it there. Maybe you couldn’t get passed the fact that Excel, Microsoft Excel, is involved in a mail merge. We can address that.
Microsoft spends millions and millions and millions of dollars on free education on the Internet about how to use their products and Jill and I have spent a lot of time. If it’s something as simple as that, a simple, little … What did you call it? A speed bump. Don’t make it a roadblock and stop the whole thing. If you have a question or you want to be on the show, call 800-725-8816. We’d love to hear from you. Jill, we have some inspiration I bet. My favorite part of the show.
Jill DeWit:
You know what? Today I was just kind of surfing the Internet and I saw an old Babe Ruth quote and I thought it was cool. It is, “Every strike brings me closer to a home run.”
Jack Butala:
Yeah, so that’s why you have to have that … Babe Ruth is perfect for that.
Jill DeWit:
I was trying to find a version of that and then I thought, “Okay, Babe Ruth. We all know who that is.” I thought that was good. You have to expect it. You have to expect you’re going to strike out. It’s going to happen, but it is going to get you that much closer to your home run.
Jack Butala:
Every time we send a mailer out, and truth be told we haven’t sent one out in a while because we’ve been sending them out for many, many years. Decades. It’s rains property on us everyday here. Every time we send a mailer out, I can set my watch by it, there’s a calm before the storm. [inaudible 00:17:47] get it to the printer and the whole thing. Then, there’s a calm like about a week. New people freak out. They’re like, “This isn’t working. The printer screwed me.” It’s funny. It’s kind of funny to watch. Then, you get several phone calls from people who are less than please about the fact that you think their property is worth half. That’s all funny, we joke around about it in the office and you should, too. Then, the mail comes.
The signed purchase agreements come and an influx of phone calls come that say … They all say something like this, “You know, I got your offer. I talked to my sister in Massachusetts. We’ve owned this property for ten years. We’re not going to use it and you know what? I really don’t want to mess with it at all. Yes, I would please like to do the deal.” That’s when Jill kicks in and she makes it a happy, fun, experience for these people, Jill and her staff, to complete the transaction. Even if there is somebody else that’s got another offer on the table, which almost never happens, they choose us because … And they should choose you. Because it’s a pleasant, fun experience. They’re not expecting to get top dollar. When you go buy milk at a convenient store and it’s three dollars more than if you bought it at Walmart, you accept that. It’s the same thing with real estate.
Jill DeWit:
I agree.
Jack Butala:
Great Stuff Jill.
Jill DeWit:
Thank you.
Jack Butala:
Join us in another episode where Jack and Jill discuss how to use information. That’s me.
Jill DeWit:
And inspiration. That’s me.
Jack Butala:
To get just about anything you want for half price.
Jill DeWit:
We use it everyday to buy property for half of what it’s worth and sell it immediately.
Jack Butala:
Get there first. Good show Jill.
Jill DeWit:
Thank you. That was really good.
Jack Butala:
Babe Ruth, huh?
Jill DeWit:
Yeah, well. It was kind of on my mind. I was looking for something like that. It is good to talk about. I think you and I take it for granted sometimes that part of our success is because we created this and we’re pushing forward and we won’t stop until we’re there. Whatever comes our way, it doesn’t matter. We tackle it and move on.
Jack Butala:
That’s what i do with everything.
Jill DeWit:
I guess my point is …
Jack Butala:
I’m not arguing with you. I completely agree.
Jill DeWit:
It’s innately who we are, but everybody can do it and I have a really good example. Do you remember how we thought, oh no, all of a sudden Paypal would stop accepting …
Jack Butala:
That’s a great example. Tell that story.
Jill DeWit:
We did so much on Ebay years ago. It was like …
Jack Butala:
Millions. Like fifteen million dollars.
Jill DeWit:
It was more than that, but yeah, you’re right. More than fifteen million dollars and I have two Ebay accounts and it’s really fun because whenever I would sell something on there and call them I’d go, “Do me a favor. Pull up this account and scroll down.” They go, “Ooh.” I go, “Yeah, I kind of know what I’m talking about here.” We’re heavily selling property there, it was going great and all of a sudden Paypal decides, “We’re not going to allow real estate transactions.” That was like, the brakes came on.
Jack Butala:
They said it was an excluded product type.
Jill DeWit:
A lot of people, I think, flipped out and realized, “I can’t sell this. What am I going to do?”
Jack Butala:
That’s exactly what happened. [crosstalk 00:21:06] have the competition and cleaned it out.
Jill DeWit:
They’re dropping off. All we’re going is, “So what? We just got to find another way to take payments. We got this”, and we did.
Jack Butala:
Guess what happened? The processor now is ten times better than Paypal every was. Cheaper and faster and way more user friendly. Almost all the time those little … Those bumps are there for a reason. It’s to find a better solution and make it easier.
Jill DeWit:
You know what I think, too? Remember we talked about it? This is the after show I can share this. I’m like, “That was awesome.” Because it did weed out a lot people that can’t … I said, our competition was just cut in half because of that, and I’m like, “Yay.” I feel bad for them that they couldn’t figure it out, but there’s a reason why we are still here.
Jack Butala:
There is. Because I won’t quit, man.
Jill DeWit:
Neither will I.
Jack Butala:
Let’s go buy something for half price day today and resell it. Jack and Jill. Information and inspiration.
If you enjoyed the podcast, please review it in iTunes . Reviews are incredibly important for rankings on iTunes. My staff and I read each and every one.
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email me directly at steve@LandAcademy.com.
I would like to think it’s entertaining and informative and in the end profitable.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes.
