Over Mailing a Single County When Does it Happen (CFFL 0245)
Over Mailing a Single County When Does it Happen
Jack Butala: Over Mailing a Single County When Does it Happen. 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 with Jill DeWit.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Jack Butala: Welcome to our show. In this episode, Jill and I talk about over mailing a single county. When does it happen? Great show today Jill. Let’s take a question before we start. Posted by one of our members on successplant.com, our free online community.
Jill DeWit: Cool. All right, hi Bae, asked, buyer wants to close the deal and asks how to pay me the cash? Buyers live in different states. What’s the best way to pay me? Some agents from the 123Notary were reluctant to help me hand the deed and mail the check. I got this.
Jack Butala: Oh good ahead.
Jill DeWit: Can I go?
Jack Butala: I would have read it for you.
Jill DeWit: I should have done that. The scoop is, Bae is the seller here and we have a buyer, so actually we don’t need the notary with the buyer because the only one signing the deed is you Bae. You’re the one that’s sign the deed and having it notarized and all that good stuff. There’s nothing that your buyer has to sign. That’s that one.
As far as payment, gosh, that’s up to you. I answer this in Success Plant and I put a little note for Bae too, telling her, “Hey check when this airs, ” so she can listen. Some people use credit card processors like Stripe. Some people, maybe they’re new, they might be starting out, still using, “Hey mail me a cashiers check. Mail me a money order.” Maybe it’s a big transit action and you’re open to bank wire. THere’s a lot of different ways you can take payment. Back in the day we use to use Paypal, so there’s lot of ways you can do it. It’s really up to you, but I will say this. The main thing is, make sure you let your buyer know that the signed, completed, notarized deed for them will not be mailed until the payment has cleared. They understand it, and they’re really cool and they’re very great about it. That’s it. Jack you want to add anything?
Jack Butala: Yeah, a lot of people don’t understand this, especially people who are in the real estate business. If you have a lot of experience in real estate or even made ten transactions or five transactions or as an agent, some people are shocked over the fact that this is how we do it. We sell a piece of property, a buyer says, “Hey I really want to buy that forty acre property for eight grand. How do I close?” Well you click right here, you fill out your credit card information like you’re buying a pair of shoes, and that’s it. Then we send you the deed.
There are some very senior people that fall over over that because there’s a potential for someone to be less than honest, but there’s potential for someone to be less than honest when they send you some shoes on the internet too. It’s very, very basic. There’s a little bit of trust and that’s why you need to have a website. You need to have your act together and a good reputation on the internet. Process payment just like you would with anything on Amazon even, and the stuff shows up at your door.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. Like I said, wait until it clears. It’s all cool, so everybody’s covered, and then you send the completed deed.
Jack Butala: Do we buy apartment buildings like this? No.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Jack Butala: Do we buy houses like this? No. Even with large acreage, in the example that I just said, eight to ten thousand dollar deal, although Jill frequently collects credit card payments for transactions like that, if you’re new I would recommend closing through escrow.
Jill DeWit: For big stuff.
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: Our rule is like five thousand bucks in general.
Jill DeWit: Right. If this is a $1,000 transaction, you’re selling a property, you bought it $200 and you’re selling it for $999 let’s just say, this would be a perfect example of that.
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, when you’re $999 clears, no seriously.
Jack Butala: I’ve heard Jill-
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Jack Butala: -one time Jill was walking a guy-
Jill DeWit: Oh my God.
Jack Butala: -literally walking the guy through sending a wire transfer. He’s standing in a bank with a cell phone in his hand.
Jill DeWit: It was hilarious.
Jack Butala: Jill is telling him what to say to the teller. “Here’s the routing number, here’s the,” remember that?
Jill DeWit: That was the funniest thing. I remember our number two employee at the time was standing there with his mouth open because I said, “You’re going to do this right now.” I mean it was pretty much, he was driving to the bank, calling me back, here’s how we’re going … He just got a little flustered about how to make this happen. I said, “Knock it off. Go to the bank. Call me when you’re in line, and we’ll make this happen.” It was a small town too. I think he even handed the phone over to the teller, and I’m walking the teller-
Jack Butala: It was probably his niece.
Jill DeWit: -oh it was hilarious. It was so funny. I’m like, “We’re going to get this solved.”
Jack Butala: I like Bae. Bae’s very, very bright. We had a chance to meet her in person. It was a lot of fun. If you have a question or you want to be on the show, call 800-725-8816. Today’s topic is, Over mailing a county. What do I mean by that? What happens if one single county gets too many offers. When does it happen and what do you do? This the meat of the show. Here’s a hint, it’s never happened. It doesn’t happen and that’s why I wanted to do this show. There’s only a couple of situations that I’ve ever come across where a seller says, “Man what’s going on with this property? I received four offers for it. I’ve owned this property for twenty years and haven’t heard a word out of anybody. All of a sudden I received four offers in the last two months.” When does that happen Jill?
Jill DeWit: Back tax.
Jack Butala: Back taxes. Ding ding. You get a gold star.
Jill DeWit: Yes.
Jack Butala: It always happens when the guys stops paying his back taxes because for whatever reason, people choose to target back tax property. If you listen to our show with any regularity, you’re going to know what we’re going to say next. It’s silly, silly, silly to just now mail back tax property, but everybody focuses on it. Don’t know why. Well I do know why, because they learn it from sources other than Jill and I, and they send offers to back tax property instead of just sending them to everybody.
Jill DeWit: Dude, weren’t you reading a statistic here in California, and that we were talking about the, right where we are in South Bay, about the number of folks that don’t have a mortgage. It was a shockingly high number. Do you remember what I’m talking about?
Jack Butala: I do. I remember exactly what you’re talking about.
Jill DeWit: What was it? It was close to 50%.
Jack Butala: It was 40%.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Jack Butala: Which is the national average by the way.
Jill DeWit: Okay, thank you.
Jack Butala: The national average is 50% for single family residences. According to the census, it’s like 48 or 49%, but here it was about 20 I think, ball park.
Jill DeWit: For some reason I thought it was even higher, but my point is, people don’t seem to realize the number of people that are current on their taxes, and they don’t have a mortgage and those are the guys you want to talk to because they’re the ones that can make the deals.
Jack Butala: Right. Exactly.
Jill DeWit: I always tell folks too, don’t trust me, go look it up. Go check the stuff. I remember one I was interviewing a girl for one of our positions and we were talking about this, and she’s like, “Yeah, my parents don’t have a mortgage.” I’m like, “Hello?” She’s like, “Yeah, I guess you’re right. There’s a lot of people out there.” I’m like, “Yeah I know.” Jack, you and I don’t have a mortgage.
Jack Butala: Some people’s come back to that is, back tax property is the sign that’s something’s wrong, so we can get in there and solve it for the problem. To that I say, what a bunch of malarkey.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, there is a sign there’s something wrong, like no one can work with the property. There’s something-
Jack Butala: Go on Facebook and research just a little bit or … Do some research on it and you’re going to find out what Jill and I say is absolutely correct. Back tax property is a problem. It’s hard to close, sometimes the person you’re talking to is not the owner, maybe they’re deceased. There’s all kinds of issues you’re going to run into. If you do it our way, like most of our members do, you just mail everybody below a certain accessed value for land, or if you’re doing houses, you mail everybody in your certain geographic area that doesn’t have a mortgage and you’re going to kill it. You’re going to hit the percentages that we hit.
Jill DeWit: You know what I thought about just now too? I wonder if this is a hot thing because not everyone has access to the data that we have? Not everyone has-
Jack Butala: That’s exactly what’s going on Jill.
Jill DeWit: -because there’s only one source that we use that I know of, that you could put in all the things we do like 0% improvement and no mortgage and all that stuff. Our stuff that we use, our data-
Jack Butala: Data to doorstep.
Jill DeWit: -yeah, is the only place that you can get all of that stuff. You can tape together little things, maybe but not all of them do. I wonder if that’s part of it? They just don’t have access to it, so they just go with what they’ve got.
Jack Butala: To bring some finality to the topic, over mailing happens in a county, in my experience only to back tax property. We’re done with that. Here’s the right way to do a mailer, so that you’re not leaving hanging. You get the right data, and we obviously have the right data. You sort for properties that have no mortgages, either land or houses. Let’s just stick with land for a second. No mortgages and no improved value, and then you cap the accessed value. What does that mean? It means that you do not want to send a $500 offer for someone’s rural, vacant land that is accessed at $1.2 million. You want to cap it at, let’s say, pick a number based on research, let’s say $40,000, so all the properties that have no mortgage, no improved value, that means it’s just land, and below $40,000, and you want to send them an offer for a certain amount, based on how you structure your offer. We go through that in all our programs. That is the right way to do a mailer.
What Jill’s saying is the vast majority of data out there doesn’t contain that information. They don’t have an accessed value, so what do you do? I’ll tell you do, you do what most people do that fail at this, you just send back tax mailer. Now it does all the work for you. Does it though? How much does that cost? Now people call you back, they say, “My grandfather’s dead. It says right here in the will that I own this.” No you don’t. Now you’re solving all kinds of problems, you’re spending time, you spend a ton of money on postage. It’s just … I hate to say this out loud but trust us, we’re right about this. I’ve done all those wrong things.
Jill DeWit: Well I know some of our people are really, really smart and they’ve done a lot of research. There are some places you can get the accessed value but it’s the improved value. The improved value down to zero, that’s the kicker.
Jack Butala: If you’re sending an offer out to a property that has an improved value on it, its not land. It’s a house or something.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. That’s the thing you just said Jack, now you’re wasting your time.
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: I’m like, oh man, you don’t want to … Who knows what’s on it, what it really is?
Jack Butala: There’s a right way to do this, and it’s worth learning the right way. Take an extra week let’s say, learn the right way, whatever source you learn, and then don’t spend a ton of money on postage. I hate to see a bad list, a bad sort, and then thousands and thousands of dollars down the drain on postage.
Jill DeWit: Wasted. I know.
Jack Butala: Then time.
Jill DeWit: You know, I don’t understand why … You and I are so good about this and I think most people are … I hope they … I mean, how do I say this? Let’s spend a little more money right now to do it right because the money you’re going to save, like you just said, it’s worth it. If you’re doing it wrong, you’re wasting money, how about that?
Jack Butala: Yeah, and time.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: Then a bunch of people are going to call you back expecting you to solve their problem, and you’re going to get turned off by the business.
Jill DeWit: Oh that’s true.
Jack Butala: That’s huge tragedy and then it’s like, “I don’t want to become a lawyer.” Well if you just send the mail to the right people in the first place, they’re going to call you back and say, “I want to sell the property and yes I own it. Please send me a cashiers check and some stuff to sign and I’m happy to deed it over to you. I’m done.” That’s the people you want. You don’t want, “Oh my grandparents have passed away,” and now you need an attorney to close the deal.
Jill DeWit: “We stopped paying the taxes, we didn’t even know what to do with it.” Oh my goodness.
Jack Butala: How many members Jill, do you think we have that come to us saying, “God I really wish I would have done this the first time.”
Jill DeWit: Totally, a lot.
Jack Butala: I bet 50%. More than that probably.
Jill DeWit: Well my favorite is the one guy, remember when he was in Facebook and I put it in my Facebook. I cut and paste the whole thing in there. He did his own survey, he did his own test to show back tax versus not back tax and his results were staggering. The number of good deals that came out of the non back tax and the property values, the ROI was higher.
Jack Butala: The ROI was higher and I think his response was higher.
Jill DeWit: I love it. I tell everybody this, if you don’t believe us, please go do your own test, share it with everybody. It’s the best way to find out.
Jack Butala: If you’re the kind of person who, when you go car shopping, you want to find a broken car and repair it and spend a tremendous amount of time becoming an auto mechanic instead of driving it around having fun, then you should set mail back tax property because that’s what it is.
Jill DeWit: That’s it. I’m going to find the car with the broken top and I’m going to fix it myself.
Jack Butala: Broken top. I’m talking about if it doesn’t start.
Jill DeWit: Oh.
Jack Butala: Broken top. Listen to Jill. My top’s broken. Baby there’s nothing wrong with-
Jill DeWit: Speaking from experience, I think [inaudible 00:13:43] with a stupid, broken top.
Jack Butala: There’s nothing wrong with your top, trust me.
Jill DeWit: Thanks.
Jack Butala: It’s not broken.
Jill DeWit: There’s nothing worse than having a convertible that’s not a convertible.
Jack Butala: That went right over her head.
Jill DeWit: Been there done that. I got it. I’m ignoring you. Totally ignoring you. I do that.
Jack Butala: This is the technical two. Two minutes of property investment advice from our fifteen year, fifteen thousand, almost sixteen thousand plus transaction experience. Send mail to everybody in the county below a certain accessed value, and you’re going to do fantastic. Don’t just focus on back tax property or foreclosure property or problematic property. You’re missing 90% of the opportunity out there and causing some problems for yourself. It’s going to be way more expensive from a time and money standpoint in the long run. That was less than two minutes.
Jill DeWit: That was awesome.
Jack Butala: That was less than maybe thirty seconds.
Jill DeWit: I like it. Do that again. This is our technical-
Jack Butala: Technical Thirty Seconds is what it should be.
Jill DeWit: -thirty seconds. Technical point five-
Jack Butala: The whole show could be thirty seconds.
Jill DeWit: -minutes. Point five minutes.
Jack Butala: If you have a question, or you want to be on this show, and you don’t walk around like Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh, call 800-725-8816. My personal favorite time of the show is Jill’s inspiration. Jill, inspire us.
Jill DeWit: Are you doing an annual review on yourself? You know, we do it for our employees and our employers do it for us, maybe depending on your position, what you do, but do you do it for yourself? It’s a good time to, maybe around your birthday or the beginning of the year or something, it’s really good to sit down and think about the last twelve months. What were you really good at? What do you need to maybe-
Jack Butala: I think that’s awesome advice.
Jill DeWit: -adjust?
Jack Butala: I never do that. I think that’s … In accounting we do a monthly review, maybe we should do a monthly review of ourselves.
Jill DeWit: Whatever sings to you.
Jack Butala: I’m going to start doing that.
Jill DeWit: I like do annual, or I like to do life event. Do you know what I mean? You have a life event and it’s like, all right, now I have to make some changes, kind of thing. I’m thinking about this just because we just did a review for one of our staff and I-
Jack Butala: Oh yeah we did.
Jill DeWit: -and they got a raise.
Jack Butala: She passed with flying colors.
Jill DeWit: What’s really funny is, this employee came to us saying, “I want a review and I want to make some changes.”
Jack Butala: I didn’t even read it and I said yes. Then I said how much?
Jill DeWit: It worked out great.
Jack Butala: She told me and I said yes.
Jill DeWit: It worked out great and yeah, got a raise and it made me think about just all of us. Individuals, you need to be doing an annual review, at least an annual review.
Jack Butala: What would be on your review Jill? A lot of stuff’s coming to mind about me.
Jill DeWit: Am I on the right path? How am I on my path on my five year plan? How am I doing with all the people in my world? Am I walking around feeling like I want to feel and looking like I want to look? It’s kind of silly but I think about that stuff personally and that’s the stuff I review. What am I not doing right now? One of my big things is, what am I not devoting time to that I really want to devote time to? Knock it off. It’s really easy and I do this too, it’s really easy to say, “Oh I don’t have time.” That’s the stupidest thing and it’s funny Jack, because you call me on that all the time. You look at me like don’t go there. I’m like, I know you’re right.
Jack Butala: What? I don’t have time.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. You catch me on that one.
Jack Butala: That’s not an excuse for anything, for anyone ever.
Jill DeWit: That’s not an excuse. You’re not devoting the time and that’s your problem. Nobody else.
Jack Butala: You’re not putting it at the top of the list. When you say I don’t have time to do that, you’re saying, it’s not, whatever you’re asking me to do is not a priority for me, and that’s not acceptable. I don’t mean you, I just mean in general.
Jill DeWit: Oh you do mean me. You do mean me. You do it to me all the time.
Jack Butala: You know what’s awesome? We can argue with each other on the air like this.
Jill DeWit: Oh it’s great.
Jack Butala: We can say all kinds of stuff and there’s no repercussions for what we say because we have to laugh at it.
Jill DeWit: It’s funny.
Jack Butala: I’m going to start writing some stuff down.
Jill DeWit: Oh here it goes. Oh boy. Well I’m glad you like that. Thank you.
Jack Butala: Here’s my review of myself.
Jill DeWit: Oh okay, what’s yours?
Jack Butala: Probably don’t go to the dentist often enough. In all seriousness, I just read an article in Fast Company, you know that magazine? I love that magazine.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Jack Butala: They said, the number one reason in a really long-winded way, this guy wrote this article and said, the number one reason that companies fail is what? The owner’s not working on the right stuff. It’s not money, it’s not a good idea or a bad idea, it’s not wow the world needs that product or doesn’t need it. It’s because the owner, the guy who starts it or the founder is working on some silly stuff. We’re slated to do a show about that in the near future. You have to focus and really sit with yourself, so that would be my review. Whether it’s annual or monthly, am I working on the right stuff? Which is really another way of saying what you just said, am I going in the right direction, am I spending the time on the right topics and the whole thing.
Jill DeWit: For me, the annual review is a personal thing, not a business thing. You’re talking business, so it’s perfect. I appreciate that. They’re both important.
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.
Jill DeWit: We use it everyday to buy property for half of what it’s worth and sell it immediately.
Jack Butala: You are not alone in your real estate ambition. That was a show stealer Jill, your inspiration.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Jack Butala: I love it.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Jack Butala: I honestly … I’m not joking, I’m taking your advice. I’m putting in the calendar on the 5th of the month when we review financial statements and just take a look at myself and say, maybe I should be working on other stuff.
Jill DeWit: We review financial statements?
Jack Butala: You’re a perfect partner. I do a lot of crap in the background that you don’t have any idea about, and vice versa.
Jill DeWit: Okay. Yeah I didn’t know that happens on the 5th. Got it.
Jack Butala: If you was on fire, you wouldn’t even know. I’d put the fire out, do all kinds of stuff and you would be shopping or something.
Jill DeWit: Hey, there’s smoke over there.
Jack Butala: Don’t worry, dad’s got it.
Jill DeWit: That’s so true. At our office, Jack is dad and I am mom. It’s kind of funny.
Jack Butala: Oh geez.
Jill DeWit: It’s cute. I can see our people going to the other person because they know they’re going to get the answer that they want.
Jack Butala: Yeah, it happens with the kids. You ask mom first, she says no, then they go ask dad and he’s not even listening and says yes.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. They learn. Usually it’s the vice versa though. I’m not even listening, I’m like, “Sure, okay. Here’s some money,”
Jack Butala: Yep. Be home before the streetlights are on.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. Bring me one too.
Jack Butala: Let’s have cake for dinner. That’s what Jill says all the time.
Jill DeWit: Yep.
Jack Butala: Information and inspiration to buy undervalued property.
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