Why This is Really That Easy (CFFL 328)
Why This is Really That Easy
Jack Butala: Why This is Really That Easy. Leave us your feedback for this podcast on iTunes and get the free ebook at landacademy.com, you don’t even have to read it. Thanks for listening.
Jill DeWit: Jill DeWit with Jack Butala here.
Jack Butala: Hello today.
Jill DeWit: Welcome to our show. In this episode Jack and I talk about why this really can be this easy. Awesome show today. Super excited. First let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the landacademy.com free online community.
Jack Butala: Awesome. Josh asked, “The owners, husband and wife are alive but not well. They’re alive but not well and they’re not able to meet with the notary to sign. The son-in-law is handling their estate and has power of attorney over their assets and says that he can sign off on their property for them. He has all the needed documents and I am unsure how to word the new deed to buy for [inaudible 00:00:50]. Do I put it in the property’s name on a deed or does a POA simply sign for them, the son, or do I put a spot with the son-in-laws name as the power of attorney?” That’s the gist of it. What do you think Jill?
Jill DeWit: Well first of all, the grantor and grantee and all that good stuff, that doesn’t change. Whatever the grantee was, if it’s mom and dad’s names, however it was, you still word it the exact same way. Then you’re on the right track Josh. When you get to the end and you’re getting ready to sign, you’re going to have the son who has power of attorney sign, but you’re going to say, as power of attorney for X, Y, Z document. It’s got to be worded just right.
My little tip, what I do in this situation, there’s power of attorney and there’s legal stuff going on, there’s probably an attorney involved. This attorney has already been advising the son how to sign for things like these. That’s what I would … First ask him, “How does your attorney have it worded on everything else that you’ve signed up until this point?” I would copy that. Jack?
Jack Butala: Yeah, there’s two types of power of attorneys in general. I don’t want to make this a legal show at all. There’s a specific power of attorney which you issue to do one specific thing like sign over property. Then there’s a universal power of attorney, and they’re named to different types of things where they just handle the whole estate. Chances are, if mom and dad are incapacitated, this is a universal power of attorney. That makes it a lot easier. In some cases, you may or may not need to see that document. In some rare cases, the county may or may not need to see that document, and it might need to be recorded. Jill’s advise is perfect. The attorney that’s involved already on the estate, will tell you exactly what to do.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. Basically too, when you have a power of attorney, you’re never forging that person’s name. That doesn’t mean that gives you that authority to do that. You’re still signing your own name. The son is going to sign his name as the power of attorney and then however it’s worded. Jack brought up a really good point. Another great way to check is to check with the county and say, “All right. I got it all filled out correctly. Do you need me to record the substantiating evidence of the document to support this, along with the deed?” They’ll tell you yes or no. That’s a good thing.
Jack Butala: That’s a good question. This question is based on the fact that this person is doing this deal. They’re actually doing deals. Our members are doing deals. This is not a what happens if this happens. This is a real situation, and Josh, I don’t know the last name, we have multiple Josh’s, I think right, is going to get it done.
Jill DeWit: You know what else is nice? This is a clear example of Josh solving a problem for these people. This kid who’s obviously taken over the property for his parents was probably scratching his head going, “How am I going to sell this property? Who is going to want this property? What am I going to do with this property? Do I just let it go back to the county with this property?” Josh is coming along and saying, “Hey I know how to do this. I’m going to solve this for you. I’m going to give you some money for it.” I’m sure the people are jumping up and down.
Jack Butala: Yeah, if they’re incapacitated like this, they’re in estate planning mode anyway, and you can just check this off the list.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: Jill and I do a lot of deals like this, where it’s end of life scenarios, and you’re just helping people. If you brand new at this, it’s really hard to understand until you go through it. When someone is saying, “Thank you so much for helping with this,” even though you’re buying an asset for less than you can sell it for.
If you have a question or you want to be on the show, reach out to either one of us on landacademy.com. Today’s topic, the meat of the show, why … This is one of Jill’s favorite topics. Jill talks to new members all the time and they ask this question, “Is it really this easy? What’s the catch? I don’t believe it.”
Jill DeWit: It’s so funny because the reason I wanted to cover this today is because of one of our members who, we had so many conversations leading up to him saying, “All right, I’m going to try this.” Including not just me, he reach out to us, but one of his good friends is in our world, doing deals, and he’s still standing back, scratching his head going, “Something can’t be right here. I don’t know.” It’s so funny because this individual, you had a deal review didn’t you Jack? It was a not a data thing, it was a deal review that you guys were going over together and you basically hung up the phone and came to me and said, “This guy still goes wait a minute, is it really this easy?” I thought it’s funny.
Jack Butala: I’m not going to name any names, but he’s an accountant and I’m a former accountant so we both kind of have the same problems.
Jill DeWit: Yes. Well you’re good at the data, you understand that.
Jack Butala: Yeah, there’s no technical issues.
Jill DeWit: No technical issues. You know that’s interesting. You know what, that’s a good point. If you’re a technical person and you can see and manipulate data, this is even easier for you. For some folks who like me, I don’t have a data background, that’s not my thing, that’s why I have you, I’m good at the other parts, but the whole big picture about, “Gosh wait a minute. I’m sending out an offer. These people are opening my letter. They’re reading it. They’re saying yes to my offer. Now they’re sending it back and standing there waiting for me to call them and make the deal happen. What am I missing?” You’re not missing anything.
Jack Butala: Everybody brings past experiences in real estate to this environment. They vary from I got stung ten years … This is exact, I heard this comment last week. I got stung in a real estate deal ten years ago and that was it for me, until I found out about you guys. What you’re saying is making a lot of sense. You’re really simplifying the whole process. You’re taking the lender out, you’re taking the real estate agents out of the deal, you’re taking everybody out of the deal except the buyer and the seller and a cashier’s check. That’s the way it should be. Over the years, everybody brings something to this.
Jill DeWit: That’s very true.
Jack Butala: Maybe your parents … Some people say, “My parents bought a house and sold it thirty years later and they made four million dollars,” especially in California. “I’d like to do that sixteen times.” I said, “Well great. You found the right place.” Or the tragic other way. Here’s what not to do. This is a little bit off topic but I’m going to do it anyway. If you peruse the MLS for a house and you pick one out. You negotiate a purchase price, let’s say $10,000 off and you go get a loan, the real estate agent on the buy side of this makes a bunch of money, the loan officer makes money, the bank makes money, the inspector makes money, and a bunch of other people make money. Everybody makes money except you. Many, many, most, maybe all people come to us like that, with that experience. Man, it doesn’t have to be like that. It really is this easy. Now this is on topic.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. Good point. That was great Jack. I appreciate that. I still come back to, also one of our people said recently which is, “I’ve never lost $20,000 on a land deal.” I mean sure you could do it all wrong, but that’s typical for … They think what we’re doing is like flipping and fixing up and moving walls, and those HGTV funny shows. What we do is really before that point. It’s very different. It’s just reaching a lot of people, not looking at the asset, looking at ten thousand and seeing what comes back. Does that make sense?
Jack Butala: Yeah, we’re wholesalers.
Jill DeWit: It’s spinning a wild net, or a large net.
Jack Butala: We’re land wholesalers, and we source transactions by delivering, sending out unsolicited offers based on using data extremely intelligently. We’re really data people that happen to be in the real estate business.
Jill DeWit: That’s it.
Jack Butala: Real estate is just kind of what we buy and sell. It’s really all about data.
Jill DeWit: Because it’s got the highest returns.
Jack Butala: It’s fun.
Jill DeWit: Which is true. We could do this with cars, but I don’t really want to do it with cars. Where am I going to stick a car?
Jack Butala: I have done it with cars. We’ll be doing a program not in 2017, but in 2018, we will be expanding to show you how to wholesale cars. Here’s the kicker. Find a dealership or dealer that wants to buy cars, and now you have a buyer. You just go out and find the sellers. The same way we use the data here, just send them unsolicited offers.
Jill DeWit: My thing is though too, with what you said about the car thing, I look at it like, I want to do this, or I will do this and you have, with classic cars.
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: What?
Jack Butala: You how bad that failed, and here’s why. I love classic cars. You can’t get married to your real estate or your cars and just liking it and using it, then you won’t make any money.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. I love it. I’m trying to think. Really it comes down to how we do it. I think you’re right. People get hung up on the back end stuff like talking to the seller or they get hung up on some of the details like doing a deed, “God that’s got to be hard,” and getting it recorded, “That’s got to be hard. Do I need a title agent? Does it … In taking thirty days,” and none of that’s true, no. It’s just like, we do talk about cars a lot, and we haven’t talked about it in awhile, it’s just like buying a car off craigslist. Think of it like that. You find a couple of thousand dollar car, and you meet the guy, you hand him a check, he hands you the keys. Then you go back into the motor vehicles and you put it now in your name. The title is in your name.
Jack Butala: The same thing we do with land.
Jill DeWit: That’s it. It is that easy people. You have to wrap your head around it a little bit. I think too most people have only done residential, like their own homes. Like you just said Jack, yeah now you have lenders involved, and banks involved. It has to appraise, that’s involved. When I buy a car … You know what’s funny. Say I buy a car from a guy on craigslist and I go to the DMV and I go to put the title in my name. They’re not going to stop me and go, “Oh, honey you overpaid. It’s really only worth this. It didn’t appraise that high. We’re not going to let this happen.” No, it is going to happen. I’ve already paid the person.
Jack Butala: For lots of reasons. Maybe they needed money that day, maybe they just want to get rid of the car. They want to check it off their list, and people sell land for the same reason, and houses, and every other asset, boats, planes, all that stuff. The key is this, it’s a database driven acquisition flow-line. You can’t do this with a $5 list from China for everybody who owns a Toyota 4-Runner between the years of 2007 and 2009. That list could be eighty years old. We don’t know. Not eighty because the math doesn’t work there. You have to have an active DMV database, where you pull data from it and scrub it properly or else you’re wasting your time, the sellers time and you’ll spend a lot of money on postage that you don’t need to. To cap it like this, it is that easy but you need to learn how to from us or anybody, manipulate data.
Jill DeWit: Exactly, and have the right tools, the access to get it and do it cheap, and all that.
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 fun show.
Jill DeWit: That was good.
Jack Butala: It really is that easy you know. Some of our shows get real technical. This is really … I mean, it takes a couple of members to say, “Hey come on. What’s the catch?”
Jill DeWit: It’s true.
Jack Butala: This really came up clearly for me because this member specifically is an accountant and I am too, so we were speaking the same language.
Jill DeWit: It’s interesting. I have to like … I get so excited about this because it really is easy and fun and exciting for me, so when I talk to brand new people, they are reaching out going, “All right Jill, what is this all about? What are you guys doing? I just saw you on social media or I just found your podcast, and they schedule a call with me. I have to, I’ve learned I have to tone it down a little bit.
Jack Butala: Yeah, me too.
Jill DeWit: It’s like it is that easy, I don’t want to scare them away but sometimes I feel like they’re like, “Wait a minute. There really has to be a catch.” No, there is none.
Jack Butala: I really think people and consumers are concerned about and really afraid of getting disappointed. They been disappointed in not just with like real estate education, but they just get disappointed. They get let down because there’s so much crap out there.
Jill DeWit: You’re right. You know what? Here we are, it is kind of funny, you’re right Jack. We’re so here and available and transparent and real people and doing the deals. I don’t know, does that even make it seem like this really can’t be real? Yeah, it is.
Jack Butala: You just told me a story about one of our new members said, “Look, I called your two competitors, your two land competitors. For two weeks, they never called me back. They didn’t contact me. They were unreachable. I emailed them, I did everything I could. I got you on the second-”
Jill DeWit: First try.
Jack Butala: “I scheduled a call with you-”
Jill DeWit: You called me right back.
Jack Butala: Through our mechanism and that’s it. I don’t understand.
Jill DeWit: I agree.
Jack Butala: He’s disappointed and hopefully we remedied that. I have a long history of disappointed women, but not business-wise. Information and inspiration to buy undervalued property.
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