Quality Data is Imperative for Land Investment (CFFL 390)
Quality Data is Imperative for Land Investment
Jack Butala: Quality Data is Imperative for Land Investment. 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.
Jack Butala: Jack Butala with Jill DeWit.
Jill DeWit: Happy Friday.
Jack Butala: Oh, my gosh. It is Friday. Welcome to our show today. In this episode, Jill and I talk about why quality data is imperative for land investment.
Jill DeWit: Due to get imperative.
Jack Butala: I know it’s a little-
Jill DeWit: Pa, pa.
Jack Butala: I know.
Jill DeWit: Imperative. Sorry.
Jack Butala: We literally got new equipment for next week and I can’t wait to try it out on Monday.
Jill DeWit: Me also. It’s the same Fox new equipment. I was reading on that, like they use it on the sidelines in the Fox games.
Jack Butala: Not Fox news, but-
Jill DeWit: Well, not Fox, the Fox Sports.
Jack Butala: I know, the NFL. It’s the same headsets that the NFL guys have.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Jack Butala: That’s one of the perks I have in this whole thing. Like this [crosstalk 00:00:34] thing.
Jill DeWit: Shopping.
Jack Butala: Yeah. I can just get a bunch of audio-video toy-
Jill DeWit: Shop for equipment.
Jack Butala: All the audio-video toys I’ve ever want, I’m now allowed to get.
Jill DeWit: Because they’re all business expenses. You know what else I can do? I get my hair done.
Jack Butala: Yeah. Exactly. Oh, I need a new outfit for that.
Jill DeWit: I do need a new outfit for that.
Jack Butala: That goes on a lot.
Jill DeWit: Yes. I need a new outfit that matches my headset.
Jack Butala: Everybody’s winning here.
Jill DeWit: Thanks.
Jack Butala: Especially our members.
Jill DeWit: Thanks.
Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let’s take a question posted by one of our members. Speaking of members, on the LandAcademy.com online community, it’s free.
Jill DeWit: Okay. David asks, I bought a property, paid $3500 for it, did my own due diligence and it seemed perfectly clean. Now, I’m in the process of selling it for cash. The buyer wants title insurance and the title company found a deed of trust from 1996 against a loan for $9,900 dating back to 1996. The company who holds the note was dissolved a long time ago. Any suggestions? At worst case, can I sell it without title insurance?
Jack Butala: This a PhD-
Jill DeWit: I love this.
Jack Butala: … level question, David.
Jill DeWit: Wow.
Jack Butala: We have a bunch of Davids, but I know who this one is now. This is why David, by the way, this David, is ridiculously successful in this.
Jill DeWit: Is it the David I’m thinking of?
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Jack Butala: It is. Because I can read your mind.
Jill DeWit: I guess you can. Got it.
Jack Butala: This is what I would do. You have two choices, but now you have to disclose everything and that’s fine because you know about it. To solve the problem, well, so no one will ever discuss it ever again, you can find the person that was involved with the bank, which is never going to happen and have them sign an affidavit or you can quiet title the property. That’s what you need to do. You need to find an attorney and quiet title the property, make sure there’s enough money to pay the attorney, enough money in the deal that it economically makes sense and quiet title the property.
Or you can say, ask the title agent first. The title agent, they found the problem. They’re no strangers to these issues, right?
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jack Butala: They have the solutions. They don’t just identify the problems. They’re going to probably know an attorney. They’re going to know how to quiet title a property, for sure, if they’re in that state and I’m assuming they are, so there’s a lot of solutions. When title issues come up, the first person you ask is the title agent and who you should talk to about it.
Jill DeWit: That’s why they’re there.
Jack Butala: Yeah. That’s what you’re paying them for. This is not anything to be afraid of. It’s a good thing that you found out about it and not a bad thing, but you need to fix it. Here’s what’s going to happen, what happens all the time with situations like this. You are going to fix this and it’s going to become your specialty because a lot of people get real scared about this and they just go running away.
Jill DeWit: Is this going to be a Schedule B exception?
Jack Butala: This is-
Jill DeWit: Bigger?
Jack Butala: … uninsurable.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Jack Butala: In my opinion. No, it’s not even an exception. They probably won’t close the deal with this.
Jill DeWit: Are they state specific?
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: I have a question.
Jack Butala: Yeah, go ahead. This is hilarious. Go ahead.
Jill DeWit: I would think that there would be-
Jack Butala: I thought you knew everything.
Jill DeWit: Thank you. I’m not an attorney and I’m really proud to say that. I would think that there would be … I didn’t mean it like that. I have a very healthy respect for attorneys. I just couldn’t do it.
Jack Butala: Jill doesn’t want to argue. Anything to do with arguing-
Jill DeWit: Oh, yeah. I’m out.
Jack Butala: She just won’t.
Jill DeWit: I don’t want to fight.
Jack Butala: She’s a perfect girl.
Jill DeWit: Oh, thank you.
Jack Butala: Here’s a definition of a perfect woman-
Jill DeWit: Oh, gosh.
Jack Butala: … if you’re a man.
Jill DeWit: Oh, yeah.
Jack Butala: She doesn’t like arguing.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Jack Butala: She can’t smell anything.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, that’s true.
Jack Butala: What else?
Jill DeWit: And my memory sucks.
Jack Butala: Oh, and she can’t remember anything. It’s just a perfect woman.
Jill DeWit: Don’t you remember what we talked about last week? Nope.
Jack Butala: Yeah. “We started this whole company last month, remember that? “What are you talking about?”
Jill DeWit: That’s why Jack can go, “Here. Just sign here. You’re not going to remember it anyway.” “Okay, fine.” That’s so funny.
Jack Butala: You know what’s sad about that? Every single thing we just said is true.
Jill DeWit: Oh, I know. It is true.
Jack Butala: The exact words.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. “Did you know today is the anniversary of …” “What?” Yeah, I know. I’m awful.
Jack Butala: Do you remember that I bought you two dozen roses yesterday?
Jill DeWit: I do remember that.
Jack Butala: Okay. That’s what I thought.
Jill DeWit: I do. Thank you very much.
Jack Butala: What’s the brand of the last pair of shoes you purchased?
Jill DeWit: I honestly don’t know.
Jack Butala: Lipstick?
Jill DeWit: Christian Dior. No.
Jack Butala: Chanel.
Jill DeWit: Chanel, excuse.
Jack Butala: Even I know that.
Jill DeWit: Chanel. See, I got that wrong.
Jack Butala: No, it’s not wrong. It’s …
Jill DeWit: We were shopping on Rodeo Drive.
Jack Butala: It’s cute. Oh, listen. You let it out.
Jill DeWit: I do remember that. We were on Rodeo Drive goofing off.
Jack Butala: We had to [inaudible 00:05:27]. I demanded that we go into Chanel and buy some lipstick.
Jill DeWit: You did.
Jack Butala: Because I don’t think you’ve ever had any before.
Jill DeWit: Not that. And I bought-
Jack Butala: Is that different?
Jill DeWit: … some nail polish and stuff.
Jack Butala: Oh, that’s right.
Jill DeWit: Oh, yeah. It’s very vibrant.
Jack Butala: Is it all that?
Jill DeWit: It is.
Jack Butala: Is it worth it? Is the price difference really worth it?
Jill DeWit: You get what you pay for, yes.
Jack Butala: All right.
Jill DeWit: On stuff like that, oh, gosh, yes, so yes. Okay, now back to the question.
Jack Butala: It’s way more fun to spend money on you than me.
Jill DeWit: Thank you. All right, so … Okay, so here was my question. 1996, I would think the attorney can help solve this. An attorney can help solve this problem is my thinking, that there’s probably got to be a statute of limitations if that’s the right term for after 25 years. This company is long gone, nobody can come back and say anything.
Jack Butala: Yeah. You’re probably right.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Jack Butala: There is a statute of limitations, I think, but it’s very state specific.
Jill DeWit: That’s what I mean. That’s what I mean. That attorney in that state.
Jack Butala: I know what state this is because I know what David this is, but I’m not going to get into it.
Jill DeWit: Okay. Did we answer the question?
Jack Butala: Yeah. The answer is to … The catch all, end all is to get a quiet title and so there are some people that think quiet titles are awful, and they won’t ensure them. But the whole industry is coming around in a positive way about that, I personally think. Quiet titling a property, which means you put it in the paper, you file all kinds of notices, it’s a statutory instruction manual on how to make sure you own the property. It’s easy and cheap, but it’s very, very time consu- not time consuming, it’s time specific. If you miss the deadlines by one or two, even one day, you’re not going to … You won’t get it.
Jill DeWit: Oh, that’s true. I forgot about that.
Jack Butala: Yeah. That’s what we talked about.
Jill DeWit: Oh, shoot. Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Jack Butala: Jill with the memory.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Thanks a lot. Hold please. Hold on. I remember this from real estate classes. Just a minute here, like a mechanic’s lien.
Jack Butala: Mm-hmm (affirmative), exactly.
Jill DeWit: You have X amount of time to file it and X amount of time to do all this … There’s 18 steps and paperwork and things you’ve got to do, and record, and whatever with the county. If you don’t do that right, you snooze, you lose. There’s probably something, and again, back to that attorney. He’s going to help and know that, that whatever they had back in 1996, they had until the year 2000 to act on it or it doesn’t count.
Jack Butala: That’s what this is, I thought. Without David actually saying this phrase, what this is, is an unsatisfied lien against the property.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Jack Butala: To solve that, you quiet title it to make sure that the interested party, which is the lender, doesn’t care about it anymore.
Jill DeWit: When you say, “Quiet title,” it makes me think from David to the new person. No. They need to quiet title it to David. Is that what you’re saying, that lien?
Jack Butala: No. It’s not to anybody.
Jill DeWit: Oh.
Jack Butala: When you quiet title a property, and it’s called different stuff around the country. What you’re doing is you’re saying, “Hey, world. I’m going to buy this property and it looks like you might have an interest in it. If you have an interest in it, you must step forward and say, “Speak now or forever hold your peace,” kind of thing. Otherwise, we’re forever closing this and that’s it. You’re not titling it to somebody. You’re saying now the property doesn’t have any liens.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Jack Butala: Whoever owns it, doesn’t own it.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Jack Butala: It’s really archaic and silly because literally you have to post it in a newspaper.
Jill DeWit: In the paper, yeah.
Jack Butala: Because I read a lot of newspapers.
Jill DeWit: Sure you do.
Jack Butala: No one reads the newspaper. No one.
Jill DeWit: I know. It’s not funny.
Jack Butala: It’s the law. You have to jump through a bunch of hoops to get the thing done.
Jill DeWit: That’s all it’s … Because a newspaper nowadays consists of obituaries and legal notices.
Jack Butala: Well, what ends up happening with this is that … I know in Arizona because I’ve done it several times, there are papers that, this is all there is. There’s a picture of the treasurer or something on the cover and then it’s just listings in the back of quiet title actions-
Jill DeWit: That’s hilarious.
Jack Butala: … or legal notices. There’s all kinds of stuff not just quiet titles that have to go through this.
Jill DeWit: Got it.
Jack Butala: But every person I’ve ever known who goes through this process one time, and they do it themselves, they don’t hire it out, when it’s over, they look around and say, “This is the greatest way to make a tremendous amount of real estate, to make a ton of money in real estate because everybody shies away from it. It’s so easy.” Then you can seek those out. You start seeking those acquisitions out because people don’t know what to do.
If you have a question or you’d like to hear me rant again, or you’d like to discuss why Jill can’t remember stuff except the nail polish type thing-
Jill DeWit: Thanks.
Jack Butala: … reach out to either one of us on LandAcademy.com. Today’s topic [inaudible 00:10:05] by the way, quality data is imperative for land investment. What the heck are they talking about now? What esoteric weird concept is this? Why can’t I just look up a property that I want to buy in the MLS or call my sister who’s a real estate agent, she knows everything, and buy property that way?
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: Why, Jill?
Jill DeWit: Why can’t they?
Jack Butala: Yeah. Why is it a bad idea.
Jill DeWit: Wait, wait, wait. Rephrase the question, please.
Jack Butala: Why can’t I just go into the MLS or call a real estate agent and buy some property? Why do I have to have quality data? Why is it imperative?
Jill DeWit: You know what? You can absolutely do it that way. Do you want to spend retail prices or you want to spend wholesale prices, or do you want to buy it really good and you be the wholesaler? That’s my question. That’s my answer.
Jack Butala: That is the answer.
Jill DeWit: You can absolutely buy it off the MLS and I’d like to sell you a few things off the MLS.
Jack Butala: Here’s the thing. Let’s say you have now realized that buying property in the MLS or real estate agent is a little bit silly. We believe now because you’ve listened to this show more than 13 seconds, that data, that manipulating data and sending out low price offers for property, you believe it like we do. You have two choices. You can go get data from the county that looks like a tragic mess. You can buy a list of owners, of all the properties in that county from China.
Jill DeWit: You’ll buy that eight-year-old.
Jack Butala: Or you can use RealQuest Pro like a grownup and someone who’s serious about investment and get quality data.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: Because here’s the thing. Data costs five, eight cents a record.
Jill DeWit: Hold please. Can I back up on that? I just want to pause right there. Ours is eight cents a record. Some people are spending 30 to 80 cents a record.
Jack Butala: Well, that’s because we negotiated at a great deal.
Jill DeWit: I know, so I just want to let the world know that.
Jack Butala: I will in a second.
Jill DeWit: Okay, sorry. This is like Sesame Street.
Jack Butala: It is.
Jill DeWit: We’ve regressed to Sesame Street today.
Jack Butala: [crosstalk 00:12:20]
Jill DeWit: We just had Ernie and Bert here.
Jack Butala: We’ll let Jill’s scatter brain pipe in whenever she’d like. You know, it gives me a break anyway.
Jill DeWit: Oh, my gosh. Sorry. Sorry Bert. I’m clearly Ernie and you’re Bert.
Jack Butala: All the bad decisions and people … What’s tragic is we do this all wrong the first time and nothing happens. Then you don’t buy anything and you say, “Screw it. I don’t want to do it anymore at all.” When you spend five to eight cents for a record of bad data somewhere and then you spend 49 cents to send them an offer, that’s not good. The real money that costs [inaudible 00:13:03] is in the mail. It’s not in the data, so you want to make sure that you get the best data possible and not joke around about that because you’re spending some real money at 50 cents or 49 cents [crosstalk 00:13:15] to mail. It’s imperative that you get the right data because you need to price it right. If it’s worth doing it, do it right. It’s not that expensive.
Jill DeWit: I think your point that you’re trying to make is, it’s cheaper. Get a ton of data and get the world class best data. Download more records than you think you need to. Eight cents a record is what our group pays now and it might change. I don’t know. But my point is, do that and then scrub it, and get it perfect for the mailer point because that’s where the real money is. We’re lucky that our group, and we only paid 49 centers, [inaudible 00:13:55] spending 80 cents a buck getting every single …
Jack Butala: Per record.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Well, no. Not only that-
Jack Butala: Per mailer.
Jill DeWit: Per mailer.
Jack Butala: Right. Well, it costs 75 cents to get it to the owner’s hand instead of our 50 cents, all inclusive.
Jill DeWit: Some people pay more than that. That’s my point. I’ve heard people paying 90 cents and a buck.
Jack Butala: Yeah, me too.
Jill DeWit: They thought that was good. I’m like, “Wow, that’s a lot of money.”
Jack Butala: Here’s the other thing. If their data is not any good, if it’s old, two year, you know, people buy and sell properties. What if you’re sending them an offer to a former owner because the data is so old? They bought and sold the property two or three years ago. That’s a waste of money and time. It all starts with data, this whole thing. I don’t care what you’re buying, office buildings, apartments, land, houses. You have to get the right data and the only way to do that is to get it directly from the assessor in a format that’s manageable. When you buy from the county, it’s not manageable. It’s a mess. I did a whole show on that on YouTube.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. I had a point I wrote down, which is, number one, what are you using for your data if you’re not getting it directly from the county in a real good way? Number two is, are you surprised by the results? Because you should be. If you’re not getting the results, then there’s a reason.
Jack Butala: Think about it this way and I’ll leave it at this because I don’t want this to turn into a rant because it’s more fun to make fun of Jill.
Jill DeWit: Oh. Thanks a lot.
Jack Butala: Let’s say you do it the absolute right way, right? You use RealQuest and you use it through our licensed provider scenario, which is half of what you would get it for if you walk through the door there and you use the mailing company that we use, which is the cheapest in the industry. Let’s say you do those two things and the whole result of that is you do one more deal, so it costs $300 more per mailer ball park than it would if you bought the China lists. Then, you know, bought the china lists and for some reason that we can’t understand found a cheaper bulk mail printer, which is impossible, but you save $300 just on the data. Let’s just leave it at that. But you spent $300 more to get the perfect data and you bought one more property per mailer and made five grand more. Why? Why would you ever do?
Jill DeWit: I don’t know.
Jack Butala: It cracks me up.
Jill DeWit: That’s funny. People try to skimp on that and I’m like, “This is the number one thing.”
Jack Butala: All these shows, we do all these shows based on questions and based on comments we get from people. They think that there’s a trophy out there that you get for saving $100 on a mailer. I’ll tell you, it’s a false trophy if you get one. Go ahead.
Jill DeWit: One of the things I’ve seen, not only that, they think they’d get a trophy because they’re hand deliver the letters they hand wrote and put stamps on them in a big box at the post office. I’m like, “What the heck was that?”
Jack Butala: Isn’t that funny?
Jill DeWit: I’m like, “Did you not have anything better to do all weekend than do those letters.
Jack Butala: Yeah. How long did that take?
Jill DeWit: My goodness. Exactly.
Jack Butala: It’s never going to be a career if you do that.
Jill DeWit: I could do the same thing you just did in one hour and cheaper.
Jack Butala: It’s never ever going to be a career. It’ll always be your hobby if you’re licking anything.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Jack Butala: Take that [crosstalk 00:17:07] away.
Jill DeWit: Jack. And now it’s Friday, and there it went.
Jack Butala: I need letters. Where did you mind go?
Jill DeWit: Okay. Oh, my goodness. Did we make our point?
Jack Butala: We did.
Jill DeWit: This is the Jack rant and it’s a good rant. If you’re going to do it, do it right. Don’t mess around, don’t skimp. There’s a lot of things to skimp on and this is not one of them.
Jack Butala: That’s right. What should you skimp on? I have some ideas about that.
Jill DeWit: I think you should skimp on your office space.
Jack Butala: Oh, I love it. I was going to say the same thing.
Jill DeWit: I think you should skimp on your stationery and business cards. You don’t need any of that.
Jack Butala: I love it. Keep going. This is awesome.
Jill DeWit: You could even skimp … Now, let me say this. Let me finish the whole sentence. On your website, meaning you did the first one yourself, you learned, or you hired your cousin who was in art school because he’s making websites, you paid the kid $250 to get a website up and just have something there. I’m okay with that. We can circle back around, at least it’s there. You can skimp on not … You don’t want to buy the mac daddy CRM right out of the gate. Skimp on that, but do not skimp on data.
Jack Butala: You could even use a spreadsheet. You don’t even need a CRM in the beginning.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, use Excel.
Jack Butala: There’s a ton of stuff to skimp on. You’re exactly right, Jill. Keep going. Do you have more.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Skimp on your equipment. You don’t need to have the fanciest computer with the most speed and the best cell phone, you know?
Jack Butala: [crosstalk 00:18:37]
Jill DeWit: You might be using Google Voice and answering the phone yourself in the beginning. You could use the wifi at the library. You could do that too. Those are all things to skimp on. Do not skimp on the data.
Jack Butala: That’s right. You’re setting yourself up to fail, all kidding aside. I don’t want to sound like your father, but it is imperative that you get the right data and learn how to use it, and get with the right mailing company. There are crooks out there in this mailing business. I know from personal experience that they don’t deliver. They say they’re going to deliver them all. They only deliver half and keep the money for half. We’ve been through all of that. We don’t do business with people like that.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Jack Butala: We check them all out long before they even come close to getting into our group, so make sure your data is the right source.
Jill DeWit: Well, that’s the bottom line. None of ours goes through anyone. It’s direct, so you don’t want to mess with that. You don’t even want to partner up with somebody and say, “Yeah, they’re going to forward me this.” I would trust it. I want to manipulate it myself by the way. I want to have access to 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 every day to buy property for half of what it’s worth and sell it immediately.
Jack Butala: You are not alone in your ambition to have a blast this weekend.
Jill DeWit: Nice.
Jack Butala: Have a nice weekend, Jill.
Jill DeWit: Thank you, you also.
Jack Butala: And you too listener.
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