Land Acquisitions: Just Send Offers to Owners (CFFL 409)
Land Acquisitions: Just Send Offers to Owners (CFFL 409)
Recording Location: LAT (i.e. 33.838781) (LONG i.e. -118.391261)
Jack Butala: Jack Butala with Jill Dewit.
Jill DeWit: Greetings.
Jack Butala: Welcome to our show today. This episode, Jill and I talk about land acquisitions. Just send offers to owners for goodness sake.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: Before Jill gets a little bit angry.
Jill DeWit: What the heck, oh about the topic.
Jack Butala: A little bit angry about this topic.
Jill DeWit: Where are you going?
Jack Butala: Everybody loves when you get angry.
Jill DeWit: What did you do?
Jack Butala: Let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the landacademy.com online community, it’s free.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Jack Butala: Before we do that, let’s look at Jill’s shoes today.
Jill DeWit: Oh gosh, you like these shoes?
Jack Butala: Here’s what I love about these shoes Jill.
Jill DeWit: All right.
Jack Butala: They are perfectly you because only you a female, would show up to a photo shoot in these shoes.
Jill DeWit: These are Doc Martins by the way. Who knew they still … the make some cool different Docs.
Jack Butala: Best girl ever.
Jill DeWit: Thank you I appreciate that.
Jack Butala: You’re a welcome addition to the boring world of land investing.
Jill DeWit: I can still wear Doc Martins, it’s okay. All right so here is the question, Michelle wrote, just completed another terms deal on Ebay. The parcel was bought for $750 all in. The terms were $6500. Sold it on Ebay, 30 day auction for the down payment and then continue with the terms.
Jack Butala: Excellent.
Jill DeWit: The auction ended with the winner had the highest down payment, the bid was $2025 which already paid for the acquisition and then some. Congratulations.
Jack Butala: So the down payment was three times the purchase price.
Jill DeWit: Exactly and then they still had more money to catch up. The buyer did not want to do terms and asked me invoice him for the entire $6500. Sweet, that’s what he wrote.
Jack Butala: That’s 700%.
Jill DeWit: That’s, thank you.
Jack Butala: 700% return.
Jill DeWit: What the heck. You know, I got to tell you I’m so happy to hear that there’s so Ebay stuff still happening.
Jack Butala: Yeah me too.
Jill DeWit: Because we always keep it in our list of places to post property but it’s not the … I don’t think of it as the number one place like we used to but it’s so nice to see it’s still working.
Jack Butala: Let’s just say real conservatively that he made five grand, he made more but it’s $5000. He put $5000 in his pocket after he has lunch while he was doing the deal and the whole thing.
Jill DeWit: All this costs and mailer fees and all of that.
Jack Butala: Let’s say he did one of those a month, that’s $60,000.
Jill DeWit: Not bad.
Jack Butala: Anybody can do one deal a month.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: You could do everything one, you’re going to nab one deal a month.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: One deal a week, just for fun let’s just say 50 deals … one deal a week on the weekends so that’s 50 times five, that’s a quarter of a million bucks.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: It adds up fast. Michelle we all know who you are and you’re a frequently contributor on success plan and that’s awesome. Thank you and congratulations. I know there’s no real question in there but it’s good to see and talk about and celebrate what’s possible. Does every deal happen like this?
Jill DeWit: No.
Jack Butala: Pretty much.
Jill DeWit: Well yes.
Jack Butala: Not ten times …
Jill DeWit: Not like that. Well lets not get greedy if you double your money it’s great. It really is.
Jack Butala: Yeah I would have done 2500 or something and sold it right away.
Jill DeWit: I mean this is really really great.
Jack Butala: It’s cool.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: Hey if you have a question or you want to be on the show reach out to either one of us at on landacademy.com, it’s free.
Jill DeWit: Yeah or landinvestors.com by [inaudible 00:03:34]
Jack Butala: Soon to be landinvestors.com that .com was not free.
Jill DeWit: Yeah super fast.
Jack Butala: But luckily you don’t have to pay for it.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: Today’s show, the meat of the show is just send offers to owners. Why the heck did I title it that way Jill?
Jill DeWit: To inspire something in me?
Jack Butala: No, all joking aside we have a lot of new members and I sure I was like this at the beginning to, you’re just like, “Oh my gosh did I do it right? Did I scrub the data right? It’s so complicated, I don’t have my business cards printed out yet. There’s all this stuff I still have to do, I’m going to wait for a month. I’m going to wait for a month to send offers to owners. I know I’m going to do it wrong”.
Jill DeWit: Right I’m going to analyze this four more times and just make sure and I’m not going to download all the data yet because I want to make sure.
Jack Butala: Here’s the thing if you listened to the earlier show this week, you’re going to get in a car accident.
Jill DeWit: If you are 16 and a half and it hasn’t happened yet, be ready and wear your seatbelt everyday.
Jack Butala: If you’re a new driver, the chances are you’re going to get in a car accident.
Jill DeWit: You’re going to wreck dad’s car, we all did.
Jack Butala: Put your seat belt on make sure your friends in the back put their seat belt on and go get that first car accident out of the way.
Jill DeWit: Which by the way, I’m here to tell you, the fastest way to get a car if you’re not happy driving dad’s hand me down, total it like I did.
Jack Butala: Oh my god Jill. I didn’t have the childhood you did because that’s not how you got a new car.
Jill DeWit: That’s not what I wanted to do, that wasn’t the plan.
Jack Butala: That’s how you got something else.
Jill DeWit: Everyone was okay. It was a Buick with a stepped on trunk.
Jack Butala: Yeah let’s wreck dad’s car so he will buy us a new one because we’re a California girl.
Jill DeWit: No, that’s not the way to do it. No, silly.
Jack Butala: Yeah in Detroit that’s not what happened, you got to ride your bike again.
Jill DeWit: Got it, until you saved up another $2000.
Jack Butala: Yeah, exactly.
Jill DeWit: All right so this topic, just send offers to owners. This is really addressing the folks that need a kick. You know, I get it, we’ve all been there. You’ve all had a new job and you sat there at the desk and the phone rings and you’re afraid to answer the phone. You have eight sticky notes telling you what to say, “Okay it’s the Smith Family Attorney Office”. Whatever it is, just pick up the phone.
Jack Butala: Smith Family Attorney.
Jill DeWit: Exactly but we’ve all done that. We’ve all been new, we’ve all been …
Jack Butala: I’m sure you’re going to get sued, I’m sure you’re going to fail.
Jill DeWit: We’ve all been 16 and working at hot dog on a stick and afraid you’re going to screw up and count out the wrong change. I don’t know.
Jack Butala: Can I tell a story real quick?
Jill DeWit: Yes go for it.
Jack Butala: Remember when we were at PBS on the phones?
Jill DeWit: Yes.
Jack Butala: This happened to me, this is not even a year ago right?
Jill DeWit: Really? It was a little more?
Jack Butala: We volunteer, collect the money, telethon right?
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Jack Butala: Whatever the kids call it these days. Jill and I we go to this thing, donate our time and sure enough the phones ringing and they give us all these instructions and stuff, they make us watch a video. I haven’t been that … we give talks to thousands of people you and I, I don’t even bat an eyelash. This phone system and talking to these people and taking their money, it freaked me out.
Jill DeWit: I did not know that. You never shared that, you didn’t look like it.
Jack Butala: Well yeah, I’m your man I’m not going show you like I’m scared of anything.
Jill DeWit: Wow, thank you.
Jack Butala: I don’t know why it took like four calls. My point is this, it’s not about me at all. Everybody has got their stuff.
Jill DeWit: I understand, I understand. The thing about this is, you’ve got to get passed it. You’ve got to push the button, send the offers out. Expect that you’re going to make mistakes just like the car accident. Expect that you’re going to put the credit card number in wrong, thing like that are going to happen and that’s okay you recover. That’s good and I think we talk about this. I know I talk about this to our people, a lot of our members, what’s interesting is they get past this hurdle and then there’s another hurdle. Or the phone is ringing and they are afraid to answer the phone because they don’t want to sound like they don’t know what they are talking about. I have to remind them, “Okay you’ll get there and I gave you a script. Don’t worry about it you know the questions”. Then number two is the person calling you, doesn’t know either. They don’t know what you’re supposed to say. They are calling to sell you their only property most of the time. They are not like pros at this and that’s okay.
Jack Butala: I’m 25 years into this relate estate investing thing and I make a good solid mistake every week. I fail at something.
Jill DeWit: Yeah I do too, thank you. Yup I’m hear to tell you I do too.
Jack Butala: We just had to redo this show because I didn’t turn all the stuff on.
Jill DeWit: Yeah there’s one.
Jack Butala: You know it’s really a roll of the dice if any of this is going to come out at all.
Jill DeWit: Yeah it’s true might not even work. This may not air.
Jack Butala: Then it would just be Jill and I talking to each other like this is a meeting that we had.
Jill DeWit: You know what’s going to be funny? It’s going to be 30 minutes of waves crashing and not us at all.
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: It’d probably be an improvement. Can you guys just stop talking for a while, we just want to hear the waves.
Jill DeWit: We should do that we should just have a whole show just the waves just so people comment on it.
Jack Butala: With our mouths moving.
Jill DeWit: That’d be so good.
Jack Butala: Hey your mouths are moving but you’re not saying anything.
Jill DeWit: Like music or something, use that.
Jack Butala: My dad used to say that to us, “You kids hey, your mouths are moving but you’re not saying anything”.
Jill DeWit: That’s nice, thank you. That’s good. I’m not going to share my dad one.
Jack Butala: Yeah let’s hear it.
Jill DeWit: All right, my dad one was, “You know that” …
Jack Butala: My dad has a couple of them.
Jill DeWit: Oh my god you’ve heard this a thousand times but our listeners haven’t. My dad used to say, “You know Jill, I used to wish I could sing. Now I wish you could”.
Jack Butala: I never heard that, you’ve never said that.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Jack Butala: Boy that’s true.
Jill DeWit: That was my, thanks dad, appreciate it.
Jack Butala: Here’s one that my dad used to say, “It’s all over but the shouting so knock yourselves out. Scream your little lungs out, it’s all over”.
Jill DeWit: There you go. Oh gosh.
Jack Butala: I’ll be over here watching the game.
Jill DeWit: I love it. What are we talking about? Get past …
Jack Butala: We have to offer something beneficial, more beneficial than just do it, Nike slogan in this episode.
Jill DeWit: You know what this is a common theme and I want to say we’ve had a couple recent newly recorded calls with people in our community and that was a common thing that they brought up for them.
Jack Butala: This is a big topic.
Jill DeWit: This was so important that they just had to get out of their own way. Even though it’s a little scary, push the button and do it.
Jack Butala: Well said actually. That should be the title of this.
Jill DeWit: Get out of your own way. I like that. I might write a book like that. That would be kind of cool, get out of your own way. It’s all true, 90% of the time what’s really standing in your way is nobody but you. Probably more than 90, it’s probably like 100.
Jack Butala: Right, you know there is a million things that you can take on as a business. If you are a regular listener to the show and not involved with us you’re obviously thinking about long term investing and you know the stock market’s not doing it for you or whatever you’ve reviewed so far. Maybe you’re super early on and you’re looking at all of it.
Jill DeWit: Or your commute is so long that you just ran out of shows and this just popped in.
Jack Butala: Or you have really bad taste. If any of those things is true what you want to do is mitigate risk. All kidding aside and to mitigate risk you want to get involved in something that’s pretty high margin. There is no secret there.
Jill DeWit: That’s good stuff.
Jack Butala: High margin, low risk, low startup cost. All the costs are variable meaning they are associated with making money and not overhead or fixed cost.
Jill DeWit: Like a rent that you have to pay every month.
Jack Butala: Yeah or a building. The reason I’m in this business is because I couldn’t find a better one.
Jill DeWit: We tried.
Jack Butala: We did, we have …
Jill DeWit: We have.
Jack Butala: Jill and I have had throughout the duration of buying and selling land started other businesses to mitigate and diversify risk even more. Most of them either got sold for the amount of money that we had in it or a little bit less, or we just closed it because it just wasn’t for us.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Jack Butala: That’s a story for a different time but the point is, I guess you could call it a failure it wasn’t really a failure but it was … it didn’t work the way we wanted it to. It didn’t raise to our standards but we kept going through it.
Jill DeWit: Is it really … Exactly.
Jack Butala: We kept following through.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. It’s never a failure you learn something from it no matter what.
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: I know it sounds cliché and that’s because I’m the inspirational one remember but … it’s amazing Jack keeps me around.
Jack Butala: If you really think about it … what? Okay I’ll give you an example of why you are still here, can you imagine this whole situation and me doing the show without you?
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Jack Butala: Talking to the camera, this is how it would go like the Ferris Bueller’s history teacher, “In 1643 we bought candles”.
Jill DeWit: Thank you, I was thinking the Charlie Brown the [inaudible 00:13:08].
Jack Butala: Yup and instead of the 14 listeners that we had we’d have like four.
Jill DeWit: Oh, I brought 10.
Jack Butala: Two would be parents. Hey all kidding aside, everybody has got something. I had the PBS phone thing. What do you have? Do you ever get nervous about anything?
Jill DeWit: You know what? I learned in my 20’s it’s really funny or even before that, I use the adrenaline to my benefit. I kind of get a kick out of it and so I just … I know it’s going to be okay I just power through. I know I’m going to fail at stuff, I’ve done that enough and I know I’m going to recover and keep on going. Sure, I get nervous all the time at different things but I force myself I really do. I have like a mantra and I’ll talk myself into things.
Jack Butala: What’s your mantra?
Jill DeWit: Just you can do this.
Jack Butala: You can do this?
Jill DeWit: Yeah I do. I mean depending on the situation but …
Jack Butala: Here’s mine, this isn’t going to suck as bad as you think.
Jill DeWit: Oh, no actually mine actually it really is, you got this. I do this to myself I say, “You got this. Go, go, go. Don’t stop, don’t look back, don’t look down”.
Jack Butala: Is that how you go through the relationship with me all the time?
Jill DeWit: Everyday.
Jack Butala: Don’t look back, don’t look down, it’s not as bad as I think.
Jill DeWit: That’s right, you got this.
Jack Butala: Power through it.
Jill DeWit: You have the stomach for this.
Jack Butala: There’s no blood really almost all the time so you’re going to be all right.
Jill DeWit: No.
Jack Butala: What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, those types of things?
Jill DeWit: That’s it.
Jack Butala: At least he takes the garbage out. That kind of thing? He’s a pretty good cook.
Jill DeWit: Look at all this … look at what you get to be apart of because of him. That’s what I tell myself and I mean that.
Jack Butala: Oh my gosh. I just threw up a little bit.
Jill DeWit: That’s okay.
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 quirks. Everybody has got something man.
Jill DeWit: Oh yeah.
Jack Butala: I’ve got all kinds of weird stuff, everybody does.
Jill DeWit: Exactly, you know and I think, I’m glad we talked about this because we talk so much about the technical part of our business but I am 100% sure that there is a lot of people in our world that need the push from us. They need the support. It’s not like they need the support they need the emotional support. They need to hear the other people’s stories, they need to hear the successes and our successes. They need to hear the failures and our failures. That helps them in a motivation way. Not like they needed the numbers or they need that technical guidance. They really need it.
Jack Butala: Everybody’s got a way to get around it and so … most people do. If you don’t … I mean my way to get around something, a little quirky thing is to fail at it. Like the PBS thing, I had one bad phone call and I told the person, “This is the first” …. this is me, 25 years investing, we’re doing okay financially and I’m like afraid of the stupid PBS phone.
Jill DeWit: How funny and it’s like a little old lady sitting by the fire with a blanket on her lap.
Jack Butala: It was, it was a women she’s like, “Look it’s all right”. I said, “You’re my first, I’m nervous and you’re my first caller”. She said, “Well it’s all right then we’ll do it together because it’s the first time I’ve called”.
Jill DeWit: That’s so nice.
Jack Butala: I’m like, “all right”.
Jill DeWit: That’s perfect, that’s a great way to do that too. Just be honest and say …
Jack Butala: If you have fear of talking to a county recorder, and you should because they are awful a lot of them. The older ones are just jaded, it’s over. If you fear and you’ve got a call them and say, “This is my first time. I know I’m going to do it wrong, I need your help”. They will be okay.
Jill DeWit: Oh totally. My other thing is what I tell our new members to, if you forget something it’s okay to call back and go, “Okay I totally forgot, goofed, I forgot to ask you what’s your address”. Something silly, that’s okay they get it.
Jack Butala: What states are you guys in anyway?
Jill DeWit: Right. It’s okay.
Jack Butala: Information and inspiration to buy undervalued property. Video out.
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