Moving off Analysis Getting to Offers (CFFL 422)
Moving off Analysis Getting to Offers (CFFL 422)
Jack Butala: Jack Butala with Jill DeWit.
Jill DeWit: Hello there.
Jack Butala: Welcome to our show today. This episode Jill and I talk about how to move off analysis and getting toward making offers. Get out of your own head and get some offers out there. Right Jill?
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let’s take a question posted by one of our members on LandAcademy.com online community. It’s free.
Jill DeWit: Cool. All right. Chip asks, “Hi all. In my data scrub criteria, I’m filtering for 0% improvement value, but I’m still getting records that have homes. Is this because I also have SFR, single family residence as one of my filter criteria? Jack does this in the program but it should pull all SFR zoned properties that have yet to be improved. Seems to be happening multiple counties. Is anyone else experiencing this? Thanks in advance, Chip. All right, Jack. [inaudible 00:00:57] you.
Jack Butala: This is a PhD level question and Chip, thanks for asking. All data’s different. That’s the answer. What he’s really talking about is, when you take an assessors database through RealQuest Pro, everything’s lined up in nice columns for you. They’re nice enough to extrapolate the assessor data and look at assessed value in three columns. Number one column, the land value. Land is assessed at a certain value. Number two, the improvement value. The stuff that’s been done to the properties like build a house. Put some roads in. That’s assessed at a certain value. A third column is a total of those two. You would think that if the assessed value for improvements is zero, there are none. A vast majority of the time, that’s the case.
However, it’s a real world. In the data world it’d be beautiful if everything was just perfect and it lined up but it just doesn’t happen that way. In a real world, stuff happens. People don’t pull permits. They build stuff. They do all kinds of stuff to their property without telling the county and the county never knows. The assessor doesn’t physically look at every single property in the county. It’s not possible. You have to test this for reason. There’s lots of different ways to do that. It’s so far beyond the scope of this show.
Jill DeWit: I came up with two things and I’m right there with you.
Jack Butala: But you’ll never get it to zero, let me tell you that. You’ll never get data so that it’s perfect but man, you will come close. Jill, what are your two?
Jill DeWit: Well I was going to say too, you had number one, yeah, like you just touched on. Some structures are not always properly conveyed to the county. Who’s going to want to do that? Hey, by the way, my house is worth X. You need to assess it this way. No, no, no. We’re not going to do that, everyone, because then your taxes go up. Right? Then the other thing is, people make mistakes too sometimes, you know?
Jack Butala: Oh, Jill, right.
Jill DeWit: The county individuals are real people, so have I seen mistakes done by county individuals? Heck yes! Every once in a while, that comes up too.
Jack Butala: That’s a good point. I read a stat a few years ago when this whole mortgage crisis was happening in this country and there’s something like 25 or 30% of all the mortgages that are done and completed and people are paying now, they have errors.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Jack Butala: Mass errors like the payment that you’re making is incorrect, so yeah, people make mistakes.
Jill DeWit: That percent’s high. I didn’t know that. That’s interesting.
Jack Butala: I know. I know.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Jack Butala: If you have a question or you want to be on the show, reach out to either one of us on LandInvestors.com. This is a need to the show. Today’s topic, moving off analysis and getting to making offers. Jill, this was your title which I manipulated a little bit. Thanks for the creative license. What do you think this really means?
Jill DeWit: Well, where I was going is, I see a lot of people doing … They get to a point in this process when they’re overanalyzing and they’re spending too much time and checking this and checking that and, “Do I have this right? Did I pick the right county? Do I price these correctly,” instead of just getting some offers in the mail. I’m trying to figure out where the hangup is and I wanted to talk to you about this to help everyone to get from, now knock it off. You’re spending too much time because I do that. I swear, I talk to people and I say that flat out. Knock it off and get a stupid offer in the mail. So what if it’s wrong? You’ll figure some stuff out. Just get moving. So many times I just … We just had a consulting the other day with a member of ours and bless her heart. She downloaded, you know who I’m talking about, a ton of data. I wanted to make sure she knew that, hey, none of this is bad. You’re going to use all this. This is good stuff. You’re going to learn a lot from this. Good for you for even pushing the button and getting this far. She’s like, “I can’t wait to get in something in the mail.” I said, “That’s great.”
Jack Butala: So you mean like analysis paralysis.
Jill DeWit: Totally.
Jack Butala: Yeah. You know, if anybody’s guilty of this, it’s me.
Jill DeWit: You think so?
Jack Butala: I mean, not anymore about this. I can’t wait to get the stuff in the mail [inaudible 00:05:38] these days. When you and I are looking for a new house, how much work goes on? You tell our listeners how awful it is to deal with my analysis of anything.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Good point.
Jack Butala: So, my goodness.
Jill DeWit: I’m like, “This’ll work. Let’s go. This’ll work. Don’t think about that.” I’m like, “This’ll work. Let’s do it. I’m happy.”
Jack Butala: My point is, if you’re an analytical person, and hopefully you are. The vast majority of our members really are. They’re pretty slow to pull a trigger but when they do, they’re confident. You know?
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jack Butala: That’s the way I build my confidence. I’m like, “You know what? I’ve hit the line now and I’m ready to pull a trigger on whatever it is.” That’s okay but there’s a handful of people that they’ve waited two years.
Jill DeWit: Oh yes.
Jack Butala: So that’s got to be something else. That’s got to be like, “Oh man. What if I fail,” or some other stuff. Between the two of us, you’re the inspirational one. What do you say to people that are really just stuck. Frozen, let’s say.
Jill DeWit: Well, just to set goals. I tell them to slow this whole thing down. Let’s figure out easy goals because it can be overwhelming because if that’s part of it, maybe they have a day job and they’re trying to get from A to Z and really fast and sometimes they get hung up on that whole process and looking too far ahead. I tell them, “Let’s just do a piece at a time, a step at a time, and set some goals and don’t back down. Hold yourself accountable.” That’s huge. I always tell too, “Go slower than you think. Give yourself a cushion and then you’re going to be okay,” because if you try to push it sometimes and it’s worse. You don’t want to dive in and not do your homework but there’s a fine line to overdoing it. Does that help? Does that answer your question?
Jack Butala: Yeah. I mean, what I see when I look at deal review on Wednesday when people call and I review their deals or I review their data to help them, what I see is, people microscopically or myopically looking at their data sort and saying, “Did I scrub it down enough?” What they enter in on a 1500 unit or a 3500 unit offer campaign, for some reason there’s this efficiency thing that goes on with our group which I think is a super healthy thing. You want to have everything as efficient as possible but they spend a disproportionate amount of time at the end trying to scrub it to perfection like the caller today or the question today was about, yeah, there’s some houses. There are a few items in my data that contain houses. Well, so what?
Jill DeWit: You’re right. Let’s move on.
Jack Butala: What’s the worst that’s going to happen? Let’s say you send out a 1500 unit mailer. You made a few slight errors and there’s going to be 100 letters that go out and people shouldn’t have gotten them. There’s houses on their properties. So what? So what? A couple of them call back and call you a bad name. I don’t care about that. Do you?
Jill DeWit: Or you even just explain to them, “I didn’t realize that. No big deal.”
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: You know? And, “Congratulations because you’re obviously assessed really low,” or whatever it is.
Jack Butala: Yeah. There you go. Turn it into a positive thing.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Good for you.
Jack Butala: I don’t know why it’s not that important to me to save. If I send 50 extra letters out or 100 extra letters out and I spend $50 on it or 25 bucks on postage, so what? You’re going to way make that up just on one deal. That’s what I’ve sensed. It’s mostly men. I don’t see it with women too much but men just to make everything so streamlined and perfect and unemotional. I know that because I’m a guy.
Jill DeWit: I can see that by trying to just to try to get to the end kind of thing? Is that what you’re saying?
Jack Butala: No, I mean …
Jill DeWit: Oh.
Jack Butala: This, “I’m done. The mailer’s perfect. The data’s perfect. I’m going to send it now. It’s perfect.”
Jill DeWit: Right.
Jack Butala: It doesn’t matter.
Jill DeWit: No, it really doesn’t. Yeah, I want people just to push the button. You know what I think? You should almost push the button like we talk about things being taped together. We joke about when you’re starting a company. I’m trying to think of another good example. You should feel a little uneasy like you’re doing it a little too early. You know?
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: That’s good and that’s healthy. You don’t want to be on the other side of that going, “Well I’ve done every possible thing. I’ve looked this over for six months now I’m ready.” You know?
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: “I know I’ve gone through every last one.” One thing too, I’ve caught people doing this, looking at some of the data and the properties beforehand and you should not do that. Remember, do your due diligence afterwards not before. You shouldn’t be going line by line on your mailer before you send it out.
Jack Butala: You’ve seen people do that? Oh my god.
Jill DeWit: Well even this person, even this one right here who’s Chip, the question today. How does he know that unless he looked at it? You know?
Jack Butala: Yeah. How does he know that? How did he know there was a house on there?
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Jack Butala: Jill, you’re absolutely right.
Jill DeWit: I could care less about the property until the person calls me back or sends a signed offer back and now I know we can do some business together. There’s a possibility of doing business. Other than that, it’s a waste of my time.
Jack Butala: I mean here’s how it works really in the real world. Once you get the first mailer out and somebody signs it and they send it back and you’re buying a piece of property that’s worth 10 grand for 1,000 bucks, all this goes away. All these questions are from people who it’s the first time they’ve ever done it. I don’t mean they’re new to real estate, I just mean it’s the first time they’ve ever sent the offer campaign out like this. Once you do it, you just forget it. You forget all of this. You’re like, oh thanks, it did work. I didn’t completely screw it up.
Jill DeWit: Totally. Well and just like we-
Jack Butala: Go ahead.
Jill DeWit: I said just like we told our gal the other day about this data. I’m like, “This is not a waste of time. This is not a waste of money. One transaction is going to pay for this whole thing.” She’s like, “You know, you’re right.”
Jack Butala: Times 80.
Jill DeWit: Exactly!
Jack Butala: I mean literally almost.
Jill DeWit: You can’t think about that. You have to dive in.
Jack Butala: Yep.
Jill DeWit: You know, really, I was trying to think on what other business on the planet can you start with this low of an entry point? I mean, really?
Jack Butala: There’s none. Even insurance to get licensed and all that stuff, I used to use insurance as just … I don’t like insurance. I think it’s awful and I think it’s a conspiracy but that’s a whole different topic, but I used to use it as a model where it’s a perfect business. You collect a bunch of stuff every month, a bunch of money from people every month, and you really give them nothing.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Jack Butala: You give them a little bit of peace of mind. Even now it’s real saturated. You have to market a lot and the whole thing. Plus it’s like, insurance agents are equivalent to meter maids. [inaudible 00:13:07].
Jill DeWit: I hear you. Oh yeah. I’m with you.
Jack Butala: You know what? To their credit, they don’t make the laws. They’re just working within the system but, come on.
Jill DeWit: That’s how I feel about credit scores but anyway. Conspiracy.
Jack Butala: Oh my gosh. Let’s do a show. Awful careers.
Jill DeWit: Oh my gosh.
Jack Butala: You know what? What the hell. Let’s do it right now. What can’t you stand? [inaudible 00:13:32].
Jill DeWit: Credit card companies.
Jack Butala: Credit card companies?
Jill DeWit: Oh my gosh. I hate them and the whole credit score thing. Drives me crazy.
Jack Butala: Yeah. That’s a conspiracy.
Jill DeWit: It is.
Jack Butala: Insurance is a conspiracy. We don’t need auto dealerships any longer. Tesla … Elon Musk has it right. There’s no auto dealerships. You go online and get your car.
Jill DeWit: We should not have 80,000 licenses like I need a license to be a barber.
Jack Butala: Okay.
Jill DeWit: Or maybe cut dog hair. I’ll be you have to be licensed for that.
Jack Butala: While we’re at it, why do we need real estate agents?
Jill DeWit: Why do we need meter maids?
Jack Butala: Okay. I’m trying to one up you every single time here. You’re one upping me. What else do we need? Why do we need parents?
Jill DeWit: Oh, there we go. Oh no. Oh my goodness.
Jack Butala: Why do we need VAs? That’s my question.
Jill DeWit: Oh goodness.
Jack Butala: I’ve taken out what looks like now to be almost a decade of my career eliminating all the back office function for every real estate office on this planet.
Jill DeWit: You know what? I got to just throw one more thing in here and then this is all that I have on this. With the VA thing, if I’m going to outsource something, it’s not going to be another country. That’s what I have to say about that.
Jack Butala: Wow. You know I’m going to get over this.
Jill DeWit: Oh, here it comes.
Jack Butala: I agree with you. It’s not the other country piece, it’s just, you get what you pay for.
Jill DeWit: Well yeah but I mean keep it here. I’m not saying anything bad about people in other countries, I’m just saying, can we keep the money here?
Jack Butala: Jill, I like your kahunas today.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Jack Butala: That’s something I would say.
Jill DeWit: Thank you. All right. Did we cover this? I think we got it.
Jack Butala: Get the stuff in the mail. Make some mistakes. You’re going to be fine.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: Join us on another episode where Jack and Jill discuss how to use information, that’s me.
Jill DeWit: And inspiration, that’s me.
Jack Butala: 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. Good show Jill.
Jill DeWit: Oh my gosh, was I over the line?
Jack Butala: No.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Jack Butala: You know, no. I agree with you. There’s a huge, huge push nationally like on a macro level to put stuff back in this country and I agree. I think for a while it was really great to get some stuff that’s super cheap but it’s out of control now.
Jill DeWit: It is.
Jack Butala: It is for me anyway.
Jill DeWit: It is.
Jack Butala: I don’t care. I’ll pay twice as much to know anything will get done. I just ordered some home improvement stuff here in Arizona. I know we’re in different states right now. I intentionally did not try to find the cheapest person which is a little bit unusual for me, but I wanted to see this guy’s work and I wanted to talk to a couple of people he’s done stuff with and it all checked out perfectly and it’s probably 30% more than it really should be but I know it’s going to get done right so that’s it.
Jill DeWit: You know, I’m with you. I’m deliberately seeking not only here in the US but even local to me. I’m working on some Jill Live stuff and I’m picking a service to help answer phones that’s literally down the street where I can walk in, talk to them, and sit down and have a conversation. That’s important to me. I really make sure it’s done right.
Jack Butala: If someone’s going to answer your phone … If you send a bunch of offers out and people call back and someone’s going to answer your phone, that’s a critical point in the transaction. You don’t want somebody who doesn’t know what the heck they’re doing.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: So you can pay a little bit more for that. You did it that far, right? You put the stuff in the mail. You got the data. You joined our group. You’re serious about it. The person that you’re hiring to answer the phone better know what they’re doing.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: And if they don’t, here’s a key. Just what you said. Now they’re accountable. They’re down the street. They better see you come flying through the door if stuff goes sideways.
Jill DeWit: And I will.
Jack Butala: If that happens, will you film it please?
Jill DeWit: Yeah, right.
Jack Butala: [inaudible 00:17:34].
Jill DeWit: You got it.
Jack Butala: Every time you yell at the kids, I want to make some popcorn and just there sit there and watch.
Jill DeWit: Oh, you do love that. Here she goes. Watch this.
Jack Butala: You know why, because it’s always me!
Jill DeWit: No it’s not. Oh, it’s always you doing it. Not me at you.
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Oh okay. Got it. Yeah that’s true.
Jack Butala: No, yeah. It’s always me who has to put everybody in line. When you did, it’s just like, oh I get the day off today.
Jill DeWit: There you go. Once a month.
Jack Butala: Information and inspiration to buy undervalued property.
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 jack@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.
