How to Use Deal Data Review Insure Success (CFFL 459)
How to Use Deal Data Review Insure Success (CFFL 459)
Jack Butala: Jack Butala with Jill Dewit.
Jill DeWit: Hello there.
Jack Butala: Welcome to our show today. In this episode, Jill and I talk about how to use data deal review. The deal or the data review that I do every Wednesday to ensure your success. Before we get into it, let’s take a question posted by one of our members. On the landinvestors.com online community, it’s free.
Jill DeWit: Okay. Trevor asks, “Does anyone know any good ways of navigating the relatives of land-owning folks who have died? Especially in Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado? From my last two mailers, it seems all I’m doing is dealing with dead peoples’ estates.”
Boy, I’ve been there.
Jack Butala: Yup.
Jill DeWit: “I’m not worried about the small deals. But some of these are, these 40 and 80-acre deals, are worth my while if I can figure out how to handle the families.”
Jack Butala: Go ahead Jill, you’re an expert at this.
Jill DeWit: Well I’m kind of wondering if … well there’s a couple possible things that could be going on. Like handle the families as in A) I can’t find all the family members, that’s one issue. And then B) we’re not on all the same page, that’s another issue.
So here’s my first one. If you can’t find all the family members or they’re not all in the same place, I look to the holidays. Seriously. Or family events, I am not kidding.
For example, Easter just happened. Were they all together for Easter? I have actually said, I can arrange a notary to come out and do it on Easter if we have to. Because you guys are all together at grandma’s house. Or Mother’s Day is coming. Is everybody going to be there for Mother’s Day? You know, that kind of thing. I’ve done that.
You can also split it up if you have to. Send the deed from one notary to another notary, you know? And send it around. I’m not a fan of that. But you could do stuff like that.
Once you talk to people, if they’re all on the same page … assuming they’re on the same page, then they’re going to be pretty agreeable to that. Like ‘hey, when I get it all back and signed and everything’s good, I’ll wire the money in five minutes’ kind of thing. And that’s fair.
The other thing is, okay now how to handle the families. Well I guess part of it is people who have died, so he’s trying to figure out too … oh, I just thought of another piece. I think that’s where you might be going. Which is, who’s still alive and who’s supposed to take care of this?
Jack Butala: Yeah. This is very complicated. Trevor’s an expert at taking a very, very, very complicated scenario, which is what this is, and making it simple. And asking a positive thing about it. So, you know … there’s about nine questions in here.
Jill DeWit: Yeah there’s a bunch of things you could take this with. Okay so maybe mom and dad passed on, and now he’s talking of navigating the relatives could be the kids that are left. Yeah you gotta, I guess-
Jack Butala: Here’s the- go ahead Jill.
Jill DeWit: All right. My big picture is, you gotta just make sure … you gotta figure out, and it may take a little time, who are the rightful people who have the power to make this deal? Number one. Number two, is everybody on the same page? And then from there, I think you could figure out the details.
Jack Butala: Yeah, here’s the root of the problem with dead ownership. When someone passes away, let’s say a husband and wife own a property, which is really usually the scenario that this is in, and they have a will.
So a husband and wife own the property as joint tenants and they have a will, and the will says ‘I will all my stuff to my son’. And you’re talking to the son on the phone. And the son’s saying, ‘I own this property. Because my parents pass away, I got their house. I got their car. I own this land.’
And if they didn’t transfer it into his name, the son’s name, before they died, or it wasn’t part of the estate, it wasn’t probated as part of the estate, he doesn’t own the property. He does not. And depending on which state it’s in and stuff, this is the real root of what I think Trevor’s asking. How do you deal with this?
Well, there’s a million ways. There’s a lot of ways to skin this cat. But we have people in our group who are very good at this stuff. So Trevor, I would reach out to them. I would, in Success Plant, reach out to them in the specific state, and they’ll help you.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative). That is a wonderful thing, you’re right. We have a few members that have said, ‘oh my gosh, I just figured out how to do this in X, Y, Z state’, and we tell them ‘congratulations. Now go buy more of those, because you’re probably the only one’.
Jack Butala: Right. So here’s a quick view on some of the western states. Colorado is great for this. New Mexico is great. California is great. Arizona is nearly impossible. But you can still quiet title properties in all of these states. So you’ll figure it out.
Jill DeWit: Texas, I’ve done some Texas ones like this.
Jack Butala: Trevor’s in Texas, so. But yeah. Lexus Nexus offers a way to find people. A couple of people over the years have asked me to get our members a subscription to Lexus Nexus, maybe I’ll do it. That’s how attorneys find people.
Jill DeWit: Well you know what, Trevor brought up another good point. This is the dilemma that we all face at some time. Which is, how much time do I spend on this, or do I walk away and go do five more easy ones?
Jack Butala: Yep.
Jill DeWit: That’s the question. And I get it.
Jack Butala: Here’s the thing though. Sometimes when … what ends up happening is, if you’re not the first person who broke the news to the son that you really don’t own this thing and that you’re going have to spend some money to get it in your name … if you’re not the first person, then chances are that he’s received offers in the past, and it just didn’t put it together.
So the quality of some of these properties is really high.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Jack Butala: And they just don’t want to spend 2000 bucks to get it. So that … if you’re dealing with an 80-acre property that’s worth a couple hundred thousand dollars, a couple hundred thousand dollars and you’re gonna cost you two grand and maybe 8 or 10,000 of acquisition purchase price, it’s worth it.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: When all else fails on this topic, and you’re in a situation like I just described where there’s a lot of money involved, hire a lawyer.
Jill DeWit: I was going to say, or go through escrow. Go through title if you need to on some of those too.
Jack Butala: Right.
Jill DeWit: Especially if you’re new. That’s not a bad thing. You’ll quickly … you know what’s funny, you do one, you’ll see … you know, here’s what will happen. Often, you’ll do one deal and you’ll go, ‘that’s all they needed to do was file that extra form or do this extra thing? Well heck, I could have done that’. And now you know.
Jack Butala: Right. If you have a question, or you want to be on the show, reach out to either one of us on landinvestors.com.
Today’s topic: how to use Deal Review or Data Review to ensure your success. This topic came to me, it was a request by a member who’s first name is David. And he said, “You know what? Why don’t you” … it’s a consulting session with me on Wednesday. Me personally for a half hour, to look at your deal. To see if it’s a good deal or a bad deal. Or to look at your data before you send it out to … look at your data before you send offers out to owners.
And David said, “You know, the reason that I’m so successful at this is because I’ve done four consulting calls with you. I did one, the first one I did was just an overview. The second one was you looked at my data. And the third and fourth one were deals that I brought in after I sent the data out.” And he said, “I’m convinced that’s why it’s so successful.” And I really agreed with him.
Jill DeWit: Aw, that’s nice. That’s really good.
Jack Butala: So we’re going to offer a product at some point here soon. Instead of just one-off’s, we’re going to … you can buy four of them all at once. Four sessions, and then schedule them.
Jill DeWit: That’s a great … I love it.
Jack Butala: What that also does is it gets everybody’s butt in gear to get that thing out in the mail.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Jack Butala: If you know you have a consulting call scheduled in 30 days or 60 days with me, you want to have something to talk about.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative). I love it. Now you’re not going to … this is just for our members still, right?
Jack Butala: Yes, yes.
Jill DeWit: Okay, got it, all right. You’re busy enough.
Jack Butala: [inaudible 00:08:09] jammed up.
Jill DeWit: I know, because I was like-
Jack Butala: It’s jammed up.
Jill DeWit: I saw this topic and I went, ‘uh-oh. Careful, are you sure you want to let it be’ … I’m not sure everybody knows that we … it’s in the literature that they know that we do this, but it’s not that we talk about it very often. So for our members only, this is something that they can do.
And part of it is, you know, I can help someone that’s already in my world and they know how this works, and they have the background and all that good stuff. I can really help them. Someone coming to me with brand new, just thinking about ‘I want to be an investor’, I mean I can still help them, but it’s a ways off.
Jack Butala: I mean that’s what the consulting session with you is really designed about, right? What they’re designed for?
Jill DeWit: Well, mine are people that are in it, too. Mine are people … what I talk to people most about is mental hangups, sometimes. Or sales things, dealing with individuals, you know, that kind of stuff. Things that involve people are more me. Things that involve data, more you.
Jack Butala: Right.
Jill DeWit: So that’s really the big difference. And sales and marketing, a lot it’s both of us. So that’s the thing.
So it sounds like, this is what I was thinking about too. For our members, for the members that have not done this yet and they’re thinking about it. Or gosh, they’re just learning that we have this, whatever. The best ways that I can think of is like Jack said, be prepared.
You can set up a time just to talk big picture, but you’ll probably get more out of it if you’ve put some work into it and tried to pick a county and tried to do your things, followed all the steps and all the things that Jack talks about.
And you’re kind of prepared with even a version of a spreadsheet saying, ‘hey, this is what I’m looking at. I picked this county, here’s why. Here’s the properties I’m looking at. Here’s how I would price the offers.’
Jack Butala: That’s right, Jill.
Jill DeWit: And then doing some of the work, making a few of those mistakes before it gets to Jack, you’re going to get so much more out of it.
Jack Butala: About 80% of the time when I do a data review, we dramatically change it. We change the pricing, a lot of times we change the county. I’m like, ‘yeah, you’re going to go into this county? It’s not gonna … you’re too low or you’re too high or whatever’.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Jack Butala: About 20% of the time for deal reviews, like ‘should I buy this, Jack, or not?’, about 20% of the time I say no. Usually by the time that they have deals, they just want me to kind of bless it. It’s usually just an unbelievable deal. And that’s when I, you know … more that half the time I say, ‘look, if you need a partner on this, [this is a smokin’ deal 00:11:00]’.
Jill DeWit: Isn’t that funny? It’s like the people … that’s true, the people who schedule these calls, they have a common theme; they’re in it. They’re in it.
Jack Butala: They’re in it.
Jill DeWit: They’re in it. They’re gonna do this right-
Jack Butala: The needle’s in their arm, I like to say.
Jill DeWit: They’re not messing around here. They’re going to make some money, they see it, and they’re gonna do it. So it’s easy for us to just tweak little things. I mean how many of your data reviews and deal reviews, all you’re doing is tweaking?
Jack Butala: Yeah. Well like I said, sometimes data gets pretty altered. But there’s some real value in that.
Jill DeWit: You know, and that’s good. I … that’s a thing that people need to know, is that you can send Jack a spreadsheet ahead of time. Jack will sit and go, ‘all right, I’ll make a column’. He will literally open up your thing and make another column right there online with you on the phone, and say ‘here’s how I’d price them, and boom boom boom’, and then you take that and run.
And that’s so valuable. Nobody does this stuff. Could you imagine? I can’t imagine in any other environment having this kind of guidance.
Jack Butala: I’m starting a new company right now that you know all about. And I was thinking about it yesterday. It’s related to land, but it’s not. It’s alternative energy. And I’m thinking, ‘where the heck can I find a land academy where I can listen to a podcast, or, I don’t know, join a group. I’m happy to pay. Where I can learn this level of stuff this fast? And I looked everywhere. So guess what Jill?
Jill DeWit: Here we come. Oh no.
Jack Butala: Yup.
Jill DeWit: Yup, here we come. That’s our underlying theme. Jack finds a need for something and creates the whole organization, the whole environment. It’s just insane. It really really … I mean this in a good way. So yeah, go ahead.
Jack Butala: Yeah, I mean … it doesn’t matter. It’s a lot of fun. I feel like I’m creating work for you sometimes, but …
Jill DeWit: Oh, you are. That’s okay.
Jack Butala: But we’re eating pretty good, so that’s all right.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. And I’m hiring staff as fast as I can. So don’t worry about that. Good. So what else do you want to-
Jack Butala: That’s about it. [inaudible 00:13:30]
Jill DeWit: Sorry.
Jack Butala: Join us in another episode, where Jack and Jill discuss how to use information, that’s me.
Jill DeWit: And inspiration and oops, 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’re not alone in your real estate ambition.
Yeah, I mean I’m pretty excited about this. You know what I did find, and I was going to say … this particular line of business, not the one that we’re in, has a lot of associations, you know? National association of XYZ. Jill, there’s no real landowner’s association out there.
Jill DeWit: True.
Jack Butala: And it occurred to me, we’re kind of acting like an association, you know?
Jill DeWit: Oh no. Are you going to make one?
Jack Butala: No no, I’m just saying that we are kind of like … that’s what Land Investors really is, it’s an association. You pay some dues, you get access to a bunch of stuff that you wouldn’t normally get access to. You know what I mean?
Jill DeWit: Oh, you’re right. Like a realtor’s association. [inaudible 00:14:31] And now you have access to this and all that good stuff.
Jack Butala: Access to other members’ experience and all that.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. Cool.
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.
