Real Estate Investment Advice (JJ 677)
Real Estate Investment Advice (JJ 677)
Transcript:
Jack Butala: Jack and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Jack Butala: Welcome to the Jack Jill Show, entertaining real estate investment talk. I’m Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I am Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny southern California.
Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about real estate investment advice. The most common questions that we both get will be answered here.
Jill DeWit: This is going to be good.
Jack Butala: It really is. I hope it’s going to satisfy some of the most basic questions, like if you’re a listener and you’ve never really engaged in any of this but you feel sorry for us, and you still have some questions about real estate in the back of your head …
Jill DeWit: Feel sorry for us. Oh, my gosh. You’re listening out of pity. What’s that?
Jack Butala: That’s what the show’s about today. We’re going to answer some of the most frequently asked questions that I get and that Jill gets, and we have not shared each other’s lists so we don’t … Maybe we have all the exact same questions. I doubt it.
Jill DeWit: I don’t think so.
Jack Butala: That’s never happened to her.
Jill DeWit: Do you know what’s funny? I don’t want to make anyone not feel good about themselves, but they think that, they’re like, “Oh, this is stupid.” You know what? It’s true. They always think, “Oh, this is dumb. I’m sure you’ve answered this a thousand times.” Sometimes, I’ve never heard them. I’ve had some really good questions come to me and I’m like, “That’s a good one and I can help.” Then there are some that they’re happy to know that they’re not alone. People think that.
Jack Butala: Yeah, that’s in our slogan.
Jill DeWit: This is true, and that’s part of it. A lot of people don’t realize that they’re not alone in this, that it’s just …
Jack Butala: Sometimes there’s such thing as a really stupid question, though, quite honestly.
Jill DeWit: Sometimes there is.
Jack Butala: It usually has nothing to do with real estate.
Jill DeWit: This is true.
Jack Butala: It has to do with psychology.
Jill DeWit: This is true.
Jack Butala: “Why can’t I get the first deal done?” Those are the kinds of things. There’s answers to this. That’s not necessarily a good example, but it has nothing to do with real estate. That’s actually inspiration, for you.
Jill DeWit: That’s where I come in.
Jack Butala: All right.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Jack Butala: Before we get into all that, let’s take a question, posted by one of our members on the JackJill.com online community. It’s free.
Jill DeWit: Brian asks, “Wondering how people doing deals in California that are offering owner financing are getting their third-party trustees. Title companies? What if you aren’t using a title company?”
Jack Butala: That’s an issue.
Jill DeWit: “Any loan servicing companies that you would like to serve as a trustee?”
Jack Butala: This is a very, very good question. It’s the exact opposite of a bad question, like we were referring to earlier.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: What ends up happening … There’s two types of ways to seller finance property, in general. One is called a land contract or just a terms agreement, depending on where you are in the country, where two people sign an agreement. One says, “I’m willing to buy this land for X amount. I’ll pay you $200 a month till we get there at 1% interest or whatever everybody agrees on.” Sign it, sometimes notarize it, sometimes not. That’s it.
Jill DeWit: My favorite.
Jack Butala: Doesn’t get recorded.
Jill DeWit: My favorite.
Jack Butala: That’s the big difference here. That does not get recorded until the final payment has been made and the property gets recorded. It requires a lot of trust. The second way is a trustee, involving a third-party trustee, or trustee sale. A trustee sale occurs when for whatever reason the trustee has to take the property back. It’s all facilitated … I’ve never seen one that’s not facilitated by a title company.
There’s a lot of reasons for this, because they have all the forms ready and they really know how to do it. In very, very rare cases I’ve actually seen maybe … No, I take that back. I’ve seen a couple of them where a loan servicing company does handle this for you, but in general …
Jill DeWit: Gets expensive, doesn’t it?
Jack Butala: Yeah, because the loan servicing company’s not set up to record stuff like title companies are.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Jack Butala: Yeah, and it does get … The title company was …
Jill DeWit: That’s my whole thing. Some of these transactions, I’m like, “This adds a lot of cost on it.” I don’t think anybody really … You don’t really have to, that you want to incur.
Jack Butala: From a seller’s perspective, the default rate for rural vacant land that’s priced very high is a pretty high, it’s a high default rate. It’s more than 50%. You want to plan for that, as a seller. The big differences between these two types of financing is that one costs nothing to undo and the other one, in general, costs a lot, maybe 2 or 3,000 bucks.
Jill DeWit: There you go.
Jack Butala: On a $5,000 piece of property, that’s really significant.
Jill DeWit: Correct.
Jack Butala: Did you ever look at an ownership list and you see that the First American Title #62 owns 431 properties in some county somewhere?
Jill DeWit: Yes.
Jack Butala: That’s all because they were the trustee on a deal, it went south, and whoever the seller was decided that they did not want to pay the money to undo it.
Jill DeWit: Right, it was cheaper just to walk away.
Jack Butala: The title company literally takes title to it. They title themselves.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: This is not very one-on-one. This is all very complicated. It’s a really good question, Brian. Thank you. In general, I should mention too, that states are very, very different. They vary pretty widely on how they handle this and what they allow.
Jill DeWit: What contracts are allowed and things like that. That’s true.
Jack Butala: Or if a land contract is allowed at all.
Jill DeWit: Because of that, honestly, there’s a lot of states that we are cash-only, because we’re not even going to mess with it. The hoops you have to jump through are not worth it.
Jack Butala: Right.
Jill DeWit: Jack and I, I think if you’ve listened to us for a while you know that we’re primarily cash-only people anyway. We like that, but we do have properties on term so we’ve done that for a long time, but there are states that we just don’t want to go there. It’s not worth it.
Jack Butala: Exactly. Today’s topic, real estate investment advice defined. This is the meat of the show. One of the most frequently asked questions I get is, “Where do I start? What do I do?” To which my answer is, “Education is always the place you start, always.” Start listening to podcasts. Sometimes it’s ours, sometimes it’s not. Just soak in as much as you really … Soak it in to the point where you really want more or you’re like, “This doesn’t make a lot of sense.” You don’t need to spend any money on it.
Jill and I created a web site called LandInvestors.com, just an online community. It’s the same as the JackJill online community, where you can ask any questions. There’s some really, really, really successful people, very wealthy, successful people that contribute regularly on this web site. Some of them are members and some of them aren’t. It has to do with land and real estate investment in general, and I think that it’s a very, very good place to start.
Jill DeWit: That’s where I direct people to first. I’m like, “Don’t spend any money yet.” First you want to get to know the community. Does this seem like a group that you could … You guys all … It makes sense to you, number one, and number two, I always tell people thinking about this, “Ask those questions of someone other than us, someone who’s really doing it real.” I can tell you, and I do.
I’ll say, “Hey, here’s what most people are doing.” I always say, “Don’t trust me, go ask them. Ask them how hard it really was. Ask them who else out there is doing this in the evenings and has a wife and two little kids and a day job? How much time are you guys really having to put in?” They’ll tell you, because you really want, you need to have that information up front to make an educated decision.
Jack Butala: What’s that XM station you’re listening to in your new car?
Jill DeWit: Oh, Sirius 111. It’s the business channel, and it’s on Wharton’s … In San Francisco, on their campus. I love it.
Jack Butala: This is all that Jill’s been talking about lately. Every time I’m in her car it’s on and I’m intrigued also. My point is, I’m sure that our show provides that, because there’s people that are interested in land and house flipping that are really intently listening to what we say about this stuff. You never stop learning.
Jill DeWit: No, it’s funny. I am hooked on that channel.
Jack Butala: That’s the education. I mean, we talk about it a lot. What’s the most frequently asked question that you get, Jill?
Jill DeWit: One of the ones I get is, “How fast can I ramp up?” I have three real popular ones. One is, “How fast can I ramp up?” Another one is, “Is it hard to sell vacant land?”
Jack Butala: Wow.
Jill DeWit: A third one I get is, “What do I do if I need help?”
Jack Butala: Really? One of the ones I get all the time, always, is, “I don’t have any money.” To which my answer is, “Then this is maybe not for you.”
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Jack Butala: There’s ways around it. There are programs out there, they sell themselves on that. “You don’t need any money to do this.” I mean, I don’t think that’s anything to brag about.
Jill DeWit: That’s funny. Wait, are those the same people that then charge $50,000 for something down the road?
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: I think that’s the same ones. That’s insane. Oh, my gosh.
Jack Butala: It takes a little bit of money. What do we say, still? Five grand? Five to eight grand?
Jill DeWit: I think five grand. I always tell them, “If you have five grand, you could afford the education, you could afford a couple months of data, you could afford to get the mailer out, you could afford to buy something.” You need at least that. More is better. People who I talk to or who my team talks to that have less than that, I tell them, “You know what? Don’t worry about it. We’re not going anywhere. Don’t run out and take out a mortgage or a second on your house or something silly.”
Jack Butala: Yeah, please don’t do that.
Jill DeWit: If it takes you six months to save five grand, then do that. That’s a much better thing. I can’t tell you how many people have really listened and come back. It might have been a year. I really have had people say, “You know what? I talked to you a year ago and I did it. I have $10,000. Let’s roll.” I’m like, “That is awesome.”
Jack Butala: That’s great.
Jill DeWit: I do. You know what, too?
Jack Butala: That’s commitment.
Jill DeWit: Right, yeah. Number one, that whole year they’ve been soaking up all the free information they can. That’s so valuable. Number two, they’re saving money. You know, if they spend a year on this, saving money, they’re going to be in, man. Then my other big thing is, you can breathe when you’re doing this. If you’re worried about where I borrowed the money and putting the money back and stuff like that … You don’t need that extra pressure while you’re learning this and getting rolling.
Jack Butala: Right. What are the answers to the list of questions that you just gave?
Jill DeWit: Is it hard to sell? My easiest answer is if you’re selling something at half of what it’s worth, do you think it’s hard to sell? They go, “Oh, I guess you’re right.”
Jack Butala: Along the sales topic, I get a different version of that question. I get, “I posted this property. I did everything you said. I posted this property on Craigslist, and it’s not sold. It is worth half.” To which my answer is, “I did say post it on Craigslist, but I also said post it on Land and Farm, Land Pin, LandWatch, and about six other places. Zillow, Trulia, Realtor.com, and even consider the way these cheap flat-fee listings are in the MLS. Consider posting it in there too.
Jill DeWit: That’s true. EBay.
Jack Butala: If all else fails, eBay.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: Or you could just start with eBay. We have a member that only sells on eBay, and they do great.
Jill DeWit: I still do not have anyone that’s … We always identify whatever it is. If it doesn’t sell, like Jack said, number one, you paid too much, you priced it too high. That’s easy. Number two, you’re not reaching the right people.
Jack Butala: That’s it.
Jill DeWit: I mean, it’s really, really that true. Every time I talk to someone …
Jack Butala: It’s a universal two rules.
Jill DeWit: … We can always figure it out. They go, “Oh, I didn’t know that. I only put it here. I only put it in the Craigslist in the county next over, because I figured they’re a perfect candidate. They’re the ones that would drive to that lake.” No, wait a minute. There’s a lot of other people out there that might want this property. They go, “Oh.”
Jack Butala: We’re selling a lot of property to overseas people lately. You don’t want to miss that market either, and the best way to get to them is social media.
Jill DeWit: That’s very true. Then another one people ask, “How fast is this going to take?” That’s one thing. Everybody comes into this like, “I want to quit my job in a month. I’m going to kill it. I’m going to quit my job and I want to buy a Ferrari,” or something crazy.
Jack Butala: That’s what I want right now.
Jill DeWit: You’re so funny. What are you looking at?
Jack Butala: I was just looking at you.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Jack Butala: I was wondering if you have Levi’s or Wranglers on, because we were …
Jill DeWit: Talking about that yesterday.
Jack Butala: Yesterday, yeah.
Jill DeWit: No, I don’t have any Wranglers and I don’t have any Levi’s.
Jack Butala: You don’t?
Jill DeWit: Actually, I have one pair of Levi’s. I have one pair of Levi’s. These are not Levi’s. Anyway, how fast to ramp up? You know what? That’s really on you. Do I know people that in 90 days … I’m not saying quit your job. Please don’t quit your job. In 90 days, are they doing consistent deals? Heck yes.
Jack Butala: That’s a good goal. Consistently turning real estate in 90 days, three months.
Jill DeWit: Yep. Some at six months, because they’re only doing it a few hours. They’re only doing three hours on a weekend, every weekend, maybe, so it’s going to take them a little bit longer. It took them 90 days just to buy one, kind of thing. Then it takes them longer. That one really is up to you, but come on, you guys. Jack and I just did a house where … Cash in, cash out in less than 30 days.
Jack Butala: It was closer to three weeks.
Jill DeWit: I know. Nothing’s crazy.
Jack Butala: Now, granted, we have a lot of experience, so I’m not saying … You shouldn’t be hanging your head if it takes you 45 days to a complete, total … This was just a flip, by the way. This is a wholesale flip. Cash in, cash out. All cash on both ends. No lenders. We didn’t renovate anything. We didn’t even sweep the floor.
Jill DeWit: Nope.
Jack Butala: We just really bought it cheap.
Jill DeWit: Didn’t even change the locks.
Jack Butala: Yeah, that’s right.
Jill DeWit: That’s so good. There you go.
Jack Butala: It varies with different … You know, here’s another point. This is just a universal rule that applies to everything, not just real estate success. 70% of the people that go down this path in anything are going to not end up following through. 20% are going to end up doing very well, and the 10% are going to end up where Jill and I are, which is the 90-10 rule. We are not alone up here, because there are people in our group that make way more money than we do. They’re probably not distracted by things like this podcast, by the way.
Jill DeWit: This is a valid point. I am so glad you thought about that. Think about how much money we spend on a college education, number one. Think about the dropout rate. Oh, boy.
Jack Butala: It’s staggering. It’s 75%.
Jill DeWit: I defy you to find one college that has a 50% …
Jack Butala: Right.
Jill DeWit: I mean, come on. It’s crazy. Then, at the end of the day, too, how many of us, how many of you who have college degrees, are using your college degree? Nowadays, that’s the big question. I have had this question with 20-somethings that they’ve asked because I’m not 20-something. I have had them ask me about my college education.
I actually think this is really cool, that they were thinking along these lines, and they’re really thinking like, “Do you need a college education? If I want to do this,” and I really appreciate that. They’re not asking me as in my business, they’re just asking me as someone …
Jack Butala: They’re asking your advice.
Jill DeWit: Exactly, because I’m a little older than 20.
Jack Butala: They’re asking for your real estate investment advice.
Jill DeWit: No, they’re not even asking that. They don’t even know what I’m doing. They don’t even know what I do. They just know that in the situation that we’re in, that I can afford to do something. I don’t know. I guess they’re just looking up to an adult that looks accomplished, or something, and I appreciate that question. There’s no guarantees here, just like college. Just like everything, right? You got to work at it.
Jack Butala: This may or may not be true for women, I don’t know. I don’t know much about women at all.
Jill DeWit: No, you don’t.
Jack Butala: If I make a statement like 10% of you are going to do really, really well, and 90% of you are not going to do some version of this, it just won’t work. 70% won’t do any of it. 20% of them possibly, potentially make it a career. If that makes you mad, this is not for you. If that makes you like, “That’s what it takes then, Jack?”
Jill DeWit: Oh, I don’t think it’s a man or woman …
Jack Butala: “I won’t get in the 10%? I’m in the top 10% of anything I’ve ever tried. I’ll make more money than you in 90 days.”
Jill DeWit: Do you know what’s so funny?
Jack Butala: That person. I want that person in my foxhole. Male or female, you’re right. It’s not gender-specific.
Jill DeWit: I think, to this day, that is one of the reasons you and I are together and one of the reasons why we kill it. Every single darn time, someone tells me, “Oh, you can’t possibly do that.” I’m like, “Oh, game on. Now watch.”
Jack Butala: “You can’t sneak into that concert, Jill.”
Jill DeWit: “You can’t fly a plane. You can’t possibly …” Who knows? “You can’t afford to do X,” or whatever. I go, “All right, watch me.”
Jack Butala: Oh, I’ve seen it. I’ve been watching it.
Jill DeWit: Don’t tell her that. Don’t tell her that, because here she goes. Too late.
Jack Butala: “You can’t fail at that relationship with Jack, Jill.”
Jill DeWit: Oh, yeah. Now, that one … I should have looked at that differently. I’m just kidding.
Jack Butala: What can’t you do? What could you not … Because I want to [crosstalk 00:17:29]
Jill DeWit: I’m just kidding. This so so good. Yeah, I want to do one, Jack. Let’s see. “You can’t live in California.” Watch me.
Jack Butala: Yeah. Oh, we did that.
Jill DeWit: “You can’t be an awesome dad.” I don’t know if anyone ever told you that, but you are an awesome dad. “You can’t run your own company.” Who knows? You’re great at that, too.
Jack Butala: I knew I was going to do that when I was six.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, but did everyone around you support you and tell you that you would?
Jack Butala: No, no one did.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Jack Butala: Everyone said that the world needs ditch diggers too. That’s what they said to me.
Jill DeWit: Thank you, and you proved them wrong, didn’t you?
Jack Butala: There’s a lot of stuff I could never do, like be a chef, let’s say.
Jill DeWit: Yes, you could. You just don’t want to.
Jack Butala: And I’m not interested in it.
Jill DeWit: That’s what I’m saying. You could be a chef. Come on, who’s the best cooker here, you or me? You.
Jack Butala: Me.
Jill DeWit: I’m the baker, I’m not the cooker. You could be a chef. What else you got? How about your motorcycle riding skills? That’s pretty crazy.
Jack Butala: I’m good at that.
Jill DeWit: I know you are. I’ve seen that one.
Jack Butala: I also want to … I don’t do it anymore [crosstalk 00:18:31]
Jill DeWit: No one needs to race against you.
Jack Butala: Stay alive.
Jill DeWit: I don’t even want to think about it. No one please attempt to race him, because I want him to be here.
Jack Butala: I could not … This is true. I could not be a professional golfer. I swear, if I really set out to do that I could not do it.
Jill DeWit: Oh, come on. Yes you could.
Jack Butala: I have a better chance of being a medical doctor.
Jill DeWit: You know what? The only things I think …
Jack Butala: Could you? Could you be a pro golfer?
Jill DeWit: Sure, if we really put our minds to it and I started many years ago. You’re good, but I don’t want to. Oh, come on. I think the only things that you really, really can’t do is those things like I’m pretty darn sure I could not be a professional basketball player.
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Nor jockey.
Jack Butala: Some of that’s just age, too, not sheer will.
Jill DeWit: And size.
Jack Butala: Yeah, right.
Jill DeWit: I’m too short for one and too tall for the other. There’s things you can’t get around.
Jack Butala: Right.
Jill DeWit: But the rest of the stuff … Remember the movie we just watched the other night about the girl that was on that path and that’s all she knew and she killed it?
Jack Butala: Yes.
Jill DeWit: From the age of four. It was an ice skating movie, and it was a good movie. “I, Tonya.” If you’ve not seen that movie … Jack’s like, “Oh, no. Please don’t make me watch this.”
Jack Butala: It was a good movie.
Jill DeWit: Then you said it was a good movie too. Imagine if we all set out on one thing, like pro golfing, Jack. If you and I were told at the age of three we were going to be pro golfers, I’m pretty darn sure we would be if that’s all we did.
Jack Butala: Point taken, but I’ll tell you, my whole big picture point on that is, I want to do this. I love doing this.
Jill DeWit: Me too.
Jack Butala: I do it in my spare time.
Jill DeWit: Me too.
Jack Butala: We have some people working for us that are working with us. That’s what they do. They go home and look at real estate when they’re all done.
Jill DeWit: My last one, “What if I need help?” That’s where we come in.
Jack Butala: That’s easy.
Jill DeWit: That’s where we come in. You know what? I was on the Wharton School radio thing I was listening to. We were talking about how there’s a big shift in the way we all communicate online now, and instead of … It’s so cool. Instead of hiding and keeping secrets, we all are a lot more transparent, everyone, and really helping each other. There’s lots of communities out there. Reddit’s been around for a long, long time, but now it’s really …
Jack Butala: Yeah, that’s a great resource.
Jill DeWit: But it’s grown into all kinds of other things. I mean, just social media. I can’t tell you how many times on Facebook I see people asking questions and helping each other. Our online community is awesome, because it’s really curtailed for our people and what we do, but we still talk about all kinds of stuff. Now we’re set to open up a whole new focus over there with House Academy.
Jack Butala: Here’s a great example of that, Jill. I know we’re going a little bit long on time. I use Facebook for business only, and somebody put this post, and we’re all real estate people in there. All of us.
“What’s the best place to get comparison values for free?” I love these simple little short posts. Then probably 15 people answered. I was not one of them. I was enthralled with the answers.
Jill DeWit: Really?
Jack Butala: I learned and purchased software based on that, the responses in there.
Jill DeWit: Really?
Jack Butala: Yeah, because there’s some people in there that we all live or die by, in houses anyway, by real estate data. There are two really strong places to go get comparison values that are non-MLS. Turns out they’re tied to the MLS, they’re just MLS data feeds for certain parts of the country.
Jill DeWit: It’s only going to make your pricing that much more acute.
Jack Butala: Propelio is one of them. Propelio.com.
Jill DeWit: Super cool.
Jack Butala: The other one that we use all the time is Redfin, to answer the question.
Jill DeWit: Super cool. This is good.
Jack Butala: You’ve done it again. You’ve spent another 25 minutes or so listening to the Jack and Jill Show. Join us tomorrow, where we discuss the topic to lease or buy your primary residence. I have to say that here’s a little spoiler alert. I have met and I have close friends where their primary residence destroyed their life. Destroyed their financial life.
Jill DeWit: I can’t wait to listen to that. And we answer your questions. Should you have one, post it on JackJill.com, our online community. I mean it. Go there, write a question, and we might pull it out and answer it here on the show.
Jack Butala: You are not alone in your real estate ambition. Good show, Jill. We went a little long. Some shows we’re horsing around, some shows we actually talk about stuff. That was a good talk about stuff, yeah.
Jill DeWit: This is good stuff. This is stuff that we haven’t covered in a while. Sometimes, too, I have different takes on it, and I learn new stuff that I can share with other people.
Jack Butala: Right.
Jill DeWit: It’s good to bring these topics up again, so that was awesome. Hey, share the fun by subscribing on iTunes or wherever you’re listening. While you’re at it, please rate us there. We are Jack and Jill.
Jack Butala: Information …
Jill DeWit: … and inspiration …
Jack Butala: … to buy undervalued property.
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