Power in Numbers and Support (LA 853)
Power in Numbers and Support (LA 853)
Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I’m Jill DeWit broadcasting from sunny southern California.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about how there’s power in numbers and support. Boy, that couldn’t be more true. Think about caveman times. You’re better in a group. Especially when there’s older people teaching you how to do stuff.
Jill DeWit: Oh, yeah.
Steven Butala: Younger people with more energy. Everybody wins. It’s not just a one-way street.
Jill DeWit: It’s a circle. Yep.
Steven Butala: Before I get into it, let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community. It’s free. As you’re listening, please drop us questions into the comment section below.
Jill DeWit: Okay. Walden asks, “I am building an offer application and was hoping for some input. In your experience, would you offer more if market value is more certain, i.e., like more comp data, like more completed sales data, or the opposite? I usually offer between 10 to 25% for rural vacant land, but I’m thinking more about the logic in choosing 10% over 25%.”
Steven Butala: Man, there’s so many schools of thought on this. And when you mean application, I hope you don’t mean a computer program that prices property for you based on the other statistics in the actual line item. I hope that’s not what you’re doing. For years, people have been trying to do this, me included, and that’s just not how it works, because every single market’s so different.
Steven Butala: What you choose to do in Elko, Nevada, as a pricing scheme, is diametrically different than you would do in northern Michigan or anywhere else. I just chose those two places. Pulled them out of a hat. I hope it’s not a computer application. 10 to 15 to 20% is only for rural vacant land. It’s not for infill lots at all. Infill lots are all tied to the sale price of the house that you’re going to build on it, and what the developer’s willing to pay, and getting inside the head of a developer. A home builder, I should say.
Jill DeWit: I’m not a fan …
Steven Butala: This is Walden. I think he’s relatively new.
Jill DeWit: I’m not a fan of going out low, too. I don’t know. I mean, I know people have done and done it successfully, but I can do just fine and probably pick up more properties pricing it at 25% and selling it doubling my money, and then I’m still way under everybody else. I’m not here to prove something.
Steven Butala: Yeah, there is nobody in this group that is making tons and tons of money offering five and 10% of wholesale, even, or retail.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: It’s too low.
Jill DeWit: It’s too low. You may be missing a lot of people.
Steven Butala: You’re missing tons of people. And will you buy property? Absolutely.
Jill DeWit: Sure.
Steven Butala: Your mailer yield was going to go through the ceiling. It’s going to take you 10,000 offers to buy one house.
Jill DeWit: Right. Meaning, your yield is going to be really, really low, because you’re going to buy so few based on what they’re offering.
Steven Butala: Yes. That’s what I meant. Exactly, Jill. Thank you.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. You’re going to have to send out … Well, your mail costs are going to go through the roof. That’s what’s going to happen, because you’re sending out a lot more.
Steven Butala: Yeah. Listen, before those first 10 deals, don’t get creative.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. This is who I am, I think, and who we are. This is part of, I think, why our members connect with us. We have a really, really … This ties into the show about the support and our community. We’re here to do the right thing. I’m not here to gouge someone. I’m not here to brag about how low I got it and what I just did. I’m not here to set the market for selling something so high and be the highest one price per square foot in this area. That’s not my goal, and it’s never been my goal. I’m like, “Come on. Sure we’re sending out lot of offers. We’re upfront and honest about it. Everybody knows it. Everybody gets it. But they’re not insulting. They are lower. They are wholesale price.” That’s just who we are. I’m not a fan of this really, really low.
Jill DeWit: I know some people say, “I just offered them 100 bucks.” Or, the offer said, “I’ll just take it off their hands. Give it to me for free,” or whatever that is. I’m like, “I’m not a fan of any of those strategies.” I don’t think that’s nice. It does go a little bit of a borderline. It looks like you’re kicking someone when they’re down, and that’s not what I want to do at all.
Steven Butala: Jill and I used to teach an entrepreneur class. We used to substitute a college class for a professor that we know. I asked the class one time, “What’s …” The name of the class is Entrepreneur something. It was the last class in their MBA program, so they’re all jacked about the class and just ready to graduate. I said, “What is an entrepreneur? Give me an example of a couple of people who you think are successful entrepreneurs.” They all immediately said, “Mark Zuckerberg.” Immediately. Which is not, in my … Yeah, he’s a one in a bajillion entrepreneur.
Steven Butala: A more likely entrepreneur is somebody who’s listening to this show who’s got a regular job. Maybe it’s a young guy 25, 30 years old, tired of his boss, tired of the whole thing. And he learned to buy and sell some real estate. He end up making a few hundred thousand bucks a month, maybe more, and live happily ever after. That’s being an entrepreneur in reality. The non-Hollywood version.
Steven Butala: Every once in a while, though, young people come into the group, and they think that they’re going to teach us stuff. They think that they figured out a new way or they’re going to overturn it. I love that attitude.
Jill DeWit: I do, too.
Steven Butala: I was that way my whole life.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: But I’m telling you right now, it’s not going to happen. The anatomy of a deal has never changed. You contact a bunch of people who own property that you’ve targeted as acquisition candidates. Some people respond. You review those deals. You decide which ones you want, and you close it. Then you resell it. That has been going on since real estate itself.
Steven Butala: What’s really dramatically changed it how efficient you can do that with computers, and assessor databases, and all kinds of stuff. That constantly changes, and you, as a young person or a listener … I don’t care how old you are … could turn the whole thing on its ear in how it gets done. But I’m telling you, offering 5% or 10% or these cockamamie schemes about term sales and all this … You’re wasting time.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Steven Butala: Was that too hardcore?
Jill DeWit: No, that’s good.
Steven Butala: Do I sound like an old man?
Jill DeWit: A little bit.
Steven Butala: Really?
Jill DeWit: When you use cockamamie, and bajillion, and whippersnapper, I was waiting for that one to come. That was the only one you didn’t use, but everything else, you nailed it. So it’s not how you look, it’s not how you talk, it’s a few of the words that you throw out there, babe, I got to tell you. It’s one of the things that I love about you. He only sounds 80. No, just kidding. I’m teasing.
Steven Butala: Today’s topic: There’s Power in Numbers and Supports. This is the meat of the show.
Jill DeWit: I love this.
Steven Butala: I know you wrote a lot of stuff down before the show, Jill. Tell us.
Jill DeWit: I love this topic. For us, it started one month in. We launched Land Academy in July 2015. Weeks into it, month one, like two weeks in … I think Clair might have started it … we had a number of members, one in particular, said, “How can we communicate with you? We got to do something?” You and I put our heads together … And it was Success Plant back then. I went away for the weekend. I happened to have a weekend planned.
Steven Butala: Which is now LandInvestors.com.
Jill DeWit: Yep. And you said, “All right, we’re going to make an online community,” and you did. And here we are three-and-a-half years later. That thing is huge. I mean, the stuff that’s in there is awesome.
Steven Butala: And it’s free.
Jill DeWit: And it’s free. We never changed that.
Steven Butala: Right.
Jill DeWit: That started this whole support and community. I didn’t know that, too, going into this. I don’t know if you did, too. I remember thinking, “Just putting this program out there, we’re going to help people.” I figured it would be a lot of different people doing it and using it their own way. It never thought that we would all, as a group, get together and start doing what we’re doing now. I want to start with where it all began for us. We started this online community, and now I’ve seen how this goes for our members, and what everybody needs along the way.
Steven Butala: How helpful it is.
Jill DeWit: How helpful it is. Here’s how our community and the power in numbers and support, this is what we’ve experienced with our members. It’s beautiful. First is new members, what everyone seems to kind of need is just some help with starting with some basic steps. You’re reading the program, you might get hung up on a little something, you’re not sure … Like these questions that we answer at the beginning of the show, some of these you can see are new members, and some are seasons members. You can kind of tell which are the new members, like, “Hey, I don’t know how to do about this. Am I offering too much? Am I offering too little? My phone’s not ringing.” Little things like that.
Jill DeWit: We [inaudible 00:09:31] out of our online community, and that’s how it’s designed for this for the new members that can just kind of bounce ideas off each other and just … It’s great, because it’s … Often, I see the replies are from someone who’s just kind of six months ahead of them. It kind of goes in waves. Like, this group helps this group, and this group helps this group. It’s so great. That’s just how it starts.
Jill DeWit: Then as investors grown, and as you grow in your business, now you got that stuff figured out. You don’t need any help with Deeds 101. You’re way past Deeds 101, but now you need some business tips. I watch our group starting sharing … the intermediate, middle group, they start sharing business tips. They start sharing this like, “Which is the best photographer in this area? How are you doing drone shots? What’s your video software?” Things like that. And, “How did you get your checkout button? I’m going to make mine look like that. That’s awesome.” I see that progression.
Jill DeWit: Again, it’s our community supporting each other and helping each other, because no one’s against each other. What’s the thing about this, too? I think the whole point … You did this. It’s like, “We’re better together. By helping each other, we’re all making more money. We’re all benefiting. It’s wonderful.” That’s the middle level.
Jill DeWit: Where the top level, what we’re getting now is … Now, we got some seasons pros. They’ve been with us for a couple years. What are they doing now? They’re now funding-
Steven Butala: Funding each other.
Jill DeWit: … and putting together deals, financing things for new guys, putting together bigger transactions, and just taking it to a new level. I’m like, “What’s going to be … I don’t know what’s next.” I was just thinking about this now. I didn’t write out what’s next.
Steven Butala: I know what’s next.
Jill DeWit: What’s next?
Steven Butala: Well, this is where all this is going, because Jill and I started Land Academy specifically to collect a group of higher-end, higher-producing, productive members into a group of 100 people, or so where we all log in somewhere. We all see the deals that we’re doing. We all need money on certain deals, and we’re putting money into other people’s deals. We can all see, because we’ve all passed all the tests of not being a weirdo, or whatever, or not. Just having some element of ethics and truly believing that these 100 people are going to … It’s essentially applying the commercial real estate finance/sophistication to buying and selling land and flipping house. Not renovating, just flipping. And I’m working on it. I work on it every day with another member in our group, Justin. That’s the goal for … We’re shooting for the middle of 2019 where …
Jill DeWit: A small group.
Steven Butala: It’s an invite only. We fund each other’s deals. Maybe I put 10, $20,000 into a certain deal with costs 800 grand. Everybody else funds at different points, and it’s all very, very organized. We’re working out the software piece right now. That’s the way, by the way, people syndicate commercial real estate, like huge apartment buildings, and office buildings, and malls, and stuff.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: It’s the same exact methodology. In fact, it’s the same software. So if that’s not power in numbers and support … And by the way, the people that are going to be invited to this thing started out brand new in Land Academy.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. It’s true.
Steven Butala: A lot of them have never done a real estate deal in their life, and it’s two years later.
Jill DeWit: I know. It’s it crazy?
Steven Butala: I mean, there’s one guy specifically who makes more than a million dollars a month.
Jill DeWit: Yep. I am shocked-
Steven Butala: He’s never done a real estate deal before two years ago.
Jill DeWit: Yep.
Steven Butala: You want to talk about an entrepreneur and Zuckerberg level stuff? When you’re literally in your pajamas at the coffee table making a million dollars a month. That never would have happened without the power in numbers, and the support that we provide, and the education.
Jill DeWit: Yep. These people all are sponges. They take it all in. They read it. They reach out. They’re active. They’re asking questions. They did a lot of consulting. That’s why we’re here.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: I mean, that’s why we’re here. You’re right, this is our goal, and it’s happening.
Steven Butala: I got a comment a couple days ago.
Jill DeWit: Tell me.
Steven Butala: You know there’s YouTube comments all the time?
Jill DeWit: Yep.
Steven Butala: This comment stuck out with me. Somebody said, “You’re pretty funny, Steve. I really, really didn’t like you when I first started listening to the show, but it seems to be look now.” So in the back of my head, I was doing these shows this week, and I’m like, “You know? That’s maybe the greatest compliment I’ve ever gotten.”
Jill DeWit: That’s hilarious. “I didn’t like you, but because of Jill, I hung in there.”
Steven Butala: Yeah. All [inaudible 00:14:08] No, no. Not because of … Is what you heard me say?
Jill DeWit: I don’t know. Why did they hang in there? I don’t know.
Steven Butala: I don’t know.
Jill DeWit: Oh, okay.
Steven Butala: Who knows why they hung in there, but I’m okay now, apparently.
Jill DeWit: Yes.
Steven Butala: If you’re a man, you know that, because that’s how women are. It’s like, “I never really liked the guy in the beginning, but I guess he’s okay now.” Most marriages are like that.
Jill DeWit: What?
Steven Butala: Seriously.
Jill DeWit: What? Like you think women say that?
Steven Butala: Oh, yeah.
Jill DeWit: Oh, I like … Oh, no. If I didn’t like you, you wouldn’t be sitting right here.
Steven Butala: Really, Jill?
Jill DeWit: Yeah. I mean, not like here, I mean like next to me.
Steven Butala: Oh, I see.
Jill DeWit: Not like … yeah. Not like I …
Steven Butala: Well, God, I feel so fortunate that you like me. Thank you.
Jill DeWit: You’re silly.
Steven Butala: I’m not worthy.
Jill DeWit: Oh, no. Oh, no. Okay.
Steven Butala: Well, you’ve done it again. You’ve spent another 15 minutes or so listening to the Land Academy show. Join us next time where we discuss another interesting episode.
Jill DeWit: And we answer your questions posted on our online community, LandInvestors.com. It’s free.
Steven Butala: You are not alone in your real estate ambition. Cracking me up, man.
Jill DeWit: I know. I didn’t mean like here. It’s not like, “Yeah, I am Land Academy. You’re lucky.” No, that’s not true. We all know that. But I mean, we are here sitting here together still. We have to like each other.
Steven Butala: I agree.
Jill DeWit: Dude, if anybody spends more … I don’t know another couple that spends as much time together as we do and gets along as well as we do.
Steven Butala: That’s true.
Jill DeWit: Seriously.
Steven Butala: That’s true.
Jill DeWit: It’s a little spooky. Please be sure and hit the Subscribe button to stay up-to-date on our podcasts. Like us and comment on what you would like to see in future shows. If you’re listening on iTunes, please be sure and rate us there. We are Steve and Jill.
Steven Butala: We are Steve and Jill. Information …
Jill DeWit: … and inspiration …
Steven Butala: … 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 steven@BuWit.com.
The BuWit Family of Companies include:
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.
