Learning from the Land Investors Community (LA 937)
Learning from the Land Investors Community (LA 937)
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: I’m Jill DeWit broadcasting from sunny southern California.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about learning from the LandInvestors.com online community.
Jill DeWit: I learn something sometimes from our community. I love it.
Steven Butala: Every day I go in there.
Jill DeWit: Yep.
Steven Butala: Every week I go in there, probably twice a week, maybe three times a week, for sure. One time a week to spend a ton of time pulling the questions on for this show, for all these shows. Man, it’s just … Jill can attest to this. These people, it’s an amazing tool.
Jill DeWit: I know. It’s the greatest thing.
Steven Butala: It is truly an amazing free tool.
Jill DeWit: Yep. We’ll talk more about that here. I have a lot to say.
Steven Butala: 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: Steven Kisch asked, “Hello. For those that use either Congress Reality, $299 list free, or BrokerDirectAnalyst.com, as low as $85 specialist fee, what is the commission structure you are using in listing to get deals done for selling land? How low can you go and still attract buyers, agents, or is that even an issue? Thanks, Steve.”
Steven Butala: Let me give some background real quick before … Another community member is going to answer the question. When you go to sell a piece of real estate, in the past, you have to hire a real estate agent or a lot of people thought you had to hire a real estate agent, and they would charge 3 to 6% of the sale price depending on the terms that you sign.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: There’s thing called fixed price MLS that came about recently because of the internet.
Jill DeWit: That was the only way that … What he’s saying is that hiring the agent used to be the only way to get it in the MLS.
Steven Butala: Yes. Now, you can do this thing where there’s this fixed price MLS, these services that are online.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: They’re tech people that happen to have a real estate license and can legally have access to their MLS-
Jill DeWit: And put properties in there for you.
Steven Butala: They’ll take all your information to 50, 80 bucks, a 100 bucks, 300 bucks, some number like that, and they’re not going to give you any services at all. They’re just going to post it on the MLS, so other realtors can see it, because they have buyers, and sell them the property.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: Go ahead.
Jill DeWit: It’s just a listing service.
Steven Butala: His question is, “That’s great. So …”
Jill DeWit: “I don’t have an agent with me. That’s not how I’m getting it in the MLS.”
Steven Butala: Well, his question is, “That’s great. That takes care one agent in the deal, the listing agent.” You pay him $50, or whatever you negotiate, and nothing else.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: “What about the other person on the other side that’s representing him? What do you do?”
Jill DeWit: “Is it still going to attract people? Because I’ve made it clear that I’m not using agents here, is the thing,” and he’s right. One of our members, Christian … Hello, Christian. Christian wrote and answered him, “Steven, you can put whatever you want in that section, such as 3% or a flat commission, like $1,000. Or you can simply put $1. The buyer’s agent will likely call you up and ask you what the $1 is all about. At that point, you could explain that you expect the buyer to cover their commission, that it won’t be coming out of your pocket, and that’s if you choose. MLS requires something to be in the commission field, and just putting $1 in there is sufficient.” That’s the same thing that we’ve done.
Jill DeWit: Usually that’s what I do. I like the $1, or a flat, or like a real low percentage just to get the ball rolling. And you can update it depending on the feedback that you’re getting. Also, too, it depends on the property price. If I’m doing a $10,000 couple acres somewhere property, most agents aren’t going to be involved, anyway. I just need to get it out there somewhere people see it, so putting a dollar in there is just so I can get into traffic. But if it’s a … I don’t know … a $300,000, $400,000 commercial property, who’s usually involved in those are usually our agents and brokers involved, so I’m going to put something in there maybe a little differently.
Steven Butala: That’s the academic version. Here’s how it really works. You list it on the MLS for 300 bucks for six months, and they do all the work for you, the listing network, for the most part. Two types of people call you. People that want to buy it. People that are represented by a real estate agent. And the real estate agent’s going to say … If you don’t put in 3% of the purchase price, they’re going to say some version of, “What the hell? This is how I make my living. You can’t just pay me $1,000 [inaudible 00:04:29]” So, academically, it sounds great to put $1 in there, or $1,000, but in fact-
Jill DeWit: You don’t want to piss them off.
Steven Butala: Yeah. In reality, they’re going to pay them 3%, and in some land deals, you’re going to pay them 10%. If they’re huge deals, you can actually stick your middle finger up and say, “I’m going to pay a half a percent.” But they’re stuck, because they have to clear it with their broker. Their broker’s never … This is all old skill, right out of 1968 methodology. It’s all propped up like a house of cards. Or if you’re lucky … and this is what really happens a lot of time, because the MLS itself is so prevalent on the internet, like on places like Realtor.com … the buyer will contact that listing broker directly, the guy that you paid $300 to. If he’s a cool guy, like the ones that we work with, he’s going to say, “Hey. Joe Smith called me from Seattle, and …”
Jill DeWit: “Here you go.”
Steven Butala: Yep. “… here’s his information. He wants to buy the property.” Then you close the deal yourself.
Jill DeWit: That’s how it goes. That’s exactly how it goes.
Steven Butala: And you end up paying nothing.
Jill DeWit: Usually, you’re paying for that service. They’re just kind of putting it in there and passing it through to you.
Steven Butala: That’s how it’s supposed to work. In the future, that’s how the whole real estate environment will work. Real estate agents will go away.
Jill DeWit: Yep.
Steven Butala: Thank God.
Jill DeWit: I know.
Steven Butala: Today’s topic, Learning From the LandInvestors.com Online Community. This is the meat of the show. I love LandInvestors.com.
Jill DeWit: Me, too.
Steven Butala: Here’s the story of Land Investors very briefly. Jill and I started Land Academy, and almost immediately, we had a flood of requests for people asking us, “Well, who else is in the community? Can I contact this person?” And all these questions and all this stuff.
Jill DeWit: Like, “I have a little thing I want to ask about this, or that, or this, or that.”
Steven Butala: So Jill said, “I’m going on vacation. Can you do something about this?”
Jill DeWit: I said, “We needed a community.”
Steven Butala: This is literally what happened. I spent 36 hours personally developing the Land Investors website, and it’s to this day … Lots of tech people, our staff now maintain it, and it’s … I’m taking a lot more credit than I should. But it’s still the single best way to get questions answered and to really interact with our community, because that’s what this is all about.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Butala: This is a community. People ask us, “What’s different about you guys than other people?” We have a community.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, support.
Steven Butala: You have full access to the community.
Jill DeWit: Support, support, support. Yeah.
Steven Butala: I know you have some stuff to say.
Jill DeWit: Included support. That’s huge. I know people that have said that’s what made it for them. It’s great, “Oh, great.” I mean, like, “Oh, great. I know how to do this. I bought the book. If I don’t have the tools, I don’t have the support, can’t get these questions answered,” for a lot of people, that’s it. That will sink the ship. And we do all of that. Yeah. What I was going to say, too, is I love … Our community is fantastic, and that should be, whether you’re a member or not, it’s free to you to use. Go get an account. Get in there. That should be your number one place at 3:00 AM to go get questions.
Steven Butala: Yep.
Jill DeWit: Heck, there might be somebody on there at 3:00 AM with you, by the way. There’s several people, I am sure, that are on there with you, because we have people all over the world in our community, so you can get answers pretty fast in there. Also, it’s got, what, now going on four years of knowledge in there, so you can search and probably find the answer to whatever it is that you’re faced with right now, so use it.
Jill DeWit: My favorite way to describe this is our community, number one, they are you, they were you, and they will be you. I just came up with that. I think it’s so cool.
Steven Butala: I love it. Totally true.
Jill DeWit: “They are you,” means it’s your community. It’s your people. Where else can you go to somebody that knows exactly what you’re talking about? pricing offers, you don’t have to explain it to somebody. You can say, “Hey, what did you think about this? I have a question about that. Has any of you ever had this situation?” They understand it. They’re right there doing it right alongside you. How great is that?
Jill DeWit: “They were you,” because maybe you’re dealing with something that’s a little more advanced. Their business is a little bit bigger. They’ve done more transactions. You know what? They were you one time. They had their first deal, too, once upon a time. We’ve all been there on deal one, every single one of us. So just because you’re on deal one doesn’t mean you’re alone. So ask some of those questions, and they remember being that person, and they will happily help you.
Jill DeWit: Then, “They will be you,” meaning someday, you’re going to be that guy. So you could look at it two ways like you’re going to be that guy saying, “I remember when I was on my first deal, and someone helped me. I’m going to help you, and get you there.” So that’s one way to look at that. The other thing is, you’re looking at these people like, “Holy cow. Look at the deals these guys are doing, and what they’re talking about, and how they’re arranging this. And their business has grown, and all this good stuff.”
Steven Butala: It’s motivational.
Jill DeWit: Like, “That will be me. I’m going to follow that guy. I’m going to connect with him, or just this group,” or whatever. That is our group. That’s it.
Steven Butala: Imagine doing this alone. I mean, what else … Can you imagine becoming a medical doctor alone? No. There’s all kinds of programs and internships that are required before you can actually practice by yourself. In any real job situation that matters, you’ve got all kinds of training. Then for their whole career, you’re sitting next to somebody that’s doing a different version or the same version you are, so you can collaborate. You don’t want to hold yourself up and just do this alone without utilizing the resources that are available to you, especially now the way that the internet is.
Steven Butala: This is Organization Week. We’re wrapping up Organization/Motivation Week. LandInvestors.com, I don’t care where you are in your career, is an unbelievable resource. We use it, now, to partnership deals with people. I think it’s safe to say Jill and I are at our rounding out the curve of our real estate investing career. We do a lot of big deals a month, and we’re finding that it’s easier and more fun for us to fund other people’s deals as partners, than to actually go out and source the deals ourselves, although we do both.
Jill DeWit: I love being the bank.
Steven Butala: We still use the resources that we’ve created. All these resources that we created, we were already doing internally. We just web-enabled them, so that everyone can use them.
Jill DeWit: Right. Stuff we use, too.
Steven Butala: So whether you’re brand new or you’re on your almost 16,000th deal like we are …
Jill DeWit: You will get something out of it.
Steven Butala: … it’s a great resource. Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Absolutely get something out of it. Even if you’re not really … We have people that are in our community just being money people. They know who we are. They know what we’re all about. They know how smart our community is. They understand how we’re getting our deals, and they just want to be the bank. I know that they’re in our community. They are just saying, “Hey, I don’t want to send any mail, but thank you. I know your concept, and I know how smart you guys are.” I’ve had so many people reach out to me from other similar, but other communities, or just even other buyers at a certain level, wholesale buyers, saying, “I always know want I’m dealing with a Land Academy person. Man, there’s a difference.” I’m like, “Thank you very much. I appreciate that.”
Steven Butala: Yeah. All set.
Jill DeWit: That’s it.
Steven Butala: Yeah. Well, you’ve done it again. You’ve spent another 15 minutes, or so, listening to The Land Academy Show. Join us next time for Finance Friday, with me, Steven, Jill, and our guest, Justin.
Jill DeWit: Justin Sliva will be here. That’s awesome. 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.
Jill DeWit: I’m going to write a blog on this, because I think I’m next to do the blog for us.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: I’m going to really … This will be a good one. I can get into a little more detail, too, about what we just talked about, because the value of this community is amazing. I can’t wait … We’re about to do it again-
Steven Butala: I’m proud of it.
Jill DeWit: … with House Academy, so sit tight. If you’re a house person, you’re here just kind of listening along. Just say, “All right, guys. I get what you’re doing. I want to do it for houses,” or, “I’m a flipper. That’s really in my soul, but I need to buy it better,” and you want to know what that is, sit tight. It’s coming, and we’ll have our own community for that, too.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Wherever you are watching or listening, please 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.
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