5 Levels of Land Company Progress (LA 950)

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5 Levels of Land Company Progress (LA 950)

5 Levels of Land Company Progress (LA 950)

Transcript:

Steven Butala:                   Steve and Jill here.

Jill DeWit:                            Hi.

Steven Butala:                   With guest, Justin Sliva. 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 with guest, Justin Sliva, just like we do every Friday, about the transactions that we’ve done this past week. Justin, how are you?

Justin Sliva:                         Good. Good. Busy.

Jill DeWit:                            That’s a good thing, right?

Justin Sliva:                         Yeah, we had our e-book launched this week so we did the software [crosstalk 00:00:29]. It had all the [inaudible 00:00:31] so that was pretty neat, saying that starting to work good in the system.

Steven Butala:                   Are you getting download numbers?

Justin Sliva:                         I haven’t pulled it yet. No, I was wanting to wait to first. We just hit the soft advertising push that did the social media channels, and so we’ll see how that kind of plays out. I’ve had a couple of people reach out to say, “Hey, thanks for the book. It seems great so far,” so I know that that it was getting bought, I just haven’t looked yet to see what the numbers are.

Jill DeWit:                            Oh cool.

Steven Butala:                   We’re trying to hit 50 a day, downloads for our e-book just on our website.

Jill DeWit:                            Right.

Justin Sliva:                         Nice. Nice, that’s awesome.

Jill DeWit:                            Cool.

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:                            Quinn R. asks, “Hi everyone, I’m Quinn, a sophomore in college, and I’ve always been extremely interested in real estate, but never considered the possibility of selling the land.”

Steven Butala:                   Been there.

Jill DeWit:                            Right? “I’m from Scranton, PA. I don’t mind traveling. Actually, I just drove back from a small trip to Michigan.”

Steven Butala:                   Been there too.

Jill DeWit:                            “I’m a musician, photographer, stock investor, and adrenaline junkie.” Well, it sounds like, Quinn, you’re in the right place, by the way. “I’m not entirely sure where to start with this, so any direction would be appreciated. Cheers.”

Steven Butala:                   So I intentionally chose this question, Justin, for our call today because I know you deal with a lot of people that are new to the real estate business. Brand new. What’s your advice.

Justin Sliva:                         I want to say just get started in sending some mail. Learn the basics. Just get with a county, put some mail in the box and start working forward from there. You’re going to fail forward, make mistakes. Don’t stop, just keep moving through. If you’ve got questions, say you come up with some consulting and you work through those particular issues and you push them [crosstalk 00:02:10]-

Steven Butala:                   It’s a baptism by fire. Just get some mail out there and deal with it.

Justin Sliva:                         Yeah.

Jill DeWit:                            It’s true.

Justin Sliva:                         Yeah, we talk about that every day. Your first mailers, they can go really good or really bad, and if you do really good on your first mailer you’re going to do really bad on your second mailer because you’re so confident. From there, you just keep real estate-doing it. You have fun with it, because it’s profitable. It’s simple. It’s so simple that you’re not going to believe how simple it is.

Jill DeWit:                            I swear, the worst mailers people say where they’re like, “Oh, that was a flop.” Like, “Well what happened?” “Oh, I only bought two.” I’m like, “I’m what the heck?” Then they’re like, “Yeah,” they think it’s a flop. They did it all wrong, but they still recovered so it’s never really a total failure.

Steven Butala:                   Yeah, we just did an interview with Tim Flood, who I think was at your event in Texas.

Jill DeWit:                            Yeah.

Justin Sliva:                         Yeah.

Jill DeWit:                            Did you hear his whole story about how that property played out, by the way?

Justin Sliva:                         Uh-uh (negative).

Steven Butala:                   Oh man.

Jill DeWit:                            It’s so cool. I’ll try to condense this. He reached out to us personally on Facebook Messenger and just said, “Thank you so much. I can’t believe I just had my biggest deal. I bought all-in with escrow and everything for $38,000.00, sold for $130,000.00.” He’s like, “I didn’t even get a chance to advertise it.” He had his friend put a sign on the front of it and he started to get all these phone calls coming in. Well what’s funny is, that was good enough. Well, we just interviewed him because of that. He says, “Well, you’ve got to hear what happened with the story.”

Jill DeWit:                            I’m like, “What?” He goes, “Well it didn’t at $130,000.00.” I’m like, “What do you mean?” He said, “That was the first guy that reached out to me, and he couldn’t get his act together. He was moving money around to buy it.” Tim said, “Look, I pretty much can’t wait. I’ve got to move on. I’ve got all these people blowing up my phone.” So he went to Guy #2, and he said, “Look you’re up. This fell through and I gotta tell you, I’m not going to take anything less than $150,000.00,” and the guy said, “Done.”

Justin Sliva:                         Oh wow. I hadn’t heard that part yet.

Jill DeWit:                            Isn’t that great? A couple more days and it went from $130,000.00 to $150,000.00, and Tim’s scratching his head like, “Wow.”

Justin Sliva:                         No wonder he’s been going to these basketball games and hanging out everywhere.

Jill DeWit:                            Yeah, he’s having a good time right now.

Justin Sliva:                         Yeah.

Steven Butala:                   He had no real estate experience at all. None.

Justin Sliva:                         Yeah, when he got fired from his job he called me. He’s in the DFW area by me. He said, “Hey, can you come meet for lunch? My story is kind of like yours.” I said, “Yeah, sure I’ll meet you for lunch.” Then he’s like, “Well let me buy it.” I said, “I can’t let you buy me lunch. You just lost your job.”

Jill DeWit:                            Exactly.

Justin Sliva:                         “You’ve got to make your real estate business happen.” So I buy him lunch, we talked for a couple of hours and kind of laid out a plan on how to scale really quickly. Him and his partner, they just knocked it out of the park. Just hit it. We talked about hitting solid doubles, and those paying the bills and doing well, but then you get one of these type of deals and it changes your life.

Steven Butala:                   Yeah.

Jill DeWit:                            It does.

Steven Butala:                   That’s what he said.

Jill DeWit:                            That’s what he said. He was thanking us. That’s why we did a whole show with him about it, because it was just so cool.

Steven Butala:                   The reason I bring it up is because he doesn’t gauge … I really micromanage yield, like the mailer yield, and I really look at our numbers on every mailer to make sure that it’s where I want it to be. He said he doesn’t do any of that. He just looks at it like dollars, so he sends out 3000 unit mailers, and he needs to make X amount of dollars on a mailer and that’s it.

Jill DeWit:                            He’s just going to buy the good ones.

Steven Butala:                   It’s changing how I kind of look at this. Like, you know we don’t have to be this intense [crosstalk 00:05:12]-

Justin Sliva:                         Nope, that is-

Steven Butala:                   [inaudible 00:05:15] returns on it. It just works anyway, you know?

Justin Sliva:                         Yeah, yeah.

Jill DeWit:                            You know what? That’s kind of how I do deal funding, kind of leading into today, by the way. I’m not here to … That’s the beauty of it, and like you Justin, it’s our own personal company and I can do whatever want. It’s our personal money, I can do whatever I want really.

Justin Sliva:                         Yep.

Jill DeWit:                            I can say yay or nay, and I’m not trying to place a certain amount of money every month. I’m only picking the ones that I like, and there’s times that I’m like, “Uh-oh.” It happened again just this week. I had to move some money around because I’m like, “Shoot, I gotta buy this,” kind of thing.

Justin Sliva:                         Yep.

Steven Butala:                   So much money.

Jill DeWit:                            So I had to bring in some more funds, but it’s all a personal choice. I know how it’s going to happen, and it’s great. I don’t have to place it. I can do what I want, and there’s some times where you’re pricing that takes just a little bit of a lull. I’m like, “That’s okay.” And I tell everybody, “Don’t worry about it. This is your catch up time,” because every single time … you remember me saying this to you when we just started Land Academy, every single time, and for anybody that’s in this business, even just your own investment stuff, sit tight. You think, “Oh that’s it. No one’s calling. I’ve failed. The business is dried up. It’s done.”

Jill DeWit:                            Like, no it’s not. Wait five minutes. Your phone’s going to be ringing off the hook. Hang in there and it’ll pick right back up. I always tell people too, “Please enjoy the breather.” I walk around the office telling our team too, “If there’s a lull, just enjoy this little breather right now because it won’t be like this next week, or tomorrow,” or whatever it is.

Justin Sliva:                         Yeah, no it’s very cyclical. That’s the thing, is people get nervous. They want to sit still. A property didn’t sell in three weeks this time because your last two sold in a week or two. Sit tight, don’t worry. Plan out six months. If it sits for six months, you’re still making a huge return. If you make 100% in six months, it’s still 200% annually. That’s a good return.

Jill DeWit:                            You didn’t fail.

Justin Sliva:                         No.

Steven Butala:                   I mean now more than ever you can chill, because they have you and us. The reason you had to try to sell it so fast in the past is you need the money for [crosstalk 00:07:17]-

Jill DeWit:                            new acquisitions.

Justin Sliva:                         Yep.

Steven Butala:                   If you’ve got financing like we’re providing now, all of us, there’s [crosstalk 00:07:23] crazy.

Justin Sliva:                         Yeah.

Jill DeWit:                            Exactly.

Justin Sliva:                         No, we did the same thing. We had a couple of deals last week that we couldn’t say no to. I had one that made me sick, and I ended up passing it to a buddy of mine that I’ve done some whole selling with. I said, “Hey man, why you don’t try to fund this one?” Because in my Operating Agreement, a lot of investors, guys and girls, don’t realize that my Operating Agreement is written as such that I have to have a maintained road to the property. That’s no ifs, ands or buts.

Justin Sliva:                         Because I have a partner, he has 30% of the company. That’s an agreement we made up front. I had one that had an easement that took it to the road, but the road didn’t follow the strip of land to it. 150 acres in Tennessee. Getting it for like $52,000.00, it’s worth $190,000.00-$200,000.00 all day. It sells fast for $150,000.00, and I just couldn’t because my Operating Agreement had my hands tied. I was telling the guy as we were going through the deal review, I was like, “If this came back on my mailer, I would be at the bank right now sending the money.”

Justin Sliva:                         It was a no brainer. So I passed it to a buddy, and my buddy was like, “Why did you pass on that?” I was like, “I can’t do this deal just because of this,” and it’s going to be a home run for them, and I’m super stoked for them because they’re going to make $100,000.00 between the two of them and I’m sitting there just on the sidelines watching it like, “Oh, you got me on this one.” But it’s one of those type of deals. We run into those, and when we get back to that question with the new person who’s an adrenaline junkie, you’re going to get attached and addicted to this part of the business.

Justin Sliva:                         That thrill of the hunt, that deal coming in, yeah you’ll get addicted to that and it’ll be fun for you.

Steven Butala:                   Today’s topic: Finance Friday with Steven, me, Jill and Justin Sliva. This is the meat of the show.

Jill DeWit:                            [inaudible 00:08:59] talking about it.

Justin Sliva:                         Yeah.

Steven Butala:                   I know you’re dying to tell-

Jill DeWit:                            No, I don’t care. No, this is all I want to do is talk about these deals. This is great. That’s why we’re here.

Steven Butala:                   Justin, tell us about this house deal that just got, and how you got it. Perfect timing [crosstalk 00:09:14]. We’re going to launch House Academy in about-

Jill DeWit:                            Oh, good. I can talk about it.

Justin Sliva:                         Yeah.

Jill DeWit:                            Well, I’m going to go talk about it too. Cool.

Justin Sliva:                         Yeah, it’s cool. The cool thing about doing the podcast and the content, and y’all know this for a fact, but as we start creating more content as people, people in your network start to notice that you’re doing deals and you do houses. We just closed on our last house, and it funded. Everything went great with it. The hail storm, we ended up putting a roof on it. The e-book went live and it was on [inaudible 00:09:41] social medias.

Justin Sliva:                         One of my buddies that has 150,000 rental house doors, he’s like, “Hey man, I’m renovating one my houses down in Houston-” he just got a big house down there he’s renovating. He’s like, “Oh, it’s going to cost me $2 million to finish the renovation on it. I need to clear up some cash. I’ve got a 10 pack of houses that’s up by you. It’s like eight miles from your house. It’s all 2016 or newer builds. I want to sell the whole packet to you. Here’s the price.”

Justin Sliva:                         It was $1.5 million and rent roll showed 1%. They’re new builds. They’re 422s. Fenced backyards. It’s like, “Ugh.” So now it’s like how do you get that deal done now and what do you do? I told myself I’m done with houses the next two shows I’ve talked to you, and here I am looking at a 10 pack today. I’m building a property [inaudible 00:10:21] right now, so we have that. So as we start to talk to some partners and see if we can get it put together, which I don’t think it’ll be a problem as long as everything is what it seems on the surface. But we’re wanting to do due diligence on it.

Steven Butala:                   [crosstalk 00:10:31] We can safely say none of us are done with houses no matter what we say.

Jill DeWit:                            Right. Is your intention to then turn around and one off resale them? Or are you guys going to hold on to them?

Steven Butala:                   They’re all rental.

Jill DeWit:                            I know that. That’s what I’m saying.

Justin Sliva:                         Yeah, they’re all rented right now. The idea behind it is, for me, I will either assign or [inaudible 00:10:53] pieces in an equity partner. I won’t manage the properties. I’ve got a couple of guys that have management companies in place, but they own them and have 400-500+ stores. So the idea is that bring on the deal, I take a percent of the deal and hold it. When the sell, I cash out with them at that point, so it shows good faith that, “Hey, I’m ready to ride with you and hold a piece.”

Justin Sliva:                         If I have to bring a little money to the table, I’ll bring some money to the table. I could take the whole deal on, but it stops my land business at that point. Land is where we’re at right now. I told you we’re taking the gloves off.

Jill DeWit:                            I love it. I love it. That’s so cool. You know what’s kind of funny, did you see our Hump Day Special that we brought back-

Justin Sliva:                         Yeah.

Jill DeWit:                            Speaking of our own little land business?

Justin Sliva:                         Yeah.

Jill DeWit:                            So minutes. It was so darn funny. It was the way that it used to be. It made me so happy. It so funny. [Erin 00:11:41] and I, way back when, when it was just Erin and I running the whole little thing, I’m like, “Are you ready, Erin?” And I’d push the button to send an email and the phone would ring. Erin’s like, “Wow,” well it just happened, but it was Erin pushing the button, and it was Landon answering the phone. It was so good.

Jill DeWit:                            I didn’t tell you this. There were like four or five calls that came in. There were multiple emails that came in. They’re like, “They missed it.” And we’re like, “Sit tight. This is obviously a good thing. We’re going to keep you in this.” So it’s good for us. There’s lots of properties that I get in, and I’ve had for years, that are just great, they’re smaller properties that are really perfect for somebody starting out. I intended to make that a thing, but I didn’t have the stuff at the time and now I do.

Jill DeWit:                            So we’re going to bring that back. If you’re a new member and you want to pick up some great [inaudible 00:12:27] $800.00, I mean an all-in. So you can’t go wrong with that. I remember members really liking this because it’s a way for them to learn to sell first. So buy some properties, get it from us, learn the sales process. “Okay, now I’m going to back and-”

Justin Sliva:                         And then a mailer.

Jill DeWit:                            “[crosstalk 00:12:43] front end, and the data, and send out my own mail, and get going that way.” Because it gets them some fast money coming in. So it’s fun.

Steven Butala:                   If you’re a listener, or watching to this, all you have to do is download our e-book and that gets you on the list.

Jill DeWit:                            Actually, it does not. It’s a different list.

Steven Butala:                   Oh.

Jill DeWit:                            Excuse me, sorry I didn’t mean to-

Steven Butala:                   Go ahead.

Jill DeWit:                            It’s a Platinum Buyer’s Club.

Steven Butala:                   Go ahead, Jill.

Jill DeWit:                            We sent out an email. It’s on the Platinum Buyer’s Club, so it’s a little bit different, but you want to get the e-book anyway. So yeah.

Steven Butala:                   Just tell everybody how you get on the list, Jill.

Jill DeWit:                            It’s our Platinum Buyer’s Club, which you can find on LandStay.com. It’s our land business. Like you said, Justin, it’s never gone away. It’s always there. It’s always running in the background-

Steven Butala:                   Oh, it’s a Land Stay thing?

Jill DeWit:                            Yep, it’s our personal land customers so it’s actually different. It’s a different group. So we send out a note to our members before we did this, just letting everybody know, “Hey, you may or may not know we used to do this thing and we’re bringing it back.” And some of our land sales, we like to spin them off and sometimes just do fun things like this. So they were ready for it. It was really cool. It is a thing now. I don’t know how many we’re going to do next week. We might start doing more, we’ll see. But it’s a great way to pick up some cheap property.

Steven Butala:                   We have hundreds of thousands of dollars of property just-

Jill DeWit:                            There.

Steven Butala:                   I don’t know why we haven’t sold it or what’s going on.

Jill DeWit:                            We’re bringing it back. Thank you. It hasn’t been worked on very much. No, you get … I’m working on these bigger deals right now, and you forget. It’s easy to [inaudible 00:14:11] forget, like, “Oh yeah, I own that.” Isn’t that funny how fast, right? Just when you’re like-

Justin Sliva:                         Yeah.

Jill DeWit:                            Remember, you’re starting out and you know every single property very well. Then fast forward one year, maybe, and you’re like, “Oh yeah, I still own that one. Oh yeah, I forgot.”

Justin Sliva:                         Yeah, I’ve got to be real disciplined right off the bat. That 45 days I was sticking it on eBay and just letting it go every time. That’s just the way I just started my business, so we were scaling. So I wanted to put that money back to work to keep it turning.

Jill DeWit:                            There you go.

Justin Sliva:                         So we got away from that a little bit, but we still have a property every five days on eBay right now.

Steven Butala:                   Mm-hmm (affirmative), good.

Justin Sliva:                         To get through that little piece.

Jill DeWit:                            Yep, we are focusing on that a little bit again too, because none of this is crazy. That’s the one thing that we’ve learned too, is the more you diversify obviously, and have your social media sales going, your e-book sales going, your website sales going, or your land selling site, all of this is all … And you’re just reaching more people in so many different ways. It’s wonderful.

Justin Sliva:                         Exactly right.

Jill DeWit:                            Yeah. Cool. I was going to say, what other good deals you got going on?

Justin Sliva:                         Oh, I’ve got some stuff in West Virginia. I had some stuff we looked at in Arkansas today we made some offers on, some bigger ones in Arkansas. I think it was a total of five properties of 480 total acres. It was an estate trying to liquidate it so they can send the cash to charities. So we made a good offer on that. Then I looked at another stack of properties for a person. It was 44 different properties in five different states that had come in. So I ran through those. I was on the computer from 9:30 until our call, just going through it.

Jill DeWit:                            That’s cool.

Justin Sliva:                         Yeah.

Jill DeWit:                            I love it.

Steven Butala:                   What have you got, Jill?

Jill DeWit:                            I’m working on right now, I’ve got one in King County, Washington. It’s an in-fill lot. Here’s what’s happened, we had it agreed on for … I can’t remember what it was. I want to say it was like 25 when we were thinking we could sell it for 55, but it’s one of those … I just did a deal like this where you can tell looking at it, now that you’ve learned, I can tell looking at it because we just did one of these too that we all passed on, where part of the piece of the parcel is buildable and part of it’s not.

Jill DeWit:                            So I came back and said, “Hey, I love it at this, but I’m not so sure about this price.” You know, there’s a price that you’ll take a gamble on it. So we’re working at that.

Justin Sliva:                         We had a piece like that this week in Minnesota. I think it was 60 acres or whatever, that had highway frontage on two sides, and the property as it’s set, would only bring $2,000.00 an acre, and they wanted $1,500.00 an acre for it. If you cut the road frontage off and cut it into two acre parcels, each one of those two acre parcels makes $90,000.00. Comps all day for that. It’s just like, “Ah.” It’s not the speed that we all know and love, and that was the feedback, “Hey I love it.” At $25,000.00, if with can do it here I’ll do it, and I’ll sit with you on that one and comp it and cut it up, but at $55,000.00-$60,000.00 I can’t do it.

Jill DeWit:                            Exactly. Yeah, I had another good one that came in, in Mohave. It was a whole section. My only thing with that one … well there were two things, I passed on it because one was access, and two, even I can get by the access honestly because we know the area. I’m not afraid of that, but it was a long hold time. I know for a whole section, it’s-

Steven Butala:                   At least six months.

Jill DeWit:                            It’s like a $10 million dollar house.

Justin Sliva:                         Yep.

Jill DeWit:                            Your buyer pool is smaller, so you have to hang to these longer. I didn’t want to outlay that much cash at that point. So, I told him to put it on Land Tank. I hope it’s on Land Tank, I didn’t look because there’s somebody out there right now that would say, “Fine, I’ll let her ride. I’ll put down the money.” It’s just not what I want to do right now.

Steven Butala:                   There’s people who collect ranches like that.

Jill DeWit:                            Right?

Steven Butala:                   It’s their thing.

Jill DeWit:                            Yeah.

Justin Sliva:                         Yeah, I saw that one come across too. It had-

Jill DeWit:                            Okay, good.

Justin Sliva:                         The access on that, it was-

Jill DeWit:                            That’s why you passed.

Justin Sliva:                         Yeah, it had a road and I passed it without even going any deeper than that. I looked at the pictures and followed the access and went through that. That was, one of the things … I had a guy today. He sent me a bunch of property. What I told him, I said, “I don’t get emotional about it if you send it to me, but if it doesn’t have a road that I can drive my wife’s GX Lexus on-” yes it’s a full drive SUV but I want to be able to get there in my wife’s car so she can bring the kids out there and we can camp on, I’m not going to buy it. I’m not going to fund it.

Justin Sliva:                         That’s one of those things that I look forward. So that maintained road, put that in your contingency when you send your letter out. “Hey, I want access. This is the access I require.” And stick to it.

Jill DeWit:                            Yeah, well you know what? That doesn’t scare me though. On the other hand, I like that. Some of those properties have done really well with those buyers that are like-

Steven Butala:                   If it’s priced appropriate.

Jill DeWit:                            Yeah.

Justin Sliva:                         Okay.

Jill DeWit:                            You know, and they want to hunt. They want to be off the grid. They want a property that’s ATV access. They think they’re the coolest.

Justin Sliva:                         Yeah, well it has an easement too. Sometimes you can’t find the easement that shows that access. So that’s true.

Jill DeWit:                            Exactly.

Steven Butala:                   I understand completely your point. In the bitter end, I think you’re right, especially if you’re funding stuff. If you’re not buying it and reselling it, if you’re funding it, it’s got to have access.

Justin Sliva:                         And I do say that. Let me speak out of both sides of my mouth real quick. My personal land business, if it has legal easement and I can see a worn two track that’s pretty good, and I can see that there’s no fence that’s blocking me, I’ll take that deal and run with it on my personal land business. But with plum, I don’t.

Jill DeWit:                            Yeah, I’m trying to think what else. I just put out some of the good ones. We’re just cruising along.

Steven Butala:                   Yeah.

Jill DeWit:                            Now it’s like … You know, it’s now cruising along pleasantly that I can entertain some other things, which I’m not going to go into too much detail now, but I’m looking at with some builders and bigger things in the state that I’m in right now-

Justin Sliva:                         Okay.

Steven Butala:                   They’re big deals. Very, very [crosstalk 00:20:27].

Justin Sliva:                         Okay.

Jill DeWit:                            Yeah, and entertaining that with one of our members. So we’re discussing that. Heck, I’m open. What?

Steven Butala:                   Keep going.

Jill DeWit:                            Why?

Steven Butala:                   You’re very open.

Jill DeWit:                            I’m a deal junkie.

Steven Butala:                   Yeah.

Jill DeWit:                            You know what?

Justin Sliva:                         Yeah.

Steven Butala:                   That’s it.

Justin Sliva:                         You got back on the juice. Now you’re hooked.

Jill DeWit:                            I is. I’ve always been a deal junkie, Justin. It has never gone away. Steven looks at me like, “What are you-” I’m like, “I don’t care. I love it.” I don’t get butterflies in my stomach. If I do, this is like a good thing like, “Oh, this is going to be. Watch this.”

Justin Sliva:                         That’s awesome.

Jill DeWit:                            I love it. I was listening today on the radio. I like the Sirius Radio, the Wharton Business School. I listen to it all the time in the car, and this guy was talking about investing and it was for startups and things, that’s what they’re doing, venture stuff. He said, “If you don’t feel butterflies in your stomach, you should feel a little bit uneasy.” I’m like, “What’s wrong with me?” I don’t know. If I do have those butterflies, I push them way down, so I don’t know.

Justin Sliva:                         I think that comes from the machine that you’ve created. You have a process.

Steven Butala:                   That’s what it is.

Justin Sliva:                         And so it’s not this exciting feeling though. It’s step one, step two, step three, step four, and now you’ve 10 of those going so you’ve got step one, here’s step three, here’s step four and you’re pushing everything through the machine.

Jill DeWit:                            Isn’t that great?

Justin Sliva:                         Yeah, we talk about simplifying our businesses and how we do that, we set up our acquisition requirements. You do that on your mailer. You send out your mail. You get [inaudible 00:21:53] just to get people calling you back. Then you finite that when you get the deal back in. Then you get it listed, you get through closing, you get title and get everything good. You know you’ve got a great piece of property. You get it listed, and then you forget about it. And you’re just [crosstalk 00:22:04] you have to keep going [inaudible 00:22:06] because you’re step one for week four of the year. You’re just processing through. We talk about that when we pick our counties and mail by margin that, “Hey, that’s what we’re feeling.”

Justin Sliva:                         If I’m going to mail Colorado, I’ve got my county here that hits this price and everything around it, shop all those counties in sequential order and then I work on to the next area.

Steven Butala:                   I’m a startup person, the real adrenaline for me is actually doing the mailer, scrubbing the data and getting it out into the mail, and then kind of watch in response and watching … everything’s web-enabled now. 100% of everything is web-enabled now for all of us. So in real time I’m watching what’s coming in, what kind of phone calls are we getting, and then I’m done.

Jill DeWit:                            Yeah.

Justin Sliva:                         Yep.

Jill DeWit:                            That’s so true. That’s so funny.

Steven Butala:                   And I’m on to the next mailer long before anybody in our office, or our staff, or even Jill … Really, Jill doesn’t have pretty much anything to say about where I send the mail and I don’t, anymore, really have much to say about the deals that she does. Because I know for sure she’s not going to do a bad deal, and I’m pretty confident she knows that there’s a lot of research that goes into where we send mailing live.

Jill DeWit:                            I never question you. That’s very true.

Steven Butala:                   Yeah, likewise.

Jill DeWit:                            Yeah, thank you.

Justin Sliva:                         That’s cool.

Steven Butala:                   But I love the front end stuff.

Jill DeWit:                            Yeah.

Justin Sliva:                         Yeah, I like to start getting the responses back. Like I said, the mail we sent out last, I think we sent close to 10,000 pieces of mail out, and it started hitting yesterday. And so I had 40 emails this morning while I was on the phone with other people, and I was like, “Shoot. I need to start going through this a little bit quicker.”

Jill DeWit:                            Yeah.

Justin Sliva:                         [inaudible 00:23:40]. Definitely, I mean what it’s what it’s all about, is driving a deal, the inbound flow, and how that looks like, and trying to make some deals on a bargain.

Jill DeWit:                            Exactly. Totally.

Steven Butala:                   Well you’ve done it again. You’ve spent another 20 minutes or so listening to the Land Academy Show. Join us next time for 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.

Steven Butala:                   How’s your podcast doing?

Justin Sliva:                         It’s going really well still. It’s going really well. We’re on pace to double what our original goal was on downloads. I told you I think we hit 12 countries this week, and then all 50 states are represented. Again, a lot of people reached out. We had a lot of people reach out when we announced the e-book and now it’s in the market, so we’re hoping that kind of translates into some people wanting it. So it should be fun.

Steven Butala:                   Awesome.

Jill DeWit:                            Awesome.

Steven Butala:                   We’re going to just beginning to record for the new show. We’re going to another [inaudible 00:24:33] House Academy. It’s fun.

Justin Sliva:                         And you’re going to do that podcast once a week?

Steven Butala:                   No, we’re going to probably do it every day.

Jill DeWit:                            Yeah.

Justin Sliva:                         Oh wow.

Jill DeWit:                            Sit tight.

Steven Butala:                   We got it down.

Jill DeWit:                            Oh my goodness.

Justin Sliva:                         And that’s exactly … For us, with Brian, the kid I brought on as intern, now he’s doing the editing for us. We’re like, “Hey, we can just dump it on him. He takes care of [crosstalk 00:24:53].”

Jill DeWit:                            Totally.

Justin Sliva:                         So we’ve just been [crosstalk 00:24:55] talk for a little while.

Jill DeWit:                            Yeah, I’m excited.

Steven Butala:                   This show takes two hours a week from start to finish to do everything for all five episodes.

Justin Sliva:                         Okay, nice.

Jill DeWit:                            Right. It’s the talk time.

Steven Butala:                   Another two hours, it’s not that big of a deal.

Jill DeWit:                            We can figure it out.

Steven Butala:                   Yep.

Jill DeWit:                            It’ll be good.

Justin Sliva:                         So you’re going actually do video and everything thing?

Steven Butala:                   Yeah.

Jill DeWit:                            Yeah.

Justin Sliva:                         Okay, cool. Cool.

Jill DeWit:                            Exactly.

Justin Sliva:                         When are we expecting to launch? April?

Jill DeWit:                            Yeah.

Steven Butala:                   The 13th is the-

Jill DeWit:                            Tentative.

Steven Butala:                   Date right now.

Jill DeWit:                            Tentative.

Justin Sliva:                         Okay.

Steven Butala:                   The content will be done for sure.

Jill DeWit:                            We gotta do it right.

Steven Butala:                   You know, House Academy itself, we’ve learned a lot from the Land Academy, so the forum, the Land Investors forum, will be all on one website. Everything will be on one site. So there’s a lot of stuff going on on that one website. It’s pretty challenging.

Jill DeWit:                            It’s going to be cool.

Steven Butala:                   Fortunately, I’m not doing it.

Jill DeWit:                            Exactly. That’s fine.

Justin Sliva:                         You have staff for that.

Jill DeWit:                            Yeah, we do.

Justin Sliva:                         Earn your pay, guys. Earn your pay.

Jill DeWit:                            Isn’t it nice? It’s like right now we just made some recent changes in our staff alignment too, and so just these last couple of weeks I’m like, I can wake up and go, “What do I want to work on today?”

Steven Butala:                   Yeah, for the first time in a lot of years.

Jill DeWit:                            Yeah. I really get to sit down and work on what I want to work on. There’s fires or things that happen, and I don’t even know about it.

Justin Sliva:                         Yeah, take care of it. Yeah.

Jill DeWit:                            It’s great, and I can actually say, “Yeah, buy that one,” and hand it to them and walk away.

Justin Sliva:                         Yeah. No, that’s a fun feeling. I had Beth putting a Deed on the desk, “I need your signatures.” So I’m signing this, and then I’ve got Brian sending me what I need. I’m like, “All I had to do was sign something and everything else is good?”

Jill DeWit:                            Isn’t that great?

Justin Sliva:                         “I feel like a rock star right now.”

Jill DeWit:                            Isn’t it.

Justin Sliva:                         It’s awesome.

Jill DeWit:                            It’s nice.

Steven Butala:                   That’s what we teach, man.

Jill DeWit:                            Yeah, yeah. [crosstalk 00:26:33]

Steven Butala:                   You kind of get to that point, or you’re never going to scale where you want to be.

Jill DeWit:                            It’s awesome. So two years, was it two … when is it going to be two years?

Justin Sliva:                         Two years full time will is April 21st, so exactly one month from now.

Jill DeWit:                            Okay, cool.

Justin Sliva:                         Total time, two years.

Jill DeWit:                            There you go.

Justin Sliva:                         And then we’ve got the two employees that are there ready to do whatever they want. We’ve set them up differently, but they all work virtually so they don’t have to be here but they can be here if they want to.

Jill DeWit:                            Perfect.

Justin Sliva:                         Yeah, it’s the perfect combination.

Jill DeWit:                            That’s awesome.

Steven Butala:                   That’s great.

Jill DeWit:                            I’m so glad.

Justin Sliva:                         They’re both supportive of me, and I like that. [crosstalk 00:27:06]

Jill DeWit:                            That’s great. That’s the goal.

Justin Sliva:                         I feel dumb talking to them sometimes. I’m like, “Oh wow, this is bad.”

Jill DeWit:                            That’s funny. I did that today. We had a big team meeting. I said something like, “Yep, already did that. Yeah, already did that.” And I said, “Well apparently you don’t need me,” and I’m just kind of going backward. I won’t even show up if you’re … I’m like, “I don’t want to get in the way.”

Steven Butala:                   I don’t want to [inaudible 00:27:26] anywhere at all.

Jill DeWit:                            No, that’s true. [crosstalk 00:27:27]

Steven Butala:                   They don’t want me there.

Jill DeWit:                            It’s true.

Justin Sliva:                         Yeah, I just get in the way.

Jill DeWit:                            Yep. Love it. Wherever you are listening, or wherever you’re watching, please rate us there.

Steve & Jill:                         We are Steve and Jill.

Steven Butala:                   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:

https://BuWit.com

https://offers2owners.com

https://landinvestors.com

https://landacademy.com

https://landpin.com

https://parcelfact.com

https://countywise.com

https://deedperfect.com

https://houseacademy.com

https://ownersdata.com

https://houseacademy.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.

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LA 1998 WP

How To Be Successful At Flipping Land (LA 1998)

In this podcast episode, learn how Jack and Jill successfully flip land. They emphasize the importance of experience and knowledge in the land flipping business, and highlight the value of learning from those who have been in the industry for a long time. They outline

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LA1997WP

Respond To Change in Real Estate 2024 (LA 1997)

Jack Butala and Jill DeWit explore the real estate market, discussing the anticipated stagnation in 2024 and offering valuable insights for investors. Jack shares three crucial strategies to thrive in this shifting market: increasing offer volume, recognizing the rise in rental demand, and predicting demographic

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No need to hire staff - we did it for you.

Land Academy PRO is the brainchild of founders Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit. Designed at the request of Land Academy members who are ready for a higher level, we’re excited to continue to provide the tools and support needed by professional investors.

Each level comes with a preset amount of included data, Concierge Mail service, and postage. For example, the Green level includes 6,000 units of completed-for-you mail completely out the door at no extra cost to you.

All levels include a PatLive introduction and preset script (we will set up your phone answering for you), use of Land Academy’s personal Transaction Team to manage your deal flow, an AirTable (CRM) base setup managed by our (and your!) Transaction Coordinator, personal consulting, regular office hours, and includes your Land Academy subscription cost.

If you’re making this a business, Land Academy PRO takes the work off of your plate so you can focus on the things that matter – like running your business.

Green

$10,060

per Month

Silver

$14,590

per Month

Gold

$19,120

per Month

Platinum

$23,650

per Month

Black

$28,180

per Month

Concierge Data+ (with data) Included mailers each month (data + concierge + mailer + postage). Our team will do your data for it and get it out the door.
6,000 mailers 9,000 mailers 12,000 mailers 15,000 mailers 18,000 mailers
PatLive introduction at no cost We will help you establish your first script and get PatLive set up on your behalf to answer your phones.
$500 value $500 value $500 value $500 value $500 value
Transaction Coordinator Use of our personal Transaction Coordinator team to manage your deals. Trained and ready to go!
$7,500 value $7,500 value $7,500 value $7,500 value $7,500 value
AirTable Ready-for-you CRM managed by your personal Land Academy Pro Transaction Coordinator
$100 value $100 value $100 value $100 value $100 value
Personal Consulting 1 on 1 personal consulting with our Transaction Coordinator each week.
- - $1,000 value $1,000 value $1,000 value
Regular Office Hours Regular office hours with Jack and Jill + our staff. Private for LA Pro Members Only. (Think Career Path Office Hours)
$2,500 value $2,500 value $2,500 value $2,500 value $2,500 value
ParcelFact ParcelFact is included in your LA Pro membership with unlimited pulls.
$150 value $150 value $150 value $150 value $150 value
FREE Career Path Access
$23,000 value $23,000 value $23,000 value $23,000 value $23,000 value
Land Academy No more separate charges - Land Academy is included with LA Pro Membership. This includes all education, tools, support, and future releases.
$300 value $300 value $300 value $300 value $300 value
Subtotal: $8,550 value $8,550 value $9,550 value $12,050 value $12,050 value
Mail Value: $7,500 value $11,250 value $15,000 value $18,750 value $22,500 value
Total Value: $39,050 $42,800 $47,550 $53,800 $57,550
Apply Now Apply Now Apply Now Apply Now Apply Now

Green

$10,060

per Month

Concierge Data+ (with data) Included mailers each month (data + concierge + mailer + postage). Our team will do your data for it and get it out the door.
6,000 mailers
PatLive introduction at no cost We will help you establish your first script and get PatLive set up on your behalf to answer your phones.
$500 value
Transaction Coordinator Use of our personal Transaction Coordinator team to manage your deals. Trained and ready to go!
$7,500 value
AirTable Ready-for-you CRM managed by your personal Land Academy Pro Transaction Coordinator
$100 value
Personal Consulting 1 on 1 personal consulting with our Transaction Coordinator each week.
-
Regular Office Hours Regular office hours with Jack and Jill + our staff. Private for LA Pro Members Only. (Think Career Path Office Hours)
$2,500 value
ParcelFact ParcelFact is included in your LA Pro membership with unlimited pulls.
$150 value
FREE Career Path Access
$23,000 value
Land Academy No more separate charges - Land Academy is included with LA Pro Membership. This includes all education, tools, support, and future releases.
$300 value
Subtotal: $8,550 value
Mail Value: $7,500 value
Total Value: $39,050
Apply Now

Silver

$14,590

per Month

Concierge Data+ (with data) Included mailers each month (data + concierge + mailer + postage). Our team will do your data for it and get it out the door.
9,000 mailers
PatLive introduction at no cost We will help you establish your first script and get PatLive set up on your behalf to answer your phones.
$500 value
Transaction Coordinator Use of our personal Transaction Coordinator team to manage your deals. Trained and ready to go!
$7,500 value
AirTable Ready-for-you CRM managed by your personal Land Academy Pro Transaction Coordinator
$100 value
Personal Consulting 1 on 1 personal consulting with our Transaction Coordinator each week.
-
Regular Office Hours Regular office hours with Jack and Jill + our staff. Private for LA Pro Members Only. (Think Career Path Office Hours)
$2,500 value
ParcelFact ParcelFact is included in your LA Pro membership with unlimited pulls.
$150 value
FREE Career Path Access
$23,000 value
Land Academy No more separate charges - Land Academy is included with LA Pro Membership. This includes all education, tools, support, and future releases.
$300 value
Subtotal: $8,550 value
Mail Value: $11,250 value
Total Value: $42,800
Apply Now

Gold

$19,120

per Month

Concierge Data+ (with data) Included mailers each month (data + concierge + mailer + postage). Our team will do your data for it and get it out the door.
12,000 mailers
PatLive introduction at no cost We will help you establish your first script and get PatLive set up on your behalf to answer your phones.
$500 value
Transaction Coordinator Use of our personal Transaction Coordinator team to manage your deals. Trained and ready to go!
$7,500 value
AirTable Ready-for-you CRM managed by your personal Land Academy Pro Transaction Coordinator
$100 value
Personal Consulting 1 on 1 personal consulting with our Transaction Coordinator each week.
$1,000 value
Regular Office Hours Regular office hours with Jack and Jill + our staff. Private for LA Pro Members Only. (Think Career Path Office Hours)
$2,500 value
ParcelFact ParcelFact is included in your LA Pro membership with unlimited pulls.
$150 value
FREE Career Path Access
$23,000 value
Land Academy No more separate charges - Land Academy is included with LA Pro Membership. This includes all education, tools, support, and future releases.
$300 value
Subtotal: $9,550 value
Mail Value: $15,000 value
Total Value: $47,550
Apply Now

Platinum

$23,650

per Month

Concierge Data+ (with data) Included mailers each month (data + concierge + mailer + postage). Our team will do your data for it and get it out the door.
15,000 mailers
PatLive introduction at no cost We will help you establish your first script and get PatLive set up on your behalf to answer your phones.
$500 value
Transaction Coordinator Use of our personal Transaction Coordinator team to manage your deals. Trained and ready to go!
$7,500 value
AirTable Ready-for-you CRM managed by your personal Land Academy Pro Transaction Coordinator
$100 value
Personal Consulting 1 on 1 personal consulting with our Transaction Coordinator each week.
$1,000 value
Regular Office Hours Regular office hours with Jack and Jill + our staff. Private for LA Pro Members Only. (Think Career Path Office Hours)
$2,500 value
ParcelFact ParcelFact is included in your LA Pro membership with unlimited pulls.
$150 value
FREE Career Path Access
$23,000 value
Land Academy No more separate charges - Land Academy is included with LA Pro Membership. This includes all education, tools, support, and future releases.
$300 value
Subtotal: $12,050 value
Mail Value: $18,750 value
Total Value: $53,800
Apply Now

Black

$28,180

per Month

Concierge Data+ (with data) Included mailers each month (data + concierge + mailer + postage). Our team will do your data for it and get it out the door.
18,000 mailers
PatLive introduction at no cost We will help you establish your first script and get PatLive set up on your behalf to answer your phones.
$500 value
Transaction Coordinator Use of our personal Transaction Coordinator team to manage your deals. Trained and ready to go!
$7,500 value
AirTable Ready-for-you CRM managed by your personal Land Academy Pro Transaction Coordinator
$100 value
Personal Consulting 1 on 1 personal consulting with our Transaction Coordinator each week.
$1,000 value
Regular Office Hours Regular office hours with Jack and Jill + our staff. Private for LA Pro Members Only. (Think Career Path Office Hours)
$2,500 value
ParcelFact ParcelFact is included in your LA Pro membership with unlimited pulls.
$150 value
FREE Career Path Access
$23,000 value
Land Academy No more separate charges - Land Academy is included with LA Pro Membership. This includes all education, tools, support, and future releases.
$300 value
Subtotal: $12,050 value
Mail Value: $22,500 value
Total Value: $57,550
Apply Now

Disclaimer: *We have a monthly “use it or lose it” policy with mail and data – Land Academy PRO is designed to keep you on-track and consistent.

To cancel, all packages require a 30 day notice to move you back down to regular Land Academy membership.

Office Hours Schedule

Scheduling a Career Path interview call is currently on hold and will resume closer to Fall 2024 as we approach Career Path 10.

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