The Deals We are Doing Right Now (LA 1014)
The Deals We are Doing Right Now (LA 1014)
Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill, here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
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 the deals we are doing right now.
Jill DeWit: That’s nice.[crosstalk 00:00:15]
Steven Butala: It’s a little bit different today. I’m going to basically interview Jill-
Jill DeWit: Wow.
Steven Butala: About the transactions that we’re doing, and planning on doing.
Jill DeWit: Cool. I was just going to say its nice cause it’s now July! We’re over the, for those of you who don’t know this, it’s a thing called June Gloom. It’s real. The struggle is real. You know.
Steven Butala: I think the technical term is marine layer, but we’ll go with that.
Jill DeWit: June Gloom, we call it June Gloom, and it’s over now.
Steven Butala: Oh it’s we. It’s we. See, I’m still not a Californian.
Jill DeWit: That’s not what your ID says.
Jill DeWit: What does your ID say?
Steven Butala: It says Arizona.
Jill DeWit: Uh-oh.
Steven Butala: So does my tax return.
Jill DeWit: Uh-huh. Okay.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, lets take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It’s free.
Jill DeWit: Abhinav asks, “Hi Guys. My understanding of the consideration amount on the deed was that it’s the same as the sales price. But, I keep seeing deeds with consideration amounts as ten dollars, which is obviously not the sales price. What am I missing?”
Steven Butala: This is, uh.
Jill DeWit: Abhinav, you are correct.
Steven Butala: We haven’t answered this question in quite some time, and it defies common sense, so it’s a good question.
Jill DeWit: It is.
Steven Butala: Every deed that I’ve ever seen, whether it’s any type of deed; grant deed, quick claim deed, warranty deed. Starts off like this, “for good invaluable consideration of, ten dollars or one dollar or some nominal amount, usually ten or one for some reason,”
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven Butala: “We the grantors, Steve and Jill Company, grant to you, the grantee, new buyer, the following property.” And then there’s a legal description.
Steven Butala: So what is this business with the one dollar, ten dollar scenario? If you go way, way back, and I researched this a long time ago to answer this question several years ago, people used to convey property back in the day. Back in like homesteading times. For good invaluable consideration of anything. It could be like love for my child.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Steven Butala: So, that’s just stock. And I’ve actually, way back in the day, made the mistake of putting the sale price in the actual deed. So I think it’s something that maybe we’ve all done or thought about doing, or wondered, but this is a great question.
Jill DeWit: It is.
Steven Butala: Just leave it the way it is.
Jill DeWit: Yep. [crosstalk 00:02:29] Copy it exactly.
Steven Butala: And when in question about any of these deeds, and how to do a deed, I take the Jill route. Just go look at the investing deed, the one that’s right before you, and copy and paste it.
Jill DeWit: Verbatim.
Steven Butala: Yep.
Jill DeWit: I mean, we’re talking if they misspell a word in the legal description or something like that, oh you better believe I verbatim do the exact same.
Steven Butala: And you misspell it.
Jill DeWit: And misspell it so then no one, nothing can come back that I made the mistake.
Steven Butala: You don’t want to break the chain of title for some silliness.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. Well, you know its funny when you think about this. Have you ever looked at your mortgage? It doesn’t say, “I bought the house for 389 thousand dollars and 421.” You know? It doesn’t say that.
Steven Butala: Well, your mortgage does, but the deed-[crosstalk 00:03:06]
Jill DeWit: But not in the deed
Steven Butala: The deed for the house, yeah.
Jill DeWit: Excuse me. On the mortgage, but not on the deed.
Steven Butala: That’s right.
Jill DeWit: It doesn’t say that. That would be funny if it did. You know, we accept that they are here. I don’t know why we think about it.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: But it’s no different.
Steven Butala: So, Abhinav, what am I missing? You’re missing nothing. It was a good question.
Jill DeWit: Yep.
Steven Butala: Today’s topic, the deals we are doing right now. I’m going to interview Jill here in a second.
Jill DeWit: Ohh.
Steven Butala: This is the meat of the show.
Jill DeWit: I like this.
Steven Butala: I watch the bank account-
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: That’s associated with these transactions that we do, but I don’t watch the deals anymore.
Jill DeWit: Oh okay.
Steven Butala: I have to say I’m extremely pleased.
Jill DeWit: Good. I’m glad.
Jill DeWit: You know, it’s so funny though. This is our whole relationship too, by the way. He does not want to know what goes on behind the scenes. You know, any little thing. All he knows is, dinners on the table. Looks great, everybody’s here, and everybody looks happy and healthy. He doesn’t know what went on to get this done-
Steven Butala: Oh my gosh.
Jill DeWit: And the kids home. And this going on, and that going on. You’re just like-
Steven Butala: Wow
Jill DeWit: No, no, but, no. Cause you don’t want to know, you know what I mean. [crosstalk 00:04:09]
Steven Butala: Not about that.
Jill DeWit: And I didn’t mean it in a negative way.
Steven Butala: But, I’ll tell you what. You don’t know about what goes on behind the scenes here at the show.
Jill DeWit: Under the hood. I don’t know what goes under the hood. How’s that? And it’s the same thing, I’m not picking on you. So-[crosstalk 00:04:19]
Steven Butala: We all have our things.
Jill DeWit: I think, I wanna get in my car and I want it to start. I do not need to see that all the parts are laid out in the driveway earlier.
Jill DeWit: How’s that?
Steven Butala: Well I think we’re all past that actually.
Jill DeWit: You know what I mean. So that, I look at that. Maybe it’s not the best analogy, but I- [crosstalk 00:04:33]
Steven Butala: It’s a great analogy!
Jill DeWit: I was trying to say that that’s kind of the same thing. You don’t want to see the ins and outs and all the little things. If you want to, they are there. You know how to find them. But, you just watch the bank account, and it’s the same as me. I watch other things. So, we’re a good team.
Steven Butala: All right, so give us a highlight of a deal that’s going on right now and I’ll low light. And I was involved in a deal in Oxnard, California that just got killed recently.
Jill DeWit: Oh my gosh. Let’s talk about that one first.
Steven Butala: Sure.
Jill DeWit: Sheesh!
Steven Butala: I was excited about this deal and it just didn’t happen.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, so we found these great three parcels, three contiguous parcels- Do you want me to talk in numbers?
Steven Butala: Sure!
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Butala: I think R2 and the whole thing.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Zoned R2, and we checked it. So it’s three lots, so we can get two- [crosstalk 00:05:18]
Steven Butala: Three continuous lots
Jill DeWit: Its already zoned. That you could get two SFR’s, two doors basically on each parcel.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: So that’s six, right? On this great corner in Oxnard for 180 thousand dollars. We’re like, done! We’re in! I called the guy on Saturday and I said, “Hey, here’s who I am, I’m an investor. Would your seller take-” Well first, let me go back.
Steven Butala: This is a real estate agent involved.
Jill DeWit: Eh, let me back up. It took four, three or four phone calls to get the guy on the phone. Cause right? It’s a Saturday afternoon. He’s not answering, so I’m leaving a voicemail. And then finally, the guy calls me back. Okay.
Jill DeWit: So then I talk to him like, “hey, here’s the deal. I’m a private investor, I’m coming in with cash, I’ve already done my due diligence, I need to check out one more thing. And before I basically go that route and spend some money on this, basically, I want to see, will your seller accept 180 thousand.” I said, I’d buy it for 120 thousand dollars and we’ll close. The cash is ready. You know, you could have it-[crosstalk 00:06:26]
Steven Butala: So it’s next day
Jill DeWit: On Tuesday.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: However fast we can get this through title, we’ll do it. Done. I said would you please put that in writing.
Steven Butala: And so, to make things even more, I get excited.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: Then I start doing all the math on what it costs to build in Oxnard.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: Oxnard’s not far from us. I actually found a developer that she’ll work with us to get the lots developed and moved. But when you control the dirt, your options are limitless.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: We’re gonna develop it and sell it.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: And we would’ve netted about 1.2 million bucks on that deal.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: Net, net, net! After developing costs and you split it with the developers. So now I’m involved cause, you know, if we’re gonna make over a million dollars-
Jill DeWit: Cause it wasn’t a crazy offer. He said it’s not crazy, email it to me. Done.
Steven Butala: Go ahead, Jill.
Jill DeWit: So then-
Steven Butala: Then it all went south from there.
Jill DeWit: Then, I’m sitting there I mean immediately, I send him the email. All day Sunday, nothing. I’m like, “what’s the deal?” I’m like, all right. Finally, Monday afternoon, I’m like, “okay, come on you guys. What’s the deal?” So I picked a phone and called the broker and he couldn’t find my email. It’s in spam. Are you kidding me? You don’t even check your- It’s Verizon, not “.net”, by the way. Well, don’t even get me started on that one. So, he doesn’t check his spam, and you’re a broker, and you’re representing this parcel. I have to track him down to try to buy this thing.
Jill DeWit: So then finally I get a phone call back Tuesday after he gets the chance to talk to the guy. Again, all this time, he’s not even saying anything about anything. He’s like, “oh I found it. Okay.” Anyway, then he says, “oh, I meant 180 per parcel.” And I’m like, that is not what you put in the thing. That’s not what we talked about.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: That’s not how it’s written, that’s not what I said. You could’ve told me 4 days ago. We were on the phone real quick. That’s what you meant when I said, this. And he’s like, “Oh my gosh.”
Jill DeWit: So now, I said, so here’s where we left it. So this is funny. I said, “you know what though? Keep my number.” Now sadly, this broker’s not that smart. He probably won’t. But I did say, “keep my number”. Cause we all know after 6 months has passed and we’re not selling, all of a sudden, 120 thousand for all 3, cash real quick, it sounds pretty good.
Jill DeWit: And I told him. And he’s like-[crosstalk 00:08:42]
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Yeah I get it. I said, “and I’ve been in that position, you know?” I’m still making way more than I spent on it. I’m like, “yeah, you know you mentally move on at that point, too. So.
Steven Butala: And we have all kinds of alarms set in my phone for separate applications for when property gets listed. And I’ll ask, in certain markets that we’re interested in, at a certain price for square foot. Or, a certain price per acre. Or, there’s depending on what we’re looking for. And it all starts going off when they get listed. So, this happened to be one of those properties. It just goes to show you how sending mail out just-
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: Doesn’t compare. You know, buying property in the MLS doesn’t compare to sending mail out.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Butala: Or however you choose to contact officer owners with a personal.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: You know, it just, there’s so much convolution in personalities involved in MLS posted properties, its just silly.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Butala: It’s unfortunate.
Jill DeWit: It is.
Steven Butala: All right, so-
Jill DeWit: Come to think of a good one. You know what, I can’t- I’m trying to think of a specific one. I’ve been doing so well in, ill tell you, the state of Virginia, hitting, you know, double after double. And they’re deal finding deals.
Steven Butala: What’s a typical deal?
Jill DeWit: Buy for 10 to 12 and sell for 40.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: You know, and I love it.
Steven Butala: That’s why my bank account’s the way it is.
Jill DeWit: They’re very consistent and they go fast. That’s the nice thing too. They’re not crazy big ones.
Jill DeWit: In several counties, not one county in particular. I had done many deals in Virginia and they keep coming up. And now I’m like I’m not liking the state of Virginia right now. It’s good to us.
Steven Butala: Some deals we’re doing right now are deal funding deals.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: I’m just about to send out a massive house mailer, because we’ve got fresh-
Jill DeWit: I know employees starting today.
Steven Butala: Fresh BOG’s. Press put underground in one market.
Steven Butala: Yeah, we have a new transaction coordinator starting.
Jill DeWit: Today.
Steven Butala: A home grown, air table driven CRM that we’re testing.
Jill DeWit: Yep.
Steven Butala: I expect that our volume, to triple, or quadruple in the next 60 days.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven Butala: It’s really beautiful to know that we have this much control over like, how much we bring in.
Jill DeWit: I know. I’m so happy to really be ramping that up again too. I gotta tell you, at the end of the day-
Steven Butala: Me too, Jill. That’s truth.
Jill DeWit: I love this show, I love our members, I love land academy, I love house academy. But, I’m a deal junkie at heart.
Steven Butala: Yeah me too.
Jill DeWit: And I just love doing it, so.
Steven Butala: There’s just no feeling like buying a piece of property that’s turned for 10 or 12 thousand bucks and you know you can wholesale it out for 40 or 50.
Jill DeWit: And you know what?
Steven Butala: Same thing with houses. 300 thousand dollar house, in a reasonable market, and you know it’s worth 350.
Jill DeWit: Right, well, and you know what’s sad? Sad but true, it’s so easy for us. Because, like that broker I told you about. You know, in Oxnard, California. He’s doing it wrong. He can’t even communicate with people. I’m aggressively trying to buy this property. He can’t even-
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Call me back, check his email and make sure we’re on the same page when we’re talking. So, like I said, it’s getting easier for us.
Steven Butala: Yeah. Who knows what goes on in a broker’s head like that.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: You know, I think that, after a certain point- I would get in that role, just burned out. You’re representing other people in their deals.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: Instead of doing them yourself.
Jill DeWit: Doing your own deals.
Steven Butala: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jill DeWit: Like I would do.
Steven Butala: It’s like raising other people’s children. It’s just, you know, you’re half hearted into it.
Jill DeWit: Have you done this a lot?
Steven Butala: No I mean, that’s what I would imagine it’s like. I don’t know.
Jill DeWit: Like, does this go up?
Jill DeWit: What’s going on that I don’t know about?
Steven Butala: Wouldn’t that be funny? Wouldn’t that be funny? You know, it wouldn’t actually at all.
Jill DeWit: No. Yeah.
Steven Butala: Hey, we know your time’s available, uh. Valuable! We know you’re totally available! No. We know your time’s valuable, and thanks for spending some of it with us today.
Steven Butala: Join us next time for the episode called, “Are You a Failure?”
Jill DeWit: Okay, that is hilarious. And we answer your questions posted on our online community, landinvestors.com. It is free.
Steven Butala: You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill DeWit: That’s hilarious. I don’t know where you got these titles, but I have a lot to say about this coming up tomorrow. It’s gonna be good.
Steven Butala: Straight from my brain to the keyboard.
Jill DeWit: That’s awesome. Hey, speaking of tomorrow, we are both going to be live on Facebook doing a webinar. And it’s going to be kind of, I don’t remember what the topic is, but-
Steven Butala: This is news to me.
Jill DeWit: Yes. Surprise!
Jill DeWit: So tomorrow, 7 to July 2 at 2, Pacific time. Hey, tune in on Facebook if you want to ask us some questions. It’s gonna be a kind of business professional workshop that we’re doing basically. It won’t be long.
Jill DeWit: What’s so funny?
Steven Butala: I don’t think I’ve ever-
Jill DeWit: Cause you don’t know about it at all.
Steven Butala: This is the first time I’ve ever heard anything. So, do we put something together? Want me to put a slide to your show together?
Jill DeWit: My team’s, We’re on it.
Steven Butala: Okay.
Jill DeWit: We’re good.
Steven Butala: All right.
Jill DeWit: We’re good. We’ll talk about it a little bit today.
Steven Butala: In the car on the way home.
Jill DeWit: Pretty much.
Jill DeWit: Anyway, so tomorrow we’ll both be there. So if you guys have some questions you’re thinking about; Joining Land Academy, just want to know what this is all about, you can catch us there. And wherever you’re watching, or wherever you are listening, please subscribe or rate us there.
Jill DeWit: [crosstalk 00:14:08]We are Steve and Jill.
Steven Butala: [crosstalk 00:14:09]We are Steve and Jill.
Steven Butala: Information-
Jill DeWit: And Inspiration-
Steven Butala: To buy undervalued property.
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