How to Get Over the Fear of Buying Property (1070)
How to Get Over the Fear of Buying Property (1070)
Transcript:
Steven: Steven and Jill here.
Jill: Good day.
Steven: Welcome to the Land Academy Show. Entertaining land investment talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill: And I’m Jill Dewitt broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven: Today, Jill and I talk about how to get over the fear of buying property. Seems like such an interesting, funny, incredibly unnecessary topic, but I know it’s-
Jill: Oh my gosh, are you serious?
Steven: Yeah, to me it does.
Jill: To me it’s a necessary.
Steven: Yeah.
Jill: Unnecessary. Just because you have no fear and I have no fear, it doesn’t mean-
Steven: Any fear of buying real estate at all.
Jill: I do not.
Steven: Have you ever?
Jill: No.
Steven: Neither have I.
Jill: Hold on a moment. That does not mean that everybody’s that way. If it’s one thing I have learned.
Steven: Well you just cut me off in the middle of the sentence, but that’s okay.
Jill: I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were going there.
Steven: You know what we should do that’s so, it’s going to be annoying to the listener, but really fun for us.
Jill: So sorry.
Steven: Every single sentence the other person says, just cut them off.
Jill: Not nice.
Steven: Go ahead, Jill.
Jill: No I didn’t mean to do that.
Steven: It’s not a trap, I mean it. Go ahead.
Jill: Finish your thing.
Steven: No, I can’t remember what I was going to say.
Jill: Oh, well, sorry.
Steven: Look, this show is all about learning how to buy and sell real estate, so it’s not really about Jill and I at all. So what comes easy to us might be incredibly difficult for somebody and vice versa. So this topic came up because we have a lot of new staff right now, and I’m learning by watching how they’re doing deals and what they’re bringing to the table that adds to what Jill and I can bring to the table. You know, there’s some concern about … you know what I think this really shows really about, and then I’ll let you take over, because I know you have a lot of notes. It’s just insecurity, not about buying real estate, it’s just like fear of failure.
Jill: Well I was going to say, I really saw it when we were talking about the topics. Not our people, the members. I talked to new members all the time. New and or thinking about jumping in, and this is one of their concerns.
Steven: Oh, okay, good. So it is necessary.
Jill: It is necessary. And I have a lot more to say when we talk about the show.
Steven: Before we get into it, let’s take to a topic posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It’s free.
Jill: Joe wrote, “Hello, my name is Joe. I’m 28 years old, married and no kids. New to this site and learning about land investing. I’m very interested. This is definitely something I want to do. However, I don’t really know the best path to take at this point in my life. I have a decent paying job, but I hate it.” Poor guy. “I’m just now getting to where I can make a change. I either want to go back to college or go back into the military. Now that I’ve found this, I’m not sure if I should focus on getting a better career first and then working towards investing in land, or just use the job I have now to save and get started. I don’t know really what it takes to get going and I don’t know how long I’ll have to do it on the side before I could give up this job I have now. So long question short. Should I focus on getting a better career first or is this not necessary? I have a post-911 GI Bill, so I can go debt-free. I don’t really know what to go to school for. My wife is a nurse. I’m a crane operator. Our household income is about the $70-, $80,000 together. Thanks.”
Steven: This is the kind of question that I wish-
Jill: Yeah, great shape.
Steven: … I wish we would get daily and I really wish our kids would ask this kind of stuff. But they don’t want to, our kids don’t want to hear about anything that we have to say at all.
Jill: Number one and number two do now. Number three is like, no, you guys are weird.
Steven: Yep.
Jill: So, yeah, totally.
Steven: I have, you know, first of all, you are, so, you know, there’s no way you can know this Joe, but you are so much further ahead than almost every 28-year old I’ve ever spoken to. And I mean that, and I’m not blowing smoke. Just by the fact that you’re asking these questions, you have a plan, you got married, which I think takes a lot of talking to yourself and negotiating with yourself and planning and how it fits in. I think it’s great. I think that you’re giving yourself three or four options and you’re taking this seriously, taking this land thing seriously.
Steven: So your household income is fantastic, I think.
Jill: And no kids, that’s great.
Steven: Your wife should, yeah.
Jill: Hopefully you don’t have a huge mortgage and three car payments.
Steven: That’s right. And your wife chose a career that she could do in any corner of the planet. She could do it in Manhattan, New York, or she could do it in the Middle East and it’s still going to pay off pretty well and be rewarding. So, you’re like 80% of the way there. You just have to figure out what’s going to make you happy in the end and be profitable.
Steven: So land is and was a natural extension of what I was doing in my life, which is commercial real estate. And I was real frustrated with my job, just like you, to the point where I walked out at a certain point, and so Jill came on later, but just picked it up like that.
Steven: So I guess my big question to you is, you have a natural interest, are you kind of a technical person who is not afraid of data and not afraid of conquering problems and things like that? And if the answer is no, you’re really used to that kind of thing, this is for you. And I don’t say that often. Most of the time on this show I’m like, wow, I don’t think you should be getting into this at all.
Steven: If you came to me and said, well, here’s what … and Jill’s going to kick me under the desk.
Jill: I don’t do that.
Steven: When people come to us and say, I have a mound of debt, I can’t stand my job, my kids are real little, I just feel buried. I’m going to try this land thing and see if it works and see if it can save me. I run the other direction from that. What you’re saying here is, you’re doing everything in the right order. I’m actually writing this book called, The Stuff That Your Father Never Told You”, and it’s all this. It’s exactly answering questions like this. So I’ll leave it at this because we have limited time. If you’re a technical person and you’re not afraid of spreadsheets and data, you have everything else in place, I say go for it.
Jill: I’m not going to touch that. That was beautiful. I thought that was like a, that was like meant to, that needed to come from you, from a man.
Steven: Okay. Really? Nothing, huh?
Jill: No.
Steven: All right, good.
Jill: Nope.
Steven: That never happens.
Jill: Welcome to my world.
Steven: How do you get over the fear of buying property?
Steven: You know this caller, this caller, this person who wrote this question could be answering this question, or asking. This topic is for them. That’s what that person’s really asking.
Jill: Could be.
Steven: I don’t know.
Jill: Do you want to know what I-
Steven: I would love to hear what you have to say.
Jill: Okay, so here’s my thoughts about the fear of, again, the fear of buying property. I quickly came up with the three T’s, like seriously. One is, think, test it, and take action. Think, test, take action.
Steven: Just came up with that just now.
Jill: I just did. Okay, so here’s where I’m at. Because I … Why are you scared, first of all. The first T to think about, why are you scared? Are you afraid you’re going to overpay? Are you afraid it won’t sell?
Steven: This is smart stuff Jill.
Jill: It’s usually one of those. I can’t think of another reason that I would be afraid of it. It’s one of those things.
Steven: How about did I miss something?
Jill: Well then in that case, you overpaid.
Steven: You know, did I miss the fact that it looks like it has access, but no, it turns out it doesn’t have access at all.
Jill: And then it’s going to be you overpaid for it because you didn’t account for that. Or it’s not going to sell because I didn’t account for that.
Steven: Yeah.
Jill: So, it usually goes into those two buckets. I like this, keep going, what else? Why else might you be afraid of is your thinking.
Steven: You know, you know in a way early on, you know I was like, especially when you buy tax defaulted property, which is not what we do too much anymore. You always wonder if somebody is going to come back six months later and say, you know what, that’s my property. I didn’t know you guys are doing that. That’s my property, I’m filing a lawsuit, which never happens.
Jill: Right.
Steven: Never in the 16,000 properties that we’ve had, it’s never happened to me one single time. I’m knocking on something here.
Jill: You also have to do a lot of due diligence to make sure too.
Steven: All this stuff is all in our heads.
Jill: Right.
Steven: All of it.
Jill: It’s true.
Steven: I also think there’s a silver bullet to this fear thing, but I love your Ts.
Jill: Okay, cool. So here’s my T number two. You’re really hung up on it, you can’t get past it, so test it. You’re not sure you’re buying property in the right area at the right price. You know, you can test it. You can make kind of a pretend posting, put it up for a day on Craigslist. Put it up for a day on social media. Put it up for a day somewhere. Just put some pretend fictitious thing up there real quick, take it down, so no one’s going to come after you. But just see what kind of response you get. Are there a lot of views? Does it look like it’s in the ballpark. You could do stuff like that real quick just to test it.
Steven: Right.
Jill: And then say, yeah, now I am going to pull the trigger. I’ve got 16 people that called me on this one. I need to go buy it right now today. That will do it. And then my third T is take action, and just do it.
Steven: I had a, I shouldn’t say I never had a fear. I had a concern about this rural vacant land business model on the internet very early on. So I guess I did some version of what you’re saying.
Steven: But I always told myself stuff like this. I’m going to buy 10 pieces of property here, maybe two of them I’m just going to completely miss the mark and lose money on, which never happened. But when you start to tell yourself, you know what, I’m not a stupid person, but this is all new to me and I’m utilizing the resources that I have and I might fail at it maybe 20% of the time, but 80% of the time I’m winning. I think that’s your testing thing.
Jill: Exactly. Exactly. That’s how we tell everybody too if you’re new getting into this. I’m like, Hey, if you’ve got $10,000 to spend, don’t buy one $10,000 property.
Steven: Yeah.
Jill: Because now you’re hanging on for that one. Buy ten $1,000 properties, just like what Steven said. What if you did something wrong on two of them, the other eight will way make up for the two that you goofed up on.
Steven: Here’s some good advice on this topic. I wish somebody would have told me this a long time ago. These rural vacant land properties, nobody cares. You know, all the stuff you’ve ever heard or read about real estate lawsuits and people getting into it and disputes and all kinds of stuff, is for a corner lot in Manhattan. Or it’s some very, there’s some serious value. Or somebody built a mall and encroached on someone else’s property. So X, Y, Z happened and it made the front of the headlines.
Steven: So if you’re buying a 40 acre property somewhere in Maine or Wyoming or whatever and it’s worth $20-, $30,000, you’re buying it for a lot less than that, and you’re looking at it and they’ve owned it for 45 years or something. It’s just, you know, it’s going to be fine. I mean, I hate to be overly confident and you know, as soon as you say something like that, something bad happens. But it’s really not … don’t overthink it.
Jill: Exactly. That’s probably a lot of it. People overthink it sometimes, and they do. We’ve talked about this a lot within our group. People getting started, they sometimes have this analysis paralysis. I hate that term, but it’s true. They just keep looking at it, they keep looking at it, looking at it and trying to find something wrong. I’m like, stop looking, do it. You know, it was so good the other day we had a brand new member and he was like six days in and his mail is about to go out. I’m like, that’s the way to do it man. I am so … because that’s the best attitude by the way.
Steven: That guy’s going to be in the advanced group in a year.
Jill: You know what, you’re going to quickly jump ahead. You will make some mistakes, so what. You’re going to quickly assess them, fix them, and move on.
Steven: Yep.
Jill: In six months, that guy’s going to be killing it.
Steven: Everybody’s got a risk threshold, everyone. I personally will barrel through something, even if it becomes a disaster. Jill and I own like, I think nine or 10 companies now. Some of them are great, some of them are terrible, and some of them I missed the mark completely. Like I thought there was an a huge need for it and I would’ve signed up for it left and right if I was brand new, and it just didn’t. And I never take that personally. I’m like, yeah, one for nine isn’t too bad, or three for nine isn’t so bad. But it’s not going to stop me. I don’t sit around and say, wow, I’m not smart.
Jill: I’m out. And hang it up, all right, we’re done.
Steven: You know, it’s not a, that’s not what happens at all. I just laugh. I literally laugh at myself and say, wow, I really missed the mark on that. Just like I am now.
Jill: Apparently we’re the only ones that use this. Which just true.
Steven: Or maybe it’s like priced too high or priced too low in some cases or the website itself.
Jill: Nobody can figure it out.
Steven: It isn’t conveying what it actually does or how we developed it, from a tech standpoint, it’s too hard to follow. So it’s always something like that. It’s not like a massive missed the mark. So I’m like, my question is to myself, all right, is this worth it to fix and throw a bunch of resources at it or we’ll just let it sit there for a while and come back to it.
Steven: So it’s never like a failure. It’s like fear of buying a property. It’s never that. I don’t blame myself or sit around and say, I failed at it. I just laugh and say, well, maybe the next one will work.
Jill: I’m very proud of you. Very, very big.
Steven: You’re times 10 on that. I mean, you’re just fearless.
Jill: Oh, I am.
Steven: Some stuff will explode and Jill will be like, that was hilarious.
Jill: Oh, I’ll solve it.
Steven: We just lost X, Y, Z on that and she’ll be like, Hey, maybe we can figure it out though, you know?
Jill: Oh, I’ll find a way. What if we do this? We can save it here. Do that. I don’t know.
Steven: So I don’t know why we’re like that, Jill, because I am very familiar with how you grew up and how I grew up are very similar.
Jill: I think it’s nature and not nurture.
Steven: I think we should be sucking our thumb in a black hole somewhere saying, nothing’s going to work.
Jill: Stop feeling nature and not nurture. Exactly.
Steven: So however you need to. You know there’s no replacement for saddle time. So that’s why we always say, get 10 deals done. Get that first deal done. But then get to the 10th deal and you’re going to know everything about yourself and whether you want this career and if it’s going to be worth it and all the parts of it.
Jill: Thank you.
Steven: We know your time’s valuable. Thanks for spending some of it with us anyway, today. Join us next time for the episode called, The Profile of a Land Academy Member, with Senior Manager.
Jill: And we’ll answer your questions posted on our online community found at landinvestors.com, it is free.
Steven: You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill: Do you think we conveyed what we need to convey there?
Steven: I don’t know. Well I think we did. I just think it was all fumbly and kind of a psychological mess.
Jill: So how to get over the fear of properly conveying a message on a podcast. Well, that’ll be it. That’ll be another show for another in a week.
Steven: How to get over your failed podcast.
Jill: There you go.
Steven: That’s an episode any person would ever listen to.
Jill: That’s right.
Steven: But I know all about that actually. I felt very qualified to talk about that.
Jill: Oh, we could.
Steven: We could do a whole show.
Jill: Yeah, we could.
Jill: Wherever you’re watching or wherever you are listening, please subscribe and read us there. We are Steven and Jill.
Steven: Information-
Jill: And inspiration-
Steven: … to buy undervalued property.
If you enjoyed the podcast, please review it in Apple Podcasts . Reviews are incredibly important for rankings on Apple Podcasts. 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 Apple Podcasts.
